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

From: [email-masked] (Mark R. Leeper)
Date: 4 Dec 1996 19:27:42 GMT

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                         STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT
                      A film review by Mark R. Leeper
                       Copyright 1996 Mark R. Leeper

          Capsule: The newest "Star Trek" adventure is an
     okay science fiction piece lacking in some of the
     absurdities from which the "Star Trek" films have
     occasionally suffered.  The first of the series without
     William Shatner finds Patrick Stewart a more than
     adequate replacement on the screen.  The script needed a
     little tightening, but the Borg turn out to be a good,
     if familiar-seeming screen foe.  Rating: high +1 (-4 to
     +4)

     To this point the "Star Trek" films have either had reasonable
action but scripts that have shown far too little thought to the
concepts (numbers 2-4, 6 and STAR TREK: GENERATIONS).  Or have had
intriguing ideas wasted on poor execution (1 and 5).  STAR TREK: FIRST
CONTACT falls into the first category, but is blessedly free of ill-
conceived ideas like the Genesis Device or the Nexus.  The Borg at one
time added desperately-needed tension to the "Star Trek" suite of
series by introducing an enemy that was at once orders of magnitude
more powerful than the Federation ships and as implacable as a nest of
ants.  The Borg underscored that space exploration was still dangerous
and that whatever the current Enterprise was, it still had limitations.
However, whatever value that property represented has long since been
mortgaged in episodes that showed in a fair fight the Universe has
nothing--not even the Borg--that can stand up to the Enterprise, and
individual Borgs can be won over by niceness.  Some dim bulbs in the
"Star Trek" factory have safely established that we never need to worry
about "Star Trek" characters again. Vulcans return from the dead and
new Enterprises come in convenient six-packs, so we can safely ignore
the series and give our primary attention to "Babylon 5."  With the
concept of the Borg already compromised, they seem fair game to use in
a film.  In large part they are reduced here to NIGHT OF THE LIVING
DEAD style zombies with electronic enhancements they do not seem to
use, but then the concept has already been compromised.

     In the new film the Borg have an unusual strategy for assimilating
Earth.  They go back in time to just before that momentous day in the
21st Century--and who can forget it?--April 5, 2063 when both Zephram
Cochran (James Cromwell of BABE) took the first warp jump and as a
result Earth also makes its first contact with an alien race.  It is
amazing that both happened in one day and even more that nobody in any
of the series or films has ever mentioned that fact till now.  If the
Borg can manage to abort the first warp trip and the first alien
contact, apparently everything else will be okay for them.  And their
arrival has to be just within hours of the flight and not two weeks
earlier because ... uh ...  well, maybe the Borg are not quite so smart
after all.  To the rescue in their time-travel wake comes the
Enterprise commanded by Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart, of I,
CLAUDIUS and JEFFREY).  He is here against the express orders of the
Federation in a move that would be more characteristic of James Kirk
than of Picard.

     In the new "Star Trek" tradition of giving the directorial reins
to an aspiring "Star Trek" actor, the task went to Jonathan Frakes, who
is perhaps one of the least noticeable actors in this film.  He is in
some major scenes but is only noticeable when he seems to be grinning
at the joke of him directing himself. But Frakes has always been a
little redundant in the Next Generation stories.  He was thrown into
the cast because the creators knew that there could be no romantic
interest in a bald middle-aged captain.  Then Stewart demonstrated far
more appeal than anyone expected.  Speaking of whom I am not sure if it
is meaningful to talk about whether Patrick Stewart is a good Captain
Picard, but he is.  Stewart is the best actor who was ever a regular in
the "Star Trek" stories and his is the most interesting character.
There are a few other familiar actors sprinkled in (besides the regular
cast), but none to very good advantage. James Cromwell plays a sort of
working class physics genius in a role that never really gels.  He is
never believable as the inventor of warp drive, which is perhaps the
point of the joke, but it just adds to the question of how with so
little resource, physical as well as mental, could this particular
person putter together warp drive.  Alfre Woodard is totally wasted in
a throwaway role.  Alice Krige, best remembered for GHOST STORY has
only slightly less thankless a role as the one-dimensional punk-looking
queen bee of the Borg.

     This episode is not just darker in tone than many of the chapters,
it is literally darker in lighting.  In the entire film there are just
two scenes that come to mind that are filmed in daylight.  This,
combined with the somewhat repulsive Borg and their queen who, as a
possible homage to INVADERS FROM MARS, is little more than a head gives
the film a decidedly colder and more dour feel.  This could be a
positive touch, but it really undermines the attempted humor scenes.
It is hard to imagine Marina Sirtis doing a drunk act being funny even
under the best of conditions, here it does not stand a chance.   Visual
effects are generally fairly good with the exception of some zero-G
floating that would have been unconvincing even before the release of
APOLLO 13.  Jerry Goldsmith has written a nice score incorporating
themes from other "Star Trek" series and films but also including some
new themes.

     This is a "Star Trek" episode with its share of faults, but few
that come to mind while watching it.  It has the melodrama of other
episodes of the films but fewer absurdities this time around.  Oh, and
it is entertaining.  I rate it a high +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.

     Minor spoiler...Minor spoiler...Minor spoiler...Minor spoiler...

     Some complaints about the script.  I have avoided reading
discussions on the net so some of there may have already been brought
up there without my knowledge.

     1. Even a few minutes of warp should have taken a ship a lot
further from Earth than it was.  Presumably warp speed is faster than
light if not out and out discontinuous jumping.

     2. The claim in made that in the 25th century they no longer use
money.  This is patently inconsistent with STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE 9.
People are spending and gambling something in Quark's Bar. Gold-pressed

latinum is also frequently mentioned and used as money.

     3. Data turning off his emotion chip by twisting his head is a
nice piece of mime, but it makes little sense.

     4. It really reduces the Borg to a very unintelligent level to say
they do not even notice intruders in their midst.  Even ants are
smarter than that with far smaller brains.

     5. There are two strategies to use against the Borg and Picard
chooses one because he has an unreasoning hatred of the Borg.  Someone
who really had an unreasoning hatred of the Borg would have chosen the
other strategy.

     6. Admittedly complaining about holodeck sequences is like
tripping a dachshund, but this one seems especially stupid.  The
holodeck in principle creates only visual effects.  It would take a lot
of double-talk to make it sound possible that anyone could actually be
shot by a visual illusion and bleed real blood.

     7. The Universal Translator already sounds like magic assuming
that it needs a lot of input about a new race.  It goes considerably
further to say that it knows the new language instantly with virtually
no sampling.

					Mark R. Leeper
					[email-masked]