It feels like an unnecessary addition that would ruin the pacing of the movie, like those dune buggy aliens from Nemesis.
What if First Contact had secondary Antagonists?
- Thread starter Acenos
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It feels like an unnecessary addition that would ruin the pacing of the movie, like those dune buggy aliens from Nemesis.
The movie was already busy and full enough. I guess post-WWIII could have been a more interesting, developed setting but not with the Borg as the main focus who deserved to be the main focus, let alone antagonists, and the Vulcans supposed to be pretty impressed by what they see of humanity.
My problem with this aspect of FC wasn't so much about how the post atomic horror was depicted, because there probably still were places that weren't hit as hard as others, but more about that the movie made it seem at the end that everything's good, now that the Vulcans have arrived.
While according to "Encounter at Farpoint" really bad things either still happened in 2079 or happened again at this time.
And the setting wasn't really used as we learnt very little about these times, beside some small, mostly unexplained, name dropping.
There was nothing about why and how the war began, who the factions were (beside an unexplained comment about an eastern coalition) or what happened in other parts of the world.
While according to "Encounter at Farpoint" really bad things either still happened in 2079 or happened again at this time.
And the setting wasn't really used as we learnt very little about these times, beside some small, mostly unexplained, name dropping.
There was nothing about why and how the war began, who the factions were (beside an unexplained comment about an eastern coalition) or what happened in other parts of the world.
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Yeah, they probably should have set the film a few decades later.
I saw we take off and phaser the entire site from orbit, it's the only way to be sure. (In TOS ships phasers could be set to stun)
Yep and/or really explore this setting and what happened during these times (in this movie and later in ENT).
Talking about lost opportunities, it's strange and disappointing that we learnt so little about these times in a show set only around 90 years after this and that everything already almost looks and feels like a mixture of 23rd/24th century Trek.
I think if First Contact were made today, it would be about two and a half hours long, and the A-plot (the Borg on the -E) would go pretty much as we saw it while the B-plot (Zefram Cochrane) would have a secondary antagonist, like Cochrane needs to launch the Phoenix at a certain time not only so the Vulcans detect the warp signature but also because some faction in the 21st-century conflict is bearing down.
Would that be an improvement to the film? Maybe. Maybe not. Perhaps there's a better way.
To me, the Cochrane plot in the film feels very tangential. Partly, it's the tone of the thing -- you have high stakes in one plot line, and you have Troi getting drunk in the other. And the connection between the two, even though Picard states it baldly about ten minutes into the film -- "The Borg are trying stop first contact" -- feels tenuous. The threat of the Borg to first contact becomes theoretical rather than actual.
I think it might have been better if the Borg put actual drones on the ground when they arrived in 2063. First, they attack Montana from orbit, when the Enterprise shows up a squad of drones beams to the surface before the sphere is destroyed, and then Picard had one fight on his hands on the ship while Riker has another on his hands on the surface -- repairing the Phoenix and stopping the Borg squad from disrupting the launch.
That kind of change would better unify the two halves.
Would that be an improvement to the film? Maybe. Maybe not. Perhaps there's a better way.
To me, the Cochrane plot in the film feels very tangential. Partly, it's the tone of the thing -- you have high stakes in one plot line, and you have Troi getting drunk in the other. And the connection between the two, even though Picard states it baldly about ten minutes into the film -- "The Borg are trying stop first contact" -- feels tenuous. The threat of the Borg to first contact becomes theoretical rather than actual.
I think it might have been better if the Borg put actual drones on the ground when they arrived in 2063. First, they attack Montana from orbit, when the Enterprise shows up a squad of drones beams to the surface before the sphere is destroyed, and then Picard had one fight on his hands on the ship while Riker has another on his hands on the surface -- repairing the Phoenix and stopping the Borg squad from disrupting the launch.
That kind of change would better unify the two halves.
the borg attempting to assimilate a planet is something I’ve been wanting to see for many years. Unfortunately it wouldn’t have been viable with the budget first contact had and even less so in enterprise. Perhaps a future movie or in Picard?
I guess the rationale was that the federation was a threat. But of course it doesn’t make sense: just send two cubes instead of one and assimilate everybody.
Two; two hundred; two thousand...
If nothing else (but happily there's plenty else) I'd enjoy the Destiny novel trilogy for making it unambiguously clear just what it would mean to the Federation if the Borg ever gave any significant amount of attention to the Federation.
If nothing else (but happily there's plenty else) I'd enjoy the Destiny novel trilogy for making it unambiguously clear just what it would mean to the Federation if the Borg ever gave any significant amount of attention to the Federation.