Star Trek: First Contact

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Star Trek: First Contact
Directed by	Jonathan Frakes
Produced by	Rick Berman
Written by	Rick Berman Ronald D. Moore Brannon Braga
Starring	See table
Music by	Jerry Goldsmith
Cinematography	Matthew F. Leonetti
Editing by	John W. Wheeler
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date(s)	November 22, 1996
Running time	111 min.
Language	English
Budget	$45,000,000
Preceded by	Star Trek: Generations
Followed by	Star Trek: Insurrection
IMDb profile

Star Trek: First Contact (Paramount Pictures, 1996) is the eighth feature film based on the Star Trek science fiction television series. In it, the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation again encounter their adversaries, the Borg, and this time attempt to prevent the Borg from changing history by conquering the Earth of the 21st century through the use of time travel. The film is directed by Jonathan Frakes from a script by Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore, with music composed by Jerry Goldsmith.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Plot summary

Following the destruction of the USS Enterprise-D in Star Trek: Generations, the bridge crew, with the exception of Worf, were transferred to a new Sovereign class starship, the USS Enterprise-E. Shortly before the beginning of the film, a Borg cube ship has entered Federation space on a course for Earth. However, instead of stationing their most advanced vessel among the fleet assembled to protect Earth, Starfleet has assigned the Enterprise to patrol the Romulan Neutral Zone. Starfleet orders Jean-Luc Picard to do so in case the Romulans decide to take advantage of the situation. However, he is fully aware that the real reason is that, because of Captain Jean-Luc Picard's past experience with the Borg, Starfleet considers him too unstable to lead a ship into battle against them.

At the beginning of the story, Picard chooses to disobey his orders and takes the ship to Earth, where the Starfleet armada has engaged the Borg (see Battle of Sector 001). Upon arriving, the Enterprise takes part in the fighting and transports aboard survivors from the heavily damaged USS Defiant, including its commanding officer, Lt. Commander Worf. The cube ship is defeated by the fleet, but shortly before its destruction ejects a sphere ship, which the Enterprise pursues. As the sphere heads toward Earth it opens and travels via a tunnel through time, followed by the Enterprise. The two arrive in 2063, and the Borg ship begins to fire on a former nuclear missile launch-facility in the northwest region of the United States. The Enterprise destroys the sphere; however, unknown at this time, a number of Borg drones and the Borg Queen managed to transport into a Jeffries tubes in the ship's engineering section.

The USS Enterprise NCC-1701-E

The Phoenix

Picard, realizing that the Borg were attempting to destroy the Phoenix, Earth's first warp-capable vessel, has an away team, including himself, transport in civilian clothes to the missile silo housing it. Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge and an engineering team work on the damaged vessel while Commander William T. Riker attempts to convince Dr. Zefram Cochrane, designer and pilot of the ship, to go through with the flight tomorrow, knowing that the time of his warp test is imperative to establishing first contact with the Vulcans. At the same time, Captain Picard and Dr. Beverly Crusher return to the Enterprise with Lily Sloane, Cochrane's assistant, who is suffering from theta radiation poisoning after the attack.

Meanwhile, the Borg begin to assimilate the equipment and crewmembers that they encounter on the Enterprise, taking over main engineering and moving upward through the decks. Realizing their presence, Picard leads the remaining officers against the Borg, during which Lt. Commander Data is taken by the Borg and Picard encounters Lily in a Jeffries tube, whom he informs as to what's happening. The two flee from a group of drones and take refuge in a holodeck, which Picard loads with a scene from a Dixon Hill holonovel in a crowded nightclub and configures it with safeties off. He then obtains a Tommy gun and kills the Borg with it; his manner indicates to Lily his great hatred for the Borg. He takes a chip from within a drone which stores the matters on the collective's schedule.

The two return to the rest of the crew and find that the Borg are building a communications antenna on the Enterprise's navigational deflector to call for assistance from the Borg of this time. Picard, Worf, and Lt. Sean Hawk don space suits and magnetic boots and venture out on to the hull armed with phaser rifles. They make their way to the deflector dish and begin to switch on the three manual controls that release the central part of the dish. The drones building the antenna begin to move against the three. They manage to assimilate Hawk; Picard moves over to Hawk's control and activates it while Worf kills Hawk. The released plate, carrying several Borg and the antenna, begins to move away from the Enterprise and Worf, uttering a defiant "Assimilate This!" destroys the antenna with a phaser rifle when a safe distance away.

Meanwhile, the Phoenix has been repaired and Cochrane convinced to make the attempt. The vessel is launched on April 5, 2063 as it is supposed to be and exits Earth's gravity without incident.

On the Enterprise, the Borg have continued to climb upward. Worf advocates setting the ship's self-destruct function and abandoning the ship via escape pods. Picard refuses to allow the Borg to cause the loss of the Enterprise. The two argue this heatedly until Lily convinces Picard that his hate of the Borg is clouding his reasoning. He agrees to destroying the ship. As the crew are escaping the ship, he doesn't join them, instead going down into engineering to recover Data.

Meanwhile, Data has been taken to the Borg Queen, who has been attempting to entice him to join her through replacing pieces of his skin with human skin and connecting them to his nervous system, helping him in his goal of becoming human. When Picard enters main engineering, the Borg queen says that Data may leave with him if he wishes; Data refuses. The queen then has Data deactivate the self-destruct program, which he does, and fire on the Phoenix; he fires, deliberately missing the Phoenix, however, and then kills the queen by breaking open a tube carrying a coolant that dissolves organic tissue on contact. The death of the queen causes the collective on board the ship to fail. Picard saves himself by climbing up on tubes dangling from the ceiling until the gas has drained from the room. Data, his patches of real skin gone, reveals that he had considered her offer of joining her for only 0.68 seconds - although "for an android, that is nearly an eternity."

The Phoenix test is a success. Shortly after Cochrane returns, the Vulcan survey ship T'plana'hath lands in the camp to make first contact with humans, having detected the warp signature from the Phoenix. The Enterprise crew returns to the ship, and it returns to its own time using the means that the sphere ship did.

[edit] Notes/trivia

Second run promotional poster

• During the launch of the Phoenix, Cochrane inserts a disc that plays a cover version of Steppenwolf's 1968 hit single Magic Carpet Ride.
• Although there is no evidence for it in the movie, an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise filmed several years later called "Regeneration" is based on the premise that debris from the Borg sphere eventually made its way to Earth and landed in a frozen Arctic environment. Nearly a century later, Borg drones would be recovered from the crash site, as the subject of the Enterprise episode.
• Footage from this film was reused in the Star Trek: Enterprise episode "In a Mirror, Darkly". The reused footage was integrated with newly created scenes to present the Mirror Universe version of Earth/Vulcan first contact (in which Zefram Cochrane shot and killed the Vulcan captain, and the assembled humans stormed the spacecraft and stole its technology). None of the original actors actually returned to shoot new footage; creative re-editing was used (for example, when Cochrane is shown firing his rifle and the Vulcan captain is hit, they are only seen from the neck down, as different but identically dressed actors are playing them).
• In the opening battle scene, Admiral Hayes (the commander of the Starfleet task force fighting the Borg) speaks to the commanders of the Starfleet vessels Defiant and Bozeman. We then hear a voice reply "Acknowledged"; it is Worf's voice we are hearing in command of the Defiant, albeit a bit static-y. People have speculated that Captain Morgan Bateson (Kelsey Grammer) of the Bozeman was the voice, but it is unlikely.
• During the course of the battle against the Borg, we hear that Admiral Hayes' flagship was destroyed. Hayes himself must have survived the battle, since he appears in an episode of Star Trek: Voyager set after the battle (most likely Hayes made it to an escape craft, and avoided his ship's destruction).
• In a bit of irony, Patrick Stewart's character, Captain Picard, is compared unfavorably to a later Patrick Stewart character, Captain Ahab, from the novel Moby Dick. It is this very comparison (made by Lily, during Picard's tirade against the invading Borg) that motivates Picard to take a course of action that will help him avoid being compared to Ahab. (Patrick Stewart played Captain Ahab in a made-for-television adaptation of the novel in 1998; he has noted in interviews that it was during the filming of First Contact that he began to consider taking on the role of Ahab.)
• "First Contact" is also the name of an episode from the fourth season of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
• Although the role of Zefram Cochrane was actually written for James Cromwell, Tom Hanks was originally considered for the role, but the filming of this movie coincided with the filming of That Thing You Do! (1996) which prevented him from taking the part.
• For inspiration prior to filming, director Jonathan Frakes says he viewed the films Alien (1979), Aliens (1986), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Blade Runner (1982), and Jaws (1975).
• The Borg makeup and suits had to be constantly touched up. Several of the Borg actors lost a considerable amount of weight while in costume because of the heat of the sets and temperature in Los Angeles during the shooting.
• At the end of filming, actor/director Jonathan Frakes got the nickname "Two takes Frakes" because of the efficiency of his style.
• Cameo: Ethan Phillips The actor who plays Neelix in Star Trek: Voyager plays the Maître d' of the holodeck scene club.
• Cameo: Ronald D. Moore The screenwriter appears in the holodeck club scene.
• Cameo: Brannon Braga The screenwriter appears in the holodeck club scene.
• Cameo: Dwight Schultz reprises his role as Lt. Reginald Barclay from Star Trek: The Next Generation. This role was originally to be an unnamed junior officer, but Frakes thought it suited the Barclay character.
• When Dr. Crusher says "In the 21st century, the Borg are still in the Delta Quadrant", it was intended as a teaser for upcoming episodes of Star Trek: Voyager, in which the Borg were featured prominently.
• The program menu in the holosuite depicts various holodeck programs from previous episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Specifically: Cafe Des Artistes is from "We'll Always Have Paris". Charnock's Comedy Cabaret is from "The Outrageous Okona". The Big Goodbye is from "The Big Goodbye", "Manhunt", and "Clues". Emerald Wading Pool is from "Conundrum". Equestrian Adventure is from "Pen Pals".
• Cameo: Robert Picardo reprises his role as the Emergency Medical Hologram from Star Trek: Voyager.
• The eyepieces of the Borg flash the Morse code of the names of people associated with the production.
• The opera that Picard is listening to is Berlioz' "Les Troyens". The song is "Hylas' Song" from the beginning of Act V. Hylas is a homesick young sailor being rocked to sleep by the sea as he dreams of the homeland he will never see again.
• The character of Ensign Lynch is a reference to Internet critic Timothy W. Lynch, who watched and reviewed every episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.^{[citation needed]}
• Reginald Barclay shows LaForge a coil of copper wire to ask if it would work to fix the plasma coil. It is the same prop used in Forbidden Planet (1956) where a crew-member asks Commander Adams if it would work in building the transmitter (it is described as a Klystron frequency modulator).
• In an earlier draft of the script, the character of Lily was originally named Ruby. In the theatrical version, Ruby is now a holographic character in "The Big Goodbye" holonovel. Additionally, the Enterprise-E was depicted as being part of the Nova Class of starships instead of the Sovereign Class. The Nova class starship was later introduced in the Star Trek: Voyager episode of "Equinox" as the USS Equinox.
• The display cases in the Enterprise's briefing room contain golden models of all six Federation starships to bear the name Enterprise.
• The first Star Trek movie to receive an MPAA rating higher than PG (It was PG-13).
• The titles Star Trek: Borg and Star Trek: Resurrection were considered. The Resurrection title was almost a lock until the studio realized Fox had earlier registered the name for their upcoming Alien movie.
• The "first contact" in this movie takes place at a "missile silo in Montana". Montana's missile base is Malmstrom AFB in Great Falls, Montana, which has been the site of many famous UFO sightings since the 1950s, though there are countless missile silos peppering the Montana countryside. Brannon Braga took credit for selecting this location, because he is from Bozeman, Montana. (He also included mention of a starship called the "Bozeman" earlier in the film and in the Next Generation TV series.)
• The character of Zefram Cochrane originated in the Star Trek episode "Metamorphosis" (1967). There are differences between the Cochrane from the series and from this movie, but they are both regaled as pioneers in the field of space-flight. (Star Trek literature claims that this is, in fact, the same person, however his more youthful appearance in the original series is attributed to "The Companion.")
• ILM animators created several new classes of Federation ships for the huge animated computer-generated imagery sequence against the Borg. Classes include the Akira, Saber, Steamrunner and Norway. The Norway class of starship is seen for the first (and only) time in this film; the CGI model of the ship was subsequently lost due to a computer glitch, and so the class never appeared again in any other Trek show or film.
• It's also worth noting that some jokers at ILM snuck the newly finished CGI model of the Millennium Falcon, used in the Special Edition release of the Star Wars Original Trilogy, into the opening battle with the Borg cube. It can be seen flying in the distance in a few shots.^{[citation needed]}
• James Cromwell became the first actor in Star Trek history to actually utter the phrase "star trek" (although in the final episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, John de Lancie (as Q) said, "It's time to put an end to your trek through the stars").
• Footage of the Warp Ship Phoenix's launch was later reused in the opening sequence for the new Star Trek series Enterprise in 2001. James Cromwell reprised his role of Zefram Cochrane in the Enterprise episode "Broken Bow". In the episode, Cochrane is seen as a recording from the dedication of the "Warp 5 Complex".
• All the scenes filmed inside the silo and of the Phoenix were taken at the Titan Missile Museum, located in Green Valley, 20 miles South of Tucson, Arizona. This site is the only Intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) silo complex in the world that is open to the public. The 110 foot tall Titan II rocket has been "de-militarized" (no fuel or nuclear payload) and, per the SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) and START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty), one of the two silo doors must remain blocked open for Russian satellite verification.
• In earlier versions Picard's character was supposed to be the one helping Zefram Cochrane on Earth, with Riker fighting the Borg on the Enterprise. The main story was also focused on the happenings on Earth. After Patrick Stewart objected to that, the characters of Riker and Picard were swapped. This also resulted in making Picard more of an action hero and the story more focusing on happenings on the Enterprise.
• Actor Michael Zaslow, the first actor to have been killed off in the Star Trek universe, has an uncredited appearance as Eddie, the bartender.
• Cochrane asks Geordi, "Don't you people in the 24th century ever pee?" This is a jovial reference to the fact that toilets are never shown on screen in the Star Trek universe (although they do appear in some blueprints). Although one is seen in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier when Kirk is in the brig and presses a button on the wall, which a white toilet shape comes out of the wall, which Kirk then sits on.
• Earlier drafts of the script called for the Defiant to be destroyed in the battle with the Borg, but screenwriter Ronald D. Moore objected to the needless destruction of the ship from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in a story that didn't even involve the Deep Space Nine characters (apart from Worf). It would also prove to be inconvenient for the television show, so the Defiant was eventually allowed to survive the battle, albeit severely damaged.
• Once the creative team decided they were going to make a time travel movie, two of the time periods they considered the Enterprise and her crew visiting included the American Civil War and Medieval Europe and would have included a castle that would have partially been assimilated by the Borg.
• Was released the same day that actor Mark Lenard (Sarek) died.
• Is the first Star Trek film in which none of the original Star Trek (1966) cast members appear.
• Early rumors had suggested that Lt. Sean Hawk (Neal McDonough) would be the first gay crew-member in the Star Trek franchise. While the rumors were proven to be false, Andy Mangels' and Michael Martin's novel Section 31: Rogue, portrayed Lieutenant Hawk as a gay character, although the Star Trek novels, comic books and video games are not considered canon. (Rumors later suggested the character of Malcolm Reed on Star Trek: Enterprise would be gay, and later that the producers had nixed the idea.)
• When Picard appears out of a hatch to see the surprised faces of his crew pointing guns at him, he says "Reports of my assimilation have been greatly exaggerated". This is paraphrased from Mark Twain's famous saying "Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated".
• A crossover comic book entitled Second Contact, featuring a meeting of the command crew of the Enterprise-E and Marvel Comics characters the X-Men and set in the Marvel Universe, occurs immediately after the events of First Contact in Star Trek chronology. In this story, Kang the Conqueror attempts to disrupt established timelines, resulting in the Enterprise being drawn into another universe on their way home, where they meet the X-Men (Specifically, Storm, Wolverine, Shadowcat, Colossus, Banshee, Angel, and Nightcrawler) and aid them in fighting Kang. The comic story leads into the Pocket Books novel Planet X, in which the X-Men appear in the Star Trek universe; for the Enterprise-E crew around a year after their first encounter with the X-Men and subsequent return to their own time period and reality, but from the X-Men's perspective, Planet X occurs immediately after Second Contact. Here the X-men's presence is revealed to have been caused by Q, who sent the X-Men to that universe to help the Enterprise deal with a problem involving a planet's population going through mutant-like changes after another species meddled with their genetic makeup.
• When Picard explains the Borg to Lily, she comments "Sounds Swedish." This is a reference to Swedish tennis player Björn Borg.
• Geordi La Forge replaced his VISOR with Ocular Implants.
• The aggravated Picard's line "The line must be drawn HERE!" has become a popular internet meme on YTMND
• James Cromwell, who played Zefram Cochrane, also played Prime Minister Nayrok, the leader of Angosia, from TNG Episode "The Hunted," Jaglom Shrek from the TNG two-part Episode "Birthright," and Minister Hanok in the DS9 Episode "Starship Down."
• The proposed computer game was to have been released by Microprose and be powered by the Unreal engine.

References to 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968):

• The deflector dish is labeled AE35, the name of a component of a satellite dish in 2001.
• After Cochrane sarcastically asks Riker, "What, you don't have a moon in the 24th century?" Riker mentions that there are over 50 million colonists on the moon, as well as a list of cities on the moon, including Tycho City. Tycho was the crater on the Moon (named after 16th century Danish astronomer, Tycho Brahe) where the monolith was found in 2001.
• The Borg are given a four-note musical motif in this movie that is a synthesized and slightly altered, "creepy" form of the central five-note motif from Also Sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss, which served as the main theme music for 2001. This served as a double reference, by suggesting a creepier version of the alien presence from 2001, and by suggesting that the Borg fulfill all the negative possibilities of Also Sprach Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche.

[edit] Errors and inconsistencies in the film

• A member of the crew reports that the Borg have taken over deck 26, but Picard tells Lily there are 24 decks.
• When Picard is showing Lily the view of Earth, we can see Australia, New Guinea, and the Solomons, but New Zealand is missing.
• There is a scene where the Enterprise-E is flying past Earth. But North America is facing the sun, which is impossible since the beginning scenes with Cochrane when Riker and Troi meet him are at night.
• Zefram Cochrane is spelled incorrectly as Zefram Cochran in the credits.
• In a zero-gravity scene, several minor effects reveal gravity's true pull. Most notably, gas let out of the ship by Picard's rifle shot falls back 'down' after a few moments. Similarly, a shower of sparks in the background fall 'down' towards the ship.

[edit] Trademark litigation

Paramount was sued over the film in federal court by the heirs of William F. Jenkins, a science-fiction author who wrote under the pen name "Murray Leinster". Jenkins had published a short story in 1945 entitled "First Contact", which may have been at least one of the original sources of the term, and his heirs who held the rights to the story claimed that "Star Trek: First Contact" infringed their trademark in the term. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia granted Paramount's motion for summary judgment and dismissed the suit (see Estate of William F. Jenkins v. Paramount Pictures Corp., 90 F. Supp. 2d 706 (E.D. Va. 2000) for the full text of the court's ruling). The court found that regardless of whether Jenkins first coined "first contact", it since became a generic (and therefore unprotectable) term that described the overall genre of science fiction in which humans first encounter alien species. Even if the title was instead "descriptive" — a category of terms higher than "generic" that may be protectable — there was no evidence that the title had the required association in the public's mind (known as "secondary meaning") such that its use would normally be understood as referring to Jenkins's story. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court's dismissal without comment.

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Star Trek: First Contact

• Official Star Trek: First Contact web site
• Star Trek: First Contact at the Internet Movie Database
• Star Trek: First Contact article at Memory Alpha, a Star Trek wiki.