Review of Star Trek: First Contact (1996) by Stuart K — 02 Mar 2010

The thing about "Star Trek: First Contact" is that it is, unquestionably, a brilliant movie.

After the lackluster "extended episode" feeling from the previous Next Generation movie, "Star Trek Generations", First Contact pulls a "Wrath Of Khan" for the Next Generation crew by linking the movie to a previous, and fantastic, episode from the series. First Contact deals with the impending threat of invasion by the Borg, cybernetically enhanced aliens that assimilate other cultures into a single collective.

According to the film, the Borg are so powerful that they need only send one Cube to invade the entirity of Federation space....

Anyway, because of his previous assimilation into Locutus of Borg in the series, Patrick Stewart is ordered to stay away, but defies those orders to take the brand-spanking new Enterprise into the fray. The Cube is destroyed, but it spits out a Sphere that promptly travels back in time and assimilates the Earth in the past (as you do), so the Enterprise naturally follows, and winds up in a three-way narrative: Jonathan Frakes is thankfully left out of command of the Enterprise (he'd only destroy it again anyway) and tasked with ensuring that the first warp drive test goes as history planned, Brent Spiner is held captive by the Borg Queen and allows some exposition into the previously-unrevealed Bord heirarchy, and Patrick Stewart remains onboad the ship, leading the fight against the insurmountable odds.

The film, and Picard, is a much more action-orientated piece, as the fight becomes more desperate and brutal and the lines become blurred between Picard's need for revenge against his mortal enemy and the salvation of humanity, eventually drawing neat parallels wtih "Moby Dick". The time travel element fits in nicely and isn't contrived, and the setting of the past of the film is still in our distant future, so there's no hokeyscenes with the Enterprise crew trying to adapt to 21st Century Earth, as in "The Voyage Home".

Ultimately, the film stands as a much stronger example of what The Next Generation was all about, and is a fantastic showcase for the Borg (before they became a bit oversaturated in "Star Trek: Voyager"), and is easily one of the best 'Trek movies ever made.