"Star Trek: First Contact"
Latest Reflections from the Guild
11/25/96 Update
11/24/96 Update
PLEASE NOTE: I am not longer updating this file. It's over 200K! However, please feel free to send additional comments. I will keep them on file.
When the Borg return to attack Earth (with only *one* ship), Starfleet Command assigns Picard and the Enterprise-E to safeguard the Neutral Zone against Romulan attack. Because of his assimilation, they believe he might be an unstable element in a critical situation. Hearing that the battle does not go well, Picard defies his orders, sets course for Earth and helps the fleet defeat the Borg cube. Unfortunately, the Borg are able to launch a smaller spherical ship toward Earth at the last moment. This ship creates a temporal disturbance which sends it back in time to April 4, 2063, the day before Zephram Cochrane makes his historic flight in the first warp-capable spaceship. Once there, the Borg attack Cochrane's installation in central Montana. The event cascades through time and allows the Borg to assimilate Earth. Caught in the temporal wake of the Borg sphere, Picard and crew see the Earth borgify before their eyes. Realizing what the Borg have done, Picard pursues just as the temporal vortext collapses.
Upon reaching Earth in the 21st century, Picard destroys the Borg sphere but not before the Borg damage Cochrane's ship and then transport aboard the Enterprise. As Riker, Troi, La Forge and an engineering team work to repair Cochrane's vessel, Picard and crew fight against the ever-advancing and ever-assimilating Borg. Finally, giving up, Picard sets the autodestruct and orders everyone to evacuate. He himself stays behind to attempt one last rescue of Data who has been captured. In Main Engineering, Picard comes face to face with the Borg Queen and offers himself in exchange for Data. She refuses his offer, stating that she already has what she needs as an equal in Data who appears to be willing to follow her completely.
By this time, Cochrane is attempting his first warp flight, The Borg Queen orders Data to destroy the vessel and the android fires three torpedoes. When the torpedoes miss their target, however, the Borg Queen suddenly realizes that Data isn't one of them after all. The realization comes to late. Data smashes a plasma conduit which floods Main Engineering with plasma destroying the Borg and their queen.
Using readings taken from the Borg temporal vortex, La Forge creates a gateway for the Enterprise-E to return home.
Brash Reflections
This was fun! A worthy addition to the Trek line-up! I've seen it twice now and frankly, the second time was better (which is always a good sign)!
Although I have plenty of nits from the movie, I will limit my comments. I'm on a tight schedule this morning and I have lots of comments from Guild members to upload. So, just a couple of things from me:
I'm a bit confused where the battle with the Borg cube actually transpire. I thought the admiral said it would be at the Typhon Expanse but when we see the battle, it's at Earth! Did Starfleet fight the Borg all the way home? The admiral's ship was at Earth and I thought he was supposed to be at the battle.
A grungy one. In the holodeck scene when Picard is shooting the machine gun, watch when the camera angle changes and Picard shoots all the bottles. I believe the muzzle flashes are missing from the weapon!
Two other macro items and then I'll start with input from Guild members. Personally, I felt that the addition of the Borg queen minimized the Borg threat. I always viewed the Borg as a major threat because of their group mind, their Mongolian Horde approach to life. They just keep coming. You can kill them and kill them and kill them and they'll just make more! It's impersonal. It's automated. It's emotionless. It's the reduction of all that we hold dear in life to tiny, meaningless, unnecessary cogs in a giant machine. This is the Borg threat! By giving them a queen, you focus all their authority at one point, you create a target that can be destroyed, debilitating the whole in the process. For me, although the Borg were more grissly looking in the movie, they weren't nearly as intimidating.
Another writing reflection. I felt Data's line just before the audience realizes he hasn't been comprised could have been better. I felt that having him say, "Resistance is futile," confused the emotional content of the scene. The audience is trying to figure out if he is really compromised or not and in the process miss the impact of him smashing the plasma conduit. It's funny because my nitpicking buddy Darrin Hull came up with exactly the same response and the same solution: The Borg Queen realizes the torpedoes have missed. She whips around to look at Data and scream. Data snarls, "Resistance is not futile!" He smashes the plasma conduit. Just my opinion but I think this would have worked better! Less confusion for the viewer. (Not that confusion is always bad, but there's a time for confusion and a time just to hit the feel-good button.)
I went to see the movie with several friend the second time. Here's some of their comments.
From Charles Gragg: When Data discusses anxiety in the hallway, the lights on Picard's phaser rifle extinguish for an instant.
Data appears to be situation higher on his restraint table at one point in Main Engineering.
When did Picard and Lily have time to change clothes on the holodeck? Or did the holodeck somehow project the clothing? (And give Lily the appropriate cleavage?)
The Borg's personal shields work against energy weapons, but not against machine gun bullets?
Machine guns don't keep clicking when they run out of bullets (as Lily's did near the beginning of the movie.)
Magnetic boots have to work with iron. How much iron is there in the Enterprise-E hull?
Riker seems to take command of the mission once Cochrane gets his ship launched. How come?
Is it really believable that in a post-nuclear holocaust setting a man could construct a warp drive?
Why isn't Worf's space suit self sealing? (Charles said that NASA has this technology today.)
From Sherri: Worf's facial wound seems to disappear, reappear and disappear when he first comes aboard the Enterprise.
From Mike McClure: The Borg were too easily defeated in their sphere and at the end of the movie. Also, would Troi be able to sense the Borg increasing on the Enterprise from Earth? And, wouldn't the normal Borg environment of 92% humindity be bad for electronic circuitry?
From Darrin Hull: Okay, so the Borg don't need oxygen and they can work in outerspace without a space suit but what about their exposed skin. Wouldn't it freeze?
From Tim Strathdee: Wouldn't it have been great if the aliens who made first contact with Cochrane at the end of the movie were Ferengi!
Reflections from the Guild
[Note from Phil: I have not verified these but they sounded good to me!]
These first few nits come to you via NEWS, The Nitpickality Early Warning System.
Rene Charbonneau of Vanier, Ontario :Apparently, at one point in Star Trek : First Contact, Picard, speaking about the Borg, says, "They invade our space and we fall back. They assimilate entire worlds and we fall back. The line must be drawn here." Correct me if I'm wrong, but is it not Picard's fault that they haven't gotten rid of the Borg by now? I mean, if he had not visited (on Guinan's advice) Hugh, in "I, Borg", and bonded with him, he would have used the invasive program, thus destroying the Borg. And, why did he not use his experience with the Borg in "The Best Of both Worlds" to update Starfleet on the Borg's vulnerabilities?
Jeremy Jones of Oakdale, MN: I found an item of interest in the scene from "Star Trek: First Contact" that was show on the 30th Anniversary special. The Borg Queen asks Data how long it's been since he's had sex. He replies, "8 years, 7 months, 16 days, 4 minutes, 22. . ." Apparently he still can't calculate weeks!
Bob Canada: I know you've mentioned you didn't want to entertain any "First Contact" nits before the movie came out, but nevertheless, I think I've got one, concerning the new Enterprise-E. I bought the new Playmates Enterprise-E ship last night. It looks pretty cool; much sleeker than the E-D. Actually, it looks a lot like a cross between Voyager and the Excelsior--the saucer section is flattened and more elongated on the forward plane, and there's no longer any "neck"-the saucer just sort of grows out of the secondary hull. The whole ship, when viewed from the side, has a very flat profile. Anyway, my nit is- -if this model is accurate (and they always have been before), that the forward deflector dish is so far up in the secondary hull, that if you traced a straight line out from it, it line would intersect the bottom of the saucer section. Not a very efficient design for a deflector dish, if its covered up by the rest of the ship. I hope no one's actually in the very bottom of the saucer section the first time they turn on the deflector, because it'll probably blast it right off the ship. Looks like Geordi has his work cut out for him.
Benjamin Knoll: I'm not sure whether this is right or not, since I haven't seen the movie, but to my understanding, when they show Data assimilated saying the resistance bit, they're showing that he's been Borgified. Now, in the Best of BW, Locutus says that Data is an obsolete artificial life form and will be destroyed. Either the Borg changed their mind, or the Geordi purposely borgified him for some crazy plan. If the movie shows Data being assimilate by the Borg, than it's a nit! If Geordi assmilitated him, then I've wasted a few minutes of your time! If it's the later, I apologize, but I wanted to see if I was the first one to send this in.
John Latchem: I just saw an HBO specil on the making of "First Contact" and I'd thought I'd send along an observation.
It would seem in "First Contact" that the creators are going to have a little fun with this whole "47" thing. Obviously the writers know that us fans will be looking for the 47s in this movie. Well, in one scene Picard has Data tune to Federation Communications Frequency 1486. They set us up with the "4," and when we are looking for the "7" they give us the two numbers which surround it.
Murray Leeder: In a clip I've seen, the Enterprise reaches Earth in their century. Picard asks for a scan of the planet. Data says: "9 billion lifeforms... all Borg." Wow! Ominous for certain. However... Just what are the doing down there? Collecting dust? Shouldn't they be out assimilating new life and new civilizations? (maybe they're strip-mining the planet to build their cubes, but does that really require nine billion of 'em!?).
Johnson Lai: I just got this report from the Warp 10 e-newsletter.
Star Trek: First Contact has several hidden and inside jokes. Michael Westmore, Make-Up Supervisor, states his son designed all electronics in Data and the Borgs. The blinking lights are NOT RANDOM, if you know Morse code. Each Borg and Data's electronics provide a different message. Some are names of producers.
And now we return to our regularly schedule broadcast
Gary D. Freeman of Calgary, Alberta: Just got back from the Calgary Premiere of First Contact and have some nit-picking burning a hole in my cranium.
Overall the film was fine...but shouldn't they be getting better and closing those loop-holes in their scripts ?
1. When the Borg attack Earth, Picard takes over the Fleet and orders them to fire on the Borg Ship's 'weak-spot'....why didn't he convey this little known fact to the Federation at some point over the last six years. He claims to have had the knowledge all along
2.How come Data can know turn his emotion chip off and on...when he couldn't before?
3. When Worf is out on the hull of the Enterprise...he has to lay his weapon down to release a handle....he puts it beside him...and then picks it up...later that weapon is knocked out of his hand and rotates off into space because of a lack of gravity (Note from Phil: Maybe the rifle is magnetic?)
4. In every other case the Borg have had to place implants in humans to sway them over to the cause. Yet out on the hull of the ship a Borg had only to lunge at a member of the Enterprise...and within seconds that guy is hooked into the mind-set of the collective and ready to kill Picard. (Note from Phil: New Technology?)
5. Now the whole story pivots on Cochrane hitting warp speed so that a passing Vulcan ship can 'notice it'. Didn't it seem strange that the Vulcan ship 'doing a survey' wouldn't pick up the Enterprise in orbit around the earth...I mean those sensors are sensitive. Surely they picked up the shots the Enterprise winged off at Cochrane's ship... maybe they were distracted by a comet!
6 Which also brings up the nit-pick of how the crew uses the moon to hide their presence from the Vulcans...Yet at the time the Vulcans land all the Big Wheels from the bridge are down on Earth watching the first contact. And why would the Vulcans care if the Enterprise was there or not. Surely if the situation was explained to the Vulcans they would find the reasons for the time travel quite logical.
7. When Picard shows Lily (she is the fill-in for Guinan as Picard's muse) he pops a button and opens up a big port in the side of the ship. Nice view of Earth...but what is that hole in the wall used for? It's too small for a shuttle bay...maybe they get pizzas delivery
8. The time travel premise opened up that big nit-pick I had in Generations. In that movie...if the Nexus could take Picard to any place and time...why didn't he just go back to the Array and nip all potential problems in the bud there? Similarly...why did the Borg pick Cochrane's Warp display...why didn't they go back to 1996 and assimilate the Earth when it wasn't such a critical moment (I know...I know...plot).
9. Oh...and one final nit...over half the Enterprise is assimilated by the Borg collective....yet the 'E' is ship-shape and ready to buzz back through time in only a few hours. I tell you when Geordi cracks the whip there's no telling what those engineers can do.
It had all the cutes you'd expect...the opening sequence is worth the admission...but I think it might have been a bit stronger.
Murray Leeder: Wow! Great! Amazing! The Unspoken Rule holds true once again (it rather depresses me that the next film is fated to be bad...) But this one is fantastic. It can be very creepy at times, touching at others, and funny at others.
Nits: First thing, it strains credibility that all of our favorites all wound up on the same ship again (it also looks like Barclay got tired of that holo-programming gig and returned to engineering).
Picard speaks to an Admiral Hayes. We've seen an Admiral Hayes before, in "Realms of Fear", only one was a man and one was a woman. (not a nit!)
Starfleet sure does change uniforms a lot! I think now, their going through a "pallid" phase.
Remind me to hire Borg interior decorators. They do fast work!
That engineer called Paul (or else Mr. Fated-to-die) sees a quick shadow go through the Jeffries Tube rather quickly. Wait a minute. Don't the Borg rather lumber?
That raises another point. There are numerous times in the film that I though that if the Borg could RUN, they'd have killed everyone by now.
Hugh thought that Picard was Locutus. He was willing to take orders from him. In this episode, it surprised me that Picard didn't at least once try saying: "This is Locutus of Borg. Don't kill me!"
When Queenie slashes Data's skin, there looks like there is blood. Blood? Blood coming from where? It's just a layer of skin over mechanical processors.
Worf plugged the hole in his spacesuit with a severed Borg hand? Come on, like that would work!
Worf shouldn't have command codes for the Enterprise-E. After all, he was never a crew member of it. (Note from Phil: It is possible that all command level Starfleet officers have their own command code transmitted to all ships periodically.)
Data sure has developed a sense of drama. Just why did he fire those quantum torpedoes that missed the Phoenix? Couldn't he just have spoiled the party beforehand?
Tasha Yar, the Borg Queen... I think Data took a step down.
When the Queen said "Welcome home" to Picard, all I could think was "The Borg are running CBS!"
What happens to the Borg now? Can they maintain the Collective with the Queen dead (actually, I bet this Queen was a clone. She needed to be on the mission to keep the Borg in line in the past. So, that sets it all up for a sequel!
When the Vulcans turn up in the end, it's supposed to be a revealing moment when the guy reveals his ears. Yeah, right. Didn't they think we'd recognized the eyebrows?
If Lily can see the temporal vortex flaring, can't anyone on Earth who happens to be looking at the sky?
Best lines: "You told him about the statue!"
"It's my first ray gun."
"I'm not detecting any leak..."
"Let's rock and roll!"
"You broke your little ships."
When did the Borg arm attachments become Swiss Army Knives? There's an auto assimilator, a saw blade... I bet there's also a toothpick!
Just why was there a forcefield over that viewpoint? Wouldn't transparent aluminum be cheaper?
John Latchem: Some anticipatory nitpicking: Before you, or anyone else, brings up the discrepancy of the WWIII casualty figures (37 Million in TOS, 600 Million in this film), let me point out that the 37 Million is the likely MILITARY count, and the 600 Million includes civilians. The casualty counts given from TOS for World Wars one and two were also on the low end if you consider civilian deaths, I beleive.
Besides, World War III was nuclear, wasn't it? Doesn't 37 Million seem like a low number for a nuclear war?
Also, every major city wasn't destroyed, as Riker claimed. At least we know San Francisco and Paris made it!
Under the category of PAL: Data saying "resistance is futile" in the preview makes it look like he was assimilated. In actuality, he is saying it to the Borg right before he kills them. Also, one preview seems to make a huge deal about Picard breaking his orders. The movie quickly glances over this plot point.
Speaking of which, if the Enterprise-E really is the most advanced ship they have, and Starfleet doesn't trust Picard, why not replace him temporarily with Jelico or someone like that?
Gotta hand it to those starfleet containment suit helmets. Even when cracked, they still hold air!
So first contact occured in 2063 now? And Earth supposedly began to recover from WWIII after this? So why in "Encounter at Farpoint" did Earth look much worse off in 2079, 16 years AFTER this?
Why didn't Cochrane remember any of this in "Matamorphosis" or even look the same for that matter?
The universal translator is obviously a Vulcan invention. As soon as the guy steps off the ship he is speaking English. Strangely enough, Cochrane and the others accept this! And then they teach the guy how to drink!! No wonder Vulcans look down on humans!!!
Playing "Magic Carpet Ride" during the launch was a great touch. Good scene. One of many. This was a great movie, with a very beautiful, lyrical musical score from Jerry Goldsmith. Kudos to the creators for an excellent job. The Enterprise looks great, the uniforms look great, and they took great care to save the Defiant for DS9. Riker: "She's a tough little ship." Worf: "Little?"
Johnson Lai: Immediately upon ordering the Enterprise to Earth, Picard calls for battle stations. But they're at the Neutral Zone. Wouldn't it take them at least a good day or two before reaching Earth? Picard actually wants his people to be on battle station for two days? Or was it just a precaution?
Michelle Filippo: 1. When Picard goes down to earth with the away team, he tells Riker that he has the bridge. Yet, later when Picard realizes that the Borg have infiltrated the ship and decides to beam back to the Enterprise, Riker is there beside him on earth. When did Riker decide to leave the bridge? Isn't this a major infraction? Who was in charge of the brand spanking new ship while everyone was gallivanting around earth?
2. I don't think that there would be breakable glass on the Enterprise for Jean Luc to throw a gun through.
3. Jean Luc was wearing a red shirt through most of the action. Then, when the Borg Queen captures him, we see him in a gray tank top. Was it under the red shirt--which looked kind of fitted--or did he find time to change before confronting her? The Borg never bothered to remove or change the clothes of the others they assimilated. (Note from Phil: I heard someone say that Patrick Stewart has been buffing up and this movie gave him an opportunity to show off his new muscles! ;-)
5. I'm a little confused about the escape pods when they evacuated the Enterprise. First, wouldn't the inhabitants of earth notice all these ships landing? Second, did they collect everyone before they traveled back to their own century? How did they get everyone back--by sending out a message and having them fly the ships back or by beaming everyone aboard? And if they beamed everyone aboard, did they bring the escape pods back too, destroy them, or leave them on the surface to be found by the humans? (Note from Phil: We do have precidence for retrieving escape pods in Voyager!)
6. So in how many ways was the Prime Directive violated?
That's about it. Thanks for reading my rantings. Overall I thought it was a great movie with excellent effects.
Lawrence Miller of Hopkins, MN: Well, let me just say - cool movie! I loved the battle scene with the Borg, with the Enterprise (very sexy) and the Bastille class ships! Better than Generations - but not the best (Wrath of Khan)....of course, Nits!
At the end, they tell us that the Enterprise's warp signiture will be hidden by the moon - thats good, thats very important, since they warp off IN PLAIN SIGHT! Sheesh!
When Picard released the mag locks on his boots and free floated, the gas from the deflector array should darn well have caused him to move away from the ship, leaving him stranded in space. And why the 5 buttons for the boots, when all they used was On and Off, and the things weren't even labled anyway - in space, no one can hear you press the wrong button.
When Data lost his skin, he had a hole where his eye was - absolutely no loose connections at all - how did the human eye connect to his systems? Should have at least seen a connection for the optic nerve.
When Picard breaks the display case, you clearly see the Enterpise D hanging at an angle - but intact. Then, you see it busted at the bottom of the case, with bits of the C thrown in - and I think the C was intact originally too. That was sloppy!
Even though it look cool, bring a sharp object out into space is pretty darn stupid, Mr Worf - and the patch job he did to his suit would have cost him his leg, at least.
Now, if I was the borg - I would have assimulated the Vulcans - or gone to say, 1700, and assimulated them - those cyborgs work ain't all that bright!
Great lines, great effects, and all the majors got more than 2 lines - it was a blast!
Lisa Shock: Wish it had been longer, but great ride! Here's my first nits:
I noticed that all of the Federation ships no longer have red & green running lights on them to denote port and starboard.
When news of the borg attack comes, the BOZEMAN is the first to report! Captain Grammer got out of rehab and got his driver's license back really quickly.....
Picard asks for the battle to be "on screen". The battle scenes are accompanied by sounds! Pretty amazing, since there isn't any transmition of sound in space.
Too bad this ship can't separate the saucer section! They could then have just blown up the drive section, but the film would have been really short.
Why is the flashlight portion of these rifles so bulky? Looks like they're still using conventional batteries.
Lilly should not have used her gun inside the silo. Bullets should have been ricocheting everywhere in that stainless & titanium tube!
Lilly and Picard exit the room with the hatch to the outside open! In a ship under seige, with systems failing, I wouldn't trust a force field to seal that hole!
The space scene has very inconsistant gravity. When Hawk is picked up by the borg, his limbs act lilke he's in normal gravity. Other things are floating around oddly. (Note from Phil: Zero-G shooting is tough. We were all spoiled by Apollo13!)
I would hope that those things would be made of transparent aluminum by now!
The shacks on Earth are too close to the silo. NASA keeps everything a very big distance away from launch sites because of the intense heat, and danger from debris being propelled with immense force. I think they should have been destroyed by the launch.
How did they land the Phoenix. The clearing didn't have a runway, and while the Vulcans may be able to land like a hovercraft, I didn't see anything that indicated that the Phoenix used that sort of system. It would probably have to land like the shuttle, on a long runway.
So where's Braxton?
Did Picard et al. have to make reports to T.I.?
Can we really believe that they did not influence the future? Dozens of pods landed on Earth. A few dozen earthers worked with the Enterprise repair crew - did none of them ever talk? Could Z.C. keep his mouth shut about this years from now, particularly if he keeps getting so plastered?
When we first saw borg on tv they had force fields around them. That is presumably how they can be out on space without suits and not be troubled by the vacuum of space. If they do still have them, they should never really have their feet touch the floor. But we saw feet touching the floor. The feet would be their weak spot. If they have those force fields, then holodeck bullets and Worf's knife should not work on them. Unless it's like Dune where the field protects from fast projectiles but not slow ones.
Murray Leeder: Admiral Hayes mentions that a colony had been destroyed by the Borg. Later, Picard says that the Borg will cross the Federation border in two hours. So the Federation has colonies outside of its borders?
Let's examine the Borg plot, shall we? They know that they are about to be destroyed, so at the last minute, they throw out their time-sphere and secretly transport over to the Enterprise. This isn't the best plan. It hinges on one little fact . . . that the Enterprise would, in fact, be first to pursue the sphere through the vortex (I guess the Queen knows that the Enterprise just tends to do that sort of thing!). If another vessel had gone through instead, their plan would never have worked (come to thing of it, who knows? Maybe all of the other ships that survived the battle have Borgs on them too!). For a Star Trek incarnation involving time travel, it was remarkably cohesive. I only noticed one problem. At first, when the Enterprise saw the assimilated Earth, I assumed that they were seeing the timeline which only existed for a moment . . . the one where the Borg went back but the Enterprise didn't. However, we later learned that the Borg were actually on the Enterprise. And since they didn't get around to assimilating Earth in the past, that timeline shouldn't exist, period. (Note from Phil:I don't have time to get into this right now. I am late, late for an appointment with too much left to upload. I talked about this point with my friend and they all seemed to agree on three timeline: Timeline A: the original; Timeline B: the Borg come through but not the Enterprise-E; and Timeline C: The Enterprise-E comes through and defeats the Borg. Timeline B only existed for a few seconds in the 24th century but it had existed for 300 years!)
Cochrane sure does look and act a good deal different from when we saw him in "Metamorphosis". This is explainable, though. He was an older, more temperate man then, and as for his appearance, it's possible that working in his profession gave him a lot of radiation damage, which the Companion reversed. Just though I'd point it out.
Was everyone in the Montana compound killed except for Lily and Cochrane? Must be, because Geordi and Riker and Barclay and the rest of them don't appear to be hiding their identity at all. So just who are all those people who met the Vulcans at the end?
Troi gets really "knackered" with Cochrane, even to the point where she passes out. But afterwards, she doesn't seem hung over in the least. There's probably something to cure hangovers in the twenty-fourth century, so why didn't they give any of that to Cochrane? Wouldn't they want him to be of sound mind when he flies the warp ship?
The Borg sure have gotten tougher. Picard had to practically ring that one's neck in order to finish it off. In "Descent, Part II" Picard just pulled out one tube and the thing went down like a Pinto!
Picard tells Lily that there's no money in the twenty-fourth century, just like Kirk said to Gillian in Star Trek IV. Well what exactly is gold-pressed latinum, then? Sure, it's non-Federation, but Picard clearly said that there was no money at all.
Speaking of Data's skin, if it really is normal skin it would start flaking and drying up and falling off, eventually. Has the Queen given him the ability to produce more skin as well? Otherwise, he'd have to go through the rest of his existence replacing his skin about once a week (what a way to live!).
Just why did the Borg stop advancing after they took Deck 12? Obviously they started again, anyway (that was the only bit which seemed to me like a line left over from a script revision).
In "Descent", it was established that disabling the holodeck safeties require the authorization of two senior officers. Obvious somebody changed that, because Picard did it himself in this film.
The manual releases on the main deflector dish sure aren't very conveniently placed!
That Lt. Hawk is a wimp! He couldn't even pull out the manual release thingimajig, and Picard did it afterwards with little difficulty (yeah, maybe he loosened it up and Picard managed to get it rest of the way. But that still doesn't explain why it was stuck in the first place).
Also, I wonder about the Borg policy of not attacking until they consider you a threat. They certainly found them to be a threat in engineering, but later on they didn't consider Picard and Lily a threat at first. Don't you think that once they had been attacked once, they'd be on "Red Alert" mode and attack everything?
In that scene in the Borg-infested hallway, at one point a Borg turns to walk away, but he can't because Picard's standing there. Picard steps aside and you can see that the Borg turned and started working on the same wall he was at before. Maybe somebody else starting doing what he was planning on.
Lily Sloane appears to be Cochrane's only assistant, at least that is mentioned. But it appears to take three to fly the warp ship.
The Borg Queen sure must be made of cheap metal! Picard snapped it with his bare hands!
That Vulcan ship didn't much resemble the Vulcan science ships we saw in "Unification, Part II". I guess that over three hundred years, their design got heavily altered. Again, just thought I'd point it out.
And finally, now that the main deflector dish is inoperative. Doesn't that mean that there aren't any deflector shields? Boy, I sure hope the ride through the vortex isn't too rocky. They'd be torn to shreds like so much Kleenex!
Steve Lichtenstein: Here's a thought for you, on the astronomically low chance that it hasn't already occured to you and thousands of other Trekkers:
The premise of Star Trek: First Contact, as I understand it, is that the Borg travel back in time from the 24th century to the 21st, attempting to prevent Starfleet's existence by preventing Earth's first contact with extraterrestrials. But given that we have ALREADY SEEN a 29th-century Starfleet captain a few weeks ago in the Voyager episode "Future's End," there would seem to be even less reason than usual for us in the audience to worry about who will prevail in this conflict.
Nevertheless, illogical human that I am, I can hardly wait to spend my seven hard-earned dollars to sit on the edge of my seat for two hours and frantically worry about whether Paramount will decide to eradicate the entire history of Star Trek As We Know It in a single stroke!
Sean Corcoran of Clifton, VA: I just saw "Star Trek: First Contact" today. I rushed directly from school, and barely made it into the theatre in time, but boy was I glad I did. WOW!!!!!! That movie was one of the best I've seen in a long time. Jonathan Frakes is a directing genius. Of course, no matter how cool a movie is, there are ALWAYS nits! Here are the ones I can remember off the top of my head, I'll have to bring pencil and paper next time I see it (which should be in about two days!).
1. After the Borg sphereship goes into the temporal rift, Data gives a lifesign reading of Earth: "Population 9 billion. All Borg." According to "Q-Who" the Borg don't show lifesigns. He should have read a completely empty planet.
4. The doorman in the ballroom on the holodeck looks suspiciously like the actor who plays Neelix on Voyager.
David L. Tayman: I love it! The crossovers the show had were /great/ and calculated perfectly. The use of the Emergency Medical Hologram , AKA 'The Doctor' was great. And, in the Holodeck program of 'The Big Goodbye', we have good old Ethan Phillips (Neelix) as a bartender! Fabulous!
Wasn't that First Contact scene just...classic? I loved it.
David D. Porter: First: good movie, well worth the money. But enjoying it didn't stop nit hunting!
Another new uniform? Is it a Starfleet rule that every time a new Enterprise is commissioned, the uniforms have to change?
Nice tip of the hat to 'All Good Things,' with Geordi's blue eyes. But when did the lovely doctor go blonde? (Note from Phil: Personally, I prefer her as a red head! And the action figure has here as a redhead!)
Starfleet keeps Enterprise out the the Borg battle because they're worried J-L will go rogue or something? Here's a better way to handle that: make E-E the flagship, where the admiral and staff can keep an eye on him. That way, you don't lose all that firepower.
Early after Enterprise's arrival (and the Romulan Neutral Zone must be *real* close to Earth for them to arrive while it's still going) Data mentions damage to the Borg ship and Picard orders it onscreen. Whyever wasn't it already *on* the screen? What else could be more important to see?
Funny how no other DS9 regulars were aboard Defiant -- and a Lieutenant Commander was in command.
Do you think the events of the movie will be discussed on DS9 at all? Me neither.
Kind of neat that a descendant of mine will be Assistant Chief Engineer aboard Enterprise-E, however briefly! ;-)
Having worked with computers, been responsible for their maintenance, and so forth, I would have thought cybernetic critters would have liked it cold and dry, not hot and humid.
I guess it is logical that all EMH programs would use the same model, i.e. Zimmerman. Neat to see Alyssa Ogawa again, too, although I didn't think to look to see if she'd been promoted.
Won't Quark be surprised to find out money isn't used in the 24th Century?
I didn't know starships were built from ferrous materials. But I guess they are, or magnets wouldn't be attracted to the hull.
Those spacesuits could use redesigning. Didn't anybody think about suited combat? They should be at least lightly armored, and the faceplates should be smoothly rounded rather than having corners. Not only are the corners weak points, they interfere with vision.
Zefram Cochrane is a lot taller now than he will be after the Companion revitalizes him.
Goerdi is practically shouting to Cochrane how his statue will be here, this is all a monument, blah blah blah -- all in the open. Who else is listening? What happened to not contaminating the past? Does history now record the names of Cochrane's crew as Geordi LaForge and Will Riker? So much for keeping a low profile.
Did Cochrane also invent inertial dampers? Aren't they required for acceleration to warp speeds?
Bill Synnamon from Lafayette Hill, PA: Here is one big one which I can remember at this moment. It was something that I swore I'd add as a nit when I get home, so here it is. When Dr. Crusher is examining Lily, she tells Picard that she needs to get her to Sickbay. Before Picard can argue, she says, "I don't care about the Prime Directive." Isn't the Prime Directive for non-interference in another culture's society or development? Doesn't the fact that the Borg are attacking Earth null any such standing orders?
There is a lot to nitpick in this movie, but I was enjoying myself to much to bother with the rest.
Karen Farthing of Cleveland, OH: I just saw first contact and loved it, but this movie has enough nits for its own book! I've never read a technical manual (although i've seen all st and sttng episodes), so I may not have all the dates right, but these are my husband and my ruminations:
1) borg motivation: they took potshots at the missile silo - why didn't any borg transport down to finish the job? if they want to go back in time to get earth, why not go back in time first, and then move in space while there is noone to see them? going back in time to prevent first contact is a nice idea, but by preventing the earth from creating (?) the federation means that they get merely crumb (earth) and lose the whole pie (the federation)
2) why is cochran chapter 1 of the warp drive book? presumably the vulcans who made first contact have warp drive capabilities and their technology should be vastly superior! (just earthcentric thinking i suppose)
3) how did they fit all those borg in that little maintenance tube? (not to mention all their equipment)
5) where did all the enterprise kids and civilians go?
6) ONLY 800 Miillion people killed in WW3? with period doubling of the population every 50 years, in 2068 there are about 16 BILLIOn people on the earth. where are the other 15.2 Billion peoiple living if not in the cities?
7) how did they land a 3-stage rocket in montana the same afternoon???? I thought they spash down in the ocean? and if there is no navy, who picked them up?
9) the enterprise was firing photon torpedos at the phoenix just prior to entering warp. wouldn't the vulcans notice that? and wouldn't they see all those escape pods?
10) the fingers on the presure suits are too wide for the buttons on the consoles of the dish release thing so they hit two at a time
11) when did riker beam down? why didn't he object to picard beaming down?
12) space size - if the enterprise can get to earth in 3.5 hours from the romulan neutral zone, couldn't the romulans easily attack earth by sneaking in a midnight when all th low ranking peoiple (presumably) are pulling nightshift duty?
13) subspace communivcations must be really quick and the borg really slow if they could get the communication during the battle (which must have occurred several hours in the past) and arrive (3.5 hours later) while the battle is still going on
14) how did they kill the rest of the borg on the enterprise? wouldn't it be a major design flaw if all borg could be destroyed just because a few were vaporized? they didn't all die when the ship exploded!
Richard Steenbergen: Wow, awesome movie! But so much to nit about that I can't remember it all... I'm gonna have to go back and see it tomorrow with some pen & paper to write it all down. Massive violations of the Prime Directive, the Worf & Picard confrontation was totally fake and neither character had the motivation for suddenly starting it. The Plasma/Coolant/Whatever spill was also wierd, the way it was able to be cleaned up at the end.
Another instantanious uniform/technoligy change, just like in Generations. Is Starfleet really going this bonkers? They just changed the uniforms a movie (year, whatever) ago, now they're changing them again (and all the same color, so you can't easily identify crew functions, real smart of them)? Since Worf was wearing this uniform too, I assume that the next episode of DS9 should feature everybody wearing these uniforms?
Notice the Borg cube ship design change? The thing had curves on the inside (even in Picard's memory, where he remembered things that didn't exist, like those fancy green electricity sparks on the heads of the Borg-Mounts), a completely different design on the outside, and when it blew up it didn't split along straight cube-like lines. Seems like they should have stayed with the old design, it was more effective (amazing how the human technoligy of the future advances. 100 years between Kirk and Picard and they make the ship a little bigger and give it a couple more guns. 6 some odd years between Borg 1 and Borg 2 and they've finially got some REAL phasers. Maybe it was that old Galaxy Class design, its phasers did NO dammage to Jem H'Dar or Borg ships).
How is Picard managing to overhear the subspace link?) shouldn't all the Borgs in the universe have dropped dead when they lost contact with the Queen? And ya know over great distanced Subspace takes a while to travel. I'm real tired and I'm getting slightly confusing but I think you know what I mean. =)
Interesting how some Borg wanted to be completely artifical like Lore and these thought it was as bad as being completely human.
Why would the Borg take the chance of giving themselves away by changing something as insignificant as the humidity, and knowing that Locutus would be there to detect it ("This humidity! I know I've felt it before! Its the BORG!" -Picard. Amazing how he knew/remembered the humidity of the ship but can't remember the Borg Queen).
The Queen Borg situation brings up some interesting points. How could Hugh not know of a being like her. Hugh describes the Borg as being run by a collective of minds, all working in harmony. If they really had a Queen Borg, why would she make her presense almost totally unknown (yet have no problem freely revealing herself in this movie). Also, since she had a metal skull I assume that was not her natural body (btw seems the Borg are suffering from the same kind of defiencies as us pathetic humans in terms of building materials. Look at all the things that break just due to weak human muscles: The Queen Borg's neck, Picard's glass display & model ships, a serious crack on his helmet viewer, etc, etc. We can do better in this century, and they're supposed to have advanced materials in the future).
Murray Leeder: Why was Data's hair messed up at the end? Maybe when you enter the Collective they have to give you the welcoming noogie!
Eric Brasure: I just returned from seeing Star Trek: First Contact. WOW! It's excellent. This movie raises some *serious* continuity problems, though (don't they all?), such as the actual date of WWIII (FC says it's 2053, every other episode that addresses it says 2079, etc.) I won't say anymore, in case you haven't seen it yet.
Kathy Warren fo Murfreesboro, TN: SINCE WHEN IS DATA BULLETPROOF? In "Thine Own Self", he was run through and totally deactivated by one puny human with a metal rod. Now we're supposed to believe he can withstand a barrage of machine gun fire without even flinching? Uh huh! When was he upgraded?
Outside of that, I didn't notice anything too glaring, but then I've only sat through it once so far. It was very good.
Brian Carcione: This was by far the best movie, with good suspense, action, etc. The plot line was a little rushed in the beginning, however. But overall, a full four out of four @'s.
Now to the nitpicking:
1) The Enterprise E has been out for a year now? It's two years after Generations, and they built the Enterprise E in a year? Hmmm . . . looks like someone's been using the industrial replicators again.
2) Boy, I see that the Federation can't do anything without the Enterprise and Picard. Half the intercept fleet is gone and the Enterprise arrives, and bam! the cube explodes.
3) Again, the Enterprise cuts up the Borg ships like tin foil!
4) Wouldn't Riker and Geordi be in history now? After all, they did make the flight with Cochrane.
5) The Borg have developed a wonder-drug. All they have to do is inject the humans and
6) The Borg Queen apparently had her cloaking device on while in Best of Both Worlds.
Craig Cicero: I just saw the movie. Excellent film. I only have a few observations that aren't
really nits....
Throughout most of the movie, Picard wears a vest, while everyone else wears their uniform. Is he just warm?
After scannning AssimilatedEarth, Data says that the atmosphere is composed of several gases, like flourine and maybe methane. Don't the Borg breathe oxygen? Or is that just on their ships?
In the deflector dish sequence. On at least one of the panel-screens, I saw "AE35" listed. The AE35 unit was the device in 2001 that HAL claimed was defective.
The end credits weren't very consistent. They identify "Picard" and "Riker" but also "Geordi" and I think "Beverly" and/or "Deanna." (Everyone was leaving at this time so I couldn't get a very good look!)
I also noticed that the music was extremely good. Nice use ofthe TNG/TMP theme, the
rock 'n' roll, and the other music.
I would've thought that Riker would get a promotion to captain by this time. He saved the Federation from the Borg and other times, he was offered somthing like 3 ships at different times. Was he (and everyone else besides Worf) waiting for the Enterprise-E?
I really wish that the script could've MENTIONED Geordi's ocular implants.
Did Picard mention the Borg Queen to Starfleet? I really think that would be important enough to go into his report.
All in all, I was very pleased and impressed. I liked the portrayal of Cochrane as (to quote Odo) just another imperfect solid. As always, Brent Spiner played Data extremely well. The Dixon Hill holonovel scene and the Holodoc were very nice touches.
Shane Tourtellotte: Well, wasn't that a rush? Very good indeed. Great, great cameos! Take
a bow, Robert Picardo, Dwight Schultz, and Ethan 'No Credit For Me, Thanks' Phillips. They know we Trekkers love that stuff. I briefly imagined that I'd have too good a time to bother watching out for nits.
First, the 47s. When Picard gets his orders from the Admiral, his computer screen is labeled ‘047’. Also, his command code is “Picard four seven Alpha Tango.”
I wonder why the Borg keep going after the Federation and Earth. They ‘scooped’ some Romulan outposts in “The Neutral Zone”. Why not try assimilating them, just once?
And if resistance is so futile, how did we beat them the first time, and why do they keep making that empty boast?
The long, long look at the new Enterprise from ST-TMP makes a little more sense now. We never got a really good look at this ship, and for that neglect ,it never quite felt like the Enterprise.
We’ll have to wait and see whether Worf and the Defiant go missing at the proper stardates on ST-DS9.
Shoot the Borg sphere *before* it time-warps, guys! You do have weapons!
How old Cochrane was at this time? “Metamorphosis” and “Trials and Tribble-ations” will help here. Doing it from memory, Cochrane should be about 30 years old at this time. He’s been drinking **very** hard, because he looks older than 30.
Somebody (Worf, I think) called deflector controls a nonessential system when the Borg captured them. That’s shields, right? Shields are nonessential? Is that why Defiant got hammered; you forgot to turn on that nonessential system?
The Borg drill holes in the left side of Data’s head in their first assimilation attempt, but they disappear later.
Data says “Forgive me” to the Queen Borg. Is this politeness really necessary?
Before you say it, no, the Queen Borg’s sex is not a nit. Look at your NextGen II review of “Q Who”. Q says the scout/drone intruder on Enterprise is neither male nor female. Since they start as presumably sexed humanoids, drones must be modified, but that doesn’t mean some Borg might not be left with a sex. Why? Well, we saw why.
So, Federation planets span 8000 light-years. Lucky the important ones are so close to Earth, especially Bajor -- and *Deep Space* Nine. Sheesh. Also, wouldn’t it be hard to have federal control over planets that are years of travel time away, even in the swiftest ships? The Federation sounds pretty loosely put together.
When we see Australia and New Guinea, they’re completely yellow-brown, devoid of vegetation. “Okay,” I thought, “WWIII wiped out the plant life.” Later, we see northwest Africa and Iberia, and they’ve got plenty of green. Why would we bomb out New Guinea, global strategic value marginal, but leave healthy chunks of Europe and Africa, including the area of the key Strait of Gibraltar, reasonably untouched?
I think.
Data gives a precise time since his last sexual contact. If I got it down right, using the 1000-1 ratio, he last functioned fully around Stardate 42270. That’s right before “Elementary, Dear Data”, a year after Yar seduced him. Do I want to know what he was doing on that Stardate? Uh, probably not.
When Cochrane gets ‘stunned’, he doesn’t. He falls, but stays conscious.
Worf’s tourniquet to stop his suit’s decompression won’t save his lower leg. It’ll be exposed to vacuum; capillaries will burst, he’ll hemorrhage. Boiled down, that leg will be useless for a while. If it lost its heating as well, might as well get out the bat’leth for some field surgery.
It was closer to seven years ago, not six, that Picard was assimilated.
Crusher speaks of inoculating Lily against theta radiation. That’s a broad use of the word, because inoculation usually deals with viral diseases. I won’t push too hard; treatments do change in 380 years.
Someone says they have less than 48 hours before Phoenix’s launch, but the dates they give and the sequence of events shows it was really less than 24 hours.
Picard has Data lock the intruder Borg out of the ship’s computer. Have they forgotten how to do this with a quick voice command(a la “Power Play”)?
Doesn’t Anesthezine gas work on Borg? Wouldn’t it be worth a try?
Data’s had emotions over two years, and this is his first experience of anxiety? Did he spend all this time on Risa, Planet of the Love-Numbed?
We see the Borg ignore Enterprise crewmembers often, supposedly becuase they aren’t posing a threat. Hey, Borg! They destroyed your cube; they destroyed your sphere; they shot your drones, they ‘assimilated’ your subspace broadcast techno-whatsis. They’re *always* a threat*!
Picard is surprised Lily had his phaser on maximum. Presumably he didn’t set it so, but when did Lily twiddle the settings, and how did she know what to twiddle? We never saw it.
Once again, the computer announces a self-desturct countdown, *then* says there will be no further audio warnings. Why the Queen didn’t have Data shut it off immediately eludes me. (I know, she had to do it on-screen.)
Couldn’t the computers on the Phoenix handle the rocket staging? Cochrane does it manually, when more precision seems to be in order.
If Data has biofunctions, as he stated in “Deja Q”, wouldn’t they get fried by the coolant gas in Engineering, not just his skin grafts? Wouldn’t that do to him what it did to all the others?
David Conrad: I just saw "Star Trek:First Contact" today , and I must say that it was quite good.
This isn't a mistake but,did you notice that at least three new classes of federation starships were shown in the battle with the borg near the beginning.
I find it amazing that the borg can make things such as the restraining table for Data among other things.But,the borg are a strange race, and apparently there is more to them than I am aware of.
It interested me to find out that the borg can assimilate someone that has a spacesuit on, seemingly without puncturing it.This happened to Hawk while he,Worf,and Picard are outside of the ship (I believe it was on the deflector dish).
Adam Farlinger: Great movie! Too bad it was almost _exactly_ like the synopsis that was
on the Internet... no wonder Paramount forced everyone to pull it. I was right about us nitpickers having a field day, though...
These quantum torpedoes that we keep seeing must be pretty special. The Borg were hit with a ton of them and still couldn't adapt.
Then again, phasers were doing a lot of damage too... I guess they were planning all along on getting destroyed - the time travel was probably their true intention (though they would have had a little more success if they'd gone back in time *before* they reached Earth...).
I find it very hard to believe that no one in 21st century Earth was able to detect the Borg sphere, the Enterprise, or its lifeboats. Yet Geordi and Riker were able to find it with Cochrane's telescope! I think
someone would have launched something at the E-E if they'd detected it... which they'd literally have to be blind to miss (especially when it returned to the future via the temporal passage thingie... the nice
bright blue one. Gee, no one would have noticed *that*...).
They just happen to have enough information from their sensors to create a way back to their own time... never mind that they lost sensors somewhere inside the first one, that they've probably never seen this
kind of temporal distortion before, and that replicating it exactly would take them back another 3 centuries... they'd have to reverse the effect somehow. Has the Federation had so much experience with time travel that they can figure out any temporal anomaly in minutes now? No wonder they need "Temporal Investigations."
The crew spends a good part of the movie fighting their way to places aboard the ship. Why not just use site-to-site transport and save the trouble? I don't recall having heard anything about the transporters
being off-line... they should have used the transporters to beam the Borg into a volcano or something. It would have saved them a lot of trouble.
Picard opens a "window" to show Lily the Earth below. Is it just me, or does the Earth look kinda fake (low-quality CGI, maybe?)?
On Cochrane's ship, they engage the warp drive, but it takes them a while to reach warp speed. Though I don't have my tech manual handy at he moment, I'm pretty sure that it says that... Warp drive is the result of a subspace field, measured in millicochranes. A vessel with a warp field of 1000 millicochranes will be travelling at warp 1 (light speed). A warp field of less than 1000 millicochranes is non-propulsive. The transition from "normal" speed to "warp" speed occurs almost instantaneously... you're either in or out of warp.
The Phoenix seemed to be gradually speeding up as the warp drive was engaged... which technically shouldn't be possible. It probably had impulse drive, but we all know that you *can't* reach or exceed the speed of light with just impulse (spatial anomalies and Q exempted).
The Borg Queen says "Watch your futures end." But who is she talking to? Data is (supposedly) on her side, and I imagine that the Borg drones would be, too. So that leaves only Picard. Does this mean that he has more than one future? Maybe she said "Watch your future's end"... hmmm... "future's end"... where could we have heard that phrase before? Voyager? I guess Berman or someone must like the phrase...
We see a flashback of Locutus _physically_ with the Queen, and he says that it isn't possible for her to still be alive because the ship they'd shared was destroyed. I think she says something along the lines that
he's thinking in *only* 3 dimensions, but she never explains *how it's possible for her to still be alive*. It wouldn't have taken much to say that she wasn't actually physically present back then, but that she
appeared as a hologram or something.
Picard tells Lily that he was assimilated by the Borg 6 years ago, and that he had *no* individuality left. So how'd he fight through all the programming near the end of Best of Both Worlds, Part 2?
The Queen must be as dumb as she looks. Either that, or Data wasn't fully a part of the Collective. She actually didn't seem to know what he was up to!
What were the Borg using for weapons? I didn't see them shoot very much, yet the Federation fleet seemed to taking a lot of damage. I did see a tractor beam once or twice, but I don't understand how it could do
all that much damage.
What's with the access panels on the exterior hull? This seems to be something new and relatively useless, though it was a good thing that they just *happened* to be there when they were needed.
The Picard-Worf confrontation didn't fit well with their characters... and, even worse, the apology scene was too hasty as well.
What's with Deanna being drunk? The whole scene didn't fit in with what I've come to expect from her character, but I'll admit that it *was* kinda funny...
Why is Zephram Cochrane the one credited with creating warp drive? The Vulcans obviously invented it first - they paid no attention to humans until they *detected* Cochrane's flight (I think that it's safe to say
that if they can detect warp, they must know about it... though with their life span, hundred-year space journeys may not have been inconceivable).
It took 3 people to authorize the auto-destruct (and Picard had to give 2 authorizations), yet Data is able to deactivate it with a few keystrokes? Does this make sense? And even worse, he restores access to the main computer *after* he stops the auto-destruct. Um, isn't the auto-destruct controlled by the main computer? So how could he have deactivated it before access was restored?
I wonder what the "official" reason is behind the Borg's new look? Who'd they assimilate this from? Or did they just do it so that they'd look a little more fearsome to their victims (it works... slimy-faced
cyborgs look scarier to me than chalky-faced ones...).
What's with the Borg "whispers"? If I recall, last time we saw the Borg, their ship was pretty quiet...
I wonder what will become of the quantum torpedoes that Data fired towards the Phoenix? Will they go on until they run out of fuel, and then contaminate the timeline (these are supposedly _advanced_,
_state-of-the-art_ weapons we're talking about here...)?
Lily doesn't seem to mind having been cheated of her role in the warp flight (I'm assuming that she went with Cochrane in the original timeline). She should have been the first woman in warp!
Hmmm... did someone say that people were actually killed when the Borg attacked the Phoenix? Good thing none of them were ancestors of any of our major characters...
What was with the Borg's "magnetic interlocks" on the deflector dish? They would have been better off if they'd *welded* their gadgets on there!
Great Line (one of many, but the only one that I can quote at the moment): E-E EMH: "I'm a doctor, not a doorstop!" (Personally, though, I say let the "doctor" jokes die.)
Gotta love these five-minute endings! Okay, maybe it was fifteen, but it was too quick! Here we have Data about to destroy the Phoenix... then he turns around, hee-hee, fooled you Borg Queen, and kills off all the
Borg. Cochrane makes the flight, they miraculously restore the ship to workable condition, and figure out how to get home! Though it would be kinda funny if they erred and ended up in the middle of the battle and had to go back again to save history ad infinitum (okay... "I hate quantum mechanics!").
It would have been nice to see them back in the 24th century, safe and sound... not to mention seeing the aftermath of the battle and what's left of the fleet!
The Enterprise beamed the Defiant's survivors aboard... so apparently, they must have dropped their sheilds. But during the battle, they didn't even take a scratch!
I guess Picard is going to get a Kirk-style court-martial (ST IV?) now... "Gee, you violated a direct order, but since you saved the Earth, we'll let you off..."
Am I the only one who finds Picard's desire fore retribution (okay, REVENGE) a little out of character?
The new Borgification technique is a definite *improvement*. It took them a while to hook all their gadgets to Picard 6 years ago... now, they just inject you with a needle, and you start to transform into a Borg (I'm guessing advanced nanotechnology here).
What's with Picard still being connected in some way to the Borg? Weren't all the implants removed 6 years ago? Or do the Borg use some form of telepathy (I'm sure they've probably assimilated some telepathic races in the past...)? (funny thing is, a few years ago, I tried writing an episode about the implants regenerating themselves... guess there only are a limited number of original ideas out there!).
Philip Blaiklock: A++++++++++++++++
Excellent Movie, possibly the best. The first half hour was totally
directionless. (including the snuffed borg battle...so anticlimactic).
BUT....Boy did it pick up the slack!!!!!!
They presented a seamless mix of humor, action, and heart tugging emotion that combined for an absolute masterpiece. The humor was great, special effects awesome. I especially liked Picard's inner agony and his denial of it.......everything was resolved beatifully. The ending was an absolute gem and succeeded where ST V's failed.
Now for the nits.........
They mostly stem from continuity problems. If I see the flick again I
will probably notice more, but here goes....
In "metamorphosis" from TOS several things were established:
Cochrane would have been 33 years old at the time of the launch. Here
he looks 50 or so. Perhaps the difference has to do with the massive
nuclear fallout / pollution from the world war.
MAJOR NIT
This first contact supposedly causes earth to convert to peace. Really? Note encounter at farpoint, where Q models a post atomic horror court from the year 2079. First contact occured in 2063. I guess they did
have some hurdles to overcome.....
Boy, those vulcans sure know how to party!
SO does this mean the end of the borg? Their queen is toast, so will
they fall apart? Voyager will be encountering the Borg later this
year...it will be interesting to see what happens.
Another thing of note.....in 2063 the borg queen has setup base on the
enterprise as a beacon to notify the borg still in the delta quadrant.
Interesting. One Borg Queen summoning the "younger" one. It will be
interesting to see how they deal with it. Thr queen did criticize data
& picard for thinking so "three dimensionally" so I am sure they had
some way to work it out.
BTW, has the federation now discovered an easy time travel method? These
days they seem a dime a dozen.
Is it just me or does it look like they are resusing the DS9 set of the
defiant's warp core for engineering on the enterprise e?
Michael Ash: First of all, I thought that this was *very* good, and I came out of the
theater satisfied that my money was well spent. (Actually it was someone else's money, but that's another story)
Now some nits:
It seems that mounting Cochrane's ship on a modified ICMB was a bad idea,
given that all modern (and presumable future, there's no reason otherwise)
ICMBs are sub-orbital, they would barely get the Phoenix into space, much
less to an altitude to conduct his flight.
It seems strange that Data would react so badly to a little scratch on his
new "skin" but be fine when it's all burned off.
A couple of thoughts, did anyone else notice the "Stunt Borg" in the credits?
I thought that Robert Picardo's cameo as the EMH was hilarious! That scene
was great!
Alan G. Labouseur: I just returned from seeing First Contact today... twice. Here's a really obvious nit: A security dude reports to Worf that the Borg have assimilated desks 26 up to 11. Later Picard tells Lily that there are 24 decks. Humm.......