Watched First Contact again...

[Sean Aaron]

My main issue is with the mischaracterisation of Picard. The plot holes are the "icing on the cake."

It's not a horrible film, but I've seen it enough times not to bother with it again. TNG ends with the series finale for me; feels better that way.

 

[HaventGotALife]

My problems with this movie are not any of the ones listed (that I have read).

In no particular order:

--Picard is not himself. He has had a chance several times in the last 4 years of the show to show the viltrolic animosity of the Borg and he failed to do it each and every time. This is not a case of being the pressure-cooker, either. He is like this from the word go in this movie. Picard is a diplomat with a humanitarian streak that borders on naivete. For him to storm around shooting his officers, acting like he's damaged by the borg is not like him. I saw no humanity in him in this movie and this is Star Trek. Starfleet is about defense, eliminating an enemy only when they pose a risk to yourself. Picard is out for revenge and enjoying every borg he kills. Please, save any speech about how he was assimilated. I know. Try watching the scenes in his ready room in Descent or his interaction with Hugh. You'll see what I am talking about.

--Every single time we have a time-travel episode, we do everything we can to eliminate pollution to it. It's the challenge, the tension of a lot of Trek. "Will this change the timeline? How can I restore the timeline?" And in this movie, we tell unimportant details (like the statue) to make conversation with Zephram Cochrane. We are in the pod, we do the countdown. TNG characters are not making sure everything goes according to plan, they are nurse-maiding Cochrane through this process. It's ridiculous. And more frustrating every time I see it.

--The Borg Queen ruins the Borg. This is supposed to be something that can't be reasoned with. Assimilating Data is a nice idea, but the seduction of him to the dark side is not possible with this enemy. If we could reason with it, they wouldn't be scary. They just keep coming and coming until you surrender. That's what made them a unique character. Suddenly, the Borg queen is everywhere. It's the internet, not a beehive.

I don't like that there's no journey in this film from a Star Trek morality play. Yes, we are told what Cochrane will be one day. I want some more meat from this film and it offers me a zombie picture. This isn't good Trek, it's good science fiction. An example: The Motion Picture is about the human quality, the search for something greater than ourselves, for fulfillment. II is about dealing with death. How it robs Khan of his sanity. How Spock offers it as a gift. It is also about the science/military relationship and how the advancements in technology often lead to the best war weapons. And Khan plays the typical leader to to a T. There's rich themes in this that talk about. That's what Trek is all about, it's what sets it apart from Science Fiction. Name me the theme in First Contact.

Not just a flawed movie, but one unworthy of the franchise and I cannot believe people continue to hold it up as a great Star Trek film.

 

[Sean Aaron]

Completely agreed; the issues you cite with Picard's mis-characterisation is my primary issue with this film. It's got some decent (if non-sensical) action in it, but that's not what I wanted from a TNG film at all. The whole TNG film run is a colossal disappointment.

 

[Sisko4Life]

My question was always how the fleet were still managing to damage the cube after the one at wolf 359 was already impervious to phasers and photon torpedos -_-. No adaption at all???

 

[Sean Aaron]

I'm sure it's constantly phase modulating the phasers or some such bullshit. Honestly the Borg should have been left alone after "Decent," they're one of those races that when you start looking too closely or dicking around with them (i.e. adding the Borg Queen) you find that the centre doesn't hold.

 

[RAMA]

I watched first contact for the first time in a while, decided to watch it on blue-Ray and I just wanted to say one thing.

it seemed awfully slow in parts. In fact I was tempted to fast forward though chunks of it. was just curious if I was the only one who thought it was slow on repeat viewing or was I just in a bad mood.

Right now If I was to rank the first 10 movies, I think I would drop First Contact down a notch or two.

Well attention spans are shrinking...I mean look at the box office totals for Transformers 3...

Edit: Ahh just read more of the thread...

 

[RAMA]

First time someone says First Contact is slow. It's the movie with the fastest pace.

I also think....


11: ST2009: This movie sucked, Slow, not exciting, and uncreative.

................

As i said a couple post ago, I was being Sarcastic.

(Note, this is done as with a smile and is not intended to be a flame, and I hope it not taken as such. )

Slow??? Not credible

 

[Mr_Homn]

My problems with this movie are not any of the ones listed (that I have read).

In no particular order:

--Picard is not himself. He has had a chance several times in the last 4 years of the show to show the viltrolic animosity of the Borg and he failed to do it each and every time. This is not a case of being the pressure-cooker, either. He is like this from the word go in this movie. Picard is a diplomat with a humanitarian streak that borders on naivete. For him to storm around shooting his officers, acting like he's damaged by the borg is not like him. I saw no humanity in him in this movie and this is Star Trek. Starfleet is about defense, eliminating an enemy only when they pose a risk to yourself. Picard is out for revenge and enjoying every borg he kills. Please, save any speech about how he was assimilated. I know. Try watching the scenes in his ready room in Descent or his interaction with Hugh. You'll see what I am talking about.

--Every single time we have a time-travel episode, we do everything we can to eliminate pollution to it. It's the challenge, the tension of a lot of Trek. "Will this change the timeline? How can I restore the timeline?" And in this movie, we tell unimportant details (like the statue) to make conversation with Zephram Cochrane. We are in the pod, we do the countdown. TNG characters are not making sure everything goes according to plan, they are nurse-maiding Cochrane through this process. It's ridiculous. And more frustrating every time I see it.

--The Borg Queen ruins the Borg. This is supposed to be something that can't be reasoned with. Assimilating Data is a nice idea, but the seduction of him to the dark side is not possible with this enemy. If we could reason with it, they wouldn't be scary. They just keep coming and coming until you surrender. That's what made them a unique character. Suddenly, the Borg queen is everywhere. It's the internet, not a beehive.

I don't like that there's no journey in this film from a Star Trek morality play. Yes, we are told what Cochrane will be one day. I want some more meat from this film and it offers me a zombie picture. This isn't good Trek, it's good science fiction. An example: The Motion Picture is about the human quality, the search for something greater than ourselves, for fulfillment. II is about dealing with death. How it robs Khan of his sanity. How Spock offers it as a gift. It is also about the science/military relationship and how the advancements in technology often lead to the best war weapons. And Khan plays the typical leader to to a T. There's rich themes in this that talk about. That's what Trek is all about, it's what sets it apart from Science Fiction. Name me the theme in First Contact.

Not just a flawed movie, but one unworthy of the franchise and I cannot believe people continue to hold it up as a great Star Trek film.

Bravo, very well put.

Agreed on every count.

The TNG movie franchise saddens me. That show deserved so much better.

 

[sonak]

you know, people get really nitpicky about FC to a degree that they don't about almost any other Trek movie. No one rants about the obviousness of Kirk's "code language" in TWOK, or how they could misplace where a planet went on their charts.


Yet there's a hair out of place on a redshirt in FC, and it's symbolic of how the Next Gen movies suck.

 

[DonIago]

^ Have you -read- threads about the other movies?

 

[JarodRussell]

Oh, and the TOS movies suck totally of course, too. Actually, everything sucks except for the first season of TOS.

Depending on who you ask.

 

[sonak]

^ Have you -read- threads about the other movies?

Don't get me wrong, there's criticisms of plot points in other Trek movies here of course. But that's usually all it is-criticisms of a few points, while acknowledging the quality of the movie over all.


I see a trend with FC where the criticisms, while minor plot points or character points, are used to show that it's a bad movie over all.


Just to give an example-the Enterprise crew in TUC suddenly showing all this racism is criticized, but just on its own while VI is still usually acknowledged as good over all.

With FC, Picard getting mad over the Borg is used to show that "First Contact sucks."

 

[DonIago]

I don't know, I was reading a thread about Genesis that seemed to give the impression that posters thought TWoK sucked, but I would assume that's a misrepresentation of the situation.

Here it is - http://trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=145057

 

[Sean Aaron]

you know, people get really nitpicky about FC to a degree that they don't about almost any other Trek movie. No one rants about the obviousness of Kirk's "code language" in TWOK, or how they could misplace where a planet went on their charts.


Yet there's a hair out of place on a redshirt in FC, and it's symbolic of how the Next Gen movies suck.

I think the TOS films get more of a pass because of the gap between the series and the films. The TNG films are pretty much a direct continuation of the series, but they were utterly formulaic and failed to live up to the best of the series.

FC got a lot of cheers because it's an action film, but given TNG was a more character-driven show than TOS, dimissing the film because it didn't stay true to the characters isn't really nitpicky. The TNG series as a whole was woeful in its treatment of the supporting cast; given the ensemble nature of TNG, that's really not acceptable.

 

[sonak]

you know, people get really nitpicky about FC to a degree that they don't about almost any other Trek movie. No one rants about the obviousness of Kirk's "code language" in TWOK, or how they could misplace where a planet went on their charts.


Yet there's a hair out of place on a redshirt in FC, and it's symbolic of how the Next Gen movies suck.

I think the TOS films get more of a pass because of the gap between the series and the films. The TNG films are pretty much a direct continuation of the series, but they were utterly formulaic and failed to live up to the best of the series.

FC got a lot of cheers because it's an action film, but given TNG was a more character-driven show than TOS, dimissing the film because it didn't stay true to the characters isn't really nitpicky. The TNG series as a whole was woeful in its treatment of the supporting cast; given the ensemble nature of TNG, that's really not acceptable.

I've heard that point before, and while it makes sense, it's an unrealistic expectation for the TNG film series.


Simply put, the TNG films were not going to play out like the TV series. In twenty-six episode seasons, you can spotlight the main characters a lot. In a two-hour movie where other major supporting characters are being introduced(Lily, Cochrane, etc) as well as the major villain for each movie, there's just not enough time.

Secondly, I don't think a talky, philosophical, sci-fi-driven TNG movie premise was going to happen. They tried this in TMP and for the majority of fans and critics, it didn't work at all. Trek may be able to mix space opera with more philosophical sci-fi on TV, but it's hard to market a film like TMP.


"this summer, get ready for a thoughtful, philosophical Star Trek movie that will change your views on Human potential and the greater questions of the nature of reality! Coming to a theater near you !"

They were trying to learn from the failures of the Trek movies of the past and just make enjoyable action films with some message behind them.

 

[Sean Aaron]

It might seem tired, but I keep pointing to Star Trek IV: most successful, no space battles, fun and thoughtful.

The TNG films couldn't be like the show, I agree, but every single film didn't need to focus almost exclusively on Picard and Data - that was really really wrong - and they didn't need a "villain of the week" to drive the plot or an obligatory space battle.

I will agree that First Contact was the best of the bunch, but I don't think that's something to be proud of.

 

[sonak]

It might seem tired, but I keep pointing to Star Trek IV: most successful, no space battles, fun and thoughtful.

The TNG films couldn't be like the show, I agree, but every single film didn't need to focus almost exclusively on Picard and Data - that was really really wrong - and they didn't need a "villain of the week" to drive the plot or an obligatory space battle.

I will agree that First Contact was the best of the bunch, but I don't think that's something to be proud of.

I agree with your views on TVH. However, comedy in general, apart even from comedy in Trek is VERY hard to pull-off. TVH was kind of a gamble.

Look how the attempts at humor were received in TFF and INS. I

 

[sonak]

It might seem tired, but I keep pointing to Star Trek IV: most successful, no space battles, fun and thoughtful.

The TNG films couldn't be like the show, I agree, but every single film didn't need to focus almost exclusively on Picard and Data - that was really really wrong - and they didn't need a "villain of the week" to drive the plot or an obligatory space battle.

I will agree that First Contact was the best of the bunch, but I don't think that's something to be proud of.

I agree with your views on TVH. However, comedy is very hard to pull off succesfully, and Trek has had a very uneven track record with it. Look at the way the humor in TFF and INS was received, for example.

I think it would have been seen as too much of a gamble to try another straightforward Trek comedy as a big-screen movie.


I agree that it was disappointing that the Next Gen movies became the "Picard and Data" show, but along with Worf, they were the most popular and recognizable characters from the show, so that's the way it went. It's interesting though that FC did the best job of character balance and turned out as the best of the Next Gen movies.