Subject: REVIEW: STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT (1996)

From: [email-masked] (Richard F. Drushel)
Date: 26 Dec 1996 16:23:32 GMT

STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT
                       A film review by Richard F. Drushel
                        Copyright 1996 Richard F. Drushel

        The question for me in writing this review is, should I review it
as a typical mid-1990s movie, or as a "Star Trek" movie.  For me, depending
upon which of those criteria I use, ST:FC comes out as either an excellent
movie or a disturbing movie.

        ST:FC is an action-packed, techno-blockbuster.  That's the kind of
movie that's selling nowadays, that's the movie that Paramount wanted
Jonathan Frakes to make, and that's just what he delivered.  Shoot-'em-up,
blast-'em-up, eye-popping effects, cool ships, awesome space battles,
a hint of kinky (i.e., Borg) sex.  Of all the movies, this is the one
that's most accessible to the non-Trekker audience--and that's surely the
intended target.

        Concessions were made to the Trekker audience:  Zefrem Cochrane
as inventor of the warp drive; the cameo appearances by Barclay and
the holographic Doctor and Dixon Hill's Girl Friday (as well as actor
Ethan Phillips as a maitre-d'); Worf bringing the Defiant from DS9;
the return of the model Enterprises in the Ready Room; the reuse of
the Klingon theme from ST:TMP, as well as the ST:TOS and ST:TMP/TNG
main title themes; the basically hopeful (i.e., Roddenberry) view of
humanity post-first contact.  [They seem to have forgotten, however,
that Cochrane was "Zefram Cochrane of Alpha Centauri" in ST:TOS
"Metamorphosis", and that the original date for the discovery of
the warp drive was 2018.]

        Things I especially didn't like:

        *  The Borg were too stupid...they can adapt to a [tech] ray
        in less than 12 collective samplings, but they never adapt to
        bullets?  They just stand around on the hull while Worf et al.
        magically disengage that disk-thingy?  They only ignore you
        when they know you're not a threat; surely they would have
        figured out what the game plan was.

        *  That whole hull sequence.  It was too convenient that those
        access controls were so...accessible.  And in zero gravity, to
        have those isolinear memory crystals just sitting in slots,
        covered only by a thin-looking protective panel...that's pretty
        bad design for something on the exterior hull of a spaceship.

        *  Lily swearing at Picard.  Cochrane's bathroom vulgarity.
        Totally unnecessary.  Call me unenlightened, but those two
        scenes alone keep me from letting my 10-year-old see it [we
        don't talk like that at home].

        *  Data's cheezy seduction by Borgette.  I'm sure that
        the Great Gonad of the Galaxy (aka Gene Roddenberry) got
        a charge out of the "fully functional" line in ST:TNG "The
        Naked Now", but each time that line gets reused, it sounds
        more and more like Beavis and Butthead.

        *  Lily was the wrong person to tell off Picard with the
        words that were used...I smelled Guinan all the way, and
        I bet that scene was originally scripted for Guinan.  Someone
        like Troi or Crusher would have been more believable, given
        their long experience with Picard and insight into his
        thinking.

        *  The actor who portrayed Cochrane didn't look anything
        like the Cochrane from ST:TOS "Metamorphosis".  While some
        of the original Cochrane's somberness and composure may have
        been due to his long life of solitude and insight with The
        Companion, I didn't see any inklings of this personality in
        the new Cochrane.

        Sigh.  I guess my chief dissatisfaction with ST:FC is that I can
see all the strings of the puppet.  Here's the hooks for the Trekkers,
here's for the ID4 crowd, here's for the Aliens crowd, etc.  That is, it
was too calculated and targeted.  I never got the feeling that, here's an
important story to be told, and the ST universe is the place to tell it.
Rather, it was all too plain to me that ST is a franchise, and that making
lots of $$$ is the reason it was made.  And more sadly, there are more
$$$ to be had from people who have not been traditional Trekkers, so the
movie is more targeted to *them* rather than the traditional audience.

[begin polemic]

        I was 4 years old when ST:TOS debuted.  I can remember
flipping past it on the TV a few times during what had to be its
final season.  I remember that I didn't like it; I liked "Land of
the Giants" instead :-)  I didn't really like ST until it was syndicated
in the early 1970s.  As an early teenager with Spockish tendencies,
I felt that ST:TOS was somehow talking directly to *me*.  I got
the same feelings from the first 6 seasons of ST:TNG and the first
2 seasons of ST:DS9.  Most net.people berate ST:TNG first season
episodes, but I can remember how glad I was to see that they were
explicitly worrying about implications of the Prime Directive (e.g.,
"Angel One", "Justice") or of the Captain-In-Danger plot trap.
It felt good, for once, to be part of an audience that somebody
cared about.

        The recent ST offerings don't talk to me.  They don't
*try* to talk to me.  I'm not of interest to the people doing the
talking.  ST:DS9 in season 3 abandoned its Bajor-Cardassia story
arc and has been mostly pointless "action" stuff with Klingons
and The Dominion.  ST:VOY is willing to do *anything* to try to
reach UPN's desirable young-males marketing segment, so we get
grade Z sci-fi monsters, Baywatch-In-Space holobabes, a Captain
who's a nurturing mommy one week and a kick-butt Hero(tm) the
next.  And for me, the last straw is ST:FC, which screams at me,
"Your past support is irrelevant.  Other audiences are more
profitable.  You are irrelevant."

        ST is now a Franchise(tm).  "The security of the Enterprise
(tm) is of Paramount importance."  To protect its bottom line in the
most Ferengi way possible, the Franchise(tm) is shutting down fan
websites and BBSes, all of which detract from the One True Official
Site(tm), which can only be viewed by paying members of the Microsoft
Network(tm).

        ST:FC is a "good movie" (it will make lots of $$$ at the
boxoffice), and its profits will keep the Franchise(tm) going
strong.  But for me, it's not "Star Trek" any more, even though
it bears the official, authorized trademark.  Jonathan Frakes is
an excellent director, and I wish him every success in his future
endeavors behind the camera, be they ST or otherwise.

        But for me, ST:FC is not "Star Trek".  In fact, I think that
"Star Trek" is *dead*.  Its living descendant, however, appears to be
J. Michael Strazynski's "Babylon Five".  B5 makes me feel the way
that ST:TOS/TNG/early DS9 made me feel.  Hopefully B5 will manage to
be successful without becoming a Franchise(tm) and thus, ceasing to
be what it is now, one of the best shows on TV ever anywhere.

        All IMHO, of course.  Your mileage may vary.

        *Rich*
--
Richard F. Drushel, Ph.D.
Department of Biology, Slug Division
Case Western Reserve University
Cleveland, Ohio  44106-7080  U.S.A.