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.
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