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Yes, but in that very first shot, they have a distinct curve to them, like even though they're probably uncool ingredients, they seem to be holding back, almost snakelike. The hissing sound of their vacuum also makes them more menacing, but it's only that shot. If they were really Borg controlled snakes, they would attack Picard once he grabs hold.

Data really took a chance by gripping the Queen so tightly. If she had locked a death grip on Picard, Data would have easily killed his captain. I guess he was assuming JLP would not let go at all costs.

A shot and music bit from a 1996 movie is like The Matrix because time travel?

I do enjoy this movie, even though Red Letter tore its broken logic to pieces. BB hit upon part of that by Picard killing assimilated crew members instead of saving them. That is a characteristic of the action movie star Picard who must act decisively and not form a Borg rehab center at his front line. The TV show Picard would have taken the time to save every crew member and peacefully negotiate with the Borg for a ceasefire. But Lily needed to see the hateful violent Picard to goad him into change. He had to be evil before he could be good again.

The cameos are great. The Doctor, Neelix's actor, Reg, and even Donna's dad.

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STFC is good, but my biggest problem with it is that it has that stupid TV writing convention where you have an A-story and a B-story. The A-story taking place on the Enterprise with the crew's stand against the Borg. And the B-story on earth with Zefram Cockrin which was obviously written that way to give Jonathan Frakes as little screentime as to free up time in his directing duties.

Stargate: The Ark of Truth had a similar problem where Daniel, Teal'c and Vala had the A-story that showed their last stand against the Ori, but the writers shoehorned this B-story that took place on the Odyssey where Cam and Sam were fighting Replicators. TV writers can't seem to get out of this A-B story mindset! At least Star Trek: Nemesis and Stargate: Continuum had better focus.

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You mention Nemesis. I would say that's an even darker movie than First Contact, which is fine because Alvar isn't supposed to have watched that one yet.

First Contact had a B story to give the rest of the cast on Earth something to do. If everyone would have been on the Enterprise, the Phoenix flight could have failed but more importantly, they would have just gotten in the way, since we know Paramount wouldn't let any of their stars (actually) die.

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First Contact had a B story to give the rest of the cast on Earth something to do. If everyone would have been on the Enterprise, the Phoenix flight could have failed but more importantly, they would have just gotten in the way, since we know Paramount wouldn't let any of their stars (actually) die.

I get that, but it still feels like conventional TV writing. It turns out that Nemesis, despite all of its editorial issues, is my favourite TNG movie because it has such better narrative focus than the other TNG flicks.

TVH had an A, B and C plot! But it didn't seem as forced in that one.

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Nemesis may have the best narrative focus? I don't worry about things like that. I just can't forgive how dumb it is and how badly it insults fans of the franchise.

I suppose you can look at these movies two ways. How good is the story, and how well is the story told? First Contact tells a good story, but you don't like the way it's told. Nemesis tells the story in a much more pleasing way to you, but I think the story is a big steaming pile of poo. But a good fillmmaking team can always shine a turd.

Generations generally had only one storyline at a time. It opens in the 23rd century, then jumps to the 24th for the rest. Soran and then Geordi with the Klingons isn't really drawn out long enough to be a second storyline. Then it's Picard and Soran on the planet, with everyone else in orbit. Still short enough to be linear. Once Picard is in the Nexus, everyone else is dead, so when he comes out, it's he, Kirk, and Soran with everyone else repeating history. If you're not Data or Picard, the singular storyline really gave you nothing to do.

If I remember Insurrection, you had an A story on the planet and a B story on the Enterprise.

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Nemesis tells the revenge story with a big weapon we've heard a thousand times, but it wasn't until STID that most people noticed that this was a worrying trend since we now had three movies in a row with essentially the same plot.

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Generations was darker. Picard's family inexplicably die in a fire, leaving him a crying emotional wreck, Data is also an emotional wreck, Kirk dies horribly, the Enterprise crew coldly murder the Duras sisters and their crew when they could have just disabled the Bird of Prey, the Enterprise is destroyed horribly, the whole storyline is about some psychopath whose planet was destroyed by the Borg trying to be with a weird mental fantasy version of his family and killing a shitload of people in order to do so, etc.

First Contact is a dumb popcorn action movie. Worf is more badass because he had been on Deep Space Nine, which established him as a badass. On TNG, he was constantly comic relief and got his ass handed to him. He was also never a particularly good officer on that show.

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I've always felt that it was implied Worf calls it off at the end of All Good Things after hearing about Picard's alternate future because it had created a rift between him and Riker. Riker was clearly not okay with it (and Worf and Troi had absolutely no chemistry, anyway) and Worf probably figured it wasn't honorable or something.

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That's plausible, though it was the multitude of alternate futures in Parallels that accelerated the romance, right? The books aren't canon so there could be tons of explanations.

I just think the film writers took a long look at plot threads from the show and had to pick which ones to abandon. Troi Worf romance was one. The ongoing Picard Crusher was another. It's cheap but it happened. At least it ended amicably because they never mention it again.

It's weird but understandable that the Troi Riker romance is rekindled on Insurrection and Voyager. Worf was on DS9, and Troi was always a confidant to fan favorite Reg Barclay, who finally got a chance to shine on Project Pathfinder, so it made sense to bring her back. Reigniting the romance gave them something to talk about, which became obvious in the next film.

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Good review, though I disagree with Lily being underdeveloped. Woodward and Stewart have great chemistry and the growing affection actually feels very believable, considering it comes out of nowhere.

The moment where Picard says that he envies her, and especially the very quiet "I shall miss you" really sums up Picard.

Agreed that most of the cast comes out better in this then in Generations. Rikes is far mire likeable this time snd Deana's drunk scene is quite a hoot.

And yes Worf finally kicks some ass here!

As a DS9 fan it was also great to see the Defiant on screen, however brief. Though the producers of that show werent all that happy seeing their ship pummeled.

Note to difference on how this film depicts the Enterprise compared to Generations! Beautiful long shots covering the whole design. Really showing of her features, rather then the very "workmanlike" treatment the Enterprise D got.

When I rewatched this in 2012 i was surprised how great it still looked. There's something about solid model work that really stands the test of time.

Also love the slightly more self aware script, with fun lines like "So you're all astronauts...on somekind of Star Trek" or "Plenty of more letters in the alphabet". (They overdid that a bit in insurrection though)

Jerry's score was a quicky, and I agree it doesn't quite hold a candle to his previous two. But written in just 2 weeks it's amazing how well it holds together, especially considering two composers worked on it.

While First Contact is a "great" film like TWOK is. It is a very good one. It feels fresh, and exciting. It's exhilarating, funny and at times a bit scary.

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  • 2 weeks later...

You're not thinking fourth dimensionally! First Contact reuses footage from the pilot of Enterprise.

when you think fifth dimensionally you find that the moon is in the seventh house and Jupiter aligns with Mars.

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About that damn Bird of Prey explosion, why did they cheap out so badly there? Was it so hard to just blow up another model?

The better question is, why did Riker have the ship destroyed when they could have just disabled them at that point? It's a dumb action movie ending, the ship was helpless.

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About that damn Bird of Prey explosion, why did they cheap out so badly there? Was it so hard to just blow up another model?

The better question is, why did Riker have the ship destroyed when they could have just disabled them at that point? It's a dumb action movie ending, the ship was helpless.

no that is not the better question. It's a thoughtless question without a bit of thought of survivial. You're in a battle with a vessel trying to destroy you. You do not allow it to survive.

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You have the right to commit murder?

You're talking about being attacked and nearly killed (and some did die) and then you have the audacity to call the crew of the Enterprise murderers for defending themselves, that's despicable.

Kirk doesn't die horrible, just badly. Embarrassingly so. A death befitting a redshirt but not the greatest Captain of the Enterprise.

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If you're going to complain about Riker destroying the Duras sisters, you really have to blame Kirk and Sulu for killing Chang instead of taking him prisoner. A ship that can fire while cloaked would be very useful in hit and fade operations. Alas, in the heat of battle, if you see the upper hand, you take it.

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It's interesting that such technology existed only in a prototype 80 years prior to the TNG era and it was never reproduced. It would have been handy in the Dominion War.

you don't know Star Trek very well by this statement.
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It's interesting that such technology existed only in a prototype 80 years prior to the TNG era and it was never reproduced. It would have been handy in the Dominion War.

you don't know Star Trek very well by this statement.
The federation was bound by treaty not to develop cloaking technology. Watch the Pegasus episode. It's uncertain that a cloaked ship can fire while cloaked in Picard time. It seems like the technology did not survive..
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Only the Federation is bound by the terms of the Treaty Of Algeron not to develop cloaking technology. The Klingons got cloaking technology when they gave the Romulans their warships as we saw in season 3 of Star Trek. The Treaty does not bind the Romulans to the same terms.

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Chang's defeat at Khitomer proved that ships that could fire while cloaked had a fatal exploitable weakness, so neither the Klingons nor Romulans succeeded until perfecting the technology until the Scimitar. Fire or cloak, not both.

And while the Treaty of Algeron prevented Starfleet development of a cloak, what does it say about captured technology? I mean, how long could Starfleet keep the Bounty until they had to return her?

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  • 4 weeks later...
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