Review of First Kid (1996) by Pauljohnson — 23 Nov 2011

Succeeds, despite its obvious flaws. The time travel story is sketchy a best, and has some considerable loopholes, such as, why don't the Borg do it again? or, why don't they go back into the past 30,000 light years from Earth, where Starfleet couldn't blow the hell out of them, and then go and assimilate Earth?

There are a lot of things in this film that I loved style wise, the new design to the Borg for instance made them extremely menacing, and the Borg attack scenes coupled with Jerry Goldsmith's out and out FANTASTIC score for this film made the fight scenes palpable, suspenseful and great. They did get a bit repetitive after a while, however. The story focus on Picard in this film is definitely good; we have a story of a captain who thus far, has lost two Starships under his command, the second - the Enterprise D - because he wasn't there. You know that Picard is the kind of captain who would wonder if it had been different if he had been there - if his presence had made the difference. Now, he faces losing his newest ship, and to his most hated nemesis - the Borg. We've scene from Family, I, Borg and Descent (as well as the Deep Space Nine pilot) how he feels about the Borg; how he feels personally defeated, violated by them, and now he faces losing his ship and most of his crew to that enemy; making it unthinkable to do so. The big criticism I would direct at this movie is the Borg Queen. A character introduced only because Studio Executives wanted to have a "focal point for the villainy". Well, you got one, and at the cost of making the Borg look ridiculous. The Borg don't have a single leader, we've been told that's why they're so efficient; a single leader would be liable to make mistakes. The Borg Queen was not in any way an embodiment of the Borg Collective, she was seductive, emotional and individualised. I wouldn't have minded if she was something along the lines of Locutus or Seven of Nine (when she was allowed to converse with the Voyager crew in Scorpion Parts 1 and 2). In all, Johnathan Frakes' first outing as a theatrical director is quite impressive, although the film is definitely lacking in its writing.