I sat through this, the very first Trektacular prequel of sorts, in the theater 1.4 times*. As Armus said, the movie - which has virtually zero substance or depth - is well-polished and the score is good, though the Klingon theme is reused for the umpteenth time and the Borg attack music cues are laughable. Like Frankenstein on crack, waddling onto the screen with the cheesy BAH-DUM-BAH-DUMB lead-in.
Which is a shame because the Borg, who were defeated by a gaggle of humans, have the amazingly bright idea to tinker with time and prevent losing... yet they wait through a battle where they're about to go all splodeyboomboom to then go back in time. Absolutely zero substance or depth. Of all the galaxy's worth of plot holes this movie upchucks so frequently, they could have avoided a ton of casualties with a very tiny change in tactics and go back in time before reaching the Sol star system, then reach Earth, and no fritter on the planet shooting arrows from bows at them would have made a jot of difference. It's like the 1970s Superfriends all over again, where many were cheering on the Legion of Doom because the plots everyone was stuck in were so cheesy and cartoonish. Now we're rooting for the Borg despite knowing they're stuck in a cartoon as well - so where's the suspense and tension and buildup? There's nothing there.
The viewscreen is a neat holographic projection now. Shame that didn't stay.
The 1701-E can beam over the Defiant survivors with their shields up... at least they found a way to stuff Worf into this movie, even if it's at the expense of DS9 yet at the same time a crossover would have been exceedingly cheesy.
Picard's ordered to stay away... but after a ha-ha-bonk moment they warp right over in seconds across their point so far away... and everyone in the fleet, the ones told Picard was too risky to be there, question his being there and obey him point blank. Okey doke...
The Borg have really improved their assimilation technologies, right down to the point they're no longer scary. Despite the attempts of them to take over the ship, starting out with some ductwork acting that feels like a throwback to 1968 Doctor Who.
The Borg queen also exists for nothing other than showy gloss. Complete with dialogue that would make 1971 Doctor Who cringe over how the Master keeps coming back despite being put into a dire, seemingly permanent fate... Yet Alice Krige sells it so well. But that's not enough to sustain this movie.
But they still don't adapt and put out only one cube and can withstand rotating phaser frequencies umpteen times - despite the cut'n'paste dialogue.
Even the Borg have the same cut'n'paste dialogue. Wasn't great then and it hasn't held up at all.
Worse, Picard = Khan in a gobsmackingly great role reversal of Moby Dick.
The Voyage Home is not my favorite of the bunch but it did a better job at keeping suspense and suspension of disbelief going as they struggled to bring back Preggie Whale and her awfully wedded beau as opposed to "Assimilate... this!", "You must be on some kind of... star trek", "I'm no hero, I wanted money just like the person I'm allegory for and that's Gene", Troi's drunken nonsense that managed to make her character seem even more pointless than ever before, and other lame in-joke fodder.
Picard shoots crewmembers and singing how they're better off dead**, some of which probably helped save his hide in TBOBW.
And how do they get back home, especially with no deflector dish on top of everything else? Naah, this is just a ha-ha-bonk escapade of a cartoon. So awful that even if INS were a proper classic, making light of violating Starfleet orders as a joke was in FC's very poor taste. Even worse than the sub-corny pee joke.
However, Alfre Woodward was easily the best guest castmember. She stole the show for me as Ruby. It doesn't help that she's only there to get Picard to realize there are so many more letters in the alphabet after destroying the shiny new ship (what, so soon? How surprising and dramatic!!), but she also points out how cool the pointless room with the forcefield preventing the ship from losing its atmosphere is (let's hope they don't lose power to keep that pointless section sealed up but maybe the door is hermetically sealed too.) Meaning she really doesn't have much purpose in the movie, but so many set pieces of the movie are so badly contrived that I rolled with the inanity and at least found an exceptional performance when she got to yell at Picard as well as being fearful that he'd kill her in a scene too.
* Note: Generations kept me in my seat three times, as had The Undiscovered Country. The direction and polish for FC won me over that first time, but a second time had me balking. It's even sadder to realize that I didn't walk out of beer and car product placement-loaded ST2009 until the last 15 minutes or so, after NuKirk has his tantrum with the adversary with the highly originally name of Nero.
** I hope that brings up the chorus to the punk song in The Voyage Home cuz that's how Picard clearly felt
See, I totally get both sides of the argument. The story is lacking. It's all 'incident' with occasional character moments, but the story is strung together in a very perfunctory way that is designed to get every one from A to B throughout the movie in the most clinical way possible. The characters are being moved around to where the plot requires them to be at all times. The big battle set-piece scene at the start of the movie is dispatched quickly, and Worf added to the Enterprise crew without so much fuss, so they can warp back in time asap, and the ending likewise is so brief ("The vulcans didn't see us." "Okay everyone, let's go home.") as that it feels like an episode of Star Trek Voyager that doesn't so much conclude as it just stops so the credits can roll.
) it had a story that references classic literature, it had character drama that ties into who these people we've watched over 7 seasons on TV are -- Picard's trauma, Data's quest to be human etc -- it touches on a lot of key elements, the kinds of things that Star Trek does, and does well. The key here I guess is simply that it does so lightly. Just enough to make you think, but not so much as to lock out the casual audience goer.
