After the dismaying amount of criticism of this movie I've read in other threads, I decided to make a new one in the hopes that some fans of this movie like myself might share some POSITIVE thoughts about it. To get us started: When I first watched all of the Star Trek movies, I thought this was the best one of all. Later I bought and rewatched the Wrath of Khan and had to admit that it's better, but not by a huge margin. I'll have to watch The Voyage Home again before I can decide if I like it more than First Contact, but I know for sure that these are my top three. I know this isn't the most original movie. It obviously tries to emulate some of the best elements of those other two and Jonathan Frakes even admitted he watched movies like "Alien", "Aliens", "Jaws", "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", and "Blade Runner" to get ideas, but I honestly believe it succeeded tremendously despite whatever limitations there are to its originality. I've tried to watch as many great science fiction movies as I can, and I've probably seen most of the seminal ones you can think of. For example, "2001: A Space Odyssey", "Planet of the Apes", "Alien", "Aliens", "Blade Runner", the "Star Wars" movies, "Metropolis", "The Thing", "The Day the Earth Stood Still", "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", and "Invasion of the Body Snatchers". I've seen all of those and seriously, I like it more than any of them. The only two science fiction movies I like more are "Twelve Monkeys" and "Terminator 2: Judgment Day". I think this movie has everything I could want in a science fiction or Star Trek movie: it's funny, it's exciting, it's suspenseful, it has good special effects, a good villain, creative production design, and is romantic (through a platonic friendship). Shame on the haters, this movie is a gem.
Honestly, it was a great movie when it came out, but I don't think it holds up to multiple viewings as much as II or IV does. Though I will concede it is enjoyable if you turn off the parts of your brain that point out some obvious problems with the plot (namely, the trouble introducing the fact that the Borg have the ability to travel back in time, as well as the confusing nature of the collective having a queen).
Oh, I don't know...I watch it as much as II and a helluva lot more than IV So I think it holds up well IMHO. As for the time traveling Borg, who says they didn't just recently assimilate a race that had time traveling capability?
I agree, out of all the movies it's probably the one I watch the most. Easily gets a few watches every year.
Let say in sake of argument that you are right. The Borg assimilate a race with time travel tech!. What is stopping 24th century Borg going back in time with superior tech and knowledge to 22 or 23th century Borg collective. The possibilities are endless how the Borg can easily go back in time and give 22 or 23th century Borg heads up regarding everything f.e. federation and alien spices 84747something.
After the first attempt and thier knowledge of human resistance, why would they even try? I mean the collective is just that, a collective. Doesn't make them a "smart" computer, I always saw them as a naive when it came to original thinking.
It certainly has the look and feel of a movie rather than a TV episode; the best of the TOS movies have this in spades, and this is the only TNG movie to score on that level, I believe. That's a very good point; it's a shame that this wasn't explored further in the various movies and series.
Exactly. It's the same reason they only ever send one cube. Dear Borg Collective, If you really want to assimilate Earth, try sending more than one ship at a time. Thank you
Why send a cube at all? If you're going to assimilate the past, why not go back in the past in the Delta Quadrant, then transwarp to Earth and assimilate 1941 Earth. Or instead of launching a sphere ship, fire a bunch of nanoprobe-warhead tipped missiles into the temporal vortex and let the probes spread like a virus across the planet. Or since everything hinges on Picard, send a message into the past "Don't assimilate Picard, he'll fuck it all up" As enjoyable as First Contact is, like most time travel stories, there's plot holes big enough to drive a Nimitz class carrier through.
Doesn't trying to eliminate Earth's first contact with the Vulcans show original thought? It's funny how in this instance they use their brains while yet they still attack with one cube. This movie is the best TNG film but that doesn't make it any better than the TOS films. There was so much potential with the Borg that was squandered. Too many plot holes, inconsistancies, and tasteless humor. If Paramount had allocated more money for the budget and rewrote the script, FC could have been the greatest Trek film ever. A shame.
My biggest issue with FC: I just didn't give a flying fuck about Cochrane or the Queen. And, frankly, I think adding the queen to the collective really took something away from the meance of the Borg.
Maybe the Borg suffer 'collectively' from 'starship Enterprise' syndrome: namely, "we're the only cube in the quadrant." There are just way too many things you have to suspend faculties on to let FC work. I've seen it less than any other trek movie except NEMESIS, and even when I do watch it, I have to fastforward past the EarthComedy stuff and most of the Picard/Lily stuff. It doesn't have enough action to be a good action movie and it doesn't have a brilliant director who can make suspense carry over the non-action stretches.
If they wanted to bring the Borg Queen, they should have brought Lore back also. I feel that when a human face is placed on an unknown danger, it reduces the awe and intrigue. Take Poltergeist for example. In the first film, "The Beast" was practically a ghastly monster. It scared the crap out of the viewers. In Poltergeist II, "The Beast" was given the human face of an old preacher. As a result, he lost his aura of fright. He became merely an old disturbed dead dude. Cobra P.S... I like Poltergeist II. Also, I wish that Generations had not happened. If the studio had waited until First Contact, the Ent-D could have been destroyed by the Borg (giving him some credibility for not wanting to lose another Enterprise). As a result, he could have been given a new ship (ent-e). This would have been a better plot for the TNG cast than having been blown up by the Duras sisters.
Agreed, First Contact ROCKS!!!! While not perfect, FC is the best TNG Trek movie, bar none...and IMO it belongs among the top 3 best ST movies ever, and definitely goes at the top of the action-adventure list from Trek. Sure, a longer starship battle scene would've been a fanboy's dream... ...but I wish they could have done what Michael Dorn said and "make another First Contact" after this one. Easier said than done.
Resurrecting my old thread here because I'm watching the movie and I thought I'd rather post a thought on it here than start a new thread. Everyone familiar with my posts knows how much I love this movie and how I'm probably one of its biggest fans here (maybe THE biggest). I'm probably the only person here that considers it perfect, so I'm the last person one would expect to nitpick about it, but at the moment, I can't help myself. Now that I'm watching it for the umpteenth time, I think for the first time I've noticed a plot hole that kinda bugs me... In the very first scene of the movie, an admiral calls Picard to tell him that Federation territory has been attacked by the Borg. A few minutes later, Picard holds a meeting in which he breaks the news that Starfleet has assigned the Enterprise to stay away from the Borg. When Riker visits him in his room shortly after the meeting, Picard explains that the Federation has decided he should stay away from the Borg because of his past experience with them. This just leads me to wonder, if the Federation knew they were going to forbid Picard from getting involved with the Borg, why the hell would they bother telling him about the Borg attack? It seems just cruel. It would have made more sense if Picard had found out about it some other way. Then Starfleet would find out what he and his crew are doing and tell them not to intervene. In response, they could do the same thing they did anyway (take that "to hell with our orders" attitude and go for it). I still think the movie rules and I love the way Data and the rest of the crew rush off to save the day despite their orders, but the set up for that seems faulty now. Is this just a bad plot hole that got by the writers or can anyone think of a plausible explanation for why things happened that way?
IMHO the biggest plot hole (apart from all the time travel shenanigans) was Riker and co not caring that they've lost contact with the Enterprise for half the movie.
What could they do about it? They would have been worried, but had a job to do. They saw the ship was fine though the telescope, probably just thought there were temporary communication problems after the battle and the time travel.
They could have gained time travel capability from any human that had read about Kirk and his trips trough time and came up with their own ways of doing it? I think the theme holds it own though [yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UWXr_toaHk[/yt] I found it to be moving.
I appreciate the careful consideration of explanations for other plot holes, but what about my plot hole question? Is everybody just stumped by it? I just finished watching the movie and love it just as much as I always have, but there is one more odd detail I noticed that I wanted to ask for some theories on. Actually, it's more of a question about 24th century era trek rather than just the movie itself. Why the hell is there an option to disable safety protocols on the holodeck? Under what circumstances would they want the holodeck to be a place where (to quote Picard) "a bullet can be fatal"? Yes, in the movie this helps Picard elude and kill some Borg, but I can't imagine holodeck engineers anticipating a scenario where people might need to hide in the holodeck to evade and possibly destroy an enemy!