Monday, March 4, 2019

Star Trek VIII: First Contact (1996)

After a middling "Generations" the Next Generation Star Trek crew led by Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) hit high gear with First Contact, definitely one of the better films in the Star Trek series.

The Borg have travelled to the mid-twentieth century to stop humanity meeting the Vulcans for the first time. Only Picard and company can stop them, as long as they can stop the Borg assimilating them first...

On Earth Dr Cochrane (James Cromwell) is preparing to launch Earth's first warp ship and thus became a historic figure hero worshipped by later humans and even have schools named after him. The Star Trek crew quickly discover that Cochrane isn't quite like the historic icon they thought he was. Indeed in reality he is a drunk who is more interested in cash, booze and young women than anything else...

This is a very good film which manages to mix the space action with exploring it's own future history canon very well. There is plenty of humour but in the right places and some stand out action scenes, i particularly liked the space walking scene and resulting fight out in the endless cold of space. For the first time the Borg Queen (Alice Krige) makes an appearance, here she was great though the character was rather ruined when it later appeared in the TV series Voyager...

One small criticism is Picard and Data (Brent Spiner) get most of the screen time with the rest of the TNG crew marginalised. Still that is not unusual for a Star Trek film.