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"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 they're Borg now. In Best of Both Worlds, they had to do lots of things to Mr. Picard. (Note from Phil: Could be advanced nanite technology.)

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.......

11/24/96 Update

Stephanie Althof: HAWKE (or however you spell it) goofs. When Picard, Worf, and he are preparing to go out on the hull of the ship, Lily come out and says (to Picard) "Watch your caboose, Dix." Picard grins cutely at this (everything Patrick Stewart does is cute, okay?) and Hawke grins as well, as if to say "Yeah, I get it, too." Okay, Hawke, wouldn't your reaction have been more of a "huh?" confused look, or do you have cameras in the holodeck to have seen the scene between Picard and his secretary (and Lily) in which SHE says "Watch your caboose, Dix"? Hawke's reaction was one of someone who was in on the joke, not just another lieutenant on the ship.

Harvey H. Kitzman, Jr.: My wife and I saw STFC last night and LOVED IT!!!! Typical of an even numbered film, it was fantastic!! Easily ranks as one of the best. There were a few number of nits though:

According to the Star Trek Encyclopedia, which I believe is considered canonical, Zephram Cochrane made the first warp flight in 2061, not 2063.

For that matter, wasn't it mentioned in the episode "Metamorphosis" that Cochrane was from Alpha Centuri? I haven't had time to go back and look at my copy of the episode yet. (Note from Phil: I should have commented on this yesterday when I updated the file but I was so rushed. The Classic Trek episode makes it sound like Cochrane is from Earth. The noncanonical historical material on Trek stated that he was from Alpha Centauri.)

Nothing was mentioned about Worf and Troi's old romance. (Note from Phil: That died quickly didn't it!)

The Enterprise-E pretty much negates the future seen in "All Good Things..." in which Riker commanded the souped-up Enterprise-D (although it could be argued that that timeline is not official since it is Q-inspired).

Have the Borg ever been officially stated as being from the Delta Quadrant? (It has been stated in several novels, especially Peter David's Vendetta, which BTW is probably the best ST novel I have read. However, in one of the official ST books, Mike and Denise Okuda state that the novels are not official canon.) If they are from the Delta Quadrant, how come Voyager has yet to run into any trace of them or their colonies? (Note from Phil: It's COMING!)

Was it just me, or did the endoskeleton of the Borg Queen look like the Terminator?

This is more of a question. Does Zeprham Cochrane make his flight before or after the Post Atomic Horror of the 21st Century? In the ST Encyclopedia, they estimate the Post Atomic Horror to be aroung 2079. However, I don't think that WWIII would happen after meeting the Vulcans. I may be wrong though.

The Lovlies:

1. Troi's drunk scene (almost worth the admission alone). 2. The appearance of Holodoc (I love the character on Voyager). 3. Barclay's appearance (I always think of Howlin' Mad Murdoch from the A- Team when I see him). 4. The Dixon Hill holodeck escape (very clever move). 5. Ethan Phillips as the maitre d' of the club. 6. The nastier looking Borg. 7. The opening scene with Picard on the Borg ship. 8. Forget the Kirkanization of Janeway, how about the Kirkanization of Picard?!!

Overall, this was a much better and more enjoyable film that Generations.

Matthew Murray: Okay, I liked the movie. I'm not going to deny that. (It was a lot better than Generations, if you ask me, which you didn't.) But if I didn't mention its problems, then I really couldn't be a member of the Nitpicker's Guild. ;)

I'm not sure about this one, since I don't keep track of the stardates, but I sure don't remember Worf not being around DS9 because he was fighting the Borg, or the Defiant having to undergo extensive repairs because of its battle. (Note from Phil: The stardate on the movie is 508xx which means we should hear about the Defiant bein damaged towards the end of this season.)

Where is the tactical officer or the chief of security on the Enterprise-E? We never see or hear from him or her. Yeah, I know Worf is going back to his old position, but those two positions are important, and I can't believe the Enterprise-E simply wouldn't have them.

I consider this questionable, but one of the friends with whom I saw the movie doesn't, so I'll just mention it... The spherical probe that travels back in time doesn't seem to be that strong. Doesn't it seem like, since its Borg, it should take more than four torpedo hits to destroy?

When Data is dropping down to talk to Lily in the missile silo near the beginning of the episode, he takes a lot of gun shots. During "Qpid" in the fourth season of TNG, Troi shoots him with an arrow, and he indicates it could have done damage--at the very least, it does stick in him. He takes a LOT of bullets here--did none of them do any damage? Yes it's a funny scene, but I wasn't sure I believed that the number of shots he took would do no damage whatever.

Worf tying off the hole in his space suit with the cable from the Borg's arm was funny, but somehow I don't think that it would prevent decompression the way it was shown to. Besides, he's already lost a good deal of oxygen, so I think he's in trouble either way, unless the suits produce oxygen istead of just feeding it to the wearer.

Not necessarily a nit, but rather an observation. The self-destruct sequence seems to have gone back to its original form (as seen in Star Trek III, for example) requiring three senior officers for activation rather than the captain and the first officer.

Again, not a nit, but an observation, so treat it as you will. I think the ending of the movie was a little spoiled by the Vulcan speaking English. According to what was established in this movie, they didn't make contact before because they considered the humans insignifcant until they developed warp drive, so it's at least possible that they might know a little bit of English. But I don't know if I necessary believe that they would be able to translate their saying so properly. (And, of course, the logic being that the universal translators don't exist in the 21st century, since there was probably no reason for them to.)

Dramatically and musically, the final sequence didn't make much sense either. Musically, the biggest moment was when the Vulcan removed his hood and we saw his face. Why did the people behind the movie consider that a greater dramatic moment than when Cochrane and the Vulcan shook hands? After all, the name of the movie is First Contact, and I think if they had really highlighted that with the music, it would have worked much better. After all, this is a defining moment in future history for humans, so I think it needs to be highlighted as much as possible. (I don't think they needed any dialogue at all between the Vulcans and the humans--just doing it with music would have made it much more powerful, I think.)

The last thing we see of the Enterprise-E seemed just a little contrived to me. I know they probably didn't want to lapse into classic Treknobabble by having a really long explanation as to how they were going to get home, but were the Borg using such a simplistic method of time travel that they are able to figure out how to reverse the process so easily?

Well, that's about all I can think of off the top of my head. Even with the things mentioned above, it was still a pretty good movie, and I liked it.

Brian Phan of San Jose, CA I thought First Contact was a great movie. Though it could have used a better ship battle instead of Picard resolving it in 5 seconds. I was lucky to see it. When I got to the theater they had just opened up another show.

On to the nits where I have none! The First Contact nit file mentioned them all! One comment though. Instead of hiding behind the moon, why didn't they hide behind the sun like in I, Borg?

Johnson Lai: When Data first frees himself, why did he try to escape instead of going after the coolant tanks? (Note from Phil: Aha! A genuine character motivation problem! Picard's last intent to Data before captured was to destroy the plasma conduit. It does seems reasonable that Data would attack that weakpoint in the Borg and conquer them instead of trying to run away.)

Nathan Hurst of Miami FL: Awesome! best line has to go to the EMH when the borg are attempting to break into the sickbay. "I understand that borg implants can cause skin irritation. Would you like an analgeisc cream?"

But this causes a nit. (I have only seen it once so far, so I could be wrong) As Crusher is working to heal Lilly's wounds, th edoor begins to be banged on. She immediately assumes it is borg, wakes up Lilly and hops in an access panel tube thing. How did she know it was borg? Because they didn't knock?

And secondly, why is the door to Sick bay locked? Near the films climax, Picard walks up to the locked engineering door (where the Borg Hive has its collective and 'queen') and touches a few buttons and it pops open. Why wouldn't the collective, after assimmilating several ENGINEERING crewmembers know how to do this as well?

Why are the long range sensors off line (as reported by hawk) after they travel back in time? (Note from Phil: I would suspect it has something to do with the time-travelling.)

At first I thought it was a nit, but it requires multiple viewings to confirm. When Picard/Hawk/Worf are battling on the underside of the saucer section (very very nice!!!) and picard shoots a hole in the saucer to release some gas, we hear sound. Now there is no medium to carry the soundwaves in space, so how are we hearing it (aside from the fact that it falls down, back to Enterprise-E a bit)? Simple, the boots of our heroes space suits are connected to the ship and this stuff is rushing out with such velocity that it is rattling the deck which is transimitting the sound through to their space suits and thus the audience can hear it. Same applies to borg who are attached.

Nice visual effect near the end of this sequence: When the camera lovingly pulls back to give us the graceful underside view of Enterprise-E, the mist is still spewing from the rupture. Nice attention to detail!

Okay nit nit: though it is probably not visible until home video, I'll try to be the first to point this out. During the beginnig battle sequence with the Borg Cube, many ships flyby including: VOYAGER! Now this is a rumor that I have assembled from two sources. First, supposedly in one of the teaser/trailer TV things it can be seen (and if you stop and look it is thee in all its glory,). And second, at a convention I attended during the making of ST:FC Herman Zimmerman was supposed to be there, but couldn't get away. So they sent his assistant instead (whose name I foget), and since he couldn't make it they sent his assistant, whom I really forget, but brought nice footage of herself as an El-Aurian refugee during Generations. Anyway, people were of course asking about First Contact and all she would say (since her topic she was on was using 'normal' and 'everyday' things as cool trek props, was "We included a lot of old stuff, and ships in this movie.....including one that we know we shouldn't have. The produces seem to think you guys won't notice, but we know you will." At first I had no idea what she was talking about, but apparantly this is it.

J. Annelin Cold Lake, AB: I just finished reading the comments about the movie, i thought it was great, needed more space battle scenes though but here are my observations in no particular order:

I check one of my astronomy programs for the moon phase on April 4 2063 and according to it the moon should be a few days from new (the right side being visable) while in the movie it was a few days after new (the left side visable). I may be wrong but i do believe we saw the left side of the moon.

Why did all the escape pods go about the same time? In multi-seat military aircraft there is a timed sequence so that the seats don't collide. Wouldn't it have been better that once full, to eject that way you didn't have all sorts of escape pods in the air (space) at the same time especially since they were all headed for the same location on earth, an island.

Why did Data fire 4 (or was it 3?) torpedoes at the Phoenix? One would have been sufficent don't you think? But then again they may have been the earlier versions since they didn't move very fast.

Finally, i see they have no scuff boots in the future, notice Picard's boots after he climbs down from the rafters once all the borg have been destroyed, they are still nice and shiny with no marks on them considering he had been crawling around access tunnels and such during most of the time.

Murray Leeder: Many nitpickers are thinking too three-dimensionally (in the words of Queenie herself). She wasn't on the ship in "The Best of Both Worlds". Picard just contacted her over the Collective (surreal, ain't it?). (Note from Phil: And that would explain the flashback scene where she is standing right next to him?)

Also, many wonder why Picard didn't tell anyone about the Queen. My guess: repressed memory! Picard's human, after all, and that's how the human mind works. Particularly traumatic memories are occasionally repressed. (Note from Phil: I need to talk with a psychologist about this whole repressed memory thing. Seems like I heard somewhere that "repressed memory" is a hotly debated topic. I believe that some think repressed memory is all smoke and mirrors. Besides, Picard should have gotten intensive counselling after his experience with Borg. Troi seemed to be working hard on La Forge after his abduction by the Romulans! And, let's not supposed that Picard just didn't want to go to the sessions. He's in charge of a deadly machine of mass destruction, Starfleet would have made him go!)

Okay, with regards to that timeline thing, Timeline B could exist, but it would be in following form: The timesphere makes it through, but not the Enterprise. Cochrane is destroyed, First Contact never happens. Earth remains backward and uncivilized (and you'd think someone else would come up with warp drive eventually, wouldn't you). Then, later on, (probably around "The Best of Both Worlds") the Borg come and assimilate Earth anyway. (Note from Phil: I agree that this is a possibility.)

However, it seems to me that the creators seemed to suggest that the assimilated Earth means that the Borg assimilated it in 2063. But that can't be possible since the Borg were in fact on the Enterprise. There is another problem with this. Are we to believe that the Borg would have assimilated Earth as quickly in Timeline B as they would in Timeline A? I doubt it. Q wouldn't have introduced Picard to the Borg, "The Best of Both Worlds" would probably never have happened. You can see the problem here. (Note from Phil: Okay, let me see if I understand Murray's point. It's something I've been chewing on since I saw the movie. At first my question was: How did the Enterprise fail the first time and allow the Borg to borgify Earth? My friends say, no the Enterprise didn't fail, the borgification took place in the 300 years between the sphere going back in time and the Enterprise going back in time. But Murray's comments revive the question in a different form: Why didn't Picard go back in time the first time? There has to be some reason that Picard didn't immediately take the Enterprise back or there have to be some reason that the Enterprise failed. If the Borgified Earth caused Picard to follow the sphere immediately in every time line, then he had to fail in order to see the Borgfied Earth. Sorry, I think this just got confusing!)

Richard Steenbergen: Amazing how those bullets didn't hurt Data at all, yet when Troi has a bow & arrow it actually penetrates his skin and dammages circuitry.

For "adapting" cyborgs, the Borg aren't too smart. When do ya think they're gonna realize to turn their shields on BEFORE the humans point the little sticks at them? (And for the arguement about "adapting frequencies", why do the shields on the Enterprise stop phasers every time they're fired at without having to retune shields? Wouldn't the Borg have cought on to the idea of designing shields that stop phasers of all frequencies by now. Maybe they could have gotten the design from Locutus?).

Wouldn't it be easier to give the Borg blow darts? (Note from Phil: That way, they could assimilate people without touching them!)

If infecting Hugh with that nasty little geometric shape would have killed all the Borg by going across their collective, how come his individuality didn't go across the entire collective too?

If Data wasn't REALLY Borgified (you'd think the Borg would have the technoligy to make SURE he WAS on their side), how did Picard hear his thoughts? How did Picard hear ANY thoughts, I thought the Borg used subspace links not telepathy!!!

Was I the only person that thought the "alien ship" looked Ferrengi, until that vulcan walked out and we saw the eyebrows (you could tell the true trekkies and the wannabe's apart in the movie theater by how quickly they realized it was a vulcan). =)

Am I missing something or is there a good reason why they couldn't lock on to anything living on deck 16 and beam it to the brig (or empty space)?

The Borg in Descent had the right idea, USE ENERGY WEAPONS! I can't think of a single reason for them to NOT have phasers, and they would have probibly won if they had them. Maybe the influence of the Queen Borg has been rubbing off on these guys (I'm sure she likes her men Macho!)? In fact implanting little minature "Spiderman-Like" phasers under the wrists of Starfleet officers probibly wouldn't be a bad idea. Or at least a wrist-StrapOn version.

Seems like Borg shields only stop energy weapons. Bullets, Klingons, knives, and shuttlecraft all have no problem penetrating them. In fact the ONLY time a Borg Shield has ever worked effectively is in 'Best of Both Worlds' when they protect Locutus from Worf (the first time that is). If they have the ability to do that, why not use those shields too.

Also note the change in Borg Shields so that they no longer have that boxy slightly-curving thing that only protects their chest? Strange how nobody ever thought of trying to use a COUPLE of phasers for more then a .01 sec shot. We've seen Borg technoligy that is slightly resistive to phasers before but crumbles with a little extra work.

Since Holodoc-2 is really just a projection who's "force" is generated by minature tractor beams in the wall, shouldn't he have been able to toss the Borg around like a tractor beam toss's something, or like a bullet penetrates hardware? Hrmmmmmm shame that Wesley wasn't around, he could have built another one of those handheld Tractor beams from 'The Naked Now' and they could have just walked up and down the corriders bouncing the Borg from the floor to the ceiling, or playing BumperBorg (Picard: "Hey Worf watch this, over the deflector dish, through the Borg Transmitter, around the bussard collectors, 'nothin but net!").

How did they assimilate the Enterprise so quickly (and what was served by running little Borg wires up and down the corrider walls? Homesick?). What'd they do beam over the Portable Borg-in-a-Box Do It Yourself Assimilator Kit? It would have been smarter to beam over a Borg transporter so they could move anywhere in the ship instantly. Or maybe beam to the bridge and kill everybody there at the same time they did Engineering? Maybe they heard that Worf got pissed at Riker's constant insults to his phaser abilities, and decided to take a correspondance course in How to Aim?

In response to the comments about the outside of the Enterprise being magnetic, maybe Starfleet engineers put some magnetic strips under the hull in order to make external maintaince easier. Or then again they could have found a way to include 0.0001% iron in the metal and those boots are just REALLY powerful supermagnets.

My Favorite Part of the Credits: They listed the "Stunt Borg"

With Data's ability to fake voices and do just about anything with the main computer, combined with his tendancy to be taken over by wieird forces, I'd think Star Fleet would have designed some special Anti-Data safety measures for critical things like aborting self destruct.

According to the tech manual they approxed the designs for the Galaxy class starship in 2343 and the first one was commisioned in 2363. Looks like the loss of ships to the Borg has really motivated the Federation to haul some you-know-what, 'cause they built the Enterprise-E in 2 years.

Since Engineering is where the Borg appear to have based their takeover, you'd think that 99% of the Engineers were Borgified. Geordi must be REALLY fast to fix up everything in a matter of hours, virtually by himself. I sure hope they remembered to fix the deflector dish, or it'll be a bumpy ride home.

This is obviously a military ship, with battle trained people. But its also a TV show being watched by people who are mostly non-military, so they need to keep things down to a level that normal people can understand. This explains much of why they do stupid things (like beaming over teams of 3 with the future's equivilent of a little hand pistol, or being completely and totally unprepared to handle something when their little energy weapons don't work), but I really have to question some of the ways the battled the Borg in this episode. Since the Borg need their biological components to survive, and they are mainly just humanoids with some electronics attached, if you just kill the humanoid part they'll die. Ok, how do you kill a humanoid? Phasers, can't use 'em. How else? Hand-to-Hand combat, the Borg always seem to win those battles. What else kills a humanoid? Projectiles, Radiation, Biological & Chemical warfare, etc. We know that Projectiles would have worked, not only from the holodeck adventures, but from the fact that Data's fist is just as much a projectile as a bullet, and Data sure swatted out a lot of the Borg without their shields adapting to stop him. Radiation might have been a bit much, but couldn't they have flood'd those certain decks with enough radiation to kill all humanoid life there (after evacuating the good guys of course). Prehaps used intruder control to gas them (only unlike past episodes, use QUICK gas thats not VISABLE, so they don't know whats happening till they're already asleep/dead). I remember a semi-recent episode of DS9 where O'Brian gets infected with a "super-deadly biological warfare agent" and it takes SEVERAL HOURS for him to nearly die. There are already invented chemical and biological agents that can kill less time then it takes the nerve impulse to travel to the brain. Why not replicate a dart gun with poisonous tips and just walk up and down the hall picking off Borg left and right? Why not replicate a little remote control device with such a weapon attached, beam several of them into the Borg Decks, and do the same? (ya know I've been waiting for YEARS for them to build a small tricorder into a phaser, so that when you beam into a room full of Klingons it automatically locks on to all Klingon lifesigns, fires short pulse's that are just long enough to get the job done, and then automatically targets the next person).

Rob Sayer: Just finished watching First Contact (A Spectacular movie I might add), and was floored. It was great to see Worf cringe at the thought of zero-g combat, the holodoc offer skin cream to the borg...and...well, I cant say TOO much, others might not have seen it yet.

Joe Meslovich of Grottoes, VA: Saw the movie last night, thought it was one of the best. But that doesn't mean it was nit free.

When Data fired the quantum torpedoes at the Phoenix, was it just me or where they moving very slow compared to the speed they went in the battle. (Note from Phil: The torpedoes have a dramatic tension speed control.)

Evan Lorentz of Littleton, CO: I hate to make Nits about First Contact. It was great! It showed that Next Gen still has what it takes. And yet, it must be done, of course.

Of course, everyone avoids mentioning that the "aliens" Cochrane is going to meet are Vulcans, so we can have the "astonishing" reveal at the end that I know I for one saw coming from a mile away. But they really carry it a biot too far. Picard talks about Cochrane meeting with the "aliens" in his final log entry. He knows their Vulcans. Isn't it kind of insulting not to call them Vulcans from his 24th century perspective?

The beginning was a little bit rushed. "Captain's Log. The Borg have attacked." And bang, your off and running. And although I can see the good reasons for this choice, a few things could have been better explained. Like why was Worf sent out on the Defiant al by himself? It seems to me you'd send at least Dax and O'Brien as well, because of their expertise in piloting and repairing the ship. And quite probably, you'd send most of the rest of the DS9 crew as well. I know, the cameos would have been expensive, but a scne - even a line or two - explaining where they all are would have been nice.

Nit/Observation: they really missed the boat not having Guinan in this movie. She has an interesting perspective on the Borg, too. And we know from the series that she's a mean shot with a phaser. I would have liked to see her here. Oh well.

Finally, one nit that's hard to forgive: giving the Borg time travel capabilities is a big mistake. "Okay, so we didn't assimilate them this time. Our mistake was marching up to Earth and then launching our timepod in plain sight. Next time, we'll launch the timepod back into the past, and then have it fly to Earth undetected and unopposed!" If the Borg can play around in history any time they want, what keeps *anybody* from being assimilated?

Dan McClintock, Grand Junction, CO: Great movie! However...

I know the producers wanted an action-packed epic and probably cut a lot out of the beginning, but it would have been nice to have a bit of explanation as to what happened in the last TWO YEARS! The most obvious change is Geordi's eyes. From what I've read on the internet, the VISOR's gone because it was a security hazard (as seen in the last movie and several ST:TNG episodes), but tell us that in the movie. I'm hoping when this movie is released on video next year, there will be a director's version with all the cut scenes replaced.

Where was Guinen? She basically explained to us in the TV episodes what the Borg were, you'd think she would be here to help out Picard.

Why is the Enterprise-E more of a military-looking ship? Again, I think more explaination in the beginning of the film would have answered this.

Starfleet not wanting to use their most experienced officer dealing with the Borg? Hogwash! Tactically, the fact Picard knows more about the Borg would outweigh any concerns the military should have about him being re-assimilated. And if they didn't trust him, why give him the most advanced ship in the fleet and keep him away from the fight. Even if the Enterprise were going through a shake-down cruise, as a admiral, I would rather have an untried advanced ship than several smaller tried and true vessels.

Boy, the Neutral Zone and Earth must be real close together. I mean for the Enterprise to get from the Zone to Earth WHILE THE BATTLE IS STILL CONTINUING must mean the new Enterprise has breached the Warp 10 barrier. (Tom Paris will be very dissappointed that he wasn't the first to break the barrier.)

The Borg aren't very good at analyzing their defeats. You'd think that after Picard was rescued in "The Best of Both Worlds," they would change their security protocols. Back then, the Enterprise crew stopped the Borg by exploited a minor computer sub-routine... now six years later, they're stopped by targeting minor ship systems. For a vicious, logical species, they sure ain't very smart.

And, Federation weapons R&D ain't very smart, either. After six years, you'd think they would have developed a phaser rifle with a computer chip that would come up with an infinite combination of phaser frequencies and a ship deflector system that would come up with a infinite combination of shield modulations. After all, isn't that why they built the new Enterprise -- to fight any future conflicts with the Borg? Oh, I forgot, that wasn't mentioned in the beginning of the film, either.

Onward and forward with the nitpicks. During the zero-G battle, Worf's suit should have immediately decompressed and the Klingon turn to a mass of purple exploding goo when his suit was ruptured. (Note from Phil: Actually, people do not explode in space. That's mythical holdover from Total Recall and movie of the same ilk.)

Meanwhile, on the ground, as a technician working on the Phoenix, I would be concerned by all this extra help that just "appears" after the main building is blown up by the Borg. Especially when all of them don't have much of a clue about the time they're "living" in. Slang definitely changes in two hundred years. You'd think "taking a leak" would have survived the centuries as "peeing" has. But then again I forgot we really never see a restroom on any Federation starship.

Anonymous: Okay, this is a great one, at least I think so. When the Borg have Data strapped to the table, and the queen's voice is saying something about how countless billions have been assimilated and he will be no different, Data says something like "You have never encountered a life-form like me before." Excuse me! What about Lore? After all, he used to LEAD the Borg. I would say that qualified as an encounter.

All the people in the compound seemed remarkably calm and accepting when the Vulcans landed. (But then again with all those Enterprise engineers walking around looking like dumb tourists and flapping off at the mouth, maybe they all knew ahead of time, like Cochran did. But then, wasn't that polluting the time-line, and wouldn't it have really changed things if everyone present at first contact knew about it ahead of time?)

Near the end of the movie, for one, Picard is wearing a blue uniform. TNG led us to believe that blue uniforms were for those in medical and science. I think that all the uniform colors were changed, but that is the only instance I can remember off the top of my head.

In 'Descent', weren't the Borg all disunified, because Hugh had introduced individuality to them, so they needed Lore to be their leader and unite them? So who is this Borg queen? She tells Data during the scene where he is strapped to the table that she has been in charge of assimilating billions of beings and countless races, but apparently she has only been in charge of the Borg for a couple of years, if we rely on 'Descent'.

What ever happened to Hugh and his group of radicals?

It's not like Data and the Borg queen can actually DO anything, since we clearly saw that from the shoulders down she is made of what appears to be can openers and other kitchen appliances. (Would you want to ... never mind. Don't even think about it.)

It really does not make sense that Data can now turn his emotion chip on and off at will, when it was such a big deal in 'Generations' that he couldn't.

Does anyone else find it strange that Picard has had the Borg implants in him all these years and it is NEVER mentioned. At the end of 'The Best of Both Worlds' it was implied that Dr. Crusher managed to fix everything. (Note from Phil: I believe that thing with the Borg implant jumping out of his cheek was a bad dream. As to how he heard the Borg . . . who knows?)

Throughout all of Star Trek, the big think has been NOT POLLUTING THE TIME-LINE. So guess what they go ahead and do in this movie. THEY POLLUTE THE TIME LINE! Don't you think they should have been a little more careful? After all, even the littlest change can make a huge difference back in your own time. I really found it unbelievable that the Enterprise crew would be telling Cochran (and maybe the others living in the compound) all that stuff about the future with no qualms, no second thoughts. That was definitely NOT a good idea.

According to TNG, the Enterprise crew think very low of 20th century humans, even those in 'The Neutral Zone' who were from very late in 20th century because they died AFTER the Eugenics wars, which still have not occured and it's 1996. But here they seem to think very highly of Cochran, and presumably all the people from his time. Does roughly 67 years and the fact that one man managed to make a scientific breakthrough really make that much difference as to what kind of people we are?? (Note from Phil: Well . . . he was the guy who invented warp flight.)

Wow ... now the Enterprise has the technology to travel through time? This raises a lot of questions for the future. (Maybe this is where the United Federation Time Ship idea we saw in Voyager started)

Is Data's face, arm, etc, going to have to keep the robot look forever? (Evidently, he didn't have the time to change into something more comfortable.)

Rebecca S. Bare: The first one is when the doctor was giving everyone a hypospray for radiation, she gave hers through her thick coat. I thought it has to be closer to to the skin than that. But, as a friend suggested, maybe the coat needed to be anti-radiated (is that a word?) also.

Another observation. I know little about physics, but it seems that when a spaceship is taking off or landing, it ought to create a lot of wind and dust. The people were standing so close to the ships as they departed and landed, why weren't they blown back ten feet, or at least keeping dirt out of their eyes?

I thought the movie was excellant and I want to see it again!

Rene Charbonneau: I just came back from seeing Star Trek: First Contact and I just loved it. This is indeed the best Trek movie yet. Everything about it was just great. It was action-packed and funny! Anyway, it's nice to see that the programmers actually took the time to make sure that the EMH program has the current uniform...I didn't see any other nits, because I was too busy enjoying the movie. Excellent!

Donald Carlson of Birmingham, AL: There are two kinds of nits regarding ST-FC -- Nits with elements of the plot, and nits within the confines of the plot. Let me explain:

A plot nit is a plot element that in and of itself is a problem. For example -- ten years after global thermonuclear war we are expected to believe that one man, albeit with the help of a very talented and determined woman (and assuming there were other people who helped behind the scenes) could succeed in building and flying a faster-than-light spacecraft. Not a chance, folks. Think of how many thousands of people were needed to design and build, say, the Gemini spacecraft -- a good example because both the Phoenix and Gemini spacecraft used Titan booster rockets. A project like Cochrane's would need a government behind it, or at the very least a consortium of aerospace companies and univerities. Cochrane may be the chief engineer, even the primary designer on the project, but to actually get out there and assemble it himself... then FLY IT? No way. Add on top of it that the primary goal for everyone after a nuclear war is trying stay alive, somehow I think it would take a good deal more than 10 years before anyone would be interested in FTL travel, even if it were invented.

A nit within the confines of the plot? Well, let's consider the Phoenix itself. It uses a Titan missile as a booster. Fine, Titan's are man rated (used in the Gemini program, and were to be used in the later abandoned Air Force space plane program). But Titans would be a 100 year old design in 2063! Titans used in non-military flights are designaed Titan II because of the modifications needed for heavier payloads. Indeed, Titan II's are flown in present day with solid fuel strap-on boosters to be able to kick satellites and heavy probes into high orbit, or be able to kick them into trans-planetary trajectories. The Titan shown in the movie was a military vehicle, designed to lift a relatively light MIRV payload. No way it would have been able to lift something as heavy as the Phoenix.

There's more. Picard explains to Data how he had always wanted to touch this piece of history (an aside -- apparently Washington, DC survives the war because he mentions the Phoenix being in the Smithsonian), but Picard is touching the Phoenix's booster -- not the Pheonix. What Picard is touching fell to earth and burned up and isn't what he saw in the museum.

I can't resist one more -- A Titan missile complex like the one used in FC would certainly be targeted in a nuclear war. It it hadn't, then in all likelyhood the surviving missile would have been used in retaliation. Even assuming no nuclear missle fell on this particular base, and for some reason no retaliation strike was ordered, consider that missile silos such as these are hardened against attack, and that command and control for these missiles are built to withstand a nuclear hit. It is not likely that the bombardment by the Borg would have damaged the missile within the silo, or harmed any personnel in C&C. The blasts hitting the base were knocking down ramshackle buildings, true, but this was flea flatulence compared to what the silos could handle.

One final note --- am I the only one who was shocked that Picard would murder a crew member in cold blood? I'm not talking about Ensign Lynch and the machine gun... I'm talking about the poor dude who was calling to Picard for help only to be blasted by Picard with a phaser! (And don't tell me he was just stunning him, because just before this Picard gives orders to shoot to kill assimilated crewmembers "they'll thank you for it")

Ryan Hunter: This was really a wonderful movie!!! Much better than Generations. I only spotted a couple of nits, having only seen it once and not brought any means of note-taking. Maybe it was just my imagination, but the sickbay on the Enterpise-E looked very similar to the one on Voyager. Then, at one point during the flight of the Phoenix, it is said that they will reach warp in thirty seconds. I immediately started my stopwatch, and I can testify that it was much longer. The only other one I can remember has to do with the holodeck. Why does Picard run the holonovel? Why doesn't he just have the computer generate a machine gun? Think about it: With the safties off, that character could've killed Picard.

Kevin Loughlin: Good movie, not the best but good. Good slew of memorable lines.

Somebody said they noticed the Farragut in the posted nits, and I did too... but on DS9's "Nor the Battle to the Strong" about a month ago, they mention the Farragut was destroyed in a Klingon attack. And I thought they built the new Enterprise really fast...

Somebody else wondered why the Borg stopped assimilating on deck 12, then started going again. In the meantime, their little deflector-dish plan got taken out, so I guess they wanted all of the ship for some reason. (Note from Phil: This really reminded me of the old Jame Bond films where the villians walk off as Bond if slowing being drawn to death. Why don't they ever just kill Bond?! Same thing here! Granted, they just wanted the deflector dish but they have encountered the Enterprise before. Are the Borg so arrogant that they think history won't repeat itself? Or, do they just have poor memories?)

Benjamin Harrel: Dr. Cachrane was'nt the first one to contact with aliens from another planet! Mark Twain met Guinin! and what about the Original episode in greece?!

Daniel B. Case: I loved this! It reminded me how much I miss the daily TNG repeats (not that I mind DS9 at all) because it was so nice to see all these characters back together again. It had everything that made for good TNG episodes, and should establish that TNG can support movies in its own right.

I also liked the cameos by Robert Picardo (the audience where Elizabeth and I were watching it cheered when he was activated) and Ethan Philips.

It dealt with a lot of the things I thought it should ... Picard's lingering feelings about his experience with the Borg (I was borne out in my assumption that the reason he rarely talked about with anybody was that the Borg takeover of himself was not totally involuntary ... that he had to give himself over to them to some extent. Hence the tear. For the same reason I don't find his desire to avenge himself against them too far out of character. It's there, albeit greatly repressed, in "I, Borg"), Data's further development (he seemed still to be the same Data we all know and love), the final question of when in Trek's history did humans first meet aliens for the first time, and gave all our favorite characters something significant to do. The Borg Queen, too, is a clever touch. After all, before Michael Piller came up with the idea of turning Picard into Locutus, they were going to give the Borg a "queen bee." And nothing she said about the Borg or their motivations conflicted with what we've heard before -- in fact, it built on it quite well.

These new uniforms must be made of something pretty tough. The same plasma that burns the Borg's organics to nothing, the plasma that causes the awful burns we saw on people in "Persistence of Vision" (among others) leaves Data's uniform utterly unscathed. (Note from Phil: My nitpicking buddy Tim Strathdee had observed, "Well, of course, it's polyester!")

When we see the flashbacks to Picard as Locutus, he looks not like the TV Borg but the new Borg (and I do have to admit they look even better now). I have to give the creators credit this time around for not waiting nearly thirty years to start the same question with the Borg that they did with the TV/Movie Klingons and "Blood Oath." I respectfully abstain from any future involvement in what is sure to be as equally pointless and raging a debate as the Klingon one. Let's stop it before it starts, people.

I appreciated the homage to 2001 with the AE-35 unit during the deflector dish scene, too (A very well-done scene it was, I should add).

Jim Cadwell of Minneapolis, MNWhen the crew can no longer use their phaser rifles on the Borg, Picard tries to find a way to remodulate the phasers again. Why doesn't the crew just replicate themselves some M-16's? Picard already demonstrated the effectiveness of guns on the Borg on the holodeck.

Erik P. Joramo: I just saw First Contact last night and it was great especially because it took place near my stomping grounds even though it wasn't filmed here. Why they chose montana I have no clue, however there are nuclear missiles in the area. Did you see the name of the holodeck program "The Big Goodbye #12", Picard's first use of Dixon Hill. It should be noted that "The Big Goodbye" was the 12th episode aired assuming that "Encounter at Farpoint"is considered one episode but since it not "the big goodbye"is actually the 13th production episode.

Crystal Schnitzer Well I went an saw the new movie yesterday. I was very good. But I have a couple of questions. IE:

What happened to Lt. Hawk after they get rid of the Borg on the deflector dish? Did he blow away when they went to warp? Or is he still stuck there because of his magnatic boots?

When the Borg Queen died what happened to the rest of the Borg on the ship? Did they jump out of the nearest port hole? Or did they just quit when she did?

Why are there 9billion Borg on Earth when they do the scan when they first go through the time portal? I thought that the Borg only assimulated worlds, not lived on them.

Tony Sheets: With the Encyclopedia info, we are left to believe that the first contact wasn't until 2156 with the Romulan Wars.

Some plots were also somewhat re-used. Such as bringing back an old enemy. First Contact brought back the Borg; ST2: The Wrath of Khan brought back Khan. The Borg went to Earth to prevent the first contact from taking place; V'ger went to Earth in search of its "Creator". A relationship was shown between the Borg Queen and Picard; ST2 showed a relationship between Kirk and Carol Marcus.

Why play the Klingon theme music when showing Worf, when he is dishonored by the Klingon Empire? (Note from Phil: Because it's great music?)

Data and the Borg Queen kissing and have a relationship? First Contact is sci-fi, not romance, Rick Berman. He takes over Star Trek and turns it into a futuristic Gone With the Wind parody.

Overall though, I think First Contact was a pretty good movie with an ok plot and an excellent cast, but could've used some major improvments in some of the characters' dialogue and roles in the movie. And to think, we all thought that Picard would never dream of violating the Prime Directive.

Joe Vasquez of Reynoldsburg, OH and Laura Dachenbach of Gahanna, OH: Just came back from seeing First Contact for the second time - and it only opened yesterday. Please excuse our enthusiasm, but this movie rocked! We would say that this might be the best of the series yet (our humble opinion - this argument could go on forever). But that's not to say we couldn't find anything wrong with it :).

Was that the same Defiant model used in the series? It looked small to us. Maybe it was just the comparison of the Defiant to the Enterprise-E. (Note from Phil: The Defiant is a "little" ship!)

While Worf's team was marching through the corridors, the two crewmembers behind him had their rifles pointed safely at Worf's back.

When Picard is trying to open the door into engineering the first time, the doors slide open sideways. When Data is captured, the door slides up from the bottom. Later, judging by the light, the doors slide open sideways again. I suppose it could have been a different door, but just how many doors into engineering do they need from the same hallway.

Why do Borg need high heat and humidity? I would think that being at least half computer, they would want low heat and humidity. Of course, then Picard would wear a parka, not a tank top to display his newly buff arms. Also, Picard seems awfully comfortable. 39.1 degrees C is about 102 degrees F. Pretty warm in there, especially doing as much physical activity as he was.

Gravity is acting funny. At one point, Picard blasts a Borg off the deflector by shooting a hole in the hull underneath the Borg, and letting the steam push the Borg away. Only later, Picard floats through the steam with no change in trajectory. Also, if you look closely later, the steam floats back 'down' to the deflector dish.

Riker and LaForge show Cochrane the Enterprise through a telescope. First of all, the image is awfully large for the size telescope they were using. It looked smaller than a half meter, which wouldn't produce an image of that size or quality. Unless they were in an extremely low orbit, in which case it would be nearly impossible to track them with a telescope (try tracking an airplane sometime!).

When did Picard gain this psychic connection to the Borg? It never surfaced in 'Descent' or 'I, Borg.'

Data _still_ doesn't have weeks properly calibrated. He says that it was so many years, months, then '16 days' since his last, well... you know.

So is this the end of the Borg? What happened to the 'humanized' Borg of 'Descent'? Did the destruction of the queen affect them too? Were they completely disassociated from the hive? If so, then there are still some - though different - Borg left in the galaxy. (Note from Phil: Wouldn't it be interesting if Voyager meets in the Borg in February and just as Voyager is about to be assimilated, everything stops because the Borg Queen died in this movie. Yeah, I know, she died in the 21st century not the 24th but . . . well . . . you're just thinking "three dimensionally"! Ya know . . . I kind of like this condescending creator attitude. You can explain away a lot of stuff!!)

Roland Saidi of Los Angeles, CA: It was definitely a good movie.

If my memory serves, Data was already captured when they started Auto Destruct yet even the borg queen knew it was on (how???) (ok data may have figured it out but why tell them?)

Toy nit: The Riker figure has a phaser rifle (nice by the way-although Data is not using it in their fist encounter). Riker never used in the film (he and Geordi and Deanna did not know the Borg were aboard).

Another interesting coincidence: 1986-time travel movie to save Earth-directed by actor playing first officer they take a woman from the time aboard the ship. 1996-same as above.

Rene Charbonneau: In "Past Tense, Part 1" (DS9), Sisko says that the Bell Riots were the turning point for our planet which lead to peace and yet First Contact says that, well, first contact with the Vulcans was the turning point.

Priscilla Carson-Lindberg of Trumbull, CT: Why does Worf have the security clearance to self-destruct the ship, when he is no longer a member of the Enterprise crew, but the Strategtic Operations Officer at DS9? (Note from Phil: This has come up several times and I answered it above but it's still being submitted. It's possible that Starfleet computers have access codes for all command-level personnel in Starfleet. it's also possible that the computer made not of the fact that Picard assigned Worf to Tactical but it would have been nice to have a one liner from Picard to the computer stating this.)

Rene Charbonneau: In "The Best of Both Worlds", the Borg actually take the time to remove Picard's uniform before they assimilate him. But, in the movie, when Picard shoots the Borg, Lily sees the uniform and communicator under the borg implants. (Note from Phil: And the Borg from BoBW even fold Picard's uniform neatly and put it in a drawer. Somehow, I can't imagine these movie Borg doing that! They sure have gotten sloppy in the last few years.)

Arthur Baum: When one of the crew members comes onto the bridge to report that his post was attacked by the Borg, he is bleeding, presumably from the attack. If they got to him, why didn't they capture him?

Alex Otis: This is a great movie. A must see. It is a real character developer for Jean-Luc and goes into his time in the collective. I do, however, have many nits and some compliments.

First of all, I loved Geordi's new eyes. Guess no more visors being knocked off. However, I wish they had explained why he got rid of the visor.

Also, Great way to get Worf back on the Enterprise for this mission.

Why can Picard still hear the Borg? Because of little chips inside him. But why are there chips inside him and why are they still there? The asimulations we've seen have all been external plus the brain. If the Borg did put things in him, why didn't Beverly take them out after Best of Both Worlds? Must have anticipated his need for this ability.

Just like Voyager's The Swarm they made an extremely powerful enemy too easy to kill. How many think that IF they meet up with the Borg again, we forget about this tactic.

They got the "need to go back in time" right this time. Unlike in the DS9 episode where Sisko, Bashir, and Dax go back to the Bell riot, The Enterprise has to go back in time to correct the problem of the Borg assimilating the past, unlike the Defiant's crew not needing to do anything to repair the timeline.

Great way of getting Robert Picardo in the movie. Guess he thought since Neelix wouldn't let him on his show, he would tell the Borg what he would have said.

When Picard leads a team through the collective, he says that they won't attack until they feel you're a threat. If you were taking over a ship, wouldn't you consider all of its crewman a threat right of the bat? Only the Federation ships like being taken over.

Lilly sees Worf and is frightened. Worf says, "I'm a Klingon." Lilly isn't frightened anymore. Why?? How would she know what a Klingon is? Did she watch Star Trek?

Boy that "Redshirt" was assimilated quickly. They didn't even take off his suit. Do they have a 5 minute assimilation drive-thru on the hull?

Why can Data experience physical pain? He clasps his flesh when it is cut and cringes. There is no reason Dr. Soong would have included this in the Emotion chip. Since he can't be harmed in any way that would be painful, why would it be included? (Note from Phil: Maybe it's a new sensation because of the skin?)

Why did the Queen or Picard think that Data would destroy the Phoenix? I didn't. He would be commiting suicide if he did so. The Borg would assimulate the Earth, Noonian Soong wouldn't be born, so neither would Data. He would disappear. But this gets into Temperal Mechanics and paralel universes.

Can we meet up with the Borg again? Data killed "the one who is many" and all the Borg on the ship died. You can assume that this affected the entire Borg collective, excluding Hugh's group, since she says that she is collected to all of them. (Note from Phil: But she evidently died on the Borg ship that tried to conquer Earth in "The Best of Both Worlds, Part 2" and she survived. Must be something to do with our stunted "three-dimensional" thinking!)

The scene with Cochron introducing the Vulcans to Earth liquor and Rock & Roll was cute.

Now that the Geordi knows how to create the vortex, the Federation can time travel. How much do you bet that they forget this by the next movie.

Best Line: "Ahab must have his whale." Lilly says this to Picard after he refuses to Self-Destruct the ship.

"There are many more letters in the Alphabet." Picard replies this when asked if he thinks there will be another Enterprise.

Frank D. Dorman: I would hate to be in that room that Picard showed Lisa, the one with the view of Earth. One wrong move and you'd be dead, floating in space.

This is kinda hard to catch, but when Picard was taking Lisa down the hall amongst the Borg, the last one they encountered kinda got in their way. If you listen carefully, it sounded like the Borg's Servo made a sound like "Sorry"!

So this Enterprise is smaller? Picard told Lisa that the Enterprise-E had 24 decks. The Enterprise-D had 42 decks. A mix up? (Note from Phil: Meaner, leaner Starfleet?)

Why would there be methane gas in the atmosphere of the Borgified Earth? How and why would the Borg use Methane? (Note from Phil: Two possibilities. Either this was intended to show the villany of the Borg by destroying the environment so only pollutants were left or the Borg have a really bad diet which gives them lots of gas.)

Ryan Kramer of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.: I just saw FC, and WOW!!!!! But what can I say that hasn't been said already? So, I'll just get to my observations.

OK, so Data releases the coolant into engineering, and the Borg queen gets fried. So, how is she still alive and twitching (love that spine) a few minutes later? I think I remember a line of dialogue saying that the Borg cannot survive without their biological components, this being the reason they release the coolant in the first place.

Fine, I'll assume that the Borg queen has some kind of enclosed power source in her modular torso that can keep her alive after she dissolves. But, is it located at the very tip of the spine? Picard snaps the fragile, handle with care spine, and the queen is out like a light. Wouldn't it make more sense to keep this hypothetical power source inside the "skull" where it would be more protected? (I can just see Picard beating the skull on the decking, shouting "Die! Die!")

Great line: "You broke your little ship." I could see Picard thinking about how he would never again let Deanna take the helm.

Lee Lorenz: GREAT MOVIE: Audiences will be assimilated!

The EMH must have access to Dr. McCoy's great book, 1001 McCoyisms: "I'm a doctor, not a doorstop!"

Nice mention of the Borg's origin, Delta Quadrant. I am Janeway of Borg, Let's all hold hands and think about assimilation!

Now, the nits:

They also assimilated the Hellraiser bunch... gotta love those "hooks" in the Queens flesh.

Of course, the only part of the ship's computer they had to encrypt was the Invader Friendly Operating System- but kidding aside, how does the crew know how to get through the "fractal encryption?" Did they memorize some key? Does it constantly change? Why wouldn't an assimilated crew member give up the codes?

Whoa... Six-million Dollar Man flashbacks with *ALL THOSE* close-ups of Geordi's implants. ENOUGH ALREADY. They were almost as bad as Picard's Drill-in-the-eye bit!

What were the Enterprise models made of? Gold covered STYROFOAM? They broke pretty easily!

Anti-nits: Assimilating someone in a spacesuit would be easy with the nanite technology. Drill into the suit, inject the Borg nanites and BINGO! Borg implants start forming (Granted, I'm making a *BIG* assumption with the "Nanite Assimilation Theory" but is explains ALOT, including changes in the Borg from 6 years ago, and the new assimilation techniques)

Cochrane wasn't 33 when he invented the Warp drive, but consider what his PR firm would do for him in the next ten years, as well as the fog of 300+ years of legendary status. The crew didn't even recognize him, even though they've erected idealized statues of him. Would we *REALLY* recognize George Washington? William Shakespear?

The Borg OBVIOUSLY didn't transport over to the Enterprise until the sphere was targeted for destruction over 21st century Earth.

I get the feeling the Borg Queen is not really "known" to the collective. She seems to be the "controller" of the Borg collective. I envision some female scientist, scorned by her colleagues, with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, regarding "order and chaos" developing the "borg" technology and its ability to "assimilate" others; then turning on her own race. She becomes immortal, directing the Borg to her will. The only solution to going back into time REQUIRED sending the "controller" personally, to insure things got done, while the Borg back in the 24th Century went on automatic.

Samuel Lawrence of Ann Arbor, MI: I've seen the movie twice now. All I can say is, WOW!! With the FX,the story, the acting(especially Patrick Stewart's), the beautiful new Enterprise, the satisfying ending, and the wonderful music score, I think that this film is clearly the best film since STII, and is the eaisiest for the uninitiated moviegoer to understand since The Voyage Home. Unfortunately, it wouldn't be a Star Trek movie without major nits and continuity errors.

I had no major problems with the plot this time around. Unlike the slightly contrived Nexus in Generations, the time travel aspect made quite a bit of sense. Now, if they hadn't shown the Borgified World, we'd have really been screaming. My only complaint is that the deluge of time travel stories on ST(that horrendous Voyager episode in particular) really detracted from the suspense of this film. Obviously, somebody forgot that people who go to Star Trek movies watch Star Trek on television. Putting all of these episodes on at the same time, in the same year, was a really bad move.

Much confusion about the opening space battle. Personally, I felt underwhelmed, mainly because they put the whole battle in the trailer! Also, just how did the battle get to Earth? Weren't they supposed to mass at the Typhon sector? Did they fight a running battle? This is never made clear.

Data says that the coordinates they target don't seem to be important. To this Picard says "trust me," but never gets around to explaining just why that worked.

Okay, the E-E is the newest, most advanced ship in Starfleet, which was (presumably) designed with the Borg threat in mind. It can also get from the Neutral Zone to Earth in three hours, according to Riker. It is highly illogical to keep the Flagship out of the battle.

Okay, nobody wants to see this crew broken up, but... -by now, Riker should be a Captain. In real life, this would be the death of his career. On the other hand, one could argue that this is the result of the events in "The Pegasus," after which Riker apparently faced some sort of disciplinary action. Data should have gotten a promotion by now. He's been in Starfleet for almost twenty years, right?(does anyone know the exact number?)He's been an Lieutenant-Commander for almost eight years. He should be a commander. On the other hand, I've noticed that the long-lived species seem to get promoted slower than the short lived species do (Vulcans and Trills come to mind.) Some kind of time-delay promotion system, perhaps?

They spelled Zefrem Cochrane's name wrong in the credits I saw here in Michigan...In the Chronology and Encyclopedia, his last name is spelled Cochrane. In the credits, its spelled Cochran. Somebody goofed.

The slow acceleration of the Phoenix didn't bother me a whole lot...It was, after all, the first warp flight, and the technology isn't as advanced as the Enterprise's. Its true that the technical manuals say that warp speed is instaneous, but when they acutally reached the speed of light, they snapped into warp, so the transisition was instantaneous. (Note from Phil: I think the problem is propelling an object up to the speed of light using conventional means. According to Einstein, the energy output would be infinite.)

After almost twenty seconds at warp, they'd be a LOT farther away from Earth than they are. By my admittedly rough calculations, I don't think our lovely planet would be as large as it was.

Some nitpickers have pointed out that Farpoint episode establishes that the Post-Atomic Horror is still going out in 2079, some sixteen years after First Contact. In this case, they were traped within two separate dates. I believe that the chronolgy establishes the fact that the formation of the Federation occurs "a century" after first contact. In a different episode, the founding date of 2161 was established. The 2063 makes sense, then. The creator were trapped by their own backstory. However, one supposes that the news of First Contact probably didn't travel very fast in the atomic wastelands. It might have taken a good deal of time to finally pacify the planet, too. Remember that one of the effects of a nuclear strike is a disruption of atmospheric EM transmissions.

A nuclear war that killed 600 million people apparently left the Golden Gate bridge, the Eiffel tower, and the Smithsonian Instituition relatively untouched. The nukes of the future must not work very well, or were fired by idiots, or maybe both.

The time travel was a little too easy. Just what is a chroniton, anyway? How did our heoric crew figure out how to use them so quickly? Why didn't they slingshot around the sun to get home, like Kirk and Co. did in STIV? Wouldn't that be eaiser to control then a "Temporal Vortex created by chroniton particles" (Note from Phil: Perhaps, perhaps not!)

So, let's see, Picard violated a direct order. Gee, I wonder if he's going to get off scot free? Is there a "If he commits a court-martial offense but saves the universe we acquit?" rule?

The Titan II entered service in the early sixties. It was mothballed at the end of the 1970's. I don't think that we've built any since then. So, Cochrane is using a launch vehicle almost a century old...and it works. The USAF is sure getting good PR from this one, that's for sure. One also wonders where they found the missile, if it's a century old. I'd think that an antique, scrapped missile would be more diffucult to find than the titanium used to build the thing.

NASA clears all people almost a mile away from launches these days. The sixties weren't any different. The Titan/Phoenix would have leveled the town and everybody's ears would have been seriously damaged.

Another Phoenix nit: OK, they had to speed up to warp speed. Presumably, they used an impulse drive for this. Impulse drives are powerful. Why did they need the Titan, then? They could have just launched the Phoenix using the impulse drive.

A question for the fellow nitpickers: Isn't there an episode of TOS where Cochrane's warp ship is called the Bonaventure? (Note from Phil: Note that I know of. Cochrane only appears in "Metmorphosis.")

The design of the Vulcan ship is very interesting. For one thing, it's completely unareodynamic. In addition, in STIV, the Bounty creates a miniature hurricane in that park when they land and leave. Presumably, they're on impulse doing that manuver in STIV; the Vulcans are presumbably running on impulse. So, where is the sand storm?

Another thing, was I the only one reminded of Close Encounters by that scene?

Did anyone else find it odd that Troi gets so plastered she collapses but is running the mose important event of human history without any ill-effects three scenes later?(oops, wrong button...KABOOM!) Another nit that could have been prevented with one line of dialogue where Troi is given a cure for it.

Until the dish floated off, they left us with no clue as what Picard, Work, and Hawke were doing. I was really confused by that part. We have a name for this...it's called "bad editing" (Note from Phil: For some reason, This didn't bother me. I figured out what they where doing as soon as Picard said they had to release all three magnectic interlocks.

Ummm....in that part where Stewart goes flying, he's OBVIOUSLY on a harness. (Note from Phil: Zero-G is tough!)

If the Starfleet channel they dial into is a command channel, no wonder the fleet gets smoked...their communcatins channels are so hopelessly garbled that no one can finish a sentence, except for the Borg.

Speaking of sickbay, when the Borg are threatening, and Crusher and Co. vacate the premises. The Borg pound on the door, making for a very tense scene. That's nice, but why don't the Borg just cut thorugh the door?

The Borg seemed more threatening without the Queen than with her. Not a nit, just an observation.

That's just about it...the other nitpickers seem to have discovered all of the others. The machine gun comes to mind; so does the wonderful Ahab scene with the unbroken/broken Enterprises.

On the whole, though, all of my friends and I really enjoyed this movie. If the quality trend continues, and Star Trek 9 is better than this movie, than I think we're all in for quite a ride. Star Trek is back.

Daniel B. Case: Here are some for changed premises:

Riker tells Cochrane that the moon is quite populous in his time and has a lake that can be seen from Earth. This would imply that it has somehow been terraformed. Well, back in "Conspiracy," we saw the Enterprise fly over the Moon on its way back to Earth, and there didn't seem to be an atmosphere at all. And likewise, in "Time's Arrow," we saw the Enterprise in Earth orbit with the moon in the background, and it still looked pretty much the same to me as it does now.

Re the Borg's adjusting the environment to make it more to their liking. Disregarding entirely the question of whether or not a warm and humid atmosphere is suitable for all that circuitry, doesn't some dialogue or something in "Q Who?" suggest that the Borg ship is cooler than normal? (which would make sense to me, as their mechanical elements would probably be capable of keeping their organic tissues at a reasonable operating temperature). (Note from Phil: I can't think of anything. But, on the other hand, Riker and company certainly didn't seem overheated when they visited the Borg ship in "Q Who."

Really grungy nitpicking time. "Future's End" told us that most of Southern California sank under the seas in the 2047 Earthquake, yet here the West Coast is intact.

I'm not surprised that the sensors can detect 9 billion Borg on Earth -- after their previous experiences with the Borg, they probably modified the sensors to pick up the Borg readings. And the change in atmosphere might be explained by the Borg's industrializing efforts -- I doubt very much that, if their implants can, as Beverly said in "I, Borg" synthesize whatever their biological tissues require, they need a reasonably clean atmosphere to breathe (which also explains to me why they wouldn't need any sort of apparatus in space to breathe, and perhaps their skin alterations keep it from drying. Also, review the comments on this issue and the associated link to the sci.space FAQ in the "Deadlock" review. The lack of pressure in space does not necessarily mean you will explode like the people do in Outland).

However, don't other episodes show the Borg as simply scooping cities off planets and abandoning them, rather than converting the planets into really big Borg ships? Borg Earth should have a very ravaged, but abandoned, surface, like the Neutral Zone planets and Jouret IV. But perhaps the Borg do occasionally make use of planets in this fashion. (Note from Phil: But they only do it to planets that they really, really like. And, of course, we qualified.)

And isn't it nice that, with the Borg fast approaching the bridge and the situation seeming desperate, Picard and Lily take the time to have a nice, dramatic, glass-breaking shouting match in his ready room? Wouldn't you think that deciding what to do would take top priority over working out Picard's personal Borg problem?

In that scene, Lily refers back to the Dixon Hill scene and uses the word "holodeck." Yet we didn't see or hear Picard refer to it as such (although he could have explained it to her and used the word off-camera). (Note from Phil: Or she could have read it off the holodeck door.)

And as for the machine guns working to kill the Borg, I'm not surprised at all. Perhaps a) their personal shields are adapted specifically to directed-energy weapons, and b) they never expected projectile weapon attacks (In fact, I'm surprised Starfleet didn't think about this. When the Borg have adapted to the phasers, just replicate a couple of shotguns or something. They won't be expecting that).

Also, check the display that Picard selects the Dixon Hill program from. I believe it lists some of the many other holodeck programs he's participated in over the years ... I only caught the cafe from "We'll Always Have Paris.")

And why couldn't they have done something to de-assimilate assimilated crewmembers after the battle? Picard was rescued, after all. Do the expendable redshirts not get the chance because they're not series regulars?

Also, unlike "The Best of Both Worlds," we don't see Borgs remove the little things from fallen Borg that make them disappear. No time, perhaps?

As for the Borg ignoring people, I think they respond only to immediate threats. When Picard, Worf and Hawke approach the deflector dish, the Borg ignore them until they figure out what they're trying to do. (BTW, one of the Borg in that scene looked a lot like Brian Thompson, the alien bounty hunter in "The X Files" and a Klingon, Jem'Hadar and Dozai in various Treks. Yet he's not credited, if it's him).

And when the EMH has to hold off the Borg, why don't they just scan him the way they scan Ethan Philips later on? Shouldn't they be made to waste some time deciding if he's a hologram or not?

Now, some nits with the Earthbound plot (Great line: "I'll leave you three alone for now" - Deanna, to Picard and Geordi fondling the Phoenix).

At the end, when the Vulcans land like something out of Close Encounters, Picard says it's time to make a discreet exit. Yet the crew beams up later in full view of anyone watching from the shacks.

And speaking of them, the whole crowd around the Vulcan ship seems to disappear awful fast so that no one's around a few minutes later when Picard and Lily say goodbye. (It could be a lot later, but the editing makes it seem like the two scenes follow right upon each other).

Also, I wonder what any of Cochrane's associates think of their boss's really retro taste in music. Granted, "Magic Carpet Ride" is as inspired a choice as any for music to play as you go into warp, but, by Cochrane's time, it's almost a century old. It'd be like Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins singing old sailing songs as they approached the moon (But for all I know, maybe they did).

The Vulcan greets Cochrane with "Live long and prosper." Isn't that usually said at a parting, rather than a meeting? (Note from Phil: Sarek says to Picard upon coming on the Enterprise in "Sarek," "We come to serve," but I can't remember what Sarek says to Kirk after boarding the original Enterprise in "Journey to Babel.")

In addition to all the comments about why no one on Earth detects either the Enterprise or the Borg, I also wonder why there seems to be no human presence in space in this time. I know that it's after a major nuclear devastation (and if anyone finds the 2079 date for the trials in "Encounter at Farpoint" confusing, that's the trials, not the actual war. We have tried people for war crimes in World War II within the last five years, almost half a century after the end of the war). But even today we have plenty of things in orbit, and some of them are manned. There's no space stations? moon bases? Mars colonies? (I mean, what about Captain Christopher's mission to Titan, which would have to have been in the early 21st century). You'd think that a 21st-century society would have at least done some of these things, nuclear wars notwithstanding.

Oh, BTW, did you find the sheepdogs running around Cochrane's camp in the first shot to be as clever an in-joke as I did? (Think Babe).

And also, Data's exact accounting of how much time it had been since his encounter with Tasha reminded me a bit of the Smiths' song "Never Had No One Ever," which features a similar accounting.

Having the Borg use the deflector dish as a signaling device was a nice ironic touch, too, given its attempted use against them in "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II."

All in all, a very good movie with many good scenes that makes me look forward to the next movie and whether or not it can beat the even-odd hex (which, interestingly enough, applies to Spike Lee movies when reversed). I'm looking forward to seeing this cast in their native time period, especially.

And I do want to see this one again and would pay to see it at the theater (yes, Paramount, you listening?). Always a good sign.

Nathan Hurst of Miami, FL: When Picard and Worf get done blowing up the Navigational Deflecotor (I guess it isnt THAt essential to ship flight..) they pop up on to the bridge and this creman security guy is there with a bleeding forehead. late in the scene, Lilly goes to talk to Picard (approacing a door which read the script by the way) and after the wonderful Ahab talk, we see the same crewman again, with his head cut. Why didn't Crusher tend to his wound?

When Picard sends lilly off into the lifeboat, he hands her a PADD and tells her to give it to a member of his crew. What about the people getting into the escape pods behind her...aren't they crew members?

Speaking of crew,....this next nit has to be credited to David Rubel of Pembroke Pines FL. WHERE is the Enterpirse E crew? the ship is practially empty!

Why do the borg consider sickbay a critical item but not the bridge?

When Data smashes the plasma coolant tube, why does it still glow green? Tthe gas wasnt green anyway, kind of browinsh yellow.

Why are the Quantum torpedoes so slow? They fire and like 30 seconds later they miss a shp that was not that far away.

Kudos to the creators: When Cochrane does his countdown, the timing is correct....no misses.

Cute scene: At the very end, when Cochrane is drinking tequila with the Vulcans, he begins to play Rock n roll. The Vulcan stands up, startled. Cochrane shows him that is entertainment, and the Vulcan immediately sits down and..reaches for a drink!!!! Logical? No. Cute? yes.

Brian Spangler of Philadelphia, PA: I just got done seeing "First Contact" and it was *GREAT*! Possibly the best Trek movie! I'm definitely seeing this several times! It definitely deserves all these exclamation marks!

This item I'm a little hesitant to mention but it came up a afew times in THG and again in this movie, so I might as well mention it. In the film, Picard mentions that money doesn't exist anymore and people work for the common good of mankind. I find it very hard to believe that people wouldn't work for money. I don't want to make too many asumptions about our chief nitpicker, but I can't believe you just collect and disseminate these nits on the Web for the common good. I'm assuming all the work you do with the nits is mostly to sell books and make money. The website is just a sideline or, to be blunt, an advertisement. If it weren't, you would have all the nits available freely on the web or elsewhere and you would have no books printed. Everyone works to get some sort of recognition, ususally money. Apparently, on the Enterprise, crewman and officers have the same size quarters, the only difference is the stress of the higher ranking job. Since they don't have money, where's the incentive to get promoted? If you were given the same reward whether or not you worked hard, which would you choose? I'm not an expert in political structures so I'm very scared to put a label on the society that Picard describes. I might be wrong but I think he's describing communism or socialism (I'm not sure which). Is this really the society that Star Trek is promoting? It kind of scares me a little to think of it and I'd like to have it disproven. I've even e-mailed a longer version of this to the "Ask the Chief" column because I'd like to read the discussion. (Note from Phil: The "no-money" thing doesn't wash for me either but we'll deal with it more in depth in "Ask the Chief.")

11/25/96 Update Matt Nelson: First off, I gotta say, GREAT MOVIE! Very exciting! I'll probably look for more nits when I see it a second time, but a thing or two I noticed first off..

To whoever said that Worf shouldn't have been able to plug his spacesuit with a severed Borg hand.. Well, if you look close, he's tied it tightly around his leg, not just plugged it up. However I do agree that he is gonna have a really uncomfortable case of frostbite.

Another nit I'm gonna explain away.. Someone mentioned that Hawke seems kinda wimpy when he can't pull up the maglock control immediately. Well, we do see Picard take a little while with his, too, so I think we're a little prejudiced because we see Worf do his quickly. After all, Worf is a Klingon...

Nice Touches: We see a couple non-human/humanoid Borgs here! Once in Engineering, we see one of those blue guys with the seam down their faces as a Borg; also, one of the Borg on the saucer section appears to be a Klingon! Look at the one who comes after Worf (I -THINK- it's that one.) He has brow ridges! Granted, he could be Kazon.. But then we see the Borg fashion sense come into play.. Goodbye to that dumb-lookin hair! =)

Lotsa great lines! "The reports of my assimilation have been greatly exaggerated.."

Finally, to the NITS! The Borg Queen says that Picard is thinking too three-dimensionally when he assumed that she was destroyed on his ship. Perhaps the Borg Queen resides on the homeworld, and her one of her is, like the borg, everywhere in the collective? That way, the only way the borg could really be destroyed would be by destroying the home planet. Is it just me, or could those Borg that went floating off into space come back to haunt them? They're not dead...

It looked cool, but how is Worf hiding that knife? Shouldn't his shirt be sealed to his pants? It looked like he was pulling the knife out from under it!

Very early in the movie, Picard orders 21st century clothing from the computer. Yet we never see how they get it, WHERE he's ordering it from, or anything! What's the computer doing, dressing them in the turbolift? (Hmm.. Didn't Picard get into that lift with Troi and Crusher...?)

Why doesn't Counselor Troi know what tequila is? Isn't there a synthehol version?

In one scene, Crusher refers to herself as "Commander". This may indeed be her rank, but don't doctors usually refer to themselves using their medical title?

Kevin Rudolph, Medical Lake, WA: Why doen't the Picard's spacesuit say something when his faceplate gets cracked?

The fleet has been pounding away at the Borg for a little while before E-E comes in. Why haven't they adapted yet? A lil slow on the uptake? And for that matter, since the sphere is INSIDE the cube, why isn't it adapted to E-E's quantum torpedoes?

How did they get back all those escape pods? That mission might take awhile; you have to assume that some of the crew at least has already left their pods and started trying to "blend in". (Note from Phil: Several other nitpickers have wondered about this. However, we need to remember that Picard started a fifteen minute countdown and then evacuated the ship. Since the countdown is stopped and Data destroyed the Borg shortly afterward, there really hasn't been that much time between the launch of the escape pods and their callback.)

If they want to beam out "discreetly" shouldn't they hide or something? They appear to be standing near the big crowd. SOMEbody might notice!

The Vulcan ears look bigger.

Great Moments: Picard realizing that he is like Captain Ahab and quoting Moby Dick.

Peter Nelson, Spokane, WA: Since Zephram Cochrane has been introduced to Picard and crew in connection with a starship named Enterprise, mightn't he have said something like "So where's Picard and Riker?" when he met up with Kirk later? (Note from Phil: Ah the story-telling perils of time travel!)

Jeff Carpenter of Springfield VA: When Geordi zoomed way in on Cochrane, why was he able to just glance at Riker without getting an extreame close up of his nose? His eyes didn't seem to adjust that quickly.

I just have to note that Picard must have been broiling with all those layers of clothes on.

I believe that Data's time of 8 yrs. something something deserves to be worked out. The experience he was talking about was on Stardate 41209.2. This movie is about Stardate 50-three somethings. It should be more like nine yrs.

Will A. Phillips: First, my Un-nits.

The creators done themselves good by making this movie take place LATER than the current events on the show. When Picard makes a log entry at the beginning of the movie, it's Stardate 508XX.X. We are currently up to 503XX.X in Voyager and DS9, so DS9 has 6 months Star Trek time to get new uniforms and then we should possibly get the Defiant back at the beginning of the new season (The 51000s, maybe.) I have to warn you, I am going to start ranting if Voyager decides to switch uniforms on us. I betcha that they are going to do an episode of Voyager where they get back to Earth in the 24th century, and they tell everyone where they are. Starfleet Command says to them, "Oh, by the way, even though you're going back to the Delta quadrant in a few minutes because we have to keep the show running, we have new uniforms. Here's the design. Have fun!" Then they promptly get zapped to the Delta Quadrant again.

Now my nit.

One of the models Picard smashes, (You know, 'You broke your little ships.') is an AMT model of the Enterprise-D, only it's gold-plated. I can tell because it broke in exactly the same places my model of the E-D has broken. (One of the Warp Nacelles, and the point where the 'neck' and the Battle Hull meet.)

Alan G. Labouseur: How does the Enterprise beam over the Defiant crew when their shields are up? One may argue that it's a new feature of the E-E, but I would point out to one that Picard implies that this is not the case when he explains that the Borg could have transported over since their shields were down.

Also... When Picard breaks the glass front of the Enterprise display case in the Observation Lounge, one of the model ships hits the table and breaks. However, there are still six ships still hanging. Six hanging plus one broken equals seven total starships. But there are only six. Humm.... (Note from Phil: I think that the pieces on the bottom of the case actually come from two ships. If I remember the saucer comes from the Enterprise-C and the stardrive section comes from the Enterprise-D.)

Rene Charbonneau: Well, it seems that the time-travel methods of the 24rth Century are more advanced than the timetravel methods of the 29th Century. At the end of the movie, the Enterprise-E seems to open a temporal vortex with ease...a small poratl at that. Yet, in the Voyager episode "Future's End", the timeship opens a portal so large, that if the temporal matrix is not calibrated right, it could cause a massive explosion, so massive that it could destroy the solar system....

Murray Leeder: I have a theory. There's a courtmartial hearing every time a ship is lost, right? Well, at the hearing for the Enterprise-D, they discovered that Dr. Crusher was responsible for the destruction of the ship (Phil, I heard you explain that a VulCon--very astute). So, as punishment, they made her dye her hair blond! (Note from Phil: Murray is referring to my contention that if Crusher hadn't gotten all bent out of shape because Data pushed her in the water then Data wouldn't have installed that emotion chip and La Forge wouldn't have been captured and the Duras sisters wouldn't have known the shield modulation frequencies for the Enterprise!)

With the Defiant off fighting the Borg, I certainly hope that the Dominion didn't take this opportunity to stage an invasion! (Note from Phil: Have no fear! The Dominion seem content to attack during sweeps months and at the end of seasons. Of course with a stardate of 508xx, that would be just about February!)

Actually, Cochrane was established in "Metamorphisis" as being "of Alpha Centauri" by Spock, no less. The only explanation I can think of is that in his later years, he moved to Alpha Centauri. (Note from Phil: I'd have to recheck the tape but didn't Cochrane make some statement about how good it would be to get back to Earth in "Metamophosis"? It's been too long since I've seen the episode!)

Actually, there's a good deal of precedent that the Neutral Zone is relatively close to Earth. After all, we know that there are a number of low numbered Starbases located nearby, and Earth did carry on a war with the Rommies pre-Federation!

[Concerning Picard's (non)memory of the Borg Queen,] as I said, Picard is human and the human mind tends to interpret odd things in whatever way it can. Also, memory of a traumatic period is often compromised. So, even though Picard just contacted the Queen over the Collective, his mind interpreted it as her being right next to him. Here's a theory of mind, given that the Queen is necessary for maintaining the Collective. The Borg Queen in the 24th century is planning to send her party back in time. Knowing that they will need her personal touch to stay in line, she clones herself and sends the other one back in time. Ba-da-bing, ba-da-boom, even though one Queen is killed, they other is still lurking out there for the sequels! You'd think the Borg could come up with a better place for the center of operations than engineering.

I don't know about plasma dymanics, but I'd guess it would rise, being hot...

Just one more thought on the timeline thing: In Timeline B, the sphere wouldn't have been blown up. Maybe it also had a transmitter on it which would contact the Borg in the past.

One last note: Just saw Siskel and Ebert, and they gave the film two thumbs up! Ebert comments that it concerns the two basic premises of all Star Trek (the films in particular): the point where the past becomes history, and the point where human becomes not human. Interesting perspective.

Christopher Pope: Only one problem with the title: The creators have already used it (TNG 4th season). But it's better than "Star Trek: The Next Motion Picture."

The day before the First Contact release, I read that Paramount was trying to establish a break from the other movies. But we have the Moby Dick theme from Star Trek II, autodestruct from III, time travel from IV, music from V (minus the string slide), and Data's comment regarding Starfleet orders models Spock's line in Trek VI and Sisko's actions throughout DS9.

Why doesn't the new Enterprise use bioneural technology?

Last season, Worf expressed discontent with his DS9 assignment. Wonder why he doesn't transfer to the Enterprise?

After the way the Borg took out the Melbourne at Wolf 359, I'd think they could have been a little more thorough in their attack on Cochrane. (Yes, the ship was destroyed in the middle of the attack, but a good antimatter explosion could have taken out the whole area.

I suppose I should point out that once again, the Enterprise is the only Federation ship in the Sol system. Of course, since it's the 21st century, it's not a nit.

Actually, the theory that the Companion changed Cochrane's body makes a lot of sense; he was 87 when he met her, and he sure doesn't look 87 in "Metamorphosis."

Did the Borg beam all their equipment into the cargo bays?

The Borg control the Enterprise's weapons. Why don't they use them to fire on Cochrane's camp? If they destroy Cochrane or his ship, their mission will be complete even if they don't assimilate the Enterprise.

If the Borg are so adaptive, why do they still ignore those who are not obviously a threat? This has caused them trouble before. (On that note, they seem to have an interesting definition of "threat." If someone pointed a phaser at me and yelled, "Drop your weapons," I'd consider that a threat.)

As close as you can get to the Borg without being noticed, it'd probably be a good idea to throw grenades or something; you could take out more than one at a time, which is an obvious advantage when they adapt so quickly.

Does Picard have a synthetic forearm? We see a woman being assimilated, and hers is removed to make room for the mechanical piece.

A thought regarding Troi's having to drink with Cochrane: Where's Scotty when you need him?

Geordi says he wishes he had a "picture" of Cochrane. Wouldn't this be a hologram? On that note, I wonder if Geordi's eyes are capable of storing images for later retrieval?

According to the Tech Manual, Cochrane sent up an unmanned test vehicle in 2061, the first vehicle to maintain a velocity equal to the speed of light. Shouldn't Cochrane already be sort of famous for this? (Maybe he didn't report it, but I doubt you could launch a vehicle into space without anyone noticing--especially in an era marked by nuclear war.)

Why rough up the holodeck characters? How are they a threat? (Note from Phil: Maybe the Borg were simply confused?)

The navigational deflector has proven very useful in the past. So why do they speak of it as a relatively non-tactical part of the ship? As many uses as the Enterprise crew has found for the deflector, who knows what the Borg could do with it?

When the Borg Queen asks Data how long it's "been," his response, subtracted from the stardate, brings us to early in TNG's second season. This is about a year after the incident with Tasha Yar. Apparently, there are a lot of things we don't know about Data.

Trivia!!! I believe this is the first time the captain's log is prefaced with a calendar date.

The creators have passed up yet another opportunity to introduce Borg Tribbles. (The Making of DS9 informs us that Herman Zimmerman created a Borg Tribble that now resides in the art department. But it can't be mass produced unless it appears on the screen.)

They never did explain how the Borg beamed aboard without being detected.

Abe Chomali: First off, I expected the movie to be alot better. The battle scenes seemed VERY BRIEF! Anyways on to the nits:

When Data and Picard are feeling the outer hull of the Phoenix, Deanna comes from above and says something like "What are you three still doing here?" As far as I see, it's Picard and Data. Who is the third person? (Note from Phil: I think that was the joke. The "three" are Picard, Data and the Pheonix.)

The ending of the movie showing the people in the forest fading in the night sky, is very similar to the ending of star trek V:the final frontier.

This movie contains more profanity then all seven movies combined. Lily says bullsh** twice; and calls Picard a son of a bitch!

Data is a machine, but when he jumps to stop Lily in the missle silo; shouldnt he have been damaged? (Note from Phil: He's just that strong!)

The Borg ship seems to be immense in comparison to the starfleet vessels. So when it explodes, I would have expected it to damage the starfleet vessels in the immediate vicinity. (Note from Phil: If I recall correctly, there is a Starfleet vessel destroyed in the explosion. Seems like it was in the upper left hand portion of the screen and I remember thinking it was a nice touch.

Supposedly this ship is bigger than the enterprise-D; yet it has 24 decks compared to E-d which had 42 decks. And the size of the decks appears to be the same. (Note from Phil: I don't recall anywhere that the dialogue claimed the E was bigger than the D.)

Dave Kehler of Winnipeg, Manitoba: Yes, I too enjoyed this movie. Nothing like a Star Trek premier with the audience cheering at all the good parts as if it was a hockey game!

Here's what I noticed:

Doctor Crusher's hairstyle seemingly changes from down when she's on the Enterprise to up on Earth and back down after beaming up again.

What possible reason could there be to have those external mag-lock release control on the deflector array other than an excuse to use them as a plot device? (Note from Phil: Wouldn't want to put them inside the ship now would we?) The zero-g scenes were pretty cool though. The look on Worf's face after Picard asks him if he remembered his zero-g combat training and he realizes what Picard is planning was priceless!

Zefram Cochrane sure seems different than the one Kirk and the others meet in TOS. I actually liked the way the novel "Federation" explained the eugenics wars, Cochrane and many other loose ends in Star Trek's history better than this movie.

And if the Vulcans had universal translator technology, then Cochrane should not have had to have it explained to him by Kirk.

Very corny line: "So you guys are astronauts on some sorta star trek?" That was pretty dumb. Q's "It's time to put an end to your little *trek* through the stars", from "All Good Things" was much better.

The line I liked the best was when Picard said, "Plenty more letters in the alphabet", when asked if he thought there would be another Enterprise.

Christopher Patton: First of all, let me say that I thought it was the best trek film yet. If you haven't seen it yet, drop everything and go. You'll love it.

While disrupting the Borg's plans to build a transmitter type device on the main deflector dish, Worf gets a tear in his space suit. The warning system says he has forty five seconds until decompression and we see air flowing freely out of the tear. A few moments later he reappears with a tourniquet tied above the tear with the innards of a late Borg.

Even Worf can't be strong enough to tie a tourniquet tight eneough to make an airtight seal on his suit. It seems to me that a seal tight enough to prevent air from escaping would also cut off blodd circulation to Worf's leg. Yet later on, he walks around normally.

Thomas Garrison: Well, I saw _First Contact_ yesterday and thought you might want to know what I noticed.

The crew consistently use those very powerful new phaser rifles only to shoot directly at the Borg. With a phaser rifle, one could make the ceiling fall on Borg heads or melt the deck under their feet. The only occasion when I recall anyone making intelligent use of the awesome power of a phaser rifle was during the fight outside the ship--when one person shot at the "ground" *once*, and then failed to repeat the spectacular success he had with that experiment.

This problem with phaser use is not a problem with Starfleet alone: as the Borg assimilate more and more of the ship, they undoubtedly pick up the phasers of the assimilated. Why do they never use these phasers? They could stun the crew members they run across, saving time and resources that are lost while fighting hand-to-hand.

Borg indifference is really strange here. All of them know what each Borg sees and does. That being the case, why do the Borg on the saucer array attack one by one?

In the past, the Borg used cubes and cubical division of space. Here, they use many circles and a spherical ship. Hugh's ship, though probably smaller than the spherical ship, was still a cube. Odd.

Either the computer is stupid, or the Dixon Hill novels were remarkable. The computer's recreation of a posh ballroom in the 1930s included both black dancers and a multiracial band. These seem out of place in an upscale place during that decade.

The Borg are part computer. How come none of them could tell that Data aimed to miss the _Phoenix_?

It's rather interesting that when ordering away teams down to Earth, no one ever has to tell someone to stay behind because he looks too alien. Many members of the _Enterprise_ crew are Bolians, Vulacan, and other alien who would look very out of place in mid-21st century Earth. Were they all sick that day?

In the end, the _Enterprise_ goes home by doing what the Borg did at the beginning. Shouldn't that have sent them back another three hundred years?

The Borg attacked Guinan's people with many ships. This time, they attack the Federation (which, recall, successfully defeated their first attack and caused the disintegration of the local collective) with only one ship--and that ship had the Queen on board.

When Picard takes the woman from the past down to some opening in the bottom of the ship, he shows her Australia as says that Montana ought to be coming around soon. Why isn't the _Enterprise_ in geosynchronous orbit above Montana?

Why doesn't anyone care whether or not people on the Earth detect the _Enterprise_? Surely, with a chaotic world and ICBMs still lying around, someone must be monitoring what is in Earth orbit?

Having the crew of the _Defiant_ be the only people the _Enterprise_ has need or inclination to recue seems very staged.

So, now that Data has saved the Federation and/or the _Enterprise_ for the umpteenth time in nine years, will he *finally* be promoted to full commander?

James Rioux: After WWIII, you'd assume there'd be a lot of junk left floating in space from destroyed satellites, missiles, etc. Even the smallest fragments of paint can damage a ship travelling as fast as the Enterprise and the Phoenix. Granted, the Enterprise has shields, but they go down shortly after arriving. And the Phoenix has no deflector shields at all.

Why can't Data get out of the restraints? This is, after all, the same android that pulled two huge contamination doors closed in "The Next Phase". I wonder why the Borg didn't use some kind of force-field restraint.

"A Matter of Time" showed us that the Enterprise computer can de-activate phasers, tricorders, etc. if it is told to. So why didn't the Borg do that when they tapped into the computer? They disabled the ship-board weapons systems, so why not the personal weapons?

Does this plasma coolant seem like a nice thing to leave lying around Engineering? It melts away anything organic! You'd think the designers would put a force-field around it or something.

Data says that his last sexual activity was 8 years and some months ago. I'm assuming that he's talking about Tasha Yar here. But didn't she tell him that "it never happened"? Shouldn't this mean to not discuss it, since "it never happened"? Granted, he did discuss it during "Measure of a Man", but he was on trial and under oath. Does Data think that, since Yar is dead, he can go blabbing it to whomever he chooses?

When the plasma coolant melts Data's flesh off, we can see that he doesn't have a left eye. He had one just before he shattered the container, so the Borg must have given him an organic eye. So how can the Borg make a new eye for Data, yet Starfleet can't make a functioning eye for Geordi? Aren't the Borg using the Enterprise's technology? (Note from Phil: The Borg are just that advanced!)

Craig Cicero: One last thing I thought of (that I don't think anyone addressed). What if the Romulans DID take the oppurtunity to invade the Federation? I can just imagine the admiral... (All right, you disobeyed DIRECT ORDERS and left your post and saved Earth, fine, BUT NOW THE ROMULANS ARE ATTACKING! What were you thinking? The Borg had one ship! Reinforcements were coming! But noooo! You had to come to our rescue. Thanks. You are hereby demoted to ensign!) That would've been an interesting ending. But, probably not very popular.

Amy Kalman: Saw the movie, it rocked!!! I guess Star Trek does live on without William Shatner!

When the hole is punched in the deflector grid, we see a steady stream of escaping gas form a cloud. Gas can't stay together in space, it would have dissipated almost immediately.

On a more complimentary note, a few quotable quotes: "Assimilate this!" "Resistance is futile" (When Data says it) "Actually, I went to Zefram Cochrane High School" "You told him about the statue?"

Josh Ethridge: This movie rocked. I saw it on Saturday and I just caught what I assume to be an in-joke. When Picard and Data are touching the Phoenix, Picard mentions that he remembers seeing the Phoenix at the Smithsonion. What else is at the Smithsonion? THE ENTERPRISE!!!

David D. Porter: The security teams don't know how to patrol hostile or possibly hostile territory. In many scenes, all are carrying their phaser rifles at port arms (pointed up and to the left) and looking straight ahead, rather than covering and watching all directions and overhead.

Raymond A. Brown: When Cochrane finally gets the Phoenix into warp, it appears that he's in warp drive (greater than light-speed) for at least 30 seconds, possibly up to a full minute. The ship then does a nice 180-degree turnaround, and... the earth is far away, but somehow, we expected it to be _so_ far away that all you could tell would be a blue dot. Granted, our moon is about 2.5 light-seconds away from Earth, but I just expected the view to be a bit smaller.

At the end of the movie, there is conspictously (sp) no one at the helm, but Data is at Ops. We know that Lt. Hawk was killed, but they should've gotten _someone_ in there.

Donald Carlson: During the second viewing I looked for nits that haven't been mentioned. Here's my list -

Changing clothes, Part 1: Picard beams back up to the E, discovers that the Borg have taken over a complete deck and are starting to assimilate the ship. He orders Data to lock out the main computer. Scene shifts to Sick Bay to show the Borg starting to break in. Shift back to the Bridge.... and Picard has changed out of the 21st century clothes into his captain's uniform! Seems like a silly thing to do in the middle of a crisis.

Revlon and the Borg: The Borg Queen has freshly applied bright red lipstick in her scenes with Data and Picard.

Picard and clothes, Part 2: Picard and Lilly, in spite of being hotly pursued by the Borg, stop to put on costumes before entering the Holodeck. Lilly also takes the time to freshen her makeup and put on lipstick. Later, they stop again to change back into their original clothes.

Which way is up?: The Phoenix sits on top of its booster, so the crew would be laying on their backs before and during liftoff. The scenes showing Cochrance and Riker (and later Geordi), it's obvious that gravity is not pulling them the right direction -- note that Riker and Cochrane don't rest their heads on the headrests, and the bandanna around Cochrane's neck doesn't point the right direction. Also note Riker holding on to part of the bulkhead during liftoff -- not likely if G forces were pushing him back into his seat.

BTW, I loved the movie, and hope it makes a pile of money.

Richard Steenbergen: I know this has been covered from the Borg perspective 10,000 times, but if Picard was REALLY interested in revenge he'd hop over to the 29th century, pick up some hot weapons, hop back to 10,000,000 BC and then go blast the Borg to smitherines before they ever have the chance to cause anybody harm (he'd be doing the whole galaxy a favor).

I know having an actual "cloaking device" would make the Romulan lawyers sue for copyright violation, but you'd think that for times like this when there are no Romulans around the Federation would practice setting up their shields to scatter simple electromagnetic detection like light & radar. If the B2 bomber can do it, why can't the Enterprise (or Voyager, ex: Future's End).

In response to Joe Meslovich's comment concerning slow photon torpedoes: It seemed to me that the display was more of a tactical computer-generated overview then a photo-realistic display. If you've ever watched any episodes where they use tactical displays to show ship-to-ship battles (like the DS9 episode 'Defiant' and the TNG episode 'The Wounded') you know that they make the relative sizes absurdly off. Maybe if the Phoenix really was accelerating (even though there's no such thing as a non-instantanious warp transition), combined with the distortion of a tactical display, that would explain the delay.

The line we should have heard but didn't: In response to Cochrane's desire to "take a leak", Geordi: "We don't do that in the 24th century either."

In response to Anonymous's confusion over Data turning on and off his emotion chip: Actually it makes perfect sense. His not being able to turn it off in Generations was a serious problem, so over the next 2 years he found a way to give it a software switch instead.

I think its pretty unbelievable that Picard would tell everybody to land on Earth and continue to live there if they blow up the Enterprise and can not get back to their proper time. Even the smallest change in time can vastly effect history (especially over time (ever watch that Simpsons episode where Homer fiddles with his toaster and starts time traveling?). Just the atmospheric disturbance of the escape pods entering the atmosphere would throw off some wind, which would change some local weather, which would alter the entire global weather pattern, which would completely alter the dates and outcomes of many many many events, which would eventually start interfering with some historic events SOME TIME). I'd think that these trained Star Fleet officers would know better, and would fight to the last man on the ship, while the self destruct ticked (btw whats the point of having a silent countdown if it announces that the ship will self destruct? Is there another option for a REALLY REALLY silent countdown?)

Would somebody like to count the total possible number of ways there are to travel back in time now? I'd say it has to be at least 15.

In response to Rebecca Bare's comment about Crusher hypoing herself through her coat: I wondered about that too. I think the hypospray is just so advanced that it can go through clothing, and Dr Crusher was too lazy to reach for her throat.

Did we see any other Defiant-type ships in the Borg battle? When I first saw it I thought it was just one of those anti-borg type ships and not the Defiant itself. It would have been better to have a formation of 3 Defiant-type ships going in, and only the Defiant survives.

Did anyone else think "Jaws" when seeing the poor Starfleet wimps fumbling for their weapons through the Borg eyes? All they needed was the C/C# music in the background...

In response to Phil's comment about Voyager finding the Borg: Actually it would be more interesting if, just as Voyager is about to be assimilated, Hugh and the Rebel Borg show up and kick the other Borg in there collective. Also, once the Queen Borg traveled back in time, it would be like she died to the 24th century Borg, so they should die too...

In response to Roland Saidi's comment that the Borg knew about self destruct: I think the rather loud announcement by the computer might have given it away. =)

The theory I've seen for the existance of the Queen Borg on a ship that was destroyed and her continued existance now is that she was a hologram/whatever in the past, but was real for FC. Another possibility is that she really "exists" at the heart of the Borg Empire (the planet Borgania?), she "transmitted" herself to that little "top half" when the Borg Cube was destroyed (being understandably upset that they'd lost TWO cubes to these stupid humans), and when the Borg traveled back in time her "existance" with them was the only thing that kept them "connected to the collective". Once Queeny died in the past, those Borg had no link to the collective and all died. This would allow for Queeny's continued existance, the continued existance of the Borg, and allow them to reuse the plot for Star Trek: The Next Next Generation, when the Enterprise-G encounters her again. (Note from Phil: Now we'll have to see if the creators every bother to explain it!)

BTW this just occured to me... If all the Borg were mindless drones, and Picard had the great honor of being given a name "Locutus", AND he said "*I* am Locutus of Borg", wasn't he ALREADY the equivilent of the Queeny's equal?

Samuel Lawrence: First, a correction on the previous nits. In my critique of the deflector dish scene, it should have said that Patrick Stewart was obviously in a harness during the part where he flies across the dish. Why? Well, having watched a lot of spacewalks in my day, he wouldn't have been able to turn around has he did, nor would his arms have been waving as fast as they were. He should have shot right across the dish. Instead, the scene kind of looks as if....Patrick Stewart was in some kind of harness being swung across the soundstage. Actually, when he passed through the steam jet, he should have been blasted out into space. At the very least, his course should have been altered somewhat. I guess that in space, no one can hear you say "real world physics." They could have corrected this by having the crew wear thruster packs. NASA has them today, and Spock wore one in STTMP. I think Kirk was wearing one, too.

Second, after discussing the film with some friends who also saw it, we figured out more nits.

During the first Star Trek episode, they bandy about dialogue about "Time Warp Factors." Since this technology preceded "Warp Factors", one wonders why Cochrane seems to be using 24th century terminology during the flight.

Riker, Geordi, and Cochrane would have felt more intense G-forces than they actually did during launch. I believe that the actual figure would be close to about 7-G's. Astronaut Michael Collins discusses this in his excellent book Carrying the Fire.

A phaser on setting 16 wouldn't just vaporize Picard. It would also blow out the bulkhead behind him, too. Maybe he just didn't want to elaborate.

Speaking of phaser settings, if his phaser was on maximum(like he tells Lily), why isn't that crewman he puts out of his misery disintegrated? An effect of the Borfification?

They still haven't put seatbelts on the seats in the bridge. On the other hand, they really didn't need them in this movie.

Why is Crusher evacuating? If the sickbay is lower than Deck 16, then this makes sense. However, one must then wonder why Sickbay would be in the engineering section, when every other starship we've seen had Sicbay in the saucer. (The same thing happened in Generations. I guess that the creators like to see Crusher evacuate sickbay.)

Crusher says "We have to get off this deck." So, why does she get off on the same deck she was before? Don't Jeffries tubes have ladders in them anymore?

For that matter, where is the rest of Crusher's medical staff? The E-D seemed to have teams of doctors. Why are only five members of the medical staff in Sickbay?

If the ship is in a temporal wake, how can they get accurate readings of the Borgified World?

So, what happened to the Defiant? The E-E beamed everyone off, but its internal motion should have carried into the Borg Cube, since Worf had just ordered ramming speed. Why didn't it get toasted when the Cube exploded?

Its a good thing that there are Jeffries tubes all over the ship in places where Jeffries tubes weren't in the E-D. Sickbay, for instance.

No wonder why the Security troops took a beating. Starfleet still hasn't issued their security forces any sort of body armor.

Starfleet transporter technology must be evolving rapidly, since we see yet another kind of transporter beam in this film.

For a ship 700 meters long, the crew sure does get around quickly crawling through the Jefferies tubes.

Why does the crew point guns at Picard and Lily when they come up into the bridge? The Borg have temporarily stopped assimilating at this point, and Picard and Lily must have checked through some checkpoints by that point.

If the primary power to all decks except 16 has been cut, why did the forcefield on the viewport work? Are they still on Deck 16?

Good thing that the Queen and co. didn't transport directly into Engineering when the E-E toasted the sphere.

I doubt that you'd see a forest so well developed, or trees that healthy or old, after a major nuclear war which killed 600 million people and made the 33 year old Cochrane look twenty years older and two feet taller that he should.

So, the opposing faction that Lily thinks are attacking have directed energy weapons. Otherwise, she wouldn't have thought that the "Eastern Coalition" was attacking. For my money, if somebody shoots at me with an energy beam, I'd figure that it was an alien of some kind. The fact that the beams come directly from a point of light in space is kind of a dead giveaway, too.

Its kind of interesting to see how many nits there are in this film. It's also interesting tho see the overwhelmingly positive critical response. I don't know if there's a correlation or not, though. Acutally, I think that numerous cuts which were supposedly made to this film could account for some of the nits we've made in this film. All of these mistakes, though, can't keep this film from being a very enjoyable film.

Catherine Mailhiot of Vancouver, British Columbia: I just have a comment about the scene where the Enterprise is being evacuated and Picard gives Lily a message to give to Riker and Troi (and other crew?) telling them to settle down somewhere and "stay out of history's way". Well fine, but why is he giving this to LILY ? Does she know who Riker and Troi are much less what they look like? What is she supposed to do, go to Earth and start asking around for people from the starship Enterprise? Wouldn't Crusher or at least another crew member be a more logical choice?!

And another thing, does it seem reasonable that Worf, who so values honor and bravery, would try to push the captain to give up and abandon ship? Running away doesn't seem very brave. Even under the cicumstances, I would've expected support from Worf to stay and fight. (Note from Phil: I think this was intended to show how bad the situation really was.)

Jonathan Strawn: Saw First Contact this weekend. It was a good movie, but, personally, I did not like it as much as Generations. The beginning seemed very rushed, too little information for non-Trek die-hards(even I had a hard time understanding some bits) and little original music(most that I noticed, besides the main title, was just re-used from The Motion Picture and ST:V, and the beginning of the end titles was a straight track from the main title of Star Trek 5). Also, I did not like the lack of a 'message'. What I mean is that this will never be anything more then a Star Trek movie. The topic of revenge is barely touched upon, and otherwise it was more like an episode. This would have been a great episode of TNG, but as a Trek movie, I was disappointed that it was nothing more. That said, onward to comments:

It looked to me that they saved some money by just using Voyager's sickbay set. I think that the tunnel Crusher crawled through was the same one Suter used in "Basics Part Two."

Who exactly coined the phrase "Don't try and be a great man, just be a man. Let history be the judge." Riker apparently read about Cochrane saying it, but Cochrane heard it from Riker ten years before he said it, so it could hardly be considered creative on Cochrane's part.

Anon: When Troi was drunk, she sounded awfully British, didn't she? :-)

Jenifer Gordon and Michael Trudell: We loved the movie. Nicely done, and brings up lots of issues with regrads to the Federation. Here are nits:

In the space walk scene, when Worf's suit is slashed, you see vapor coming out of the suit. There is a vaccum is space, so you shouldn't see anything. (I realize that this was most likely for dramatic effect).

When Picard is rescuing Data, he sees Data in a Borg hookup. While I liked that Data did not join the Borg, I am curious how he managed to keep his plans away from the collective.

The Enterprise E looks great! Mike and I loved the emergency medical holographic program. It was nice to see Robert Picardo have another great line! And we finally figured out who the bartender in the Dixon Hill hologram was (Ethan Phillips!)

From an unknown nitpicker whose screen name is DukeAkuvar: Good film...I really did enjoy both times I've seen it.

Nitpicks:

Borg cube died easy. If time travel was their orginal plan, they should have time traveled out of the federation's sight and made the journey to earth 400 years ago.

When jumping down to deck 16, Worf hands his rifle to some dude, then jumps down with no weapons in hand...not bright.

When Picard enters engineering to give himself up, unrestrained, why doesnt he phaser the coolent tank?

Worf's suit breach....even our astronauts carry small patches, the federation should too.

Where did Worf get his favorite little knife from? was he sitting on it when they beamed him off the bridge of Defiant? Maybe he replicated it on the Enterprise, but then, why didn't they all replicate some weapons?

Brian Alan Smith: Fun movie, wasn't it? I seemed to enjoy it more than the people around me; I was the only one who laughed at Picard's "The rumors of my assimilation are greatly exaggerated." People in my row actually *groaned*. I figure, if you've *met* Mark Twain, you have every right to coin his phrases.

Let me see if I've got the recipe for the movie down:

Take music and spacewalks from "The Motion Picture". Add "Moby Dick" metaphors from "The Wrath of Khan". Sprinkle in a self-destruct sequence from "The Search for Spock". Pour in large dollops of time travel from "The Voyage Home." Mix in heapin' helpin's of beautiful Northwest U.S. scenery from "The Final Frontier". Throw in just a pinch of modified laugh lines ("Go to hell" becomes "To hell with their orders"), crewmembers betraying the Enterprise for all the wrong reasons, and entertaining cameos from other series, from "The Undiscovered Country". Stir in a smidgen of Data exploring his humanity, thereby putting Geordi in jeopardy, from "Generations". Simmer for about two hours. Serve on multiple screens. Feeds millions.

Granted, this doesn't all match up as well as I'd like, but I just started thinking about this every time I saw big shots of trees, or during snippets of Goldsmith's score. I love Goldsmith, *love* his work, don't get me wrong...but I kept hearing that ominous chord out in outer space and thinking, "How'd V'Ger get in this movie?"

11/27/96 Update

Myles Hildebrand: Yeah right, so if Alfie Woodard had trouble scrounging enough titanium to make the Phoenix, how on earth (or off it) did they get enough anti-matter for the warp core? In a post-nuked world. They don't even have good booze!

Geez, that Vulcan ship sure looks snazzy. I thought the vulcans were beginning space travel as well. If they did have warp, why does everyone follow Cochrane's design and legacy? (Maybe the vulcans didn't patent their design.)

There's a few more problems with this earth-as-a-Fed.-founder-idea-but-so-dependent-on-Vulcans but let's move on.

Is it just me or was the Borg Cube too easily beaten? No tension. No drama in all the opening! (I was never nervous until the final confrontation between Picard and Borgella de ville.) Starfleet sure did a good job upgrading it's weapons.

Gee Borg, why not blanket the Cochrane area with an energy blast of some kind instead of just taking pot shots? No matter, they had the bar up and running quickly anyways.

Data, just kill the Queen when you're trying to escape!

Normally, the Borg scoop off cities et al. when attacking, so why would they borgify Earth? (Answer: they needed it as a base in this quadrant.)

So, if they can go back in time, why not go back in time in the Delta Quad. and then fly to the unprotected Fed. with a full force. We'd never know what hit us. (But of course, they want us to develop some tech&genetic distinctiveness, or do they? the 21st century is not yet very distinct for tech...)

I swear, when Picard was walking into the hive/engineering, I saw Data against the back wall on P's left. Later, we see Data over on P's right. (Maybe the extra just looks too similar.)

Nice ship. I'd like to see more of it next time. Good thing they didn't blow it up again.

How fortunate that Alfie Woodard is the only person on the ship who can confront Picard, break him down, and make him realize his folly. If she had stayed below, all would be toast.

Frakes, you need to slow down your editing a bit. Too MTV.

Much nicer lighting than on Generations with its darkness and blinding solar flares through the windows.

Ok, if the sensors and weapons were knocked out, why were the weapons worked on (so Data could fire at the Phoenix) and the sensors not? Wasn't fighting the borg enough work to do?

I feel Worf was over-written. The 'I'd kill you for that' bit is a little tired. (I suspect Dorn wanted a decent part this time. I suspect Sirtis, McFadden, and Burton will ask for the same next time. They have shown up in two movies without purpose so far. Oooh, I'm nasty.)

Bob Canada: OK, let's all decree a moritorium on time-travel stories for at least a year. EVERY current incarnation of Star Trek has had a time travel story in the past 3 months--Voyager's even had 2, if you count "Flashback." They're spending more time in the past than they are in the 24th century. Keep it up and we'll have to start calling it "Time Trek." (Note from Phil: Of course, we don't really have any control over this! ;-)

I know everyone and their brother has already mentioned this, but I can't help myself--the Borg Queen must have a real flair for the dramatic. Her plan is to go back in time and assimilate Earth before the Federation is formed, thereby ending the Federation threat. Presumably she could go back to ANY period in Earth's history, but she chooses the dramatically significant date of Earth's First Contact. Why not go back to 1963? Or better yet, 1863. Or 1763. (Or even the Jurassic period--Cool! Borg dinosaurs!!!) There'd certainly be little or no resistance in any of those eras. Or do the Borg only like assimilating societies with technology they can use?

I agree that the much-publicized "huge space battle" at the beginning of the film was too short. The ships whizzed by so fast, I couldn't tell what any of them really looked like. I think the battle in "The Emissary" was much better. BTW, someone said they saw the Voyager in the battle. I didn't notice it, but if it was there, why assume it was Voyager? Surely there's more than one Intrepid class ship in the fleet?

New glossary term: NM-NTE (New Movie-New Transporter Effect). It never fails. Unless my memory fails me, EVERY movie so far has featured a slightly different Transporter effect. The boys in Transporter R & D obviously have a lot of free time on their hands, and sit around all day upgrading the transporters. Or maybe they just play with the confinement beam settings (Cool! Look what happens when I twist this dial! Blue with sparkly dots!) This one kind of reminds me of the early Ferengi T.E., with the little helix-like spirals. Its also a lot quicker than previous ones.

It really didn't bother me that no one mentions Geordi's new eyes, or anything about the new ship, or the new uniforms, or anything else everyone mentioned. Use your imagination. They don't have to spoon-feed EVERY little detail to us. I sort of liked the "Hey, a lot's changed, deal with it, let's get on with the show" attittude. Although I don't think that in real life, the ENTIRE original crew (even down to Ogawa & Barclay) would be reassembled. BTW, that Lynch guy who's innards Picard was digging around in, he wouldn't happen to be Leland T. Lynch from the 1st season, would he?

OK, here's my big main nit. Cochrane. How are we supposed to believe that this disheveled alchoholic is the man who (apparently singlehandedly--or were the other people in the little settlement in on the project too?) invented Earth's warp drive? I have trouble imagining him being able to put his pants on by himself, much less figure out subspace warp bubble physics. I suppose the story could have gone something like this: Cochrane's an eccentric, but really dedicated to his project. Then the Borg damage his ship. Cochrane gets all dejected and depressed & says forget it, but really just needs a little encouragement to go on with it. If this is the case, then it needed to be clarified, because the way it happens now it seems like it wouldn't have mattered if the Borg came back in time and damaged his ship or not--It didn't seem like he'd ever have gone on his flight at all if Riker & Geordi hadn't been there to prod him along. Maybe Riker & Geordi were taking the place of Lily, who would have eventually talked Z into goint thru with it if everyone hadn't interferred...I don't know, I just felt this whole aspect of the plotline was too fuzzy. I understand the irony of all the future people idolozing him and imagining him to be impossibly perfect, but he was just portrayed as hopeless, instead of imperfect.

Jason Gaston: I just saw STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT and I must say that I think it is one of the best trek movies made. But, despite my appreciation for this film, I must pick it to the bare bones.

Great Line:

"Belief that one is perfect is often a sign of a delusional mind" - Data to the Borg Queen

The opening credits to this movie made my eyes hurt.

Also, didn't you think that the inside of the borg ship looked sort of like the inside of V'ger? (Star Trek: The Motion Picture)

The first shot of the Enterprise-E was georgous. It's interesting to note that the reddish nebula in the backgroud was taken from an actual picture taken by the hubble space telescope.

Also, when all of the starships are firing on the Borg cube, I noticed that a nebula class starship (Like the USS Farragut in Star Trek: Generations) shot torpedoes out of the area between it's saucer and secondary hull. In Redemption II, it was established that this ship shoots torpedoes out of the spoiler thingy above the saucer.

I can't figure out why the woman who went into the jeffries tube after the first guy was assimilated didn't try to use her communicator to either call the guy, or call for backup. (Note from Phil: I was waiting for her to slap her combadge and holler, "INTRUDER ALERT!")

Why didn't Cochran remember the name Enterprise when he met (or rather will meet) Kirk in the 23rd century?

Kinda silly that Picard dressed himself in a different uniform when they went on the borg raid. It gave the borg something distinct to shoot at.

Lilly said that she'd never seen technology like force fields before, but doesn't the SIF and IDF funtion sort of like force fields? Didn't Cochrane have these devices on his ship? If not, why weren't the passengers turned into chunky salsa when the ship jumped to warp?

Since Data said the Borg could not assimilate him, I'm gathering that Picard and company knows it too. Why didn't they just lock onto Data's com badge and beam him to the bridge? After all, even if he had been assimilated, he still holds the code to the computer. Granted, maybe the Borg took over the transporter room or erected a force field, but it still sounds like a swell idea.

Didn't the hallway Picard and Lilly strolled down with the railing in the middle look like Disney World's Space mountain to anyone?

Why is Cochrane listing to 100 year old music? Granted there was a nuclear war ten years earlier, but wasn't there any other more current songs? Sure, we listen to 400 year old music like Bethoven, but MAGIC CARPET RIDE!?!?!?

Robert Beeler of Knoxville, TN: Most of the music is reused form earlier Star Trek movies.

I am willing to bet that the DS9 crew does not switch to the grey uniforms for at least a year (this gives almost everyone an opportunity to see the movie) Since no mention is made about Hugh and his clan of renegade Borg it is safe to assume that they have also been Pulaskied.

When did Picard get a backbone?

When did Data get the ability to turn his chip off and on?

Troi has not aged well.

They say "First Contact" about eight times. Sort of like making a plug for a movie we have already paid to see.

Picard shoots the crew member that is becoming a Borg, has he forgotten that assimilated people can be restored? ("Best of Both Worlds")

Rene Charbonneau: I guess when the Borg took Picard's uniform off before they assimilated him, they wanted it for a specific reasons. I mean, this was the guy that was suppose to become the equal of their Borg Queen. They probably wanted to put it in a Borg Museem. ("Yup! This uniform was actually worn by Locutus, before he became one of us...You may not recognize it, because they used to change uniforms a lot in those days, but this is a Starfleet uniform.") But, for the crew members that they assimilated during First Contact, they didn`t care and simply put the Borg implants over the uniform... Paul Walker: If you were a 100% logic only Vulcan and the first Human you met was Zephram Cochran, then in Spock's words, "Logic would dictate" that the entire human race should be destroyed for the good of the universe, since "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few." The man is a nutcase and the Vulcans would have never come back!!!

Since when did Sisko and Dax let Worf take the Defiantout by himself?!?!?!? There is a major problem with none of the DS9 crew being on the defiant.

Answer 1: Sisko is too emotionally involved to battle the Borg. NO 1: So is most of the Federation after the little Locutus excersion.

Answer 2: Star Fleet is worried about a Dominion attack while the Borg attack. NO 2: Why is Sisko ever allowed to take the crew away from the station?

Answer 3: Sisko and Dax and Bashir and the others are serving temporarily on other ships for the attack. Well, # 3 is still cheesey, but it makes sense. It would have been nice if they had taken the thirty seconds to explain this one though.

With Captain Picard in direct violation of orders, how is he able to take command of the fleet? Once in command, how is this Borg survivor able to convince the fleet with a simple command that they should target a seemingly useless area of the Borg ship? Are these people that desperate? Again, it would have been nice if they would have mentioned it at least.

After the Borg are destroyed, the Enterprice uses the same method the Borg ship did to return to return to the future. Does this mean that time is no longer a barrier for Star Fleet. Now, the Enterprise can go back in time and warn Janeway not to do whatever it was that sent them across the galaxy. And the DS9 crew can go back in time to warn the crew of the 1701-D to check Geordi's VISOR when he comes back from the Klingon Love Party during Generations and then they can beam down and help Picard and Kirk destroy Sauran and allow Kirk to live again. Wow, this time travel thing is great! :)

Laura Dowd: I didn't like this one nearly as much as *Generations*.

Why did Picard call Worf "Mr. Worf" when Worf first walked on the bridge with Beverly? Shouldn't Picard have called him "Commander" or "Captian" or by his rank? I think using "Mister" showed more disrespect than friendship.

Wasn't Beverly the last person to get into the Jefferies tube when escaping from the Borg breaking into sickbay? She called the holo-doctor (whose role I liked very much, by the way) and gave him last second instructions before closing the door behind her. But later, Lilly (?) ends up to be the last person crawling in the line down the tube, and is thus able to sneak off with no one noticing. It just seems kindof crowded in those tubes for Beverly to have pushed ahead of the others. (Note from Phil: The creators *do* show us Crusher leaping to the head of the line but the first time I saw this, I was stunned that Crusher was so calloused as to leave Lily to the rear so she could get lost. Of course . . . It's Goofy Because It's Pivotal! If Lily doesn't get lost, she can't bond with Picard and she can't call him down at the end.)

Was the same clip of a close-up of a menacing Borg face used several times?

Deirdre Shaw: I have to say that I loved this movie. The Borg were disgusting and creepy (and even better villains), and there were a lot of great lines. Since all of the nits appear to have been picked, I'd like to respond to one: Someone mentioned that Picard was a cold-blooded murderer for killing the crewman on the E-E. I have to disagree. The crewman was injured, and I think he was being assimilated (I thought I saw the blue veins creeping over his face; but in any case, it wasn't possible for the crew to save him without risking their own lives). In the brief time that he had to know what was happening, he begged for help, and Picard gave him the only help he could. It's called coup de grace, and I would have done the same thing.

I also have a general nit--and rant: this one is about the movie industry. I heard on the radio today that FC had the best opening for a ST movie ever. Well, duh. Tickets cost more than they ever have before! (At least 50 cents more per ticket in Boston than they did when Generations came out.) I believe that counting money is a dishonest way of saying how movies did, especially when they compare them to movies that came out 10 years ago. (ET, anyone?) The movie industry should count the number of tickets sold, and that way get an accurate representation of matinee viewers as well. Now, having said that, I just might spend $7.50 to see FC again, but I also might wait two weeks, and use the discount tickets I can buy, same price as matinee, just have to wait 2 weeks after the movie has opened. If the movie industry is going to be dishonest, I'm *not* going to help them--well, at least not every time. End rant.

Robert McDaniel of Fairfax, Virginia: First contact with aliens, according to this movie, occurs with the Vulcans. Yet the book Worlds of the Federation says that first contact was with the Alpha Centaurians! Now, Worlds of the Federation is in the same class as the Tech Manual, and so is therefore considered canonical. Hmm...two canonical sources directly contradicting each other. Changed Premise! (Note from Phil: For my money, Worlds of the Federation loses. On the other hand, it may not be canonical. I've never seen it on any of the canonical book lists from Pocket Books. Maybe that's changed?)

According to the Star Trek Chronology, Zefram Cochrane invented the warp engine in 2061. Yet in this, his first warp flight seems to be in 2063. Now, assuming that inventing means you've worked out all the major bugs and it's safe to try out, why on Earth(or off Earth, as the case may be) would you wait two years to try an invention after you invented it? (Note from Phil: Maybe he had some kind of landbased experiement that proved it could be done and it took two years to put together a space based experiment?)

And while we're on the subject of the first warp flight, what's the fuss about "you have to make the flight before 11:15 a.m., April 5, 2063 or first contact will never occur"? True, if it didn't happen, it might mess up the timeline a litte, but it would definitely not prevent first contact. Would no alien ship ever pass through the Solar system again?

Nate Pedersen: Star Trek: First Contact contains certain elements of William Shatner's (the legendary Admiral/Captain James T. Kirk of the Original Series, and Star Trek: Generations) latest Star Trek Novel: The Return. This novel resurrects Captain Kirk, at the hands of a Borg/Romulan dissidence alliance. The only problem is that if you had not read the book, the entire movie might not have made much sense to you, if you remember seeing the second Borg episode at the end of the Sixth Season and the beginning of the Seventh Season of Star Trek: NextGen, entitled "Descent."

The Return is based on the idea that the Borg are organized into branches. Thus, the Borg that Picard and the crew of the Enterprise NCC-1701-D faced in the second Borg two-part episode "Descent" were only one branch of the Collective, and their sense of "individuality" was limited only to that branch of the Collective.

How many of you read the Star Trek:OS novel Strangers From the Sky? If you did, you'll notice that the writers of the movie paid homage to its idea of "First Contact" being that made by the Vulcans.

I've seen it written, (and I've often pondered it myself) that the first two Star Trek series displayed a rather curious "Earth-centric" attitude toward the galaxy. By that, I mean, we were NOT the first ones out in space, with the most advanced technology, weaponry, etc. , but Starfleet Command, and the Federation are/will be located where? (Answer: San Francisco, Earth, Sector 001) This movie clearly seems to dictate that there was a "Federation" in effect LONG before we acquired warp capability, and the Vulcans had some form of leadership in it. Three possible scenarios could have taken place that could explain how Earth ended up being the "Center of the Galaxy": 1> After "First Contact" with the Vulcans, upon realizing we were not alone in the galaxy anymore, our need to "conquer" - our sense of "manifest destiny" took us over, and somehow or another, we managed to climb atop the galactic ladder, taking our "rightful" places as "Head of All", or 2> Upon reaching an almost unattainable goal (That of warp speed, which still seems silly to us today), our technology moved and evolved faster than we did, indeed, faster than other similar cultures in the galaxy, thus the "Federation" handed over control to those who had the upper hand. (This one seems kind of silly, doesn't it?) And, perhaps the most plausible of all 3> The Vulcans had no "Prime Directive" and shared the technology they had with the humans. Our ingenuity took over from there.

Favorite Star Trek: First Contact scenes

Troi gets drunk.

Worf, Picard and the ensign out on the hull of the Enterprise. By the way, does anyone recognize that ensign? (I'm not exactly looking for a name, but you'll remember that in most episodes of ST: OS there was always at least one ensign that had either gotten killed, or worse...) (Note from Phil: First time I saw the movie, I leaned over to a buddy at the start of the space walk and said, "Oh yeah, that guy is toast.")

Donald Carlson: Consider that the Borg are organized similar to an ant colony. Ever play SimAnt? The Borg Queen may be like the Queen Ant; each mound has its own, and in some cases, two or more mounds may interconnect, each with their own Queens.

In the case of the Borg, a Cube-class ship may require a queen, just as an Ant hill requires a queen. Ants will sometimes move the Queen if the mound is in danger -- in the case of the Borg, they jettison her out of the Cube with an entourage in search of fertile ground to start a new mound (Cube).

This could explain why Picard saw a Queen on the Cube of BoBW -- but not the same Queen of FC (just the twin or whatever). The Queens may be linked somehow through subspace and share information, which would explain why Queeny of FC knew about Picard.

If it were that the Queen we saw in FC was, in fact, the One and Only Big Cheese Borg, then the moment she disappeared through the time vortex, she would have broken contact with the rest of the Borg race in the 24th century, resulting in them short circuiting and so on. This wouldn't make any sense --why kill off your race to gamble on a risky time travel gambit?

However, if it were just one Queen of thousands out there in the Galaxy (quite likely, since the Borg have been assimilating worlds for centuries and would certainly have numerous Cube ships as well as others, not to mention thousands of worlds under their control), then the loss of a single Queen would be no consequence.

This leads to one final observation -- that the purpose of a queen is reproduction. Period. A mound can lose its Queen and live on -- for a time, or as long as the survivors live out their normal life spans. Within a week or two, the mound dies. If the Borg followed ther Queen Ant model, the "drones" would still function, but would eventually die out through combat, disease, predation, and natural causes.

Think of how different the ending of FC would have been had the death of the Queen resulted in Data somehow gaining control over the remaining borg (i.e., the assimilated crew of the Enterprise) by substituting a "simulated Queen" program into the collective. It would have made for an interesting discussion -- what to do with these human crewmates who are too far gone to restore to their original humanity?

Craig Cicero: I wondered before why the Romulans didn't invade, what about the OTHER races, like, say, the Dominion, or I guess the Klingons (Worf has mentioned that the Empire will probably attack if the Federation looks weak).

Along the same lines, why was the Defiant at the battle? Wouldn't Starfleet want to use IT for a "rear-guard action"?

I STILL think it was a great movie, and I know it was almost two hours long, but I think it should've been longer.

Does anyone know why the Creators have abandoned NUMBERS for the movies? (Note from Phil: Probably to differentiate is from the movie with the original cast.)

Rob Sayer: During "Trials and Tibble-ations," the TI guys mention (in passing) the Enterprise-E. So One assumes it is in service. Does this mean that the ship's shakedown cruise lasted 4-7 months? (The events in FC won't happen for another 3-5 months.) Am I the only one who thinks this is a bit long for an experienced crew?

As a musician (and being blessed/cursed with perfect pitch), I tend to notice subtle differences in sound. The Phaser rifles are using a different Phaser noise from their predecessors. The pistols and ships continue to use the old noise. What gives?

Has Starfleet abandoned the concept of environmental awareness? There aren't any folding nacelles on the E-E. (This is the unofficial explanation for their existence on the Voyager.)

The Borg are inconsistent (SURPRISE!) in this movie. In all past episodes in which they were featured in combat, they blow up/dissect ships (or attempt to) after they have been disabled. (EG: USS Saratoga, That Oberth ship that gets nuked just outside Sisko's quarters, the Enterprise-D...) But this does not happen to the Defiant. It survives and is salvagable... It shouldn't have.

Matt Nelson: I, too, noticed the ominous "dummm... DAAAAHHHH... dummmmm...." music from V'ger in Star Trek:TMP, when we are in the engineering section Anybody heard any rumors about whether _Voyager_ is going to meet up with... Voyager?

Katherine Smith: I noticed that when Worf, Picard, and 'some person we dont care that much about', went out to disable the array, the 'person we dont care about' was assimulated, and he was blasted and flew off into space. After Worf had done his little "Assimulate This!" There were THREE people standing there in those nice little space suits....(?I'm still trring to think of a 'logical' reason why this happened. No success yet... Maybe you could help me!? (Note from Phil: I don't recall three people being there at the end of the scene but I might have missed something!)

Anne Stockwell of Kansas City, MO: First of all excellent movie. Well worth the money spent to see it. When Lily takes the phaser from Picard I believed it was set at maxium because it lit all the way. We see Lily mess with the buttons while holding on Picard by the viewport. Only then does Picard tell Lily that the phaser was set to maxium.

Carrie Sager: I never could understand why people always spend time reminiscing over ships when the ships are about to blow up.

According to Robert Picardo at a convention, sickbay is actually Voyager's sickbay repainted. Also, Holodoc's cameo was his idea.

So what happened to Picard's model of the Stargazer?

Kudos to the creators for remembering the oh-so-illogical "final warning" on the self destruct sequence from "Deadlock." It wasn't sensible, but at least it was consistent.

I wonder why no one seemed suprised at the fact that this total hero of theirs was just a greedy drunk. The least they could have done was have a reaction shot from Geordie or Riker.

Bruce Felkins of Houston, TX: During the deflector scene Worf, Hawk and Picard disable the mag-locks by manually releasing the mechanism. They do this by turning the handle counter-clockwise from a horizontal to vertical position, among other things. After Hawk is attacked, you'll see Picard flipping the circuit cards at 'his' control panel. Notice that the handle is vertical. When the camera returns from a cut-away, the handle is horizontal so he can turn it to vertical, releasing the lock.

Jason Liu: OK, here's another example of the "I'm in trouble, but I'm not going to call for help using my handy communicator" syndrome (do we have a name for that in the Guild?). Both of the Engineering personnel had a little time to hit their communicators and utter at least a syllable. The first guy could even hear motorized sounds. With the Borg in the area, wouldn't it be prudent to call for help? And the female crewmember just stands there and screams. Wouldn't you try to duck down the ladder, while yelling for help as loud as you can (and maybe even hit your communicator, too)? Granted, communications might have already been gone, but they didn't even try!

Someone mentioned how the phaser rifles should have floated away. I'm not sure, but I thought I heard a magnetic-sealing sound effect when Worf put his rifle down.

Another Guild member wondered when Riker beamed down to the planet. Picard did order someone to have Riker and an engineering team beam down.

Many people discussed how Picard could have forgotten about Queenie. The subject of repressed memories was brought up, and several people expressed their doubts. I am a psych minor, and I did take a course specifically on repressed memories. The repressed memory issue is indeed a hotly debated topic in the scientific communities (and the general public). However, there is a lot of clinical and anecdotal evidence suggesting the existence of a repression mechanism. The debate continues because there is no absolute experimental scientific evidence to prove such a mechanism. This is due to the fact that, well, it is tough (and often unethical) to design an experiment to test whether repression occurs. Also, there are studies and case studies that suggest that repressed memories and emotional ones are vulnerable to change (i.e. error). On the other hand, there are experiments where subjects seem to forget inappropriate words (like the four-letter variety) much faster than regular words when those words are first presented, and then tested later on. Of course, this is not absolute evidence, but it is suggestive. (I, personally, do believe that repression can happen.)

Doesn't Data deserve a promotion by now? How many times has he saved the ship, or life as we know it? I've lost count.

The matter of Picard and his behavior in this movie was also raised. I thought that the writers did an excellent job with Picard in First Contact. An experience as traumatic as assimilation does not go away that easily. Picard becomes obsessed with fighting the Borg. I don't think it was out of character or unbelievable at all. Emotions can do that to a person. I think this is the first time we have really seen Captain Picard truly nuts, losing most (or all) of his rational judgement. Kudos to the writers and to Patrick Stewart.

Did anyone else think that the figures of Picard, Hawk, and Worf on the hull were a little too big for the proper scale?

One Nitpicker expressed disgust at Picard's cold-blooded killing of the quasi-assimilated crewmember. I thought that it was justified, considering the situation. There were several Borg approaching Picard and the rest of the group. He didn't have time to save the crewmember, and the guy would be a Borg soon. Picard was a Borg, and knew what it was like. He made the humane decision to kill the crewmember to prevent him from being assimilated. Sure, that doesn't mean we shouldn't be shocked, but I think we can all agree with Picard's reasoning.

Starfleet really needs to work on the small unit tactics. When the various groups move through the ship in search of Borg, none of them are covering behind them. Usually, the people in back watch the back! In the movie, all of the crew were attentively looking forward. What if Borg popped in behind them? Several people could be dead or assimilated before the rest of the group could react.

Finally (for now, at least), a fellow member asked whether Picard had a prosthetic arm, since he had had a Borg arm implant. If you'll remember from "Best of Both Worlds", Locutus had a very long arm, which means his implant extended beyond his normal arm. Also, there was a scene where they show Locutus/Picard lift his arm, and then another Borg attached the Borg arm over Locutus' hand. So, fortunately for our good captain, there was no amputation involved that time.

Bob CanadaI hate to do this, but its my job.

I like the idea of Geordi's eyes being mechanical looking--its a good visual cue that they're bionic--if they looked normal, newer members of the audience would wonder what was going on when he started seeing great distances or detecting sub-micron cracks in dilithium crystals just by looking at them (they might even think he was from Krypton). But realistically, if the android version of Juliana Soong (Data's "mother") had eyes (and everything else) that looked real enough to fool everyone into thinking she was human, then why do Geordi's new peepers look like pinwheels? Maybe there were several models of eyes in the store--some realistic, some more exotic, and Geordi, fashion plate that he is, chose the "sporty" models.

Not really a nit, but some interesting behind the scenes info--in the movie, during the scenes where the crew is shown being assimilated, we see several quick shots of crew members getting Borg appliances grafted onto the stumps of their severed arms. In "The Best Of Both Worlds," we see them just slip a Borg arm over Picard's intact one. I remember the first time I saw this, thinking that was odd--if they truly are cybernetic, would they just slip the appliance on like a glove? Anyway, in the book "The Art of Star Trek," there's a section of production sketches of Borg ships & costumes. One preliminary sketch shows Picard after he's been rescued and had all the implants removed. His right forearm is all nice & pink, with notes to the side indicating that its been regrown! Apparently they had originally planned on severing his arm--maybe the censors thought that was a bit too much for TV??

Sean Healy: Isn't it just stupid to let Lily be the last in line as the doctor, nurse and patients escape sickbay?

Troi never ceases to amaze me. Although a trained counselor, she is unable to pry anything out of Cochrane, and ends up drunk.

Beverly seems to think the crew is accustomed to obeying the captain's authority, but wait a minute, doesn't the CMO have the authority and even the responsibility to relieve the captain of duty if his behavior threatens the crew (and I think that would extend in this case to his beahavior threatening all of humanity). I mean, Bones sure had that authority. And didn't Riker relieve what he thought was Picard (but what was actually an alien imposter) when his actions threatened the ship for no good reason in the episode Allegiance?

This isn't really a nit, but did anyone else think the escape pods looked like grand piano boxes?

Riker seems kind of dense. There's no contact with the Enterprise. The last time we saw the captain, just before he beamed up, there was soemthing wrong with the ship, and he had that "Borg headache" look on his face. Now here comes the Enterprise towards them, and all he can think of is, they must be coming to give us a sendoff.

That emotion chip is really cool. I mean, even though he has to turn it off with a twist of his head as though he had a nervous tic, it sure has given him a flair for the dramatic. You wouldn't think ordinarily an android would give over total control of the ship to an enemy and put his captain in fear just so he could pull a nifty stunt like throwing the Borgs' own catch-phrase back in their faces.

Maybe we can forgive Data all that by saying he had to get the queen's guard down long enough to get to the plasma conduit, but man is that queen stupid. Not only does she have the entire consciousness of the Borg behind her, but Data has given her control of the ship's computer. You'd think maybe she could calculate the trajectories of those quantum torpedoes and realize-hey, they're not going to hit the Phoenix.

And another thing about the queen-as she had control of the ship, wouldn't it be easy for her to empty Engineering of the plasma in seconds, as Picard does later?

Maybe I understood this wrong, but I've always thought that Zefram Cochrane was the very first (of everyone that ended up in the Federation anyway) to invent warp drive. If the Vulcans were going to travel across our entire solar system in fifteen minutes, I'd guess they had some sort of faster-than-light method of travel of their own.

Jason Liu: OK, in the space battle at the beginning of the movie, we see the Defiant, and then the Enterprise flies right by it. Am I the only one who thinks that the Defiant is way too small in that scene? We know that the Defiant is a smaller ship, but that small? I would think it would be 1/4 to 1/3 the size of the Enterprise, but in the movie, it looked like a little Matchbox car when compared to the Enterprise (which, according to my friend, was mentioned in the movie to be 700 meters long, or slightly longer than the Enterprise-D). Incidently, TPTB did this at the end of Generations, too. Sure, those science ships are small, but when compared to the Nebula-class ship in the closing scene, they were _way_ too small. I don't know if I agree with the relative sizes they chose. If the Defiant is that small a ship (which, based on that scene, I would estimate it to be about 70 meters long), I don't see how it could fight the Borg. Even with souped-up weapons, a ship that small would not be able to do much. Incidentally, remember the DS9 episode "Paradise Lost", where the Defiant fought the Lakota, which was an Excelsior-class ship. In that battle, the Defiant seemed to be about 1/2 the size of the Lakota, which would be about 400-500 meters long. Now that, I think, would be the proper scale. (Note from Phil: I'd have to go back and check the tape but I remember the Defiant being only about half the length of the Lakota's saucer section in "Paradise Lost." If I remember correctly, it was zipping in and around the other vessel. With that in mind, the Defiant's scale did seem correct to me.)

Throughout the movie, we see some Borg who are still wearing Starfleet uniforms. Why? The Borg had time to assimilate them, and gave many of the former crew proper attire? Why leave some of them in uniform? Given the Borg's methods, I would think that they would get rid of the uniforms (actually, that's one thing where I would have to agree with the Borg, but it's been mentioned before, so I'll spare you guys my rantings).

Matthew Chase Maxwell of San Francisco, CA: Some of my fellow Trekkers have objected to the new Enterprise E being built in only two years. My answer is that the ship could have been started before the destruction of the Enterprise D, and only took the name Enterprise when the D model was destroyed. I bet the crew for which the new ship had previously been destined was ticked off.

JoAnna Walsvik of Hillsboro, ND: Wow. That was a fantastic movie. "Independence Day" with a Star Trek theme. All the other nitpickers have taken all the nits! No fair! :) The only one I have that hasn't already been taken (and maybe it has; I was reading the other nits in a hurry last night) is when Picard & Co. are fighting the Borg on deck 16. I was hopping in my seat at the theater, practically screaming, "PULL out the tubes! Pull OUT the tubes! Pull out THE tubes! Pull out the TUBES! PULL OUT THE TUBES!!!! Why, oh WHY couldn't someone just pull out the tubes?!?" Then again, everyone else in the theater was doing the same thing. :)

I must say, I was surprised. Saturday night and the theater was 80% full. I didn't think there were that many Trekkers and/or Trekkies in the entire state, let alone Grand Forks, North Dakota. I am one of maybe ten Star Trek fans in my hometown of 1500 ppl. Then again, maybe I'm just one of the fans who's proud of it! :) Something I thought was funny was the scene where the Borg Queen kissed Data. I swear, EVERYONE in the theater went, "Ewwwwwwwwwww." One guy spoke for us all when he said, "That's disgusting, Data." Until Star Trek IX!

William J Alston: Saw First Contact opening night, I must say that I truely enjoyed it but my fellow nitpickers expressed it far better than I could so I won`t take up your time there. Great line " Captain I was tempted for 0.68 seconds.....For and android that is an enternity." Great guest shot Reg "Da Man" Barclay {Yes, I am a Barclay fan.}. About non-energy weapons affecting the Borg wouldn't it be resonable for at least one crewman to have collected antique firearms Worf collects Klilingonese melee weapons, in TOS Sulu collected guns (among other things) and I belive Kirk did also. Why when the queen was defeated did the other Borg self-destruct, in BoBW Locutus didn't when the Cube blew up. And last but not least an obsevation, the way I understood it WWIII ended ten years previous in 2053 could it be that Janeway's statement the L.A. when under with the earthquake of 2047 could it be result of a nucular strike against a fault line.

Shane Tourtellotte: Where did the ballroom characters go after Picard does his Rambo impersonation? I didn't see anybody peeking up while he performs bare-handed surgery on that dead Borg, and he didn't tell the computer to clear the room.

As for Cochrane building a warp spacecraft in the wake of WWIII, it's possible he did most of his work before the war, and it's taken all this time to make the last few steps.

True, a Titan II missile couldn't reach open space, with its regular fuel. Other fuels exist today that produce greater specific impulse (pounds of thrust per pound of fuel) than today's ordinary liquid oxyagen/liquid hydrogen combination. No doubt, still better fuels will be produced in the 21st century. Cochrane probably retrofitted the Titan to use a more efficient fuel that could break the Phoenix free of Earth's gravity.

Eric Williams in Scotia, NY: First, the movie overall was generally good. Good action, nice plot development........ mostly. Now, down to the gripes.

The Enterprise crew do not seem to have that special charm and interaction so prevalent in the series. Most of the movie focuses on the minor characters like Ensign Hawk (sp?), Zefrahm Cochrane and his female black friend. It really doesn't feel like a Star Trek movie because so many of the bridge members are either down on 21st century Earth or on the Enterprise-E! They are constantly apart from each other! Case in point: The part where Cochrane's black lady friend (I'm sorry, I just can't remember her name!) equates Picard with Captain Ahab from Moby Dick does not work well at all. First, this person knows almost totally nothing about Picard!!! She only heard about what he spealed about bein' assimilated! And she then proceeds to make a psychological assesment of his character?!? Where in the world is Guinan?! She would've been perfect for this scene! She's had experience with the Borg and so has Picard! And she knows more about Picard than this lady does! Second case in point: When Picard, Worf, and Hawk are out on the Enterprise-E tryin' to stop the Borg, Hawk is captured and assimilated. What do we as the audience care about him?! He is nothin' but an insignificant character and we're suppossed to care what happens to him?!

Also, Cochrane is terrible. I expected a lot more from Cromwell. I thought comin' into the movie that Cromwell would've added a great role to the movie; I loved him so much in Babe! Boy, was I mistaken! His character is nothin' more than a druken slob who, by the end of the movie, you don't care what happens to. Every time the scene switched to a part on 21st century earth, I felt like leaving the theatre. These scenes had no context to what was goin' on with the Borg whatsoever and were an extreme bore, and I believe Cromwell's character enhanced this. His character even started to rub off on what I thought of Riker and LaForge! Pretty soon, I didn't care what happened to these guys either! The only thing I cared about with relation to these guys was LaForge's new eyes, and those were never explained!

Now, the special effects. Trekkies could save themselves some money by rentin' it and they wouldn't know the difference between home and the big screen. The most special effects seen were in the beginning and looked no different than those seen in DS9. Major disappointment there!

And finally, the major humungous gripe I have with First Contact is (drum role please!): The Borg didn't win! Arrrrgghhh! I was really hoping for a Borg victory this time assomethin' different, but no, we (the producers) just couldn't manage that! These poor guys have lost battle after battle, war after war and still continue to lose! (Note from Phil: Join us next time for Borg Trek: The Next Generation.)

Well, as I said, it was a good movie overall, but not one suitable to be called Star Trek. It didn't even feel like a ST movie! Maybe that's why it did so well the first day. People who are non-Trekkies went to see it too! It's definitely not one for a serious Trekker like me!

Michel Albert: If the Queen IS the collective as she claims, then her thoughts are those of every Borg right? Well, no. None of the others live out their sexuality, have such a slithery attitudes, or even speak much! Certainly, Hugh never tried to seduce Beverly. (I hope!) Also, why is the collective Borg voice male in the episodes? Why not female?

Is that really how the Borg see the world? Like looking at your reflection in a spoon? Doesn't seem very efficient. They have a human(oid) eye too, don't they? (Made me think of all those Doctor Who episodes where they show you how the monster sees.)

The title of the film still bugs me. Not only is it the title of an episode, but it doesn't have anything to do with the Borg. The contact with the Vulcans wasn't really central to the film (a subplot really - the turning point in history chosen by the Borg might as well have been Guttenburg's Bible!) And none of that is hinted at in the previews, which had me going: "Isn't it about 4th contact?" In the Generations mold, they might have title it something like Star Trek-Assimilation. No? Ah well. ; )

Is it just a trick of the light, or does Picard's nose smudge up against his faceplate when we first see him in the spacesuit? Not a great fit, eh captain?

Far be it for me to criticize the movie's structure but since you twist my arm... it had no prologue and no epilogue. No intro of the new ship or the characters, no building towards the Borg attack. And no ending! I left the theater going: "Gee, I'll have to watch DS9 this week to see if the Federation truly DOES exist after all!" ; )

The launch sequence: thrusters leveling the whole area you say? How about just getting those nearby trees to catch fire? They were real close!

The plasma fire: Picard would have been parbroiled alive just by hanging over it. Ever put your hand over a steaming pot? Well, don't.

Bastille class? I wish that had been mentioned in the film. : (

Hehehe. I bet Picard and Worf were wishing for their old ship back while walking on the hull. The Entreprise-D was real smooth like. The Entreprise-E has these huge STEPS every so often. (No wonder Worf gets sick to his stomach. He has to change angles every time he hits a bend!)

I know some female crewmembers get assimilated, but do we see any fully Borged? Everytime we see a heavy, he's always a he. (But then, I didn't spot the non-human Borgs mentionned above. The shame. The humiliation. Sob.)

Timeline pollution not yet mentioned: The crew leaves a couple of floating Borg behind.

In ST VI, they're called gravity boots. Here, they are MAGNETIC boots. Well, what if they are ACTUALLY gravity boots? Blows all the nits out the porthole huh? But then, why does the crew use such an archaic expression? Picked it up from Zephram?

Too bad Guinan's absent, but then, she's been written out of the series. No civilian population on board equals no Ten-Forward and certainly no civilian hostess!

Picard's "shoot them, you'll be doing them a favor" was pretty cold. Good thing nobody did HIM a favor 5 years ago!

Seems like there's an awful lot of bridges connecting the land masses on Borg Earth. They don't like to take the plane or the boat? Or do they just HATE it when the continents drift? : )

What kind of power source does Cochrane's ship use? I ask because it seems to me that dilithium crystals aren't indigenous to Earth. (Remember all those mining colonies that crop up? Rich deposit this and that?) Certainly they don't exist in nature (here) so did Cochrane and company synthesize some? Yow!

What a blow to the damage toteboard! It's such a violent movie and none of the items show up here! Picard isn't abducted, Worf isn't shot, Riker doesn't even fall down, and the Enterprise (miraculously) doesn't blow up! Poor Phil.

Data doesn't die! I thought for sure he might. What with Brent Spinner's comments about fearing not being able to play Data because of his rapid(well, human) aging, and the way the climax was going, I thought he was a goner for sure! (Too ST II again I guess.) I was relieved anywayzzzz.

And a quick, if odd, comment: Is there some sort of creative connection between Star Trek and the show Murder One? Seems like Trek alumni keep appearing on that show. For example, last year the head lawyer Ted was played by Picard's heart surgeon; the evil psychiatrist was played by the nutty warp field specialist from "Where No One Has Gone Before"; and John Q. DeLancie played a nasty lawyer. This year, we have Mr Hawke turning up as the defendant's husband. I rest my case.