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Star Trek VII: Generations

Originally Aired: 1994-11-18

Synopsis:
Captains Kirk and Picard meet in a strange "Nexus" that defies time. Together, they save a planet from destruction. [Blu-ray] [DVD]

My Rating - 10

Fan Rating Average - 6.25

Rate movie?

Rating: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
# Votes: 28 9 11 11 17 25 32 47 38 36 48

Filler Quotient: 0, not filler, do not skip this episode.
- Numerous major long term plot threads are serviced here.

Problems
- The uniforms are rather confused in this film. And I'm not talking about the sailor uniforms on the bridge or the old style uniforms worn by the characters from the past. The Enterprise D appears to have some crew members wearing DS9 uniforms and others wearing TNG uniforms! Even Riker's uniform magically changes from TNG to DS9 style as the film progresses! As does Data's! And Picard's... And Geordi's... Picard even reverts back to his old uniform in the final scenes of the film!
- In TNG: Relics, Scotty, upon hearing the name Enterprise, says: "Jim Kirk got it out of mothballs!" Why would Scotty say this knowing Kirk was dead? Maybe the long term transporter buffer stasis induced some kind of temporary transporter psychosis?
- Riker, regarding the slim chances to intercept Soran's missile: "That's a pretty big margin of error!" Well, that's good then! They've got plenty of margin for error! ;)

Factoids
- This film is nominated for my "Best Star Trek Film Award."
- This is the first of the TNG films and the last of the TOS films.
- Tim Russ, who plays an officer aboard the Enterprise B in this film, goes on to play Tuvok on Voyager. He easily could have been, but he is not Tuvok in this film as his ears are not pointed.
- The Enterprise D appears to have installed a new type of transporter since TNG: All Good Things... based on the visual effect.
- According to Riker and Worf, the Romulans, Breen, and Klingons all use type 3 disruptors. This is also one of many mentions of the yet unseen Breen species who will finally show up in late DS9.
- The door chime in Picard's ready room has changed; it is the one which will be used on Voyager.
- This film was nominated for the 1995 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation.

Remarkable Scenes
- A look at the Enterprise B! Now we've seen them all! The first one built by the Federation was commanded by Pike, then Kirk. That one was destroyed, another was built: the A. Then the B, featured in this film. Then the C, featured in TNG: Yesterday's Enterprise. Finally the D in TNG. Of course there are more later, but I love how the writers filled in the gaps for us finally. :)
- Guinan abord the Enterprise B!
- Kirk lost saving the Enterprise B.
- The damage to the Enterprise B was extremely well done.
- Worf's promotion ceremony. Worf defeats the ceremony's challenge to retrieve the hat, but Riker deletes the plank from the holodeck program and Worf splashes into the water!
- Data pushing Beverly off the ship to be "funny and spontaneous."
- Picard receiving the bad news about his family. His brother and nephew have died.
- Data considering using the emotion chip. Excellent continuity with TNG: Descent.
- Data, up and about with his new emotion chip. Data enjoys hating the drink because he's never felt true emotion before. Hilarious!
- Soran: "They say time is the fire in which we burn."
- Data joking around with Geordi while they investigate the space station then being unable to stop laughing. I'm particularly fond of "Mr. Tricorder."
- Picard looking through photos of his family and discussing his family along with the tragic loss of his brother and nephew with Troi. Excellent continuity with TNG: Family.
- The Duras' sisters' appearance. They are recurring characters from many previous TNG/DS9 episodes. They never know when to quit!
- The scenes in which Soran and Guinan's history are discussed bear nice continuity with TNG: The Best of Both Worlds, and other episodes.
- Data and Picard in Stellar Cartography.
- The Klingons using Geordi's visor to spy on the Enterprise.
- Soran: "Ah, captain. You must think I'm quite the madman." Picard: "The thought had crossed my mind."
- Riker: "Can you find a way to scan the planet for life forms?" Data: "I would be happy to sir! I just love scanning for life forms!" Data then begins singing and playing a tune with the computer terminal button sounds. Data: "Life forms... you tiny little life forms... you precious little life forms... where are you?" Easily one of the funniest moments in all of Star Trek history.
- The battle between the Klingon ship and the Enterprise. Spectacular!
- The destruction of the Klingon ship and the death of the Duras sisters!
- The destruction of the Enterprise drive section!
- As the Enterprise hurls toward the planet, Data says: "Oh shit!"
- The crashing of the Enterprise saucer section!
- Picard's meeting with Kirk.
- Kirk to Picard: "I was out saving the galaxy when your grandfather was in diapers!"
- Picard killing Soran.
- Kirk's death. His final words: "It was... fun... oh my..."
- Troi discovering Data's cat Spot, still alive.
- Picard: "Somehow I doubt this will be the last ship to carry the name Enterprise."

My Review
This is a very special film. It is very epic, for we have big things happening! The convergence of two timelines that span a century, the destruction of stars, the destruction of a beloved ship; The Enterprise D, and the death of a beloved character; James Kirk. Soran was a great villain because his goals were realistic. He wasn't a madman, just a bit unscrupulous and greedy. The film is extremely intelligently written, using Guinan's longevity appropriately and giving us some more much needed backstory on her people and giving us an appropriate tie in between Kirk and Picard's time all at the same time! The highlights of the movie are extensive, but probably the best part is the acting throughout the movie is fantastic, particularly in Picard's scenes regarding the loss of his family, later with Kirk, and finally the loss of his ship, along with Data's emotional scenes. The two characters spend very little time with one another, but the issues they each face are nicely paralleled throughout the film. Another highlight is the special effects. It's nice to see the Enterprise D rendered in such high quality. Even the Enterprise B looked pretty badass. And needless to say, Enterprise D's death was spectacular. Another nice detail is the film is filled with fantastic continuity with tons of other episodes, far, far too many to list, but much, much appreciated. One important one: Data's emotion chip is finally activated, tying up a loose end of the TNG series. Many people bash this film as a terrible way to kill off Kirk, but I disagree. Kirk agreed to leave the Nexus to help Picard so that he could "make a difference" one last time. Many ask why Picard and Kirk didn't return to a not so crucial time so as to save the Enterprise and in fact Kirk's life. Well, neither Picard nor Kirk knew what happened to the Enterprise. And I think Kirk wanted to die. The Nexus wasn't real, and he knew he'd be a man out of time after he assisted Picard. While the logical flaws do abound, I think Kirk deliberately chose the moment they went to and he deliberately died an honorable man, saving Picard's life. That said, this film is exiting clear up to the end with the Enterprise's destruction and Kirk's heroic death. The film is a fantastic send-off for both TOS and the Enterprise D and one of the best films in Star Trek history.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

  • From JemHadar359 on 2007-06-27 at 1:22pm:
    The battle between the Enterprise-D and the Duras sisters' Bird Of Prey is in my opinion the best technical battle in Star Trek's history.

    However, it does have one flaw. Why didn't Riker order the Enterprise's shield nutation rotated after the Bird Of Prey hit them with the first photon torpedo?

    Of course, Riker's not doing this makes for a much more exciting sequence.

    I love the close-up on Riker when he says simply, "Fire."
  • From Heldt on 2010-04-07 at 4:04pm:
    The mystical uniform change was intended. You may have noticed a slow starfleed uniform change in DS9 too.
    Of course not all starfleet members get new uniforms at once.

    My problems with the movie are:
    - Earth. Center of Starfleet. Ships are being built here. A few years ago they even tested Transwarp technology in one of the stations. And now no ship is near enough to this... Nexus-thingy? It's in the sol-system! There have to be at least three dozen ships full with cadets.
    - Why is this deflector control Kirk goes to about 100 m off the deflector? Why is he even going there? There must be people in the machine room specially trained for working with these controls. Or at least better trained as a old retired captain...
    - What the hell is Tuvok doing there? And where are his pointy ears?

    And that's only 10 Minutes...
  • From curt on 2010-04-22 at 2:26am:
    This might be a dumb question, people were talking, and I didnt get to pay as much attention as I wanted to. But when kirk goes back time to meet that girl, it wasnt real, so why is it real when they go back to fight scene with Soran's missle launch? I'm sorry if the movie already addressed this, like I said i didnt get to pay total attention to it.
  • From Deepblue on 2010-07-08 at 3:11pm:
    Definitely a thinking person's movie about loss and living past you're perceived usefulness. Kirk's death was foreshadowed in V, that he felt safe w/ Bones and Spock because he always believed he'd die alone, meaning without his comrades. I'm sure a fair amt. of fans woulda preferred fearless Kirk to go out guns blazing in battle but that would've seemed out of place for him in his older age having outlived his dangerous younger years.

    The mixed bag of uniforms is realistic to today like the previous commenter noted. Currently in US military, many military personnel in the same branch (if not in an active combat infantry role) have various color uniforms depending on how long they've been in. Newer personnel are issued the latest uniform, individuals with more seniority are given a choice of keeping older uniforms and/or adopting newer ones.
  • From MJ on 2011-02-25 at 6:50pm:
    In my opinion, not a single one of the four TNG movies has a premise that makes sense. But, as TNG's movies go, this is probably the best.

    My problem with the premise here is that it's very hard to tell (as one review pointed out) what is part of the Nexus and what is not. The Nexus is explained to be a gateway to another dimension in which a person's thoughts and desires become reality. Picard fast forwards to the family life he never had, no doubt inspired by his brother and nephew's recent death reminding him of the importance of family. And Kirk finds himself reliving moments in his past with the opportunity to change their outcome. All of this is very interesting, but both captains recognize that what they experience is not real. When they go back to Veridian 3, do they actually leave the Nexus? They would have to for their actions to have real world consequences, but this is never made clear. This is a fundamental problem in the movie because it calls into question whether Picard and Kirk's actions were simply a part of their Nexus fantasy. Consider that, according to Riker, the mission shown at the film’s beginning is the real world incident in which James Kirk was killed. This would mean that there’s a serious problem in the timeline. And by the way, if Picard can request Kirk's help, what's stopping him from recruiting anybody else he wants? He could bring all kinds people to Veridian to help stop Soren, but for the story purpose it stops at Kirk.

    Putting all that aside, the movie has strong mythical overtones, is brilliantly shot and acted, filled with superb dialogue and character developments (particularly Data and his handling of emotion chip), and has visual effects that, when I first saw this movie, left me in awe of what Star Trek could be like with the transition from TV to film. I like how the movie gives us more details on Guinan's past; we've known for a long time now that the Borg destroyed her planet, and now we see the immediate aftermath, which makes for awesome continuity. I'm sure it was fun for Brent Spiner to change things up in this film, adding to the already enormous popularity of Data. I did think Picard's time with Kirk came at the expense of the rest of the TNG crew...most of them had fairly minor roles, certainly not what we're used to seeing from them.

    Overall, a nice start to the TNG film series. Unfortunately, each movie got progressively worse.
  • From Bernard on 2011-02-27 at 8:48am:
    First things first. The whole climax to the film is created by Dr. Soran firing a missile at a star that will change the gravitational whatever of that part of space... This means that the planet will be destroyed. But lets get this straight. The Nexus is missing the planet, unless the star is destroyed to divert the course of the Nexus. So to divert the course of the Nexus surely the shockwave would ALREADY have had to have passed by killing our heroes and Dr. Soran before he can even get into the Nexus.

    The film is filled with this kind of flawed logic, don't even get me started on the Nexus itself. It's an absolute mess. You could forgive these problems if the film was good enough, but sadly it isn't.

    Unfortunately, although this is a bad film, it is fairly consistant to Star Trek themes unlike the three sequels that follow so I'll give it some credit.

    There are so many good things in this film, it just feels like they've all been thrown in without any real thought. Another note to film directors and script writers, stop throwing cringeworthy attempts at humour into dark films (check out revenge of the sith for more of this). I love Brent Spiner as Data but this exploration of his humanity has been done to death during the series and has no place in the feature films. Unfortunately as the Next Gen films progress we continue to be fed Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner's personal ego trips.

    One thing that I read a lot of Trek fans bitching about is the way that Kirk's send of is carried out in this film. I don't have a problem with that at all. It's not an issue for me.

    Overall this film is a load of good stuff lumped together with no real thought. It has a decent premise, good acting (Malcolm Mcdowell is as good as any villain a Star Trek film has had), great sequences that they could not afford to do on the series, but too much clutter and crap. I'd give it a 6.

  • From Seriously? on 2011-04-11 at 2:55pm:
    U gotta be kidding me! This is by far the worst Star Trek movie ever made! How can you defend this piece of crap?

    Here's a review worth its name, which treats the movie the way it deserves:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azSh47-oRPI&feature=related

    But even they didnt notice the biggest scientific mistake in this bad rip-off of a Star Trek movie. The gravitational effects of a star explosion would need at least a couple of minutes to even reach the nexus. In the movie that stupid space ribbon changes its course instantly.
    Even better, there would be no instant gravitational effects of that explosion, because no matter if the sun explodes or not, the matter is still there until it gets spread by the shockwave. As long as that shockwave didnt pass the planet, the only consequence is the light going off.
  • From EvanT on 2011-06-24 at 8:12pm:
    The three things that REALLY bugged me in this movie:

    1)Riker and Worf during the battle scene. Why didn't they rotate the shield harmonics? And on top of that, all they did was to fire a single phaser shot at the Bird of Prey. C'mon! How much punishment can that thing take? They seemed pretty fragile in DS9. And the Enterprise took a direct torpedo hit and it barely dented the hull (but a disruptor hit at the stardrive brings down half the bridge?). Riddle it with torpedoes and phaser shots. That oughta do it! They would've destroyed it before they had finished their diatribe on antique klingon cloak generator plasma coils. Yeesh.

    I'll agree that the crashing on the planet was cool though. How about using a stronger klingon ship then? A Vor'cha might be more of a challenge for a Galaxy class starship without shields! Who wrote that damn scene? And why are Lursa and Betor still alive? Shouldn't someone have tracked them down and killed them for causing a civil war by now?

    2) They reused the exploding Bird of Prey from the previous movie. Laaaame! I mean, how cheap can you get? Blow up a CG Bird of Prey! You've already blown up a planet, the stardrive, two stars and a science facility... how much modeling and rendering time would it take? This is just sloppy presentation.

    3)I didn't mind how Kirk died, but I did find it distasteful how he was buried. Here's a legendary captain that just gave his life in order to save a planet of millions. How can we possibly honour him?

    Let's bury him on a backwater planet under rocks, so the wild animals can easily feast on his rotting carcass. It's not like we could take a corpse back with us when we get evacuated from the planet. That would be just gross! ("Farragut, one person and a cadaver to beam up" <--see? distasteful!)

    The greatest captain of the 23rd century, if not in Starfleet history and he doesn't even get an on-screen eulogy or even a torpedo casing funeral.

    I mean... C'MON!
  • From Inga on 2011-12-17 at 6:39pm:
    I have another problem - how come it only took Soran's rocket 11 seconds to reach the star? Either the planet is very close to it, or the rocket traveled faster than the speed of light...
  • From b goldstein on 2012-01-08 at 12:54pm:
    The Opening scene with Kirk, Scotty, and Checkov just seemed out of character for all three -- this is because it was written for Spock and McCoy. It makes sense afterwards, but it was a terrible beginning that it was hard to get into the rest of the movie.

    So the rest of the movie was ruined for me because the plot felt so contrived.
  • From L on 2013-05-13 at 12:40am:

    I loved the performance of the captain in the opening scene, as his moment of pride just turned to a nightmare.
    Lots of cool things, but plot-wise it's weak and more like a good series episode with a rushed end.
    They get out of the nexus way too easily. According to Guinan and the bad guy, it's indescribable joy, you'll forget everything you ever cared about and you'll do anything to stay there, even destroy inhabited solar systems, but the two captains just get bored and hop out.
    Or do they? I thought they were going to do a false reality plot twist, but then was disappointed when I realised it was the real ending to the movie.
    Still, it's Star Trek, so it's about enjoying the characters, not logic. Having both 'styles' of Star Trek in one movie was pretty awesome. And everything looked great, beautiful cinema-photography.
  • From Richard on 2013-05-28 at 4:14am:
    I don't think changing the shield modulation would have worked, they might even have tried it off camera, as Geordi would have done it and the Klingons would have just matched them. If they changed once or twice and it had no effect, they wouldn't have known why and given up trying and just kept the ship together. The only problems I had were the speed of the final rocket (which I suppose could have had limited warp, but this was never even hinted at) and the change in gravitational forces without any change in mass, which is just impossible. Never-the-less, this is my favorite Star Trek film, I really like how it tied the two series together.
  • From Kevin on 2013-12-15 at 9:17am:
    This film really polarizes viewers for some reason. Maybe the most epic of all trek movies, with awesome action, acting, music, effects and BY FAR the biggest use of multiple locations. Honestly, I thought this movie was awesome,despite some confusion about when they were or were not in the nexus and some gravitational errors maybe.

    Overall, it did what STTNG was great at. An exciting story, with fun, adventure, something big happening, and FINALLY a "Bad Guy" that was simply bad, but realistic. Not some super meglamaniac that all the other movies tend to use, but an actual believable person that is just very greedy and obsessed, and seemed to have real motivations for what he does.

    Kirk wanted to die. That was his choice and I think it is made clear, despite many crying about how he died or where he was. A perfect movie, not really, but the most ambitious of all for sure!

    A must see epic.
  • From parqbench on 2016-06-02 at 11:23am:
    tahw dnafinish, but everything reviewers have pointed out was true. lots of logical problems, and lots of just lost potential in where they could've taken the plot. still, at least this is star trek that seems to have a grip on itself, somewhat realistic characters and some nice meditations on the finitude of life.

    i didn't have a trouble with "what is and what is not the nexus" because i knew the movie just wouldn't reach there, and could be confidently assumed to gamble on the safe, "happy" ending that the enterprise was actually saved (though kirk was not).

    i did wish the nexus was less matter of fact. i really was thinking some reality-bending, pull-apart-your-being crushing, consciousness-expanding/contracting, spiritual ego-death trip morality play/force of will battle of intellect and soul to escape this thing. even going for palatable, easy-to-follow scenes for a mass audience they could've made it more mysterious, but it kind of just feels like he woke up in a new place and that's it. shatner actually does a much better job of at least coming off as preoccupied--and strangely, almost uncharacteristically unconcerned with what's wrong. funny to say that he would be the better actor in this scenario, since usually it's the opposite (though i love you, man).

    anyway, funnily enough, the moment i read other posts asking the shield rotation question is the moment i realised i've become a true fan; i remember reading "gotchas" like that all the time and not really connecting the technobabble with anything tangible in any of the series, but after having rounded out most of the available star trek mythos, that was actually the first thing on my mind. "why don't they just rotate the freaking shield frequencies?" haha. at least this is an established premise in the ST universe. and all the klingons got was their *current* frequency, no? so it would have been an admitted gamble. and they could've framed it like that and been fine--"if we catch them unawares, we'll have a brief window to drive them away before they cycle frequencies." still, was a slow & interesting technical battle, as one commenter noted.

    ultimately...patrick stewart is great, though i always have the same dilemma when watching trek--we're essentially softening military figures; it really is technically no different than a movie about a general in afghanistan feeling pangs of family longing and then proceeding to carry out his duty to the letter occupying and razing a foreign country and destroying other families. but that's an essay for another day...cheers. :)
  • From Trekkie From Way Back on 2016-07-08 at 11:09pm:
    A 10?!!

    I agree with Mr. Plinkett, who starts his review: "'Star Trek Generations' is the stupidest Star Trek movie ever made." Check out this in-depth and entertaining 3-part review on youtube.

    Sorry Mr. K, you have lost all credibility with me. I've disagreed with some of your reviews before, but this goes beyond belief...
  • From Graham Bessellieu on 2019-07-28 at 1:19am:
    Again, agreed with Kethinov here; this is a special piece of Trek history.

    The convergence of the two generations is weaved together in a thoughtful manner. In fact, the film’s overarching theme is a reflection on the passage of time.

    From a cinematic standpoint, there are quite a few painterly scenes in this film. For example, Picard’s interactions with Riker and Troi during his reflection on family has quite exquisite lighting, which serve to dramatize and humanize Picard in ways rarely seen on the show.

    The 18th century sea-faring opening for the TNG cast is memorable and fun.

    We get to witness significant character development for Data, with the emotion chip.

    And I have to admit, seeing Picard truly happy with family at Christmas (in the Nexus dream) brought a tear to the eye.

    The second half of the film does drag a bit, pacing wise occasionally. Then there’s addressing Kirk’s death.

    Picard and Kirk working together is excellent and I have no qualm, in principle, with Kirk signing off in this film. It’s just the presentation. There could have been a much more elaborate, exciting and dynamic way to have written that teamwork. Think of all the ways they could have worked together, each playing to their particular strengths and styles of command. Given the entire arc of Kirk’s character, in context, it feels lackluster.

    Kirk should have gone out with a bang, with a combination of wit, brash courage, and compassionate self-sacrifice. That’s his character. Instead we get something kind of accidental, with courage no doubt, but awkward and abrupt.

    That aside, this film is essential TNG, with major character development and some surprising moments of genuine warmth and heart.
  • From gary on 2023-12-24 at 9:34am:
    William Shatner tried to insert a funny line into the scene where he is dying and Picard comes over to him. In the scene, Kirk is trapped under a bridge. So Shatner wanted Kirk's last words to be "bridge on the captain" as a clever reversal of his usual "captain on the bridge". Stewart also liked the idea so the audience would see they had a sense of humor. But the producers wouldn't let them keep it in the movie.

    My biggest problem with this film is that there's no rational reason why Picard would bring only Kirk back to help him defeat Soren. If he's in the Nexus, there are millions of other options. But, it was a nice send-off for the Kirk character. And that really was the point of this one: a "passing of the baton" from TOS to TNG. So in that sense, it was brilliant.

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Star Trek VIII: First Contact

Originally Aired: 1996-11-22

Synopsis:
Picard orders the Enterprise to follow the Borg back in time to stop them from destroying the Phoenix, Earth's first warp-speed vessel. [Blu-ray] [DVD]

My Rating - 10

Fan Rating Average - 8.03

Rate movie?

Rating: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
# Votes: 27 6 6 7 6 10 11 18 32 58 188

Filler Quotient: 0, not filler, do not skip this episode.
- Numerous major long term plot threads are serviced here.

Problems
- In TOS: Metamorphosis, we meet a much older Zefram Cochrane played by a much younger actor. Maybe the alien in that episode rejuvenated him?
- Daniels says there are 26 decks on the Enterprise E. But later PIcard says to Lily that there are 24.

Factoids
- This film is the winner of my "Best Star Trek Film Award" and is therefore a candidate for my "Best Episode Ever Award."
- This film introduces a new style of uniforms which will be adopted by DS9, but not by Voyager.
- This film further establishes that the Eugenics war and WWIII were separate events.
- The Enterprise arrived ten years after the third world war, on April 4th, 2063. This puts the third world war circa 2053. Most of the major cities have been destroyed and there are very few governments left. 600,000,000 dead.
- First Contact occurred on April 5th, 2063.
- This film features a new transporter effect.
- According to Picard, there are over 150 planets in the Federation spread across 8000 light years.
- The Enterprise-E has 24 decks and it's almost 700 meters long.
- It took Lily 4 months to scrounge up enough titanium just to build a four meter cockpit for the Phoenix.
- Ethan Phillips, otherwise known on Voyager as Neelix, plays the holographic maitre d' who greets the Borg when Picard takes Lily to the holodeck.
- Data's a faithful companion! When the Borg Queen asks Data when the last time he used his sexual programming was, Data's response was: "Eight years, seven months, sixteen days, four minutes, and 22 seconds." That date puts it right about during the events of TNG: The Naked Now when Data had sex with Yar.
- There are 50 million people living on the moon in the 24th century.
- This film was nominated for the 1997 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation.
- This film was nominated for an Oscar in Makeup.

Remarkable Scenes
- The Enterprise-E. Gorgeous.
- Geordi without a visor!
- Listening to the battle as it starts.
- Data: "I believe I speak for everyone here, sir, when I say to hell with our orders."
- The battle with the Borg cube.
- Worf: "Perhaps today is a good day to die!"
- Riker regarding the Defiant: "Tough little ship." Worf: "Little?"
- Data diving down several meters of the silo to talk to Lily.
- Data, after being shot repeatedly by Lily's machine gun: "Greetings!"
- Beverly regarding the EMH: "I swore I'd never use one of these."
- EMH: "I'm a doctor, not a doorstop." Count 20 for "I'm a doctor, not a (blah)" style lines, which McCoy was famous for.
- Drunk Troi: "Timeline? This is no time to argue about time. We don't have the time."
- Data: "Captain, I believe I am feeling anxiety. It is an intriguing sensation. A most distracting--" Picard: "Data, I'm sure it is a fascinating experience, but perhaps you should deactivate your emotion chip for now." Data: "Good idea, sir." Data twitches his head. Data: "Done." Picard: "Data, there are times I envy you."
- Picard regarding the Borg: "Don't let them touch you!"
- Data's conversation with the Borg queen.
- Cochrane: "And you people... you're all astronauts on some kind of star trek?"
- Picard: "Maximum setting. If you had fired this, you would have vaporized me." Lily: "It's my first ray gun."
- Data questioning who and what the Borg queen is and her subsequent assemblage.
- Borg Queen: "I am the beginning. The end. The one who is many. I am the Borg." Data: "Greetings. I am curious. Do you control the Borg Collective?" Borg Queen: "You imply a disparity where none exists. I am the Collective." Data: "Perhaps I should rephrase the question. I wish to understand the organizational relationships. Are you their leader?" Borg Queen: "I bring order to chaos." Data: "An interesting if cryptic response."
- Borg Queen: "We too are on a quest to better ourselves. Evolving toward a state of perfection." Data: "Forgive me, but the Borg do not evolve. They conquer." Borg Queen: "By assimilating other beings into our Collective, we are bringing them closer to perfection." Data: "Somehow I question your motives."
- Lily: "Borg... sounds Swedish." Upon seeing a Borg, after screaming a few times, Lily says: "Definitely not Swedish."
- The whole Dixon Hill holodeck scene.
- Barclay's appearance.
- Geordi to Cochrane: "You're standing almost on the exact spot where your statue's gonna be!"
- The zero gravity space suit scene, walking upside down on the Enterprise traveling to the deflector.
- Worf's hand to hand combat with the Borg in space.
- Picard releasing the deflector emitter.
- Worf saving Picard, having tied the leak in his suit with components from dead Borg. :)
- Worf: "Assimilate this!"
- Cochrane: "You think I want to go to the stars? I don't even like to fly! I take trains!"
- Riker: "Someone once said don't try to be a great man, just be a man and let history make its own judgments." Cochrane: "That's rhetorical nonsense. Who said that?" Riker: "You did. Ten years from now."
- Worf's response to being called a coward by Picard: "If you were any other man, I would kill you where you stand!"
- Lily accusing Picard of being another Captain Ahab from Moby Dick. Picard smashes the glass container holding the model ships and the Enterprise-D falls...
- Picard: "I will not sacrifice the Enterprise. I've made too many compromises already. Too many retreats. They invade our space and we fall back. They assimilate entire worlds and we fall back. Not again. The line must be drawn here! This far, no farther! I will make them pay for what they've done!"
- Beverly: "So much for the Enterprise-E." Picard: "We barely knew her." Beverly: "Think they'll build another one?" Picard: "Plenty of letters left in the alphabet."
- The Phoenix lift off, to Steppenwolf's Magic Carpet Ride.
- Cochrane: "Engage!"
- Data to the Borg Queen: "Resistance is futile!"
- The First Contact scene.

My Review
My only real complaint about the film is the beginning, believe it or not. Yes, the Borg battle was spectacular. So what was wrong with it? It was too bloody short! They should have scrapped the entire tidbit about Starfleet not trusting Picard to fight the Borg and given all that extra time to the battle itself. Would have been perhaps less dramatic, but a showdown between the Borg and the Federation fleet certainly deserved more of a fight than that. Why, we didn't even get to see Wolf 359 until DS9's pilot, and we didn't get to see much of the battle even with that. Aside from that, the Enterprise-E was, as I've said above, gorgeous. She is everything a next-next generation Enterprise should be. Sleeker, more elegant, more powerful, etc. One interestingly funny in-joke regarding this movie is the method by which Worf was introduced as a crew member aboard the Enterprise. Obviously he was stationed aboard DS9, so he must have been given command of the Defiant to fight the Borg. When his ship was crippled, Picard beamed his crew to the Enterprise. Very convenient and very effective. The only annoying quality surrounding this is the fact that the only DS9 crew member aboard the Defiant was Worf. Everyone else was a redshirt. Personally, I wouldn't have minded seeing a few more DS9 guests in this film. But alas, like the episode TNG: Birthright, the film screams "I'm a TNG film, not a DS9 film!" Also remarkable is the music of Jerry and Joel Goldsmith in this film. Fantastic throughout, but my favorite scene (both musically and otherwise) is toward the beginning of the film when the Borg cube first pans over the camera. In the end, all things considered, this is easily the best Star Trek film ever done; many people would say the best Star Trek production period.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

  • From Neil on 2006-05-23 at 3:42pm:
    Hi, great site. I am loving the reviews and may submit some when time allows.

    I would like to make one point though, you say that Lt Hawk dies in First Contact but appears in future films. This is not true, Neil McDonough's character does not reappear after his death, in any of the remaining 2 star trek films.

    Thanks
  • From EKH on 2007-05-14 at 3:32pm:
    If this movie was a place, its name would be "Perfection, Arizona". "Perfection", because IMHO this is the best SF movie ever - though it ties with Aliens for that position - and "Arizona" because it is out-of-the-way, and far too frequently overlooked as a great film in its own right. It has got all the elements: The humour, the wonder, the plot, the atmosphere, the scares, the darkness and lightness, and all those wonderful little character moments. And the Defiant!
    And then it weaves everything together in just the right manner. While I agree the space battle might have been longer, I'm afraid that might break up the pace.
  • From JTL on 2008-01-19 at 11:26pm:
    This is truly the greatest movie that the Star Trek franchise has put out - but I have one problem with it, and indeed all incidents with the Borg. If the Borg adept so readily to energy weapons, then why not get the computer to replicate machine-guns to mow them down? It seems simple and it obviously works, looking at the Dixon Hill holodeck scene.
  • From JRPoole on 2008-11-17 at 3:30pm:
    I just watched this again recently, as I'm hitting all the films during my slow march through the franchises. I agree that it's easily the best film of the bunch (with the possible exception of Star Trek II, just because it's so iconic) but there are some trouble spots that keep it from being a 10 in my book.

    Cochrane's character is a little too broadly-drawn for my tastes, and his generic rock n roll jukebox is a little embarrassing. That said, I think it's cool that they revisited first contact with the Vulcans in a way that makes the Vulcans in Enterprise more believable. One huge problem for me is the way that Hawk is assimilated while still inside his suit. This makes the Borg out to be zombies, and doesn't seem to fit with their character.

    That said, I love the scene in which Picard and Worf let loose the deflector dish. It's cool to see the ship close up from outside. Lilly is also a great character, and Patrick Stewart has good chemistry with Alfre Woodard.
  • From Jonathon on 2009-12-09 at 12:41am:
    I loved this film when it first came out and for a long time it was my favorite trek movie. However for me it does not stand the test of time that well. It lacks the personal emotions of TWOK, the political relevance of TUC, and the humor (I feel) is only really funny to star trek fans. Yes the battle is great, but again it lacks weight and is really just a bunch of ships shooting at one big ship. Cool for me as a star trek fan (I wanted to see a big Borg battle since BOBW as much as anyone else) but now it just feels like eye candy. Compared it to the battles on TWOK and TUC, while they may not look as nice (due to when they were made), I still feel a real sense of danger with each shot fired.

    Not to say I dislike FC now, I like the interactions between the Queen and Data (lots of people don’t), I like the grief and personal turmoil of Picard (Whether this is true to his character can be debated), I like that Cochrane was an anti-hero.

    There is more good and bad to say but I will leave with this, more than 10 years after 1998 this movie means much less to me than when it came out. It can not be great sci-fi in my books because it fails that crucial test of time.
  • From Jason on 2009-12-22 at 7:03am:
    I'd like to echo Jonathon's thinking on this movie. When I saw it on opening night, I was ecstatic with it. But over time, this movie has lost its luster.

    In particular, the idea of a "Queen", a central point that you can disable and knock out the whole hive, entirely defeats the whole concept of the Borg. The whole reason that the Borg were scary was that (1) they were so adaptable, and (2) they are perfectly decentralized, precisely so that this kind of single-shot-killing-the-death-star kind of foolishness could never occur. This movie takes one of Star Trek's most innovative, truly frightening enemies and turns them into generic stupid centralized bad guys.

    In short, the movie is a fun romp, but doesn't have any bigger purpose, and takes the Star Trek universe a step backward on the whole.
  • From MJ on 2011-02-26 at 8:35am:
    The Borg were one of the most brilliant aliens ever created in science-fiction, and they worked out great for a couple episodes of TNG, specifically "Q Who?" and "Best of Both Worlds". After that, they weren't the same.

    For me, this movie was the last straw. A queen? Come on! The Borg’s decentralized structure and hive mind are exactly what make them so interesting. Also, you do not negotiate with the Borg, as they are amoral and only interested in assimilating life forms and their technologies. This completely upset that concept. As for the premise of the movie, it’s riddled with timeline disruptions and contradictions that I won’t get too much into here…suffice to say that the Enterprise crew’s spelling out of the entire future to Cochrane and Lilly makes it very hard for me to believe the timeline still unfolded exactly as it would have if the crew never visited Earth.

    Anyway, as with the other TNG films, there is enough here to somewhat redeem the movie despite its glaring failures. The Borg now look scarier and more sophisticated than ever…imagine what a budget like this would’ve enabled the TV show to do with Borg costumes and makeup! We can now see close-up shots of gadgets being installed into body parts, skin being graphed, eyes being drilled into, and all kinds of other frighteningly realistic operations to turn humanoids into cybernetic beings. This added a lot to the film, as it made the Borg seem more real!

    The opening battle scene is incredible. Once again, Trek’s efforts to incorporate humor so as to appeal to a wider audience are largely successful here. And I loved the “Big Goodbye” scene, which offered some nice continuity. This movie is worth watching twice (unlike Nemesis and Insurrection) because it has several exciting twists and turns, and three parallel plots that keep your attention.
  • From Johnnyribcage on 2012-05-15 at 3:01am:
    Hi all, this is my first comment on this site. I've been a Trekker since I can remember (I'm 31). Grew up on the Kirk Treks, and TNG to a lesser extent. I've never been a big fan of anything other than TOS, the original cast movies, and a couple of the TNG movies including this one. Had some time on my hands recently and I tracked down this site, which led to a little Trek revival in my life (looking back on episodes I've loved, misjudged, and/or missed) I've always enjoyed this movie in particular. I just wanted to say that I agree with the host that this one is really up there with the best of Trek. Also, I noticed that someone earlier posted a gripe about Cochran's generic jukebox. I wanted to set the record straight that there's nothing generic about Roy Orbison OR Ooby Dooby - it's a classic (albeit one of my all time least favorite classic rock songs).
  • From TLAS on 2013-01-03 at 3:37am:
    Great movie... But I just have to ask...
    Anyone find it funny how the enterprise is magically able to reverse-engineer time travel from the Borg at the end of the film? If so, shouldn't that mean the federation has the ability to (at least) jump 300 years into the past and future at will now? Kind of seems like something that would have changed everything in the future movies and was just a side wrap-up rather than a coherent concept.
    Oh we'll - still a good movie.
  • From Selador on 2013-06-24 at 9:17pm:
    This film is riddled with flaws which makes it completely incoherent. It frustrates me how the writers of the 'the best Star Trek film ever done' couldn't even be bothered to think things through properly. Here are some of the most obvious problems in ascending order.

    1. How many decks are there on the Enterprise-E? 26 according to Worf, 24 according to Picard.

    2. Weapons - when the Borg adapt to the phase-modulation, Picard says they'll need to find a way around it. So the Federation of the 24th century either haven't done that already or Picard reckons his crew can come up with something new during an extremely chaotic situation. Also Picard kills a few Borg in the holosuite using projectile weapons - so why not just use them? If the Borg are capable of 'adapting' to this then they would have done so already - matter is matter, you can't re-modulate that.

    3. Even though the Borg have assimilated "thousands of worlds" they all look human. Didn't they ever assimilate shorter/taller/bigger/smaller species?

    4. Picard says the Borg won't attack them until they consider them a threat - so they don't consider a big, armed crew of hostiles a threat?

    5. The Vulcans are aware of humanity but have decided not to make contact with them because they're "too primitive". Does one man inventing warp drive change this? How?

    6. In the end, before Data intentionally misses Zefram's ship with the missiles, he over-rides the computer decryption. Why? Doing so gives him no tactical advantage and only adds a huge unnecessary risk, since if he fails to incapacitate the Borg, they then have control of the ship.

    7. Apparently the Vulcans didn't detect the presence of the Enterprise. How could this be? Countless times we've seen Federation captains scanning for other ships in the sector - are we supposed to believe that Vulcans can't do this?

    8. Can Vulcans speak English? Surely not... But when they land on earth they can converse with humans. Via the Universal Translator? No, because as we've seen in DS9 it has to be implanted in the brains of those that have it for it to work. There is also an episode of DS9 where the crew comes across a new species - the Universal Translator can't translate their language because it's "not in the database". So what's going on here?

    9. Time. This is by far the biggest flaw in the film and completely undermines its whole premise. So the Borg can travel to the past in order to assimilate earth before it has made first contact. Why haven't they already done this? I mean, what's the point of launching an attack with one Cube (one!!! They have a massive empire!) when they could have simply traveled to the past in Borg space THEN traveled to earth? If they're willing to do that at all why not just do it?

    I don't understand how these problems weren't flagged up during production, and why Trek fans are willing to put up with such lazy writing. Are we really that easy to please?
  • From Kethinov on 2013-06-25 at 12:12pm:
    Selador, some of your critiques are valid, but most are easily rationalized.

    #1: Valid. I just checked. Though it was Daniels, not Worf who contradicted Picard.

    #2: Not valid. It's well established throughout Star Trek that projectile weapons are considered primitive and passé. For example, in DS9: Field of Fire, the plot goes out of its way to make a point of that. So it seems reasonable that the Federation would not have come up with Picard's idea on its own.

    #3: Not valid. It's well established throughout Star Trek that nearly all aliens are humanoid to some degree. Besides, if you look closely at their faces you can see alien detail. I'm pretty sure one of the Borg that fights them on the deflector disk used to be Klingon!

    #4: Not valid. Maybe it's bad tactics for the Borg to ignore an armed boarding party walking around near them, but that's how they are, and it's how they were depicted since day one. It's a character flaw, not a plot hole. They're supposed to be an insect colony metaphor, remember?

    #5: Not valid. It's well established throughout Star Trek that any species without warp drive is to be left alone to develop on its own. That's what that whole Prime Directive thing is about.

    #6: Not valid. Data did that to gain and then abuse the Borg queen's trust. Once the encryption was defeated, she thought she had Data in her pocket and then trusted him too much.

    #7: Not valid. The Vulcans were stated to be just passing through the system at the exact time Cochrane made his famous warp flight. The Enterprise arrived a considerable time before that. Once they discovered what historical event was about to happen, the Enterprise took measures to conceal themselves from the Vulcans.

    #8: Not valid. The Vulcans had plenty of time to learn English while studying humans from afar. This is confirmed in In Star Trek Enterprise, where it is well established that T'Pol and her Vulcan comrades learned English to work with humans, and T'Pol's ancestors learned English while studying Earth in secret.

    #9: Not valid. The Borg are overconfident. That's why they sent only a single cube both times they attacked Earth. As for the time travel, the movie doesn't make it clear why the Borg can't just try again. However, it seems obvious that if they could, they would. It stands to reason that whatever device the Borg used to travel back in time must require a scarce resource or something.

  • From Bernard on 2013-06-25 at 2:10pm:
    This movie polarises my own opinion so goodness knows it must with the Star Trek fanbase as a whole.

    On the one hand, you have one of the best sci-fi (dumb) action movies ever made (in my opinion).

    On the other hand, you have a plot that is very silly and characters doing silly things in order to make that plot work.

    I have to agree with one poster that said this movie does not stand the test of time in terms of my maturity. When I saw this film at the cinema I was 13 and it was one of the best films I'd ever seen, period!

    Looking back on it now, as I said above it is a great action movie that ticks a hell of a lot more boxes than most current action movies do, but it lacks common sense and that is a fatal flaw when I watch it as an adult.

    I don't actually agree with most of selador's gripes, there are more! It's the way the individuals act. Specifically, Picard, Data and the Queen (who should not have been in this movie or invented at all - she was the beginning of the Borg becoming a joke). The three of them act so stupidly, especially towards the end of the movie, that understanding they're goals and motives is nigh on impossible, thus you lose your grip on the audience.

    Why can Picard hear the Borg? Beverly is incompetant after Best of Both Worlds? (I know you'll come up with some explanation for this webmaster - but essentially it's a plot device). Why does Picard go to Engineering at the end, what is his plan? No plan? What is the Queen's goal with Data? Why is she thinking like an individual? What is Data doing? He has a chance to break the plasma tanks midway through the film and doesn't, he says at the end he only considered the Queen's offer for a fraction of a second. The fact that these three characters are acting like they have no clue what they are trying to achieve is simply a plot device to allow the events of the film to play out. How the hell does Picard manage to survive the plasma being blown at the end of the film, supposedly everyone in Engineering was going to be killed by that? Why is Picard suddenly so affected by his Best of Both Worlds experience again? In I, Borg he lets Hugh go instead of getting his revenge and that was only a year or so after, this is years later! Why do the Borg stop on deck 16? Why not continue assimilating the ship whilst building the emmitter? Oh hang on, I know why, to give the good guys chance to come up with a plan and execute it!

    Now, despite all this I still love this film. I accept the silliness for what it is. You cannot do time travel without some fudging around the edges. You cannot defeat the Borg without either dumbing them down and powering them down a bit or creating some kind of get out of jail free card.

    This is a fantastic action movie, the shots of the big battle at the start still look at good as anything J.J. put in his films and this is nearly 20 years old. The production value used to sex up the Borg was excellent, this was the Borg we always wanted to see on TNG appearance-wise. The back story of Cochrane and the Phoenix was well realised along with First Contact and it all ties in nicely and works well with the action on board the ship. The magnetic boot scene is the absolute highlight in terms of using a different envronment to create a tense action scene. The interaction between Picard and Lily and Picard and Worf is excellent creating great tension between the good guys. Worf's 'if you were any other man' dialogue still makes my neck hairs stand on end.

    So these days I think I have to rate this film a 8 or 9. When I first saw it I thought it was an outstanding 10...
  • From Kevin on 2013-12-18 at 2:13pm:
    Wow, I hate to be in the minority, but this is by far my least favorite Next Gen movie. It has action, it has a lot of action...and it has action. Beyond that it is a plot with many holes, and is FAR too simple. There is no grand message, no epic story, but merely fighting the borg, that have gone back in time.
    YAWN. Star trek does so much better at stories that aspire to more. Exploration, a statement. It is entertaining somewhat, but also has some boring parts. It feels mostly like an excuse to fight the borg. Is that all it takes to excite star trek fans?
  • From Edward on 2014-12-16 at 7:44am:
    Loved this movie so much I didn't notice this until recently:
    How come none of those highly educated Starfleet officers recognized Lily? She was supposed to fly in the Phoenix with Cochrane. She was Buzz Aldrin, for crying out loud!
  • From Armsauce on 2017-06-02 at 5:59pm:
    I'll never understand the praise for the TNG movies. Picard is completely out of character in all of them, First Contact included. Not to mention completely trivializing the borg.

    It's another movie filled with too many coincidences and lazy explanations.
  • From Thomas on 2018-08-18 at 11:15pm:
    Picard: "You may encounter members of the crew who have been assimilated. Don't hesitate to fire on them. Believe me, you'll be doing them a favor."

    Picard (on Lynch): "There was no way to save him."
    Lily: "You didn't even try. Where was your evolved sensibility then?"

    Picard: "When I was held captive on the Borg ship, my crew risked everything to save me. There is someone still on this ship, and I owe him the same."

    This stuff is the only thing about the film that bugged me. True, Picard probably barely knows Ensign Lynch from Adam's housecat, whereas Data did save his life in TNG: BOBW. But don't hesitate to fire on them? Seriously?? What if an assimilated crewman's friends wanted to do for him or her what the main cast did for Picard? It just comes across as badly inconsistent writing. I know they want to spotlight Picard's feelings about the Borg, but I can't imagine him ever telling his crew to unflinchingly kill former crew members that may still be worth saving. Yet, he goes after Data. Do as I say, not as I do? Unlikely for Picard.

    That aside, it was definitely the best TNG movie, and one of the best Star Trek movies. I know some people didn't like the Borg queen, but that was done for the big screen. Edward, not sure about your criticism. I'd say saving the future of humanity counts as a pretty epic story.

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