star trek first contact econ

Star Trek: First Contact

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Six years have passed since Captain Jean-Luc Picard was captured and assimilated by the Borg. Now, the Borg make a second attempt to conquer the Federation. Starfleet believes that Picard's experience makes him an "unstable element to a critical situation" and orders him to stay behind. But, when Starfleet's fight does not go well, Picard and the crew of the new USS Enterprise disobey orders to join the fight, following the Borg three hundred years into the past just as Zefram Cochrane prepares to launch Humanity's first warp-capable engine, the Phoenix , and make first contact with an alien race.

• 1.1.1 24th century
• 1.1.2 21st century
• 1.2 Act Two
• 1.3 Act Three
• 2 Log entries
• 3 Memorable quotes
• 4.1 Development
• 4.2.1 The New Enterprise
• 4.2.2 Interiors
• 4.2.3 The Borg
• 4.2.4 The Phoenix
• 4.3.1 Production history
• 4.4.1 Visual effects
• 4.4.2 Music
• 4.4.3 Promotion and merchandising
• 4.5 Box office performance
• 4.6 Reactions
• 4.8 Apocrypha
• 4.9 Merchandise gallery
• 5 Awards and honors
• 6.1.1 Opening credits
• 6.1.2.1 Motion Control and Pyrotechnics Unit
• 6.2.1 Performers
• 6.2.2 Stunt performers
• 6.2.3 Stand-ins and photo doubles
• 6.2.4 Production staff
• 6.2.5 Production companies
• 6.3.1 Spacecraft references
• 6.3.2 Other references
• 6.3.3 Unreferenced material
• 6.4 Sources
• 6.5 External links

Summary [ ]

Act one [ ], 24th century [ ].

Picard relives his assimilation

Still haunted by memories of his assimilation six years ago , Captain Jean-Luc Picard awakes from a nightmare to wash his face. In the mirror, he is surprised by a Borg assimilation unit emerging from under his skin on his face. Awakening for real, Picard receives a communiqué from Starfleet Command . Appearing on his desktop terminal , Starfleet Admiral Hayes relays distressing news that Picard partially guesses from his dream: a Borg cube has attacked a Federation outpost on Ivor Prime and crossed into Federation space.

Picard announces the Enterprise will not be participating in the battle with the Borg

Picard dutifully informs his crew that they are to take the new Sovereign -class USS Enterprise -E to patrol the Romulan Neutral Zone , a minor threat compared to the Borg. In the Enterprise -E's observation lounge , the senior crew members protest and are confused as to why the most advanced ship in the fleet is being relegated to a relatively unimportant task; the Romulans have not caused any incidents recently and would almost certainly not take the opportunity to start a conflict. Picard doesn't disagree with the protests but is compelled to follow orders. He later confides to first officer William T. Riker that the reason Starfleet is keeping the Enterprise away from the Borg is due to Picard's history with them. Riker emphatically disagrees with Starfleet's decision, saying that given Picard's experience with the Borg he should be leading the fight instead of being kept away from it. They then receive word that the fleet has engaged the Borg and listen as the battle appears to go badly.

" Set a course for Earth. Maximum warp. "

Picard announces his intention to commit a direct violation of their orders and that if anyone on the bridge objects, it will be noted in his log. The crew votes unanimously to disobey their orders and set a course for Earth at maximum warp, where they join a fleet of vessels repelling an advancing Borg cube. Among them is the badly-damaged warship USS Defiant commanded by Lieutenant Commander Worf . With the ship under heavy fire and its shields and weapons gone, he orders that the Defiant ram the cube when he is informed that the Enterprise has arrived. As the Defiant 's survivors are beamed aboard, Riker reports that the fleet admiral's ship has been destroyed. Informed by Data that the cube's outer hull has been heavily damaged and its power grid fluctuating, Picard has a good look at the cube on the viewscreen and uses his remaining connection to the Borg to briefly "listen in" on them. Picard takes command of the fleet and swiftly destroys the cube by ordering all vessels to target a seemingly insignificant region of the cube. As it explodes, however, the foundering Borg ship launches a sphere -shaped vessel into orbit of Earth.

The Enterprise -E enters the temporal vortex

Worf arrives on the bridge and (after being formally welcomed aboard the Enterprise -E) offers his assistance. He asks about the status of the Defiant and is relieved when told it is adrift but salvageable. Picard requests he takes tactical and Riker jokingly asks if he "remembers how to fire phasers." Suddenly, the sensors detect that the Borg sphere is creating a temporal vortex ; the crew watches the viewscreen as the Borg vessel disappears through the vortex and Earth dramatically changes. Seeing that it is now populated entirely by Borg drones and has a toxic atmosphere only suitable to them, they determine that history has been changed, having been protected from the changes themselves by the wake of the temporal vortex. As the vortex collapses, Captain Picard orders Lieutenant Hawk not to alter course and have the Enterprise follow the Borg into the past – to repair whatever damage they've done.

21st century [ ]

Lily and Cochrane spot the attackers

In the small shanty town of Bozeman , Montana , Lily Sloane and Zefram Cochrane wander out of a makeshift bar as their town is unexpectedly pulverized by a volley of disruptor fire. Lily and Cochrane run for cover but are unaware that the Borg sphere is responsible for the destruction raining down upon them. Lily suspects that they're under attack by the forces of the Eastern Coalition (ECON).

The Enterprise emerges from the temporal vortex and destroys the Borg sphere with quantum torpedoes . Scanning the surface, the crew discovers that they have arrived on April 4th , 2063 – one day before Earth's First Contact with an alien species, and a decade following the destruction of World War III . Picard surmises that the Borg were attempting to prevent the launch of Earth's first warp -powered craft. He gathers Lieutenant Commander Data and Doctor Beverly Crusher , leading an away team to locate the warp ship's inventor, Doctor Zefram Cochrane.

Picard, Data and the Phoenix

After beaming down, Picard's away team enters Cochrane's missile silo where they find the occupants dead but the prototype warpship, the Phoenix , suffering only minor damage. Picard and Data inspect the rocket but are surprised by Lily, who fires at the Enterprise officers. Impervious to bullets, however, Data intercepts the 21st century woman before she succumbs to radiation poisoning. Doctor Crusher returns to the Enterprise with Lily in her care, promising to keep her unconscious as Picard calls up to Geordi La Forge , asking the chief engineer to bring a repair crew to the silo.

The Borg overrun the ship

As the damage control team departs the ship, engineers Porter and Eiger are left to deal with environmental difficulties that have mysteriously cropped up. One after the other, both officers crawl into a Jefferies tube , wherein they are quietly assimilated by unseen Borg stowaways. Sensing that something is wrong aboard the Enterprise , Picard returns with Data to the ship, leaving Commander Riker in charge.

Indeed, something is dreadfully wrong, as the Borg infiltrate the Enterprise ; Picard surmises that the Borg, knowing their vessel was doomed, must have transported aboard undetected while the Enterprise 's shields were down. Fleeing Borg drones in sickbay , Doctor Crusher is forced to revive Lily. With the help of the Enterprise 's EMH , Crusher, Nurse Ogawa , Martinez , and other medical personnel are able to escape into the Jefferies tubes where Lily quietly slips away while the medical officers flee the deck. On the bridge , Picard orders Data to lockout the main computer with an encryption code as the Borg attempt to take command of the ship. Picard knows that, once the Borg have control of the Enterprise , they will assimilate Earth.

Act Two [ ]

Troi and Cochrane share a drink

Below decks, Picard briefs Data, Worf, and a team of security officers as they arm themselves with phaser rifles (Worf informing the crew that even with a rotating modulation , they will get at most twelve shots before the Borg adapt). As the Borg have taken control of main engineering , Picard explains their objective: puncture one of the warp plasma coolant tanks . Doing so will release the plasma coolant, liquefying the Borg's organic components, without which, Picard explains, the cyborgs cannot survive. Picard also warns his officers that they should not show mercy to assimilated Enterprise crew members – indeed, killing them would be the merciful thing to do.

On Earth, Commander Riker finds a drunken Counselor Troi at the town's makeshift bar. The counselor introduces Riker to Zefram Cochrane, himself intoxicated, explaining that the scientist doesn't believe their cover story – and that, in her professional opinion as ship's counselor , she thinks he's "nuts." Riker is very amused by Troi's drunken behavior, which annoys Troi even more. As Cochrane activates a rock and roll -spouting jukebox , Troi bemoans her first experience with tequila then finally passes out while Cochrane continues to dance to the music.

Picard and Data hunt Borg in the corridors of the Enterprise

Meanwhile, two teams march through the corridors of the Enterprise -E – one led by Worf, the other by Picard and Data. Rounding a corner on deck 16, the crew finds that the usually pristine and immaculate bulkheads of a Federation starship have been replaced by the grotesque and mechanical equipment of a Borg vessel. In response, an anxious Data deactivates his emotion chip . Elsewhere, Worf and his men encounter Dr. Crusher as she emerges from the Jefferies tubes with her medical staff and patients. She notifies the Klingon that Lily has gone missing and Worf promises to watch out for the woman. Moving on, the two teams meet outside of engineering, in corridors crawling with Borg drones. At first ignoring the Starfleet officers' arrival, the Borg suddenly spring into action as Picard and Data attempt to gain entry to main engineering. A battle ensues, but the Borg quickly adapt to phaser fire and Picard calls for a retreat. The captain tells the Enterprise crew to regroup on deck 15 and warns his officers not to let the Borg touch them. Too late, however, for Data, who is captured by the Borg and taken into their hive.

Lily captures Picard

Rushing to a Jefferies tube, Picard sees a crewman begging for help as Borg technology starts to take over his body and, believing he is saving him from a worse fate, shoots him dead before escaping into a hatch. Inside the access tube, Lily catches Picard by surprise, turning the captain's phaser on him and demanding to be returned home. Picard tells her that is not going to be easy at the moment, but Lily informs Picard that he had better make it easy or else she will fire the phaser on him. Picard tells her to follow him and she warns the captain to go slow.

Data awakes in engineering, restrained to a Borg operating table and surrounded by drones. He assures them that they cannot gain the Enterprise access codes stored in his neural net , speaking directly to the disembodied voice of the Borg. The Borg tell Data that breaking the code is only a matter of finding the android 's weakness.

Convincing Cochrane to make his flight

On the surface, Riker, Troi, and La Forge attempt to convince Cochrane that the story about the Borg and their mission is true. Adjusting the scientist's telescope , La Forge gives Cochrane a glimpse of the Enterprise -E, orbiting high above Montana. The Enterprise officers urge Cochrane to continue with his plans to launch the Phoenix , telling him of the Utopian society that warp travel and first contact will bring to Earth. On the same day that Cochrane makes his first warp flight, a survey ship from a neighboring alien race will be passing through Earth's solar system : upon noticing that Humans have discovered faster-than-light travel, they will decide that Humanity is advanced enough to officially make first contact. Thus, even if Cochrane's test flight is simply delayed a few days, it will drastically alter history. If Cochrane hurries to make his warp flight as scheduled, the aliens will make contact, and Humanity will put aside its differences and unite as never before, to rebuild from the world war and, within fifty years, build a utopia on Earth. Grudgingly, Cochrane agrees.

The Enterprise undergoing assimilation

Meanwhile, the fight does not go well aboard the Enterprise . The Borg continue their relentless assimilation of the ship and its crew, taking control of more than half of the starship. In command of the bridge, Worf is informed by Chief of Security Daniels that the Borg have halted their approach after seizing control of deck 11, which contains hydroponics , stellar cartography , and deflector control ; none of which are vital Enterprise systems; Worf is mystified, as the Borg would only have ceased their attack there if they gained a tactical advantage. Meanwhile, still crawling through the bowels of the ship, Picard leads Lily to a porthole looking out over Earth. Shocked to find herself in space, Lily surrenders her phaser and begins to trust the captain.

" The beginning, the end, the one who is many… "

Down in engineering, Data continues his conversation with the Borg Queen , who finally shows herself as a head and upper torso descending to a robotic body. Reactivating Data's emotion chip, the Queen reveals a patch of Human flesh grafted onto his android skeleton. With this new skin, Data is able to feel all new sensations and gets to experience pleasure for the first time when the Queen blows on the flesh.

In a corridor, Picard describes the Federation and the Borg to Lily, who reacts in terror as they enter a section overrun by Borg. As they make their escape, Picard fires his phaser, provoking a response from two drones who pursue them into the holosuite . Activating a holonovel , Picard recreates a scene from The Big Good-Bye , using a holographic Tommy gun to blast the two Borg in a fit of rage. He goes berserk and plans on ripping apart the dead Borg with the gun before being calmed down by Lily. Nonetheless, he starts pulling open the chest cavity of one of the drones when Lily notices the Borg has partial remains of a Starfleet uniform on. Picard unemotionally informs her that the Borg was formerly Starfleet Ensign Lynch . The captain retrieves a Borg neural processor and proceeds to the bridge, surprising Lily at how emotionally detached he was at the thought of killing his own crew member.

On Earth, Cochrane has grown frustrated with the high esteem bestowed upon him by the 24th century officers as they repair the Phoenix . After a run-in with Lieutenant Barclay (who, like many of the crew had already done, asks to shake his hand), Cochrane expresses his reservations to La Forge, who admits that he too is experiencing feelings of hero worship . La Forge reveals to Cochrane that the missile silo would eventually become home to a statue in his honor . The scientist quickly escapes into the woods, attempting to flee. Riker and La Forge give chase, ultimately stunning Cochrane to prevent his escape.

The Borg Queen seduces Data

In engineering, the operation to give Data flesh and blood continues. Exploiting a small window of opportunity, Data breaks free of the operating table and attempts to escape his captors. He is stopped, however, when a drone slashes at and cuts Data's new Human skin. Data is then forced to experience another new feeling – pain – and is left confused that, despite the fact he wants to rip the flesh off, he can't bring himself to do it. The Borg Queen then sets about seducing the android, who explains that he is "fully functional" and "programmed in multiple techniques," but it has been just over eight years since he has used them. Just as he tells the Queen this, the two fall into a passionate embrace.

Picard, Worf, and Hawk on the hull of the Enterprise

On the bridge, Picard returns to brief his crew on the situation: the Borg plan to use the ship's navigational deflector to contact reinforcements in the Delta Quadrant which would easily conquer Earth. With no other way to gain access to the deflector dish, Picard, Worf, and the ship's helmsman , Lieutenant Hawk, don EV suits and cross the exterior hull of the ship on foot (much to Worf's dismay, as the zero-gravity makes him sick to his stomach ), finding several drones constructing a beacon atop the particle emitter . Unable to simply destroy the dish due to the risk of severe damage to the ship, Picard and company work to manually release it into space. Arousing a response from the drones, the Enterprise officers battle the Borg, who are able to injure Worf and assimilate Hawk. Hawk, now assimilated, tries to kill Picard by throwing him to a wall, cracking the glass in his helmet. Just as Hawk is about to slam his foot down on Picard's helmet, Worf shoots Hawk and he flies away into space. Recovering quickly, Picard finishes his task and releases the deflector into space. Worf allows the deflector to drift away from the ship, then destroys it with his phaser rifle.

Sensing the destruction of the beacon, the Borg Queen announces to Data – still undergoing the operation – that she has changed her plans.

Act Three [ ]

Aboard the repaired Phoenix , with less than an hour before launch, Cochrane mulls over some final details as Riker joins him. Cochrane admits that he's suffering from a hangover which is either from the whiskey or Riker's phaser blast (or both), but is ready to make history nonetheless. As the launch doors are opened, Riker marvels at the sight on the moon visible in the early morning sky. Cochrane, unimpressed, wonders if maybe there is no moon in the 24th century. Riker admits that there is but it just looks very much different here in the 21st century as 50 million people live on the moon in the 24th century. Riker points out Tycho City , New Berlin and Lake Armstrong , but Cochrane doesn't want to hear any of it being credited to him, as he's had quite enough of hearing about "the great Zefram Cochrane." Cochrane advises Riker that the Enterprise crew has some pretty unbelievable ideas about who he really is as he has observed them treating him as some kind of saint or visionary. Riker admits that he doesn't think Cochrane is a saint, but he most definitely had a vision - the Phoenix itself. Cochrane admits, however, his real vision is dollar signs and money . He confides in Riker that he didn't build the Phoenix to usher in a new era for Humanity - he doesn't even like to fly, preferring trains . He built the Phoenix to be able to retire to a tropical island filled with naked women, which amuses Riker, but Cochrane vehemently defends his vision as who he truly is and dismisses the historical figure that the crew sees him as while also believing he'll never be the man history knows him to be. Riker offers Cochrane a quote - "Don't try to be a great man, just be a man and let history make it's own judgments." Cochrane dismisses it as rhetorical nonsense before quizzing Riker on who said that. Riker, quite amusedly, tells Cochrane it was he himself, ten years from the present, before leaving the doctor to finish his pre-launch checklist.

Returning to the bridge, Picard and Worf find the situation has worsened: Daniels, bloodied, emerges from the Jeffries Tube and reports that the Borg have continued their takeover of the ship, assimilating decks five and six, with the intent of charging their way to the bridge, and the crew's phasers can no longer affect their adversaries. Despite the hopelessness of the situation, Picard orders Daniels to tell his men to stand their ground, even fight hand-to-hand if need be. Worf and Dr. Crusher argue against this, instead suggesting evacuating the Enterprise in escape pods and setting the ship to self-destruct to destroy the Borg. Picard angrily balks and decrees that the crew will stay and fight. Worf believes however that the Enterprise has been lost, but Picard retorts he has no intention of losing the Enterprise , certainly not to the Borg while he's in command. Worf, owing to all due respect to the captain, attempts to reason with Picard telling him that his experience with the Borg is influencing his judgement. Picard responds by calling the Klingon a coward by wanting to destroy the ship and simply run away. Worf, insulted and outraged, snarls at Picard: " If you were any other man, I would kill you where you stand! " Unfazed by the threat, Picard angrily fires back at Worf "Get off my bridge!" and retreats into the observation lounge, alone. Dr. Crusher begins to coordinate the remaining crew in defense of the ship, but Lily argues in favor of the self-destruct. Dr. Crusher points out that when the captain makes up his mind the discussion is over. Lily, not one of the crew, doesn't accept this and follows Picard to confront him…

"The line must be drawn HERE! This far, NO FURTHER! "

In the observation lounge, Picard sits at the table and tries to reconfigure his phaser rifle as Lily enters calling him a " son of a bitch ." The captain, with little time to spare, waves her off. Lily admits that while she may not know anything about the time where the crew comes from, she knows that everyone on the bridge believes that staying aboard the ship and fighting the Borg is suicide, they just won't tell Picard. The captain dismisses her belief with the assumption that the crew will follow his orders as they always have. Lily reminds him that his orders probably make sense most of the time. Picard's temper rises and silences her by saying the crew cannot understand the Borg as he does and no one can, he says quietly. Lily doesn't understand what Picard means.

Picard explains the circumstances surrounding his abduction and incorporation into the Collective six years earlier and smugly tells her that his experiences give him a unique perspective on the Borg and how to fight them. He asks that she excuse him, as he has work to do. Lily begins to understand Picard's motivations – the Borg hurt him before and now he's going to pay them back. The captain sneers that in the 24th century, mankind doesn't succumb to revenge as they have a more evolved sensibility than what Lily can appreciate. " Bullshit! " she exclaims as she watched him earlier murder two Borg in the holosuite in cold blood with a look of enjoyment on his face. Picard is appalled she would make such an accusation and snarls at her to get out. Lily, defiant, stands her ground and wonders if he'll kill her like he did Ensign Lynch if she refuses. Picard, his emotions running high, dismisses the incident, claiming "there was no way to save him." Lily doesn't buy it and asks where his "evolved sensibility" was then. Picard tries to ignore her claims, but Lily compares him to the obsessed Captain Ahab in the novel Moby Dick . Picard is momentarily jarred, but he shifts the conversation away from the accusation saying his refusal to abandon ship is more about saving the future of Humanity. Lily presses him bluntly, screaming at him to "blow up the damn ship!" Picard now loses control entirely, yelling " No! " and in a moment of total rage smashes his phaser rifle into the display case containing models of previous starship Enterprise s . As he watches the shattered models of the USS Enterprise -C and USS Enterprise -D fall and break, he is momentarily taken aback. He tells her that sacrificing the Enterprise -E would be another compromise in a long line of compromises in Humanity's dealings with the Borg. " No further ," Picard intones, for he intends to make the Borg pay for what they've done.

Seemingly defeated, Lily examines the broken pieces of the Enterprise -D model and gently chides the captain that his little ships are broken and begins to exit the lounge. " See you around, Ahab. " As she does, the words of Moby Dick echo from his memory…

Lily confesses she never actually read the book. With a smile on his lips, Picard explains that Captain Ahab had spent years hunting the whale that had crippled him, but his quest for vengeance eventually destroyed him and his ship. Realizing that he is indeed walking the same path, Picard sets his phaser rifle next to the broken pieces of the Enterprise -D model and enters the bridge and gives the order…

" Prepare to evacuate the Enterprise . "

At the launch site, Riker, La Forge, and Cochrane begin the pre-ignition sequence to launch the Phoenix while on the Enterprise bridge, Picard, Crusher, and Worf arm the auto-destruct sequence. Programming the escape pods to head for the isolated Gravett Island , the captain activates the destruct order: fifteen minutes with a silent countdown. Dr. Crusher laments the quick death of the Enterprise -E and wonders if Starfleet will build another one. Picard, as hopeful as he was following the destruction of the Enterprise -D, quips that there are still " plenty of letters left in the alphabet. " Worf turns to exit as Picard stops him, regretting some the remarks he made to him earlier. The captain adds that the Klingon is the bravest man he's ever known. Worf accepts the apology and they shake hands. Now alone on the bridge, his Starfleet career seemingly over and his command minutes away from destruction, Picard suddenly becomes very much aware that Data is still held in the clutches of the Collective.

From mission control in Montana, Counselor Troi, on headset to the cockpit of the Phoenix , advises Cochrane, Riker and Geordi that final launch checks are complete and wishes them good luck. Riker wonders if everyone is ready to make history, which La Forge concedes that he always is. Cochrane, however, is bothered by a nagging feeling that he has forgotten something, although he dismisses it as probably nothing. As Troi begins the ignition sequence and the countdown to launch begins, Cochrane suddenly realizes what he has forgotten. As Riker and Geordi begin to abort, Cochrane finds what he's looking for in his pocket - a green disc, which he inserts into the console. As the countdown approaches zero, Cochrane orders the Phoenix launched - "Let's rock and roll!" He presses a button on the console with the disc as " Magic Carpet Ride " by Steppenwolf blasts into the cockpit (and Troi's headset) at maximum volume. The Phoenix blasts off as the townspeople look on. As she begins to achieve orbit, Riker, more of a jazz enthusiast, wonders if Cochrane might turn the song down a little as Geordi reports a red light on the second intake valve. Cochrane, unconcerned, tells them to ignore it as the Phoenix completes first-stage shut down and separation. As it does, the warp nacelles deploy from the port and starboard sides of the craft. Riker brings the warp core online as Cochrane marvels at the sight of the Earth out of the window. Geordi promises him "you ain't seen nothing yet!"

Flight of the escape pods

Escorting Lily to her escape pod, Picard hands her a PADD containing orders for Commander Riker, informing him and their crew on the surface to find a quiet corner of North America and to stay out of history's way. Lily wishes Picard good luck and does he, but she quickly realizes that the captain has no intention of leaving the ship. He explains to her that when he was held captive on the Borg ship years earlier, the crew risked everything to save him and that there is one member of the Enterprise crew still aboard and he owes him the same. Accepting his decision, Lily tells Picard to go find his friend and boards her pod as dozens of escape craft disengage from the Enterprise and travel towards Earth.

Grappling with the Queen

Picard advances to engineering where he comes face-to-face with the Borg Queen. She recalls the last time they met – during his assimilation – and notes how Picard can still hear "their song" - the call of the Collective. Picard, incredulous, begins to remember the Queen but cannot understand how she survived the destruction of the Borg cube that invaded the Federation six years earlier. The Queen, disgusted with Picard's limited understanding, admonishes him for how small he has become and how Data understands her and calls to the android. Picard turns to see a new Data, plugged into a Borg alcove , with half of his face now sporting organic Human flesh. The captain demands to know what the Queen has done to him, but she simply states she has simply given him what he's always wanted - flesh and blood. Picard requests that the Queen let Data go as he is not the one she wants. As she quizzes the captain on whether he's offering himself to the Borg, Picard has a sudden realization that it wasn't enough that the Borg assimilate him six years earlier, he had to give himself over to the Borg to satisfy the Queen's intentions. She angrily rebukes his claim, stating that she has overseen the assimilation of countless millions and that Picard was no different. The captain accuses her of lying, stating he knows that she wanted him to be more than just another Borg drone, she was seeking a Human counterpart to herself to bridge the gap between Humanity and the Borg, but that plan failed as Picard resisted. The Queen laments that Picard couldn't begin to understand the life he denied himself. Picard makes his offer - Locutus rejoins the collective willingly without any resistance in exchange for letting Data go. The Queen commends Picard's nobility and releases the forcefield containing Data and allows him to leave. However, Data remains motionless. The captain orders Data to go but he refuses, stating he does not wish to leave. With a glint of satisfaction, the Queen informs Picard that she doesn't need him as she's already found her equal - Data. She orders him to deactivate the self-destruct sequence and he obliges. Picard desperately tries to convince Data not to do it, but he ignores him as the ship's computer acknowledges that the auto-destruct sequence has been deactivated. After deactivating the self-destruct sequence, the Queen orders Data to now enter the encryption codes on the main computer, which will give the Queen command of the Enterprise. Data, again, obliges as Picard woefully notes that Data will not listen to him. Data, instead, leaves the captain and takes his place at the Queen's side, telling her that Picard will be an "excellent drone" as Borg drones take hold of the betrayed captain.

Aboard the Phoenix , Geordi reports everything is looking good and the ship is prepared for warp speed as Riker warns that they had best break the warp barrier in the next five minutes if history is to fulfill itself. Cochrane orders Riker and La Forge to jump to warp with a familiar command - "Engage!" Riker and Geordi allow themselves a grin at the parallel as the Enterprise begins to bear down on the Phoenix. Back in engineering, Picard is confined to an operation table as Data targets the Phoenix with quantum torpedoes , which the Queen orders destroyed. The torpedoes are launched from the Enterprise as a delighted Borg Queen taunts the captain to watch as Humanity's future comes to an end, not noticing Data quietly moving towards a plasma coolant tank behind her. Picard can only watch in horror as the torpedoes close in on the Phoenix until they finally… miss their target. The horrified Queen and smirking captain realize that Data has deceived the Borg, not joined them. Data mockingly repeats the Borg's mantra back to the Queen - "Resistance is futile!" and thrusts his fist into the coolant tank, enveloping him in the deadly gas as Picard scrambles for cover. The Phoenix engages it's warp drive as Cochrane hangs on for dear life. On the Enterprise , Picard utilizes some suction hoses from the ceiling to escape the lethal plasma coolant. Just below him, the Queen grabs hold of his foot, impeding his climb to safety. Picard struggles against her grip until Data – his new skin dissolved – emerges from the plasma coolant and grabs hold of her. After a desperate struggle, Data pulls the Borg Queen into the deadly gas. Screaming in pain and rage, the Borg Queen's flesh quickly disintegrates. With her control of the Borg on the Enterprise destabilized, drones all over the ship collapse and die.

The remains of the fallen Borg Queen

" Data, are you all right? " " I would imagine I look worse than I… feel. "

After a few moments traveling faster than the speed of light, Riker aboard the Pheonix orders throttle back. As the Phoenix drops out of warp, it begins it's return journey to Earth. Cochrane, amazed at his experience, notices how small Earth looks from the cockpit window. Riker reminds him that it's about to get a whole lot bigger once history takes it's course. Picard vents the plasma from engineering and descends to the deck, which is littered with Borg corpses. Finding the metallic skeletal remains of the Borg Queen still clinging to life near the warp core, Picard breaks her spinal column and terminates her once and for all, finally allowing him some form of closure. The captain finds Data not far away; knowing that the melting of his Borg-given Human skin has left some of his inner circuits revealed but caused no real damage, he quips that he probably doesn't feel as bad as he might look, allowing a small chuckle at the irony. The android expresses a sense of sadness at the death of the "unique" Borg Queen and the glimpses of Humanity she brought him. He admits that he was tempted by her offer for a mere 0.68 seconds, but also notes that this involved much more deliberation than the captain might suspect. Picard extends his hand to Data and helps him to his feet. They both take a look at the Borg assimilated engineering and exit.

First contact

In Montana, a crowd of observers, including Cochrane, Lily, Picard, and the other Human members of the Enterprise 's senior staff , watch the historic landing of the first extraterrestrial craft to openly and publicly visit Earth. Cochrane, amazed, marvels to Riker that the aliens really are from another world as Riker reminds him that they're going to want to meet the man who flew that warp ship that drew them there. Cochrane approaches them as the alien leader makes his way forward and removes his hood, revealing a set of pointed ears and extends his hand in greeting: "Live long and prosper." Cochrane attempts to return the gesture, but cannot get his fingers to mimic the alien's. Instead, he offers him the Human equivalent - a handshake . "Thanks." he says. Picard, happily noting that all is proceeding as it should, notes to his crew that the time has come for them to make a discreet exit and let history unfold as it should. With that, Riker taps his combadge and orders the Enterprise to stand by to beam them up as the captain heads for Lily. She notes that the time has come for him to go and remarks how she envies him and the world he's going to. Picard responds how much he envies her that she gets to witness Humanity's first steps into a new frontier before telling her that he'll miss her. With a kiss good-bye, the Enterprise crew departs unnoticed.

Back on the bridge, Worf tells Picard that the Enterprise 's warp signature was obscured by the moon's gravitational field and thus was not detected by the Vulcans, while La Forge can recreate the temporal vortex that brought them there by reconfiguring their warp field . Data, with his damaged face, informs the captain that helm stands by for his orders. Picard, confident that the future they know will be waiting for them, has Data lay in a course for the 24th century. On Earth, as Lily watches in the sky as the Enterprise disappears through the vortex, a happily blitzed Cochrane unsuccessfully tries to get the Vulcans to drink and dance along to " Ooby Dooby " by Roy Orbison .

Log entries [ ]

Memorable quotes [ ].

" I've just received a disturbing report from Deep Space 5. Our colony on Ivor Prime was destroyed this morning. Long range sensors have picked up the– " " …Yes, I know, the Borg. "

" Bridge to Captain Picard. " " Go ahead. " " We've just received word from the fleet. They've engaged the Borg. "

" Flagship to Endeavour , stand by to engage at grid A-15. " " Defiant and Bozeman , fall back to mobile position 1. " " Acknowledged. " " We have it a visual range, a Borg cube on course 0 mark 2-1-5, speed warp nine… "

" We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile. "

" All units, open fire! " " Remodulate shield… " " They've broken through the defense perimeter toward Earth! " " Pursuit Course. " " The cube is changing course! 0-2-1 mark 4! " " Defiant continue to attack! Flagship to Starfleet command, We need reinforcements!' " Casualty reports coming in! " " 96 dead, 22 wounded on the Lexington ! "

" I'm about to commit a direct violation of our orders. Any of you who wish to object should do so, now. It will be noted in my log."

" Isn't it amazing? This ship used to be a nuclear missile! " " It is an historical irony that Doctor Cochrane would use an instrument of mass destruction to inaugurate an era of peace. "

" This isn't part of my program! I'm a doctor, not a doorstop! "

" And you people, you're all astronauts on… some kind of star trek? "

" Who is this jerk? (slurring) And who told him he could turn off my music? "

" Timeline!? This is no time to argue about time!! We don't have the time!! What was I saying? "

" You'd better find a way to make it easy, soldier, or I'm going to start pushing buttons ! "

" I am the beginning, the end, the one who is many. I am the Borg. "

" Assimilate this!"

" I will not sacrifice the Enterprise . We've made too many compromises already. Too many retreats. They invade our space and we fall back. They assimilate entire worlds and we fall back. Not again! The line must be drawn here… THIS far, NO further! And I will make them PAY for what they've done. "

" Watch… your future's end. "

" Resistance is futile! "

" Live long and prosper. " " Thanks. "

" I envy you, the world you're going to. " " I envy you, taking these first steps into a new frontier. "

" Mister Data, lay in a course for the twenty-fourth century. I suspect our future is there waiting for us. " " Course laid in, sir. " " Make it so."

Background information [ ]

Development [ ].

The teaser poster for Star Trek: First Contact

With the success of Star Trek Generations and its worldwide gross of US$120,000,000, [1] Paramount Pictures development executives approached producer Rick Berman in February 1995 to ready the next installment in the Star Trek franchise. During an impromptu meeting with writers Ronald D. Moore and Brannon Braga , Berman revealed his interest in a time travel story.

The Moore/Braga writing team, however, wanted to tell a story focusing on the Borg. Moore recalled the first meeting:

Brainstorming sessions began between the writer/producers' day jobs on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager . Again, Moore recalled:

Though other time periods in history including the American Civil War were bandied about, eventually the Italian Renaissance time period was seized upon. An early story draft entitled Star Trek Renaissance expanded upon this idea. According to Moore, the story would have found Picard and company searching history for a group of time-traveling Borg. Happening upon a Renaissance village, the crew would hear stories about strange creatures taking over neighboring villages:

The producers realized that the time period was expensive to realize on screen, with audience knowledge of and identification with the period very low. ( AOL chat , 1997 )

Ultimately, a time period after modern history was selected: The birth of the Federation. According to Brannon Braga:

A revised storyline was constructed, this time called Star Trek Resurrection . Utilizing elements laid into place by Gene Roddenberry 's original concepts for the Star Trek universe and the Star Trek: The Original Series second season episode " Metamorphosis ", Resurrection closely resembled the final film. In the story, the Borg attack Zefram Cochrane's Montana laboratory, severely injuring the scientist. With Doctor Crusher fighting to save Cochrane's life, Captain Picard assumes his place in history, rallying a town around reconstructing the damaged warp ship. As the action unfolded, Picard would have become romantically involved with a local photographer and X-ray technician named Ruby, who helps the captain reconstruct a key element of the ship. Aboard the Enterprise , Commander Riker would be engaged in combat with invading Borg drones. The Borg in Resurrection would remain faceless automatons.

With a draft of Resurrection sent to studio executives, generally positive notes were returned. However, one Paramount executive pointed out the weakness of the Borg as being that they were "basically zombies." Despite the Borg's inception as a faceless swarm, the writers chose to incorporate a figurehead into the Collective. The Borg Queen was created, a logical extension of the insect-like qualities incorporated into the Borg's characterization. Having read the early script pages too, Patrick Stewart, however, was dissatisfied with the film. Stewart suggested that the Picard and Riker stories be switched. Thus, the focus of the film was transferred to the action aboard the Enterprise with a B-story on the planet's surface. Elements like Ruby the photographer and an injured Cochrane were ultimately scrapped. As was any prospect of a love affair for Picard. Ronald D. Moore described the thought process:

With that adjustment in the structure of the film, Berman suggested the addition of a holodeck sequence: The "cocktail party". In August 1995 an early draft of the script, still titled Resurrection , was circulated to key members of the production staff, headed by Martin Hornstein and Peter Lauritson . Using this script, the production heads would budget the film, ultimately falling into the US$45,000,000 range. [2]

Key positions were filled as preproduction began. With several members of the cast volunteering for the director's chair, Jonathan Frakes won out. According to Frakes, the film was offered to A-list directors who had little interest in the franchise; as a result he was offered the job "a month later than would have been ideal." Frakes appointed Jerry Fleck , [3] a veteran of Star Trek: The Next Generation , as first assistant director and John W. Wheeler as editor. [4] Veteran costume designer Deborah Everton was assigned the task of creating all non-Starfleet clothing, plus redesigning the Borg with Michael Westmore . Everton's credits at the time included The Abyss and The X-Files TV series; she later costumed Ronald D. Moore's Battlestar Galactica miniseries. [5] Robert Blackman returned to once again redesign the Starfleet uniforms , this time to complement Frakes' darker color palette and stand up better to big screen scrutiny.

Pre-production [ ]

The new enterprise [ ].

John Eaves' so-called "chicken in a pan" design

Upon delivery of the script to production designer Herman Zimmerman , the art department's first task was the creation of a new Enterprise . Having been retained from his work on Generations , illustrator John Eaves operated in conjunction with Zimmerman to develop the Enterprise -E, based upon direction by Berman and the writers. According to Ronald D. Moore, " We described the new Enterprise in some detail. We said we want a sleeker look, with more of a muscular, almost warship kind of a look to it. "

According to illustrator Eaves, the process began by reviewing what came before, specifically Bill George 's USS Excelsior from Star Trek III: The Search for Spock . Over twenty or thirty sketches, the designer honed the look of the ship into an even sleeker design, rotating the oval-shaped saucer of the USS Enterprise -D to fit the new concept.

By October 1995 , Eaves and Zimmerman proceeded with their design with approval from Rick Berman. Featuring the same basic shape that appears in the finished film, this version of the Enterprise -E included movable warp pylons recalling the starship USS Voyager . Showing a dorsal-view sketch to a member of the production staff, Eaves received negative feedback that compared the ship to a chicken. " …From the moment he said that, the design was cursed. Every time I looked at it, I saw not a starship, but a chicken in a pan. Sadly, Herman saw it, too, so we had to (pardon the pun) scratch that one. "

Over the next several months, the ship was again refined. In sketches dated January 1996 , the Enterprise -E had finally been settled upon. Now distinguished by back-swept engine pylons, the ship was almost ready to be constructed. Eaves described the next steps:

Eaves' finalized overview drawings for the Enterprise -E

With several days of sketching alternatives behind him, Eaves returned to his original design to focus on the smaller details that allowed Sternbach to complete his plans. By the spring of 1996 , the ship's blueprints were turned over to Industrial Light & Magic 's model building team under John Goodson . The ten-foot model was fabricated under extreme time constraint (about half the normal time period); with photographs of rooms and people inserted into the ship's windows. A computer-generated model was also constructed (with almost indistinguishable differences between the two). [6]

Interiors [ ]

Working simultaneously on the exterior Enterprise -E, Eaves and Zimmerman focused inward, generating drawings of the Enterprise bridge as early as November 1995 . First designing a smaller space to fit with the smaller, sleeker direction of the Enterprise , the art department eventually opened the set up, creating a space that was larger than the bridge of the Enterprise -D. Eaves described the decision:

The bridge of the Enterprise -E as seen on film

A collaborative process, Eaves received input from Doug Drexler regarding his new bridge:

The final details of the bridge were honed through early 1996, alongside other new sets including new corridors and an expanded engineering. Again designed by Eaves and Zimmerman, Enterprise -E corridor sets were constructed in a basic horseshoe shape with built-in handrails, back-lit monitors and removable panels that could be easily swapped for "Borgified" parts. Two lighting schemes were created for the corridor sets for normal and " red alert " conditions, though the former was not seen until Star Trek: Insurrection . For the evacuation sequence, set decorator John M. Dwyer created vacuum-formed pieces molded from the hood of a Camaro, to be used as escape pod hatches. Paramount's Stages 14 and 15 housed the vast corridor complex which connected to Herman Zimmerman's and Nancy Mickleberry's main engineering. Eaves recalled the experience:

Corridor sets under construction

Despite the number of new sets created for the film, the production once again reused old material, including turbolift wall sections dating back to 1979 's Star Trek: The Motion Picture . Sections of the starship Voyager from Star Trek: Voyager were cannibalized for the film, as filming was to take place between that series' second and third seasons. Voyager 's sickbay was repainted and redressed for use as Doctor Crusher's sickbay, and the Voyager cargo bay set became the Enterprise weapons locker with relatively little modification. Having been saved from the wrecking crews following the completion of Generations , the Enterprise -D observation lounge, first built in 1987 for Star Trek: The Next Generation was put into service, overhauled and expanded, then connected to the bridge set. For the first time in the Star Trek film series, the transporter room did not appear. Also omitted from the finished picture, a large, cylindrical fish tank constructed for Picard's new ready room was replaced with nondescript objet d'art before the cameras rolled.

It was not only from previous Star Trek productions, the movie scavenged set pieces from as Production Illustrator John Eaves divulged in 2009, " We did Osiris immediately after Generations and both were Paramount films. When First Contact was starting up we brought over all the sets from Osiris and incorporated them into Star Trek . It was an oddity to take elements I had drawn for OC and then redraw them into the TNG world…everything came together well and if you have seen Osiris or (Battle lords) the tub shaped set piece that the Plentum was in became the center piece of the Warp core of the Enterprise E. " [7] Eaves was referring to the planned science fiction television series The Osiris Chronicles , for which a pilot episode, " The Warlord: Battle for the Galaxy ", was produced in 1995/1996. A somewhat ill-conceived attempt to further capitalize on the new found popularity of science-fiction television shows, the series was not picked up however.

The Borg [ ]

A little less menacing: the Borg relax off camera

Assigned to refresh the Borg make up that had previously consisted of simple pale faces and cobbled together bodysuits, Deborah Everton and Michael Westmore cooperated with Herman Zimmerman and his team. As late as January of '96, pages of Borg designs flowed from the art department, with contributions by Alex Delgado of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine . Working for Disney in addition to Star Trek , Delgado often worked on his time off, generating complex and sometimes grotesque images of the Borg, heavily influenced by insect life and ancient Egyptian culture. While many of Delgado's ideas (including exposed organs and obelisk-shaped vessels) were ultimately rejected, much of his work was integrated into Everton's and Westmore's final designs. According to Westmore:

What resulted were eight Borg body-suits that would be combined with individually molded pieces to be swapped into various configurations representing different drones.

Electronics built into the Borg suits often included blinking lights that spelled out production members' names in Morse code . Makeup effects were achieved by airbrushing tiny "wires" that would appear to be just below the surface of the Borg drones' skin; a wide variety of humanoid and alien drones were created, including Klingons, Cardassians and Romulans , though the latter two never appeared in the theatrical cut. With days beginning as early as 2 am, it took the makeup department thirty minutes to get the eight Borg actors into their costumes, another five hours to apply makeup, and ninety minutes to remove the makeup at the end of the day. According to Westmore:

Alice Krige as the Queen's torso, lowered on a crane

As the leader of the horde of eight, Alice Krige 's Borg Queen costume was unique. A tight-fitting, one piece bodysuit, combined with a large headpiece and integrated lighting systems, the first of the Queen's costumes was built out of hard rubber. After the first of Krige's ten-day shoot, the actress suffered from blisters raised by the tight rubber. A second, soft foam suit was fabricated overnight. Despite the relative comfort of the new suit, Krige was still required to wear painful silver contact lenses that could be worn for only four minutes at a time. According to Jerry Fleck, the actress never complained.

Borg vessels were handled by John Eaves, based upon script pages, referring to a "tetragon", or rectangular-shaped vessel. Eaves generated drawings in January 1996, labeled "Borg tetragon":

Unable to reuse the Borg cube built for the television series, created out of inexpensive pieces from model kits, a new cube had to be designed. Described by Eaves as "nonsensical", a distinctly new surface was designed, distinguished by interlocking shapes and angles, with a hidden hatchway for Eaves' Borg sphere. Intricate details of ILM's Borg cube model were achieved through the use of recycled paper clips.

Besides several background and stunt performers who changed into Borg, there were also a few Borg mannequins. One of these mannequins was sold off on the It's A Wrap! sale and auction on eBay. [8]

The Phoenix [ ]

In their original concept of Zefram Cochrane's warp ship, the Phoenix , Moore and Braga's script referred to a space shuttle-type lander , constructed on a large, outdoor platform. Difficult to realize without the aid of extensive digital effects, the production searched for more practical methods. Rick Berman ultimately seized upon the idea of utilizing a real nuclear missile, inspiring the writers to adjust the script to accommodate the "irony" of a weapon of mass destruction used to "inaugurate an era of peace."

With the cooperation of the United States military, the production gained permission to shoot within a real missile silo in Green Valley, Arizona, near Tucson. Utilizing the real, though hollowed out Titan II missile still in its silo, the team resolved to construct a new nose to sit atop the missile, acting as the cockpit of the Phoenix . John Eaves:

Eaves' approved Phoenix logo

Completing his design for the full-size cockpit facade, Eaves next began conceptualizing the second-stage Phoenix , basing his drawings on designs appearing in Michael Okuda's Star Trek Chronology . Incorporating Star Trek: The Original Series -style warp nacelles into his drawings, Eaves refined the Phoenix from rough drawings to finalized designs over months. Turning over the plans to ILM and John Goodson's team, Eaves was stunned by the finished product:

Though mostly invisible on screen, a logo for Cochrane's warp ship was also designed by Eaves on the fly.

Calling a number of gift shops in the area, Eaves was finally able to locate a postcard with an appropriate picture of the phoenix he remembered. Taking the postcard to a local store, the gift shop owner faxed a picture of the phoenix to the Paramount production offices where Eaves went to work. With only a single pass, the logo was approved by Rick Berman.

Production [ ]

In the spring of 1996, newly-recruited director Jonathan Frakes and producer Rick Berman cast their three "guest stars". Two-time Academy Award winner Tom Hanks, an admitted Trekker, was slated to play Zefram Cochrane but he was busy with his directorial debut. The role went to James Cromwell , a veteran of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , and Oscar nominee for his role in the 1995 movie Babe . According to Jonathan Frakes: " In spite of having been nominated for an Academy Award, he actually came in and read for the part… He nailed it. He left Berman and me with our jaws in our laps. " Cromwell later reprised his role as Cochrane in the Star Trek: Enterprise first season episode " Broken Bow ".

Robert Picardo cameos as another EMH

For the role of Lily, Frakes' immediate inclination after reading the script was to cast actress Alfre Woodard . Woodard, an Oscar nominee herself and multiple Emmy Award winner, was Frakes' self-proclaimed "godmother": " The first time we got through the script, I think everyone's first words were 'Alfre Woodard'. " A challenge for Frakes and Berman, though, was ultimately solved in the casting of South African-born actress Alice Krige as the Borg Queen. Both Frakes and the Moore/Braga writing duo would later recall a sense of uneasy sexiness in Krige's portrayal of the Queen, aided by the application of a wet sheen to her skin by the make up department. Other guest players were added to the Resurrection call sheets as they were added to the script, including Trek vets Dwight Schultz as Barclay , Ethan Phillips as the holographic maitre'D , and Robert Picardo as the EMH of the Enterprise -E (not to be confused with The Doctor ). Phillips' role went uncredited, a request made by the actor to confuse fans who may or may not recognize him from his role as Neelix .

Other cast additions included Patti Yasutake 's final appearance as Nurse Alyssa Ogawa, having first appeared back in TNG's fourth season . Don Stark was cast as Nicky the Nose , most memorable in his role as Bob Pinciotti in TV's That '70s Show – he also appeared in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine second season episode " Melora " as Ashrock the Yridian . Jack Shearer appears as Admiral Hayes, later reprising the role (Hayes apparently escaping the destruction of his ship) in Voyager episodes " Hope and Fear " and " Life Line ". Actor Eric Steinberg portrayed Paul Porter , taken early in the film but appearing throughout as a partially assimilated Borg drone in engineering.

Brannon Braga is clearly visible as an extra in the holodeck nightclub as the Borg enter the scene, though writing partner Moore's appearance was never shot – despite sixteen hours of waiting with his then wife Ruby, an anniversary present. Rumors persist ( citation needed • edit ) that both Nichelle Nichols and Kelsey Grammer (captain of the USS Bozeman from " Cause And Effect ") have uncredited "voice cameos", though these claims are unsubstantiated.

Production on Star Trek Resurrection began on 8 April 1996 , but within a month, a new title had been chosen. Mere weeks prior, 20th Century Fox had announced the title of the fourth installment in their Alien film franchise: Alien Resurrection . A number of new titles were proposed for the film including Star Trek Destinies , Star Trek: Future Generations , and Star Trek Regenerations . The titles Star Trek: Borg and Star Trek Generations II were even chosen as working titles for the film until Star Trek: First Contact was finally selected, made official in a 3 May 1996 fourth draft script. ( Star Trek: Borg went on to become the title of a video game, released not long after.)

"The line must be drawn here!" : A pivotal scene

Minor details in the script, even as shooting was under way, continued to evolve. Early drafts were vague regarding the fate of the Defiant , DS9's resident warship. Having read the script, Deep Space Nine producer Ira Steven Behr 's only note was an objection to the apparent destruction of the Defiant . The writers added the clarification "adrift but salvageable" and no mention of the ship's near annihilation was made in the TV series. Minor details in the script's pages included the ill-fated Enterprise crew member Ensign Lynch , named after a friend of writer Brannon Braga, but thought by many named for Internet critic Timothy W. Lynch, who reviewed every episode of TNG and DS9. Gravett Island was not a real Earth location, but a fictional one named after Jacques Gravett, Ronald D. Moore's then assistant. Rumors circulated during production, even reported by some LGBT publications, that another ill-fated Enterprise crewman, Neal McDonough 's Lieutenant Hawk was gay. No reference is made in the finished film to this fact; the producers have denied the rumors. [9] Regarding the film's emotional battle played out between Picard and Lily, Brannon Braga recalled: " I'd have to say that scene was nailed and perfect only about a week before it was filmed. " ( citation needed • edit )

Location shooting dominated the early schedule for the Star Trek: First Contact production team. First up were scenes set in Bozeman, Montana, shot in the Titan Missile Museum outside Tucson, Arizona for a duration of four days. The production then moved to the Angeles National Forest in the San Gabriel Mountains not far from Los Angeles. Two weeks of nighttime shooting followed, with a large village constructed by Herman Zimmerman's art department to represent exterior Bozeman. Minor details in the sets included the 52-star American flag referencing an early TNG episode, " The Royale ". A full-size section of the Vulcan lander was brought to this location for the film's finale. The film then moved to Los Angeles Union Station's art deco restaurant where the Dixon Hill holonovel sequence played out, including over 120 extras in period costumes and two Borg drones. Everton designed the costumes for Picard, Ruby, Sloane, and the other speaking parts, while many others were rented. ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 13 , p. 67)

Production finally moved to Paramount Pictures studios in Hollywood on May 3 for a half day of shooting on the three story Enterprise -E engine room set. Cameras were then moved from Stage 14 to Stage 15 where scenes were shot on the bridge, observation lounge and ready room sets. Jonathan Frakes recalled:

Patrick Stewart, Michael Dorn, and Neal McDonough film the "space walk" scene

The next two months were dubbed by the crew, "Borg Hell", with scenes shot on stages 14, 15 and 8 that included heavily made-up Borg extras, stunts, pyrotechnics, and one large deflector dish. Likely the film's most labor intensive sequence to shoot was the battle on the Enterprise hull, on the film's largest set. The deflector dish itself, while massive, was shot at angles intended to exaggerate its size – the manual input computers were labeled "AE35", a subtle reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey . The sequence also required Patrick Stewart as Picard, Michael Dorn as Worf, and Neal McDonough as Hawk to wear restrictive environmental suits that incorporated internal lighting and cooling systems. With the addition of flying rigs and complex stunts, tempers on the set were pushed, as was Patrick Stewart's endurance; the actor suffered breathing problems in his spacesuit, halting production for an entire day. Problems also arose in the realism of the sequence, with smoke rising from the set, then quickly falling, contrary to the physics of real life zero-G. This required Frakes to shoot around the smoke, or shoot takes short enough to prevent the falling smoke to be seen. Writers Moore and Braga agreed that, had the film been produced only a few years later, the entire sequence was likely to have been less complicated if shot with computer-generated sets.

Despite the complications, Star Trek: First Contact wrapped production on 2 July 1996 (two days over schedule), with the flashback that opened the film. Fittingly, the sequence required Patrick Stewart to don the Starfleet uniform he had worn for at least five of the seven seasons on Star Trek: The Next Generation . According to Ronald D. Moore, everyone involved with the film knew it was going to be a hit.

Production history [ ]

• 8 January 1996 – Second draft script, titled Star Trek: Resurrection
• 12 March 1996 – Third draft script, titled Star Trek: Borg

Post-production [ ]

Visual effects [ ].

As described by visual effects supervisor John Knoll , time allotted for post production visual effects and model building resulted in a "brutal effort". Not only did ILM's team have to construct the Enterprise -E, large models representing the Borg sphere, the new Borg cube, and the Phoenix were also required.

The Millennium Falcon appears below an Akira -class starship

Even more so than the previous film, the First Contact visual effects team also utilized computer-generated imagery, lending itself to sequences that required large numbers of starships. To stand up to the Borg cube alongside the new Enterprise and the old Defiant , ILM art director Alex Jaeger designed sixteen new Starfleet vessels, four of them rendered digitally and appearing in the massive opening battle sequence. The new starships included Akira -class , Saber -class , Steamrunner -class , and Norway -class vessels; the latter starship was lost after production due to a computer glitch, never to appear in Star Trek again. Also included in the melee were a Nebula -class starship, a Miranda -class vessel, and an Oberth -class science ship in its final use. As a joke, the Millennium Falcon CG model (created for the Star Wars Special Editions) was inserted into the Borg attack, though generally indistinguishable.

Other computer-generated vessels included the John Eaves' designed Enterprise escape pods and the Vulcan lander, constructed by the VisionArt company. At that time, First Contact included more complex visual effects shots than any Star Trek film before; low-tech methods, however, were still utilized. Close-up shots of La Forge's new ocular implants were achieved through the use of a sprocket-shaped shower handle, matted against black contact lenses.

Jerry Goldsmith , who composed the music for Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Star Trek V: The Final Frontier , returned to score First Contact and the remaining two TNG films after it. Because of his hectic schedule, Goldsmith shared much of the work with his son, Joel Goldsmith; as a result much of the music in First Contact does not appear on the commercial soundtrack.

Among the two Goldsmiths' work, a theme established in The Final Frontier , referred to as the "A Busy Man" theme, was used throughout First Contact , likely as a theme for Picard. It can be heard just after the opening fanfare at the beginning of the film. It can also be heard only briefly in Insurrection , but is used quite heavily in Star Trek Nemesis . Also repeated in First Contact was the Klingon theme, originally introduced in The Motion Picture and used in this film to represent Worf. As with all Star Trek films scored by Goldsmith, the theme from The Motion Picture was used in the end credits, and the opening fanfare from the Theme from Star Trek was used to segué into the opening and closing themes.

The opera that Picard listens to in his ready room is Berlioz ' Les Troyens – "Hylas' Song" from the beginning of Act V. (Hylas is a homesick young sailor being rocked to sleep by the sea as he dreams of the homeland he will never see again.) This is the first and only Star Trek movie to have rock and roll in the soundtrack (though Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home did feature late '80s jazz by the Yellowjackets, as well as a punk song , and Star Trek , Star Trek Into Darkness , and Star Trek Beyond all included hip hop songs – all three featured songs by the Beastie Boys , and Star Trek Beyond also included a song by Public Enemy ). In their joint audio commentary on the Special Edition DVD, Ron Moore and Brannon Braga credited Peter Lauritson with the selection of Steppenwolf 's original recording of "Magic Carpet Ride" (and not "some cheap cover"). They criticized, however, the choice of Roy Orbison 's " Ooby Dooby " as being "too goofy".

Promotion and merchandising [ ]

A shot of Voyager created for the First Contact teaser

Borg from a cut scene appearing in the trailer

The teaser trailer for Star Trek: First Contact premiered with Paramount movies in early summer 1996. As much of the film had yet to be shot when the advertisements were assembled, footage from Star Trek Generations and episodes from Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was included. Inter-cut with sequences from the film, the reused footage included snippets of " The Best of Both Worlds " and " Emissary ". The trailer utilized score from "The Best of Both Worlds", Generations , and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , most notably, however, from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country .

Both the teaser and theatrical trailers included footage unique only to them, with some visual effects created specifically for the trailer. Unique shots included the USS Voyager firing phasers at a differently-designed Borg cube and an alternate version of Picard's soon-to-be infamous speech, " The line must be drawn here! " in the teaser, and cut takes of various Borg drones in the theatrical. [10]

As with the previous film and TNG, Playmates Toys released a line of action figures and accessories in conjunction with the premiere of the film. Among the toys was a model of the Enterprise -E, apparently based upon early sketches of the ship and not the finalized version – featuring several key structural differences from the finalized design. Out of scale to their previous lines, the larger First Contact action figures were made in the likenesses of the entire Enterprise -E crew, Lily, Zefram Cochrane, Picard in an environmental suit, and a Borg drone – also based on production drawings. [11] In recent years, Art Asylum has released a detailed action figure in the likeness of Captain Picard from First Contact , complete with the skull of the Borg Queen.

Marvel Comics released both a comic adaptation of the movie, and a sequel comic book that crossed the crew with the X-Men in " Second Contact ". This had a later sequel novel by Michael Jan Friedman , called Planet X .

First Contact novelizations and soundtracks were also released, as were updated version of the Star Trek Chronology and Star Trek Encyclopedia .

Box office performance [ ]

Star Trek: First Contact premiered in American cinemas on 22 November 1996 , number one at the box office. With a budget of around US$45,000,000, it opened nationwide on 2,812 screens at US$30,716,131 and went on to eventually garner US$146,027,888 worldwide. [12] By comparison, Star Trek Generations , with a budget of US$35,000,000, opened at US$23,116,394 on 2,659 screens, but only grossed US$118,071,125 worldwide. [13] It made First Contact the highest grossing Star Trek film ever, surpassing the hitherto highest grossing film 1986 's Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home – though it remained the second-most profitable one after Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan – until the release of 2009 's Star Trek and its two sequels.

In the United Kingdom, despite becoming the first Star Trek movie not to reach the top of the box office since The Wrath of Khan , the film was a success earning £3,555,980 for its opening weekend and £8,735,340 overall. It was the highest grossing Star Trek film overall in that territory until the release of Star Trek . [14]

The film, however, was considered by most to be not only a financial success, but a critical one as well, beating out both The Wrath of Khan and The Voyage Home respectively in this regard, as of 2020 only to be surpassed by 2009's Star Trek by the slimmest of margins.

Reactions [ ]

The film review website Rotten Tomatoes calculated a 92% critic score for First Contact , with 40 of 44 reviews giving positive remarks. [15] Giving the film "Two thumbs up!", Siskel & Ebert host Roger Ebert elaborated in his Chicago Sun Times review:

While often negative in his reviews of other Trek films, Ebert elaborated, " how I love the Star Trek jargon! " and even expressed his fondness for the Borg Queen:

BBC Films' Emily Carlisle, however, was less enamored:

In his 18 November 1996 review, Daily Variety magazine writer Joe Leydon expressed his approval:

Leydon concluded, " If First Contact is indicative of what the next generation of Star Trek movies will be like, the franchise is certain to live long and prosper. " [18]

• This film opened on the same day that Mark Lenard , the actor best known for portraying the character of Sarek , died at the age of 72.
• Despite the use of the uniforms in the previous film, Star Trek Generations , this is the only movie starring The Next Generation cast where the Star Trek: The Next Generation and early Star Trek: Deep Space Nine combadge is seen, as visible on Picard's uniform in the flashback from " The Best of Both Worlds " in the opening of the film.
• The reference that Data makes about using his "fully functional" sexual organs seemingly references the time he used them with Tasha in TNG : " The Naked Now ", eight years before the Borg invasion (though that would place that episode in 2365 ). This would seem to indicate Data and his fourth-season "girlfriend" Jenna D'Sora were never sexually intimate during the course of their relationship.
• This film marks the first canon reference to the number of planets in the Federation (over 150) and its size (over 8,000 light years)
• The bar in Bozeman featured bar signs based on mission patches for NASA vessels, including the Molly Brown .
• First Contact references and even explicitly quotes Moby Dick . Despite the story parallels, the producers hesitated using it, as Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan was also heavy in Moby Dick references. Two years after First Contact premiered, Patrick Stewart played Captain Ahab in a 1998 TV mini-series.
• However, Picard slightly misquotes the Moby Dick passage. The actual passage is " He piled upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart's shell upon it. "
• Early in the movie, Zefram Cochrane points out the constellation Leo, the constellation in which Wolf 359 is located.
• First Contact marked the first time the phrase "star trek" was ever uttered in the franchise. In the TNG finale " All Good Things... ", however, Q tells Picard " It's time to put an end to your trek through the stars . "
• When Picard announces to the crew his intention to break his orders and join the engagement, Data's response is " Captain, I believe I speak for everyone here sir when I say, 'To hell with our orders'. " Similarly in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country , Spock's response to the Enterprise 's orders to return to spacedock is " If I were Human, I believe my response would be, 'Go to hell'. "

The different holodeck programs on the Enterprise -E

• The program menu in the holosuite depicts various holodeck programs from previous episodes, specifically Café des Artistes , ( TNG : " We'll Always Have Paris ") Charnock's Comedy Cabaret , ( TNG : " The Outrageous Okona ") The Big Goodbye , ( TNG : " The Big Goodbye ", " Manhunt ", " Clues ") Emerald Wading Pool , ( TNG : " Conundrum ") and the Equestrian Adventure . ( TNG : " Pen Pals ")
• Picard's line " Reports of my assimilation have been greatly exaggerated " is a paraphrasing of a famous quotation by Mark Twain , concerning his premature obituary. Picard had made a similar paraphrasing in TNG : " Samaritan Snare " (" Any rumors of my brush with death are greatly exaggerated ").
• Riker calls the Defiant a "tough little ship." In the DS9 third season episode " Defiant ", Thomas Riker called it the same thing.
• According to the (apocryphal) Customizable Card Game by Decipher , the Vulcan who greeted Zefram Cochrane was named Solkar , the grandfather of Sarek and the great-grandfather of Spock . This was later supported by dialogue in ENT : " The Catwalk ".
• The events of Star Trek: First Contact were later referred to in DS9 : " In Purgatory's Shadow ", VOY : " Year of Hell, Part II ", and VOY : " Relativity ", the latter using those events as an example for the Pogo paradox . The Borg sphere was recovered in ENT : " Regeneration ", while a slightly different version of Earth's first contact with Vulcans – utilizing footage from the film – can be seen in ENT : " In a Mirror, Darkly ".
• According to ENT : " Carbon Creek ", though this movie records the first official contact between Earth and Vulcan, contact was actually made in 1957 in a place called Carbon Creek , Pennsylvania , nearly 110 years prior.
• Subsequent Vulcan starships seen in Star Trek: Enterprise were based upon the T'Plana-Hath -type lander seen in this movie.
• Geordi La Forge , who with Riker participates in Cochrane's historic first warp flight, had earlier compared being at Bilana III to view the soliton wave experiment to being present when Cochrane engaged the first warp drive in TNG : " New Ground ".
• According to DS9 : " The Search, Part I ", the Defiant had originally been designed to counter the Borg threat, but was then assigned to Deep Space 9 . The Battle of Sector 001 was the only time the Defiant eventually battled the Borg.
• The model of the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) that was on display in the conference room was auctioned off (albeit broken) in the It's A Wrap! sale and auction .
• Lily says that "Borg" sounds Swedish. In Swedish, "borg" actually means "castle", although it would be pronounced as "borj". "Borg" is also a Swedish surname. In addition, the word is spelled and means the same in Norwegian and Danish, and in these cases is pronounced very similar to the English word. The most well-known "Borg" is the internationally-known Swedish tennis player Björn Borg .
• This marks the fourth of five times the captain shows a female native her home planet from orbit. This happened previously with Rivan in " Justice ", Nuria in " Who Watches The Watchers ", and Mirasta Yale in the episode " First Contact ", and later with Bethany in " North Star ". This approach clearly has meaning to the captain as he tells Anij in Star Trek: Insurrection , seeing his home planet from space for the first time was a moment when time stood still.
• Besides making references to Moby Dick, this film is also similar to The Wrath of Khan in that they're both sequels to classic episodes of their respective series; TWOK follows " Space Seed " while FC follows " The Best of Both Worlds " and " The Best of Both Worlds, Part II ".
• Among the items seen in this film which were sold off on the It's A Wrap! sale and auction on eBay are the Phoenix Launch Silo Missile Manual , [19] a broken model of the USS Enterprise -D , [20] a broken model of the USS Enterprise -C , [21] a pair of boots worn by a background actor, [22] a Phoenix button board, [23] and an undersuit of Alice Krige . [24]
• This movie includes one of the explicit mentions of the attributes of the New World Economy . Picard tells Lily that money (as she understands it) no longer existed in the 24th century, and that people worked not for the acquisition of wealth, but for the betterment of all Humanity.
• In the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode " In the Cards ", Jake Sisko repeats Picard's line " we work to better ourselves and the rest of Humanity, " only to be challenged by Nog saying, " What does that mean, exactly? " Similarly, in DS9 : " The Dogs of War ", Quark speaks almost the same words (" The line has to be drawn here! This far and no further! ") as Picard does during Star Trek: First Contact . The two episodes were, respectively, written and co-written by Ronald D. Moore, who also co-wrote First Contact . Said Moore, " I take great glee at mocking my own work. " ( AOL chat , 1999 )
• Based on averaging the differences of the stardates from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 's " Children of Time " and " Empok Nor ", the initial events of this film should have occurred between " Blaze of Glory " and " Empok Nor ". However, Sisko 's mention of " the recent Borg attack " in " In Purgatory's Shadow ", actually places First Contact before that episode. Furthermore, based on the stardates, the initial events of the film would have taken between the events of the Star Trek: Voyager episodes " Real Life " and " Displaced ". It is unclear whether these events take place before, after or contemporaneously with the events of " Distant Origin ", which was broadcast in the interim and does not feature a stardate.
• In the ending credits, Zefram Cochrane 's name is misspelled as "Zefram Cochran".
• This is the only Star Trek movie to feature a female primary antagonist, the Borg Queen .
• This film is the only appearance of the Defiant outside of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine .
• It is the first Star Trek film to be rated PG-13.
• This was the first Star Trek film since The Motion Picture to not re-use any footage from previous films.
• This is the only Star Trek film not to feature scenes on a planet other than Earth.
• This was the first of two Star Trek films ( Star Trek Into Darkness being the other) to be given a certification during the end credits by the American Humane Association that no animals were harmed during the film's production.
• The new Starfleet uniforms , which were introduced in the film, would later be adopted in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode, " Rapture " onward, but the crew on Star Trek: Voyager continued to use the old DS9 Starfleet uniforms , due to being stranded in the Delta Quadrant .

Apocrypha [ ]

The novelization of Star Trek: First Contact establishes that during the Battle of Sector 001 as the Defiant attacked the Borg Cube, Worf thought that by keeping the Enterprise away from the battle, Starfleet Command was doing Picard a great dishonor by not allowing him the opportunity to gain revenge against his mortal enemy.

In Oblivion's Gate , the third and final novel of the Star Trek: Coda trilogy, it was revealed that Captain Picard and the crew of the Enterprise -E caused the creation of the First Splinter timeline during their attempt to stop the Borg from assimilating Earth in the year 2063, and the Devidians used this to their own advantage as part of the Temporal Apocalypse.

Merchandise gallery [ ]

Awards and honors [ ]

Star Trek: First Contact received the following awards and honors.

Links and references [ ]

Credits [ ], opening credits [ ].

• Patrick Stewart
• Jonathan Frakes
• Brent Spiner
• LeVar Burton
• Michael Dorn
• Gates McFadden
• Marina Sirtis
• Alfre Woodard
• James Cromwell
• Alice Krige
• Junie Lowry-Johnson , CSA and Ron Surma , CSA
• Jerry Goldsmith
• Peter Lauritson
• Deborah Everton
• John W. Wheeler , ACE
• Herman Zimmerman
• Matthew F. Leonetti , ASC
• Martin Hornstein
• Gene Roddenberry

Rick Berman

Rick Berman & Brannon Braga & Ronald D. Moore

Brannon Braga & Ronald D. Moore

Closing credits [ ]

• Jerry Fleck
• Rosemary Cremona
• Picard – Patrick Stewart
• Riker – Jonathan Frakes
• Data – Brent Spiner
• Geordi – LeVar Burton
• Worf – Michael Dorn
• Beverly – Gates McFadden
• Troi – Marina Sirtis
• Lily – Alfre Woodard
• Zefram Cochran – James Cromwell
• Borg Queen – Alice Krige
• Security Officer – Michael Horton
• Lt. Hawk – Neal McDonough
• Eiger – Marnie McPhail
• Holographic Doctor – Robert Picardo
• Lt. Barclay – Dwight Schultz
• Defiant Conn Officer – Adam Scott
• Admiral Hayes – Jack Shearer
• Porter – Eric Steinberg
• Security Officer – Scott Strozier
• Nurse Ogawa – Patti Yasutake
• Victor Bevine ( Guard #1 )
• David Cowgill ( Guard #2 )
• Scott Haven ( Guard #3 )
• Annette Helde ( Guard #4 )
• Computer Voice – Majel Barrett
• Bartender – C.J. Bau
• Ruby – Hillary Hayes
• Singer in Nightclub – Julie Morgan
• Henchman – Ronald R. Rondell
• Nicky the Nose – Don Stark
• Vulcan – Cully Fredricksen
• Townsperson – Tamara Lee Krinsky
• Don Fischer ( Bolian drone )
• J.R. Horsting
• Heinrich James
• Andrew Palmer ( Romulan drone and Non-Romulan drone )
• Jon David Weigand
• Robert L. Zachar ( Borg #3 )
• Ronald R. Rondell
• Kenny Alexander
• Janet Brady
• Chic Daniel
• Kenny Endoso
• Christian Fletcher
• Frankie Garbutt
• Andy Gill (Stunt double for Brent Spiner )
• Gary Guercio
• Rosine "Ace" Hatem ( Nightclub patron )
• Billy Hank Hooker
• Buddy Joe Hooker
• Maria Kelly ( Nightclub patron )
• Jamie Keyser (Stunt double for Alice Krige )
• Kim Robert Koscki (Stunt double for Ethan Phillips )
• Joyce McNeal
• Dustin Meier
• Johnny C. Meier
• Rita Minor (Stunt double for Alfre Woodard )
• Jimmy Nickerson
• John Nowak (Stunt double for Patrick Stewart )
• Manny Perry ( Bozeman townsperson )
• Steve Picerni
• Danny Rogers
• Jimmy Romano
• Debby Lynn Ross
• John Rottger
• Craig Shuggart
• Brian J. Williams (Stunt double for Brent Spiner )
• Joey Anaya, Jr.
• Billy Burton, Jr.
• Steve DeRelian ( One Armed Drone )
• Gary Epper ( Ensign Lynch )
• Tom Harper ( Drone Protecting Engineering )
• Wayne King, Jr. ( Assimilated Klingon )
• Bob McGovern
• Monty Rex Perlin
• David Takemura
• Michael Westmore
• Joel Goldsmith
• Robert Blackman
• Ron Wilkinson
• John M. Dwyer
• Michael Okuda
• Les D. Gobruegge
• Nancy Mickleberry
• Martha E. Johnston
• William P. Hawkins
• Linda A. King
• Joseph Musso
• Ricardo Delgado
• Ivan "Bing" Sokolsky
• David Lukenbach
• Randy Feemster
• Michel D. Weldon
• Mark Santoni
• Paul Santoni
• Elliot S. Marks
• Wayne Tidwell
• Patrick R. Blymyer
• Tim Marshall
• Frank X. Valdez III
• Greg Cantrell
• Christopher Lama
• Lloyd Barcroft
• Shawn Whelan
• Armando Contreras
• Anthony Mollicone
• Tino Contreras
• Alan Schultz
• John D. Babin
• Thomas Causey
• Joe Brennan
• John Agalsoff
• Terry D. Frazee
• Eugene Crum
• Greg Curtis
• Donald Frazee
• Donald E. Myers, Jr.
• Donald T. Black
• Logan Z. Frazee
• Scott Lingard
• Samuel Price
• Ralph Allen Winiger
• Scott Wheeler
• Jake Garber
• James MacKinnon
• Bradley M. Look
• R. Stephen Weber
• Sonny Burman
• June Westmore
• Monty Westmore
• Mark Bussan
• Camille Calvet
• Belinda Bryant
• Mary Kay Morse
• Todd Masters Co.
• Todd Masters
• Greg Johnson
• Jaremy Aiello
• David Matherly
• Timothy P. Huizing
• Scott D. Tebeau
• Claudia Regne
• Shanna Tebeau
• Robert W. Miller
• A.J. Venuto
• Bernhard Eichholz
• Patrick M. Gerrety
• Patrick A. Chitty
• Walter T. Phelan
• Joe Colwell
• John F. Shea
• Gloria Munoz
• Thomas D. Bacho, Jr.
• Cory Sylvester
• Alan Tuskes
• Derik Wingo
• William J. Fesh
• Thomas Zimmerman
• Brian Van Dorn
• Alexi Bustamante
• Kristine Morgan
• Michael Westmore, Jr.
• Yolanda Toussieng
• Danny Valencia
• Lee Ann Brittenham
• Chris McBee
• Barbara Ronci
• Dean Wilson
• Glen Feldman
• William K. Dolan
• Elijah Bryant
• Philip Calhoun
• James Buckley
• Denise Lynn Okuda
• Shawn Baden
• Doug Drexler
• Anthony Fredrickson
• John Josselyn
• James E. Van Over
• Elizabeth Radley
• Benjamin A. Betts
• Larry Markart
• Christine Heinz
• Leah P. Brown
• Charles Ray de Muth
• Sonny Merrit
• Heidi Strasburg
• Gina A. Flanagan
• Timothy Board
• John A. Haggar
• Travis G. Rendich
• James W. Wolvington
• Cameron Frankley
• Jeffrey Clark
• Doug Jackson
• David F.Van Slyke
• Kerry Dean Williams
• Scott G.G. Haller
• Michael Szakmeister
• Richard Corwin
• Robert Ulrich
• Pamela Bentkowski
• Tammy Fearing
• Scott Curtis
• Courtenay Marvin
• Roger Fearing, Jr.
• Robert Morrisey
• Paramount Pictures
• Randy Singer
• David Lee Fein
• Sarah Monat
• Robin Harlan
• Steve Pederson
• Brad Sherman
• Arthur Morton
• Alexander Courage
• Jeff Atmajian
• Bob Bornstein
• Sandy De Crescent
• Clifford Kohlweck
• Bruce Botnick
• Paramount Pictures Scoring Stage M
• Barbara Harris
• Smith Wordes
• Ira Stanley Rosenstein
• James Selzer
• David A. Ticotin
• David Goldfarb
• Robin Bronner
• Deborah L. Schwab
• David Rossi
• Barbara Casner
• Cindy M. Ichikawa
• Thomas J. Arp
• Frank "Ferb" Leasure
• John M. Carroll
• Clete F. Cetrone
• Curtis B. Jones
• Sammy Mendoza
• Steve Morey
• Aaron H. Rockler
• Gary A. Clark
• David R. Galvan
• Barry R. Tugendhaft
• Vincent R. Heileson
• Primrose V. Fukuchi
• Alex Worman
• Penny Juday
• Lisa J. Olin
• April Rossi
• Jackie Edwards
• Lolita Fatjo
• Robert Gillian
• Janet Nemecek
• Robert Newlin-Mazaraki
• Ellen J. Hornstein
• Eric Darensbourg
• Brenda Taylor
• Simon Stotler
• Todd W. Buhmiller
• Kerry A. Vill
• Karen Garutso
• Stephanie Gorsuch
• Anthony Bro
• Seth Squadron
• Wayne Nelson
• Kenneth Newland
• Tim Edwards
• Bruce Moore
• Kevin A. Canamar
• William "Tex" Collins
• Wescam, Inc.
• Central Casting
• Cenex Casting
• Industrial Light & Magic , a division of Lucas Digital Ltd., Marin County, CA
• George Murphy
• Alex Jaeger
• Habib Zargarpour
• Dennis Turner
• Joakim Arnesson
• Steve Braggs
• Kyeng-Im Chung
• Marc Cooper
• Mitch Deoudes
• Jeremy Goldman
• Matt Hendershot
• Stu Maschwitz
• Steve Molin
• Eric Texier
• Pablo Helman
• Chad Taylor
• Luke O'Byrne
• Heather Smith
• Bill George
• Noel Brevick
• Tad Leckman
• Chris Stillman
• Jonathan Rothbart
• Paul Theren
• Tim Alexander
• Kathleen Beeler
• Scott Frankel
• Greg Maloney
• Tom Rosseter
• Cathy Burrow
• Susan Kelly Andrews
• Heidi Zabit
• Selwyn Eddy III
• Jodie Maier
• Patrice D. Saenz
• Mike McGovern
• Mike Gleason
• Anastasia Emmons
• Ladd MacPartland
• Tim Greenwood
• Kenneth Smith
• Joshua Pines
• George Gambetta
• Todd Mitchell
• Amanda Micheli
• Jodi Birdsong
• Andrea Biklian
• Timothy Geideman
• Nancy Jencks

Motion Control and Pyrotechnics Unit [ ]

• Marty Rosenberg
• Patrick Sweeney
• Robert Hill
• John Gadzik
• Keith London
• Brad Jerrell
• Geoff Heron
• Chuck Biagio
• Berny Demolski
• David Murphy
• Adam Bennes
• David Dranitzke
• John Goodson
• Barbara Affonso
• Jon Foreman
• Rick Anderson
• Jeff Brewer
• Giovanni Donovan
• John Duncan
• Ed Miarecki
• Nancy Luckoff
• Suzie Vissotzky Tooley
• Amanda Montgomery
• Heidi Schmidt
• Anthony Pitone
• Rodney Bogart
• Jeffery Yost
• Dugan Beach
• Dan Shumaker
• Christa Starr
• Angela Leaper
• Heather McCurdy
• Patricia Blau Price
• Gail Currey
• Pacific Ocean Post Digital Film Group
• Scott Rader
• Adam Howard
• Andrea D'Amico
• Greg Kimble
• Carol Brzezinski
• Caleb Aschkynazo
• Kenneth Littleton
• Lawrence Littleton
• Jennifer German
• Brandon McNaughton
• Michael Peterson
• David Crawford
• Kirk Cadrette
• Stephane Couture
• Joshua D. Rose
• Richard J. Cook
• Daniel Kramer
• Carl Hooper
• Dorene Haver
• Bethany Berndt-Shackelford
• Jeff Pierce
• Celine Jackson
• Illusion Arts
• Robert Stromberg
• Mike Wassel
• Richard Patterson
• Fumi Mashimo
• Matte World Digital
• Craig Barron
• Krystyna Demkowicz
• Chris Evans
• Caroleen Green
• Paul Rivera
• Morgan Trotter
• Cameron Noble
• Pacific Title
• Mike Milliken
• Theresa Repola Mohammed
• Bruce Schluter Design, Inc.
• GNP Crescendo Records, CDs and Cassettes
• by Dick Penner & Wade Moore
• Performed by Roy Orbison
• Courtesy of Orbison Records, Inc.
• Music by Alexander Courage
• by Johnny Burke & James Van Heussen
• Performed by Julie Morgan
• Produced by John E. Oliver
• by Hector Berlioz
• Performed by Ryland Davies and The Orchestra and Chorus of the Royal Opera House, Convent Garden
• Conducted by Sir Collin Davis
• Courtesy of Phillips Classics by arrangement with PolyGram Film & TV Licensing
• by John Kay & Rushton Moreve
• Performed by Steppenwolf
• Courtesy of MCA Records by special arrangement with MCA Special Markets and Products
• Pima Air and Space Museum and Titan Missile Museum
• USDA Forest Service , Angeles National Forest
• Arroyo Seco Ranger District and Annitta H. Keck
• Arizona State Film Commission
• Playback Technologies
• [[Cinema Vehicle Services[[
• Jeri Taylor
• Ira Steven Behr
• Merri Howard
• Steve Oster
• Wendy Neuss
• Bill Wistrom
• Philip M. Strub
• Lieutenant Colonel Thomas R. Worsdale
• Eastman Kodak Film

Uncredited [ ]

Performers [ ].

• Al Ahlf as security officer
• David Keith Anderson as Armstrong
• Patrick Barnitt as Borg drone
• Terrence Beasor as Additional Voices
• Denise Blasor as Additional Voices
• Renna Bogdanowicz as Lopez
• Mike Boss as holographic nightclub patron ( unconfirmed )
• Harry Boykoff as Eddy
• Brannon Braga as holographic nightclub patron
• Michael Braveheart as Martinez
• Cameron as Kellogg
• Steve Carnahan as Borg drone
• Tracee Lee Cocco as Jae
• Jeff Coopwood as The Voice of the Borg
• John Copage as holographic nightclub patron
• David Paul Cutler as civilian engineer
• Kenneth David Ebling as sciences officer
• Heather Ferguson as security officer
• Kevin Finister as command crewman
• Sylvester Foster as operations officer
• Tracey Frakes as Nicky's girl #2
• Star Halm as security officer
• Noelle Hannibal as Vulcan officer
• Jon Horback as security officer
• Randy James as Jones
• Jimmy Kupenwoff as operations division officer
• Dan Magee as assimilated operations officer
• James Mapes as Buster ( deleted scene )
• Angus McClellan as | Bajoran sciences officer
• Ronald D. Moore as Holodeck Nightclub Patron
• Vulcan officer
• Ethan Phillips as nightclub maître d'
• Larry Polson as man with dog
• Woody Porter as science division lieutenant
• Jackie Rainey as operations division officer ( unconfirmed )
• Aric Rogokos as Starfleet security officer
• Shepard Ross as Starfleet security officer
• Rick Rossi as nightclub musician
• Janelle Showalter
• Steph Silvestri as Enterprise -E engineer
• Pablo Soriano as holographic nightclub patron
• Gregory Sweeney as Bolian science officer
• Chris Tedesco as nightclub musician
• Ray Uhler as holographic nightclub patron
• Enterprise -E engineer
• Holographic nightclub patrons
• Nicky's girl #1
• Nightclub musicians
• Security officer (female)
• Security officer (male)
• security team officer

Stunt performers [ ]

• Billy Burton, Jr. as stunt double for Neal McDonough
• Mark DeAlessandro
• Andy Epper as stunt double for James Cromwell
• Richard Epper – Stunt Rigger
• Marguerite Happy as stunt double for Alice Krige

Stand-ins and photo doubles [ ]

• David Keith Anderson – Stand-in for LeVar Burton
• Gerald David Bauman – Stand-in
• Debbie David – Stand-in for Brent Spiner
• Cameron – Stand-in for Gates McFadden
• Tracee Lee Cocco – Stand-in for Alice Krige
• Kenneth David Ebling – Photo double for Brent Spiner
• Randy James – Stand-in for Jonathan Frakes (2 weeks)
• Nora Leonhardt – Stand-in for Marina Sirtis
• Richard Sarstedt – Stand-in for Jonathan Frakes
• Scott Somers – Stand-in/ photo double for LeVar Burton
• James A. Swan – Photo Double for Patrick Stewart
• John Tampoya – Stand-in for Eric Steinberg
• Dennis Tracy – Stand-in for Patrick Stewart

Production staff [ ]

• Anna Albrecht – Special Effects Artist
• Bill Bannerman – Development Executive
• Mark Banning – Associate Music Executive Producer
• William D. Barber – Additional Camera Operator
• Jason Dante Bardis – Movie Effects Lighting Designer
• Brent W. Bell – Lead Man
• Jennifer Bender – Extras Casting
• Francois Blaignan – Additional Sound Designer
• Tom Boyd – Musician: Oboe
• Rob Bredow – Digital Artist: Vision Art
• Christian H. Burton – Assistant Camera Operator
• Ed Callahan – Foley Editor
• Valerie Canamar – Assistant to Michael Westmore
• Lois Carruth – Assistant to Jerry Goldsmith
• Dave Cervantes – Adviser (Stunt)
• Shane Clark – Production Assistant
• Michael Condro – First Assistant Camera Operator
• Henryk Cymerman – 2nd Unit Director of Photography
• Eric Darensborg – Production Assistant
• Fon Davis – Model Maker: ILM
• A.Y. Dexter Delara – Visual Effects Assistant
• Joe Diaz – Costumer
• Linda Di Franco – Foley Editor/Sound Editor
• Norm Dlugatch – Assistant Music Engineer
• Dragon Dronet – Props and Weapons Creator
• Kevin Dukes – Musician: Guitarist
• Earl Ellis – FX Make-Up Artist
• Kenneth E. Estes – Computer & Video Playback Operator
• Ted Fay – Director of Technology: Vision Art
• Mark Fiorenza – Model Maker
• Edward J. Franklin – Special Effects Artist
• Don E. Gaffney – Prop Construction
• Jane Galli – Special Make-Up Effects Artist
• J. Armin Garza II – Driver: Camera Car
• Brian J. Geary – Propmaker Foreman
• Katy Genovese – Payroll Accountant
• Bob Gillan – Pre-Production Assistant
• Christopher Gilman – Head of Global Effects, Inc.
• Glenn Goldstein – Production Assistant
• Dominic Gonzalez – Assistant Music Engineer
• Sam Greenmun – Prop Designer/Spacesuit Technician
• Tom Harper – Assistant Stunt Coordinator
• Aaron Haye – Model Maker: ILM
• Russ Herpich – Special Effects Mechanic
• Matthew A. Hoffman – Key Costumer
• Tina Hoffman – Make-Up Artist
• Christopher Horvath – Digital Compositor: Matte World Digital
• Jeffery J. Jenkins – Paint Foreman
• Tom Keefer – 2nd Unit Key Grip
• Roger L. King – Property Maker
• Barry R. Koper – Make-Up Artist
• Toby Lamm – Special Make-Up Effects Artist
• David Luckenbach – Steadicam Operator
• John Mann – Storyboard Artist
• John McCunn – Visual Effects Associate Producer
• Alan McFarland – Puppeteer " Borg Queen "/Borg Suit & Space Suit Electronics Designer
• Gary Metzen – Painter
• Richard Miller – Model Maker
• Robert Miller – Helmet & Chest Designer: Todd Masters Effects
• Bart Mixon – Make-Up Artist
• Mark Moore – Concept Designer: ILM
• David W. Mosher – Mold Technician: Todd Masters Effects
• Neil Norman – Executive Music Producer
• Michael Olague – Visual Effects Gaffer
• Lowell Peterson – Additional Photography
• Joe Podnar – Special Make-Up Effects Artist
• Alex Proctor – Make-Up Artist
• Karen Ragan – Assistant to Producers
• Brandon Ramos – Assistant to Producers
• Rick Rische – Matte Artist: Matte World Digital
• Theresa M. Roehner – Driver
• Philip Rogers – Sound Recordist
• Ira Stanley Rosenstein – Production Supervisor (credited as "Location Manager")
• Jorge Sanchez – Additional Photographer
• Lee Scott – Music Editor
• Michael Shelton – Creature Effects Artist
• Gregory Shummon – Electric Rigger
• Andrew Silver – Preview Music Editor
• Jennifer Small – Production Assistant
• Bryan Smith – Sculptor & Painter: Todd Masters Effects
• Douglas James Smith – Digital Effects Artist
• Bing Sokolsky – 2nd Unit Director of Photography
• Perri Sorel – Make-Up Artist
• Thomas E. Surprenant – Make-Up Artist (Klingon Borg)
• Tom Talley – Location Foreman
• Chris Tedesco – Musician: Trumpet
• Trevor Tuttle – Model Maker
• Pam Vick – Digital Rotoscope Artist
• Nick Vidar – Music Programmer/Computer Programmer
• Michael Walters – Special Costumes
• Harold Weed – Model Maker
• Paul Wertheimer – Assistant Music Engineer
• Natalie Wood – Make-Up Artist: Borg Make-Up
• Susumu Yukuhiro – Visual Effects Production Assistant
• Sarah Ziff – Choreographer

Production companies [ ]

• Cogswell Video Services, Inc. – Video Assist Company
• Global Effects, Inc. – Space Suit Creator and Provider
• Matte World Digital – Special Effects Company (Digital Matte paintings )
• Professional VisionCare Associates – Contact Lens company
• Vision Art – Visual Effects Company

References [ ]

1940s ; 2053 ; 2063 ; 2073 ; 2367 ; 2372 ; 2373 ; 21st century ; 24th century ; access point ; actuation servo ; Ahab ; alien ; Alpha team ; alphabet ; ammonite ; analgesic cream ; antiproton ; April ; assimilation ; atmospheric pressure ; atomic weapon ; Australia ; auto-destruct ; auto-destruct sequence ; barbecue grill ; Basic Warp Design ; Battle of Sector 001 ; battle stations ; beer ; Berlioz, Hector  ; bicycle ; " Big Good-Bye, The "; biohazard ; bionics ; Bizet, Georges ; blood ; blueprints ; Borg ; Borg Collective ; Borg drone ; Borg hive ; Borg Queen ; bridge ; bullet ; " bullshit "; cafe ; Café des Artistes ; Calico M960 ; campfire ; cannon ; captain's log ; carbon monoxide ; cell membrane ; Celsius ; Champs-Elysees ; chapter ; Charnock's Comedy Cabaret ; checklist ; chest ; chorus ; chronometric particle ; cigarette ; class 2 comet ; cockpit ; collective consciousness ; comet ; command authorization ; coolant tank ; counselor ; course ; cover story ; cripple ; critical velocity ; cybernetic device ; cybernetic lifeform ; damage ; Deep Space 5 ; defense checkpoint ; deflector control ; deflector dish ; Delta Quadrant ; detective ; Dixon Hill ; dog ; dollar ; doorstop ; dress code ; dust ; Dyson ; Earth ; ECON ; economics ; Emerald Wading Pool ; Emergency Medical Hologram ; emotion chip ; endoskeletal structure ; engineering detail ; engineering tool ; USS Enterprise -E chef ; environmental conditions ; environmental controls ( environmental system ); environmental suit ; EPS ; EPS conduit ; Equestrian Adventure ; escape pod ; external sensors ; extraterrestrial ; Federation ; First Contact ; flattery ; fluorine ; force field ; fractal encryption code ; French ; front line ; fuel manifold ; fuselage ; glasses ; Gravett Island ; H ; H-46 ; H-47 ; H-48 ; H-49 ; H-50 ; H-925 ; H-926 ; hate ; heart ; hemisphere ; henchman ; hero worship ; high school ; historical figure ; holodeck ; holodeck safety protocol ; hologram ; holosuite ; horse ; hour ; hull ; humidity ; hydroponics ; hypospray ; injection ; inoculation ; intermix chamber ; internal sensors ; interplexing beacon ; intoxication ; irritation ; Ivor Prime ; Jefferies tube ; Jesus ; jukebox ; Kaplan ; kilopascal ; kiss ; Klingon ; Lake Armstrong ; laser ; leader ; Leo ; Les Troyens ; lie ; life support ; light speed ; linguistic communication ; long range sensor ; Ludwig ; Luna ; " Magic Carpet Ride "; main engineering ; maglock ; marble ; maximum warp ; meade ; medical tricorder ; mek'leth ; memory chip ; methane ; meter ; Mintakan tapestry ; Moby Dick ; money ; Montana ; Montana Lions ; " Moonlight Becomes You "; monument ; nanopolymer ; neural net ; neuroprocessor ; New Berlin ; New Guinea ; no smoking sign ; North America ; nuclear missile ; number one ; missile complex ; " Ooby Dooby "; opera ; ocular implant ; outer hull ; Orbison, Roy ; Paris ; particle emitter ; particle weapon ; particles per cubic meter ; patrol ; peep show ; phaser ; phaser rifle ; Phoenix music player ; plasma coolant ; plasma injector ; pool ; positronic net ; power grid ; Prime Directive ; primitive culture ; pulse emitter ; quantum torpedo ; radiation poisoning ; radioactive isotope ; rage ; ramming speed ; ray gun ; ready room ; red alert ; replicator ; rhetorical nonsense ; Romulan Neutral Zone ; saint ; satin ; Schlitz ; scotch ; security team ; sensor ; sensor sweep ; sexuality ; shakedown ; shields ; " shooting blanks "; sickbay ; skin ; skirt ; Skylab ; Smithsonian ; smoking ; sober ; Sol ; Sol system ; Solomons ; Sovereign class decks ; space walk ; space sickness ; spinal tissue ; Starfleet Academy ; Starfleet Command ; statue ; Statue of Liberty ; stellar cartography ; Steppenwolf ; stomach ; structural integrity ; subspace transmitter ; Sumiko III ; sunglasses ; survey mission ; Swedish ; telescope ; temperature ; temporal vortex ; temporal wake ; tent ; tequila ; theta radiation ; Thompson submachine gun ; throttle assembly ; time travel ; Titan II ; titanium ; toast ; train ; transporter room ; tricorder ; truck ; Tycho City ; Typhon sector ; ultraviolet radiation ; vaporize ; vice admiral ; " Vallon sonore "; visionary ; Vulcan ; warp barrier ; warp core ; warp drive ; warp field ; warp plasma conduit ; warp signature ; warp threshold ; whale ; whiskey ; white ; Wizard of Oz, The ; World War III ; year ; " Z "; Zefram Cochrane High School ; Zefram Cochrane's statue ; zero-gravity combat training ; zombie

Spacecraft references [ ]

Akira -class ( starships ); Apollo 15 ; Appalachia , USS ; Borg cube ; Borg sphere ; Bozeman , USS ; Budapest , USS ; Defiant -class ; Defiant , USS ; Endeavour , USS ; Enterprise -E, USS ; Lexington , USS ; Madison , USS ; Miranda -class ( starships ); Nebula -class ( starship ); Norway -class ( starships ); Oberth -class ( starships ); Phoenix ; Saber -class ( starships ); shuttlecraft ; Sovereign -class ; Sovereign -type escape pod ; spaceship ; Steamrunner -class ( starships ); T'Plana-Hath ; T'Plana-Hath -type ; Thunderchild , USS ; warp ship ; Yeager , USS

Other references [ ]

• USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-E) dedication plaque : Arp, Tom ; Baden, Shawn ; Barcroft, Lloyd ; Berman, Rick ; Betts, Benjamin ; Blymyer, Pat ; Braga, Brannon ; Brown, Judi ; Causey, Tom ; Cremona, Rosemary ; Delgado, Ricardo ; Dolan, Bill ; Drexler, Doug ; Dwyer, John M. ; Eaves, John ; Everton, Deborah ; Fleck, Jerry ; Frakes, Jonathan ; Frazee, Terry ; Fredrickson, Anthony ; George, Bill ; Gobruegge, Les ; Goodson, John ; Hawkins, Bill ; Hornstein, Marty ; Jefferies, Matt ; Josselyn, John ; Juday, Penny M. ; King, Linda ; Knoll, John ; Lauritson, Peter ; Leasure, Frank ; Leonetti, Matt ; Luckenbach, David ; Markart, Larry ; Mickelberry, Nancy ; Moore, Ronald D. ; Musso, Joseph ; Okuda, Denise ; Okuda, Michael ; Propulsion Systems ; Research and Development ; Roddenberry, Gene ; Rossi, Dave ; San Francisco Yards ; Schwab, Debbie ; Shaw, Sarah ; Spaceframe Development ; Starfleet Command ; Sternbach, Rick ; Systems Management ; Takemura, David ; Toussieng, Yolanda ; Van Over, James ; Westmore, Michael ; Wilkinson, Ron ; Wilson, Dean ; Yard Engineer ; Zimmerman, Herman

Unreferenced material [ ]

blacksmith ; Buster ; Cornell ; DePaul ; dome money ; Earth Defense Network ; Great Depression ; hovercar ; Kirby ; McDonald's ; militia ; Mitchell ; night vision ; No Zone solution ; Molly Brown ; paper ; planetary defense system ; plutonium ; ration ; Resurrection City ; Resurrection Protective Force ; Rippert ; San Francisco ; Scrimm, Jonathan ; survivalist ; trinary language ; windmill ; Wright brothers ; zombie

Sources [ ]

• Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion (3rd ed.), Larry Nemecek , Pocket Books, 2002 .
• Star Trek: The Next Generation Sketchbook: The Movies , John Eaves & J.M. Dillard , Pocket Books, 1998 .
• Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Continuing Mission , Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens , Pocket Books, 1998 .
• Star Trek: First Contact (novelization) , "A First Look at Star Trek: First Contact" , J.M. Dillard , Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens , 1996 .
• Star Trek: First Contact (Special Edition) DVD , Ronald D. Moore & Brannon Braga , audio commentary .
• Star Trek: First Contact (Special Edition) DVD , Michael & Denise Okuda , text commentary .

External links [ ]

• " Star Trek: First Contact " at MissionLogPodcast.com , a Roddenberry Star Trek podcast
• Star Trek: First Contact at StarTrek.com
• Star Trek: First Contact at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• Star Trek: First Contact at Wikipedia
• Star Trek: First Contact at the Internet Movie Database
• Behind the scenes on Star Trek: First Contact  at Forgotten Trek – features production history, concept art, and costume design
• Draft version of Star Trek: First Contact script  at Star Trek Minutiae

Memory Beta, non-canon Star Trek Wiki

A friendly reminder regarding spoilers ! At present the expanded Trek universe is in a period of major upheaval with the continuations of Discovery and Prodigy , the advent of new eras in gaming with the Star Trek Adventures RPG , Star Trek: Infinite and Star Trek Online , as well as other post-57th Anniversary publications such as the ongoing IDW Star Trek comic and spin-off Star Trek: Defiant . Therefore, please be courteous to other users who may not be aware of current developments by using the {{ spoiler }}, {{ spoilers }} OR {{ majorspoiler }} tags when adding new information from sources less than six months old (even if it is minor info). Also, please do not include details in the summary bar when editing pages and do not anticipate making additions relating to sources not yet in release. THANK YOU

• Memory Beta articles sourced from games
• Memory Beta articles sourced from episodes and movies

Eastern Coalition

• View history

The Eastern Coalition , also known as the ECON , was an alliance of Asian states on Earth in the early 21st century

The coalition was founded by Lee Kuan , comprised in large part of nations formerly united under the Great Khanate of Khan Noonien Singh during the late 20th century , leading up to the events of the Eugenics Wars . ( TLE novel : The Sundered ; ST short story : " The Immortality Blues ")

Prior to 2020 , the Eastern Coalition had beaten the United States back to the moon , which Shaun Christopher saw as a major motivation for the USS Lewis & Clark to make the first manned voyage to Saturn . ( TOS novel : The Rings of Time )

In 2031 , the Eastern Coalition was amongst those groups which pooled its resources to help divert the orbits of a number of asteroids threatening to impact with the planet, threatening all life in Earth. ( Last Unicorn RPG module : All Our Yesterdays: The Time Travel Sourcebook )

The Eastern Coalition was a major rival to the United States and the European Union (both political blocs being the primary powers behind the New United Nations ). In the 2030s and the 2040s , relations between the rivals continued to degenerate. This led to the outbreak of World War III on 1 May 2053 . ( TLE novel : The Sundered ; TNG movie : Star Trek: First Contact ; ST - Strange New Worlds 9 short story : " The Immortality Blues ").

The Eastern Coalition states were amongst those hardest hit; cities such as Karachi and New Delhi were damaged when nuclear weapons detonated over them. ( TLE novel : The Sundered ) As late as 2079 , many societies were still mired in lawlessness and chaos as a result of the Post-Atomic Horror . ( TNG episodes : " Encounter at Farpoint ", " All Good Things... ")

Eastern Coalition members included India , China , Pakistan , Russia , Kazakhstan , Vietnam , and Singapore . ( TLE novel : The Sundered ; ST - Strange New Worlds 9 short story : " The Immortality Blues ")

Appendices [ ]

Connections [ ], external links [ ].

• Eastern Coalition article at Memory Alpha , the wiki for canon Star Trek .
• 1 Ferengi Rules of Acquisition
• 2 The Chase
• 3 Preserver (race)

The Economic Lessons of Star Trek' s Money-Free Society

Slide: 1 / of 1 . Caption: Caption: Star Trek Beyond will be a chance for Lin to remind people there’s more to him than car chases. KIMBERLY FRENCH/PARAMOUNT PICTURES

• Author: Geek's Guide to the Galaxy. Geek's Guide to the Galaxy Culture
• Date of Publication: 05.28.16. 05.28.16
• Time of Publication: 7:00 am. 7:00 am

The Economic Lessons of Star Trek’ s Money-Free Society

A few years ago Manu Saadia, a longtime Star Trek fan, went looking for a book about the economics of Star Trek . When he couldn’t find one, he decided to write his own. The result, Trekonomics , has drawn praise from economists such as Brad DeLong and Joshua Gans . Saadia says that Star Trek is one of the few science fiction universes that grapple with the idea that money may someday become obsolete.

“It’s made clear and emphasized several times in the course of the show that the Federation does not have money,” Saadia says in Episode 205 of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast. “You have Captain Picard saying, ‘We’ve overcome hunger and greed, and we’re no longer interested in the accumulation of things.'”

Saadia is fascinated by the idea of a society in which material wealth has become so abundant that possessing it no longer holds any appeal. In such a world the only way to gain status would be by cultivating talent and intellect.

“What really makes sense in the Star Trek universe and Star Trek society is to compete for reputation,” he says. “What is not abundant in Star Trek’ s universe is the captain’s chair.”

He points to technologies like GPS and the internet as models for how we can set ourselves on the path to a Star Trek future.

“If we decide as a society to make more of these crucial things available to all as public goods, we’re probably going to be well on our way to improving the condition of everybody on Earth,” he says.

But he also warns that technology alone won’t create a post-scarcity future. If we’re not careful we could end up like the greedy Ferengi , who charge money for the use of their replicators rather than making them available to everyone.

“This is not something that will be solved by more gizmos or more iPhones,” Saadia says. “This is something that has to be dealt with on a political level, and we have to face that.”

Listen to our complete interview with Manu Saadia in Episode 205 of Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy (above). And check out some highlights from the discussion below.

Manu Saadia on Isaac Asimov :

“In 1941 he publishes his first story about robots and his great idea and insight is that the robots are not going to be our enemies or our doom as a society, the way robots were usually portrayed, as Frankensteins. The robots will liberate us, and so Asimov is trying to figure out a world where human labor is no longer necessary for survival. And that is something you see throughout Star Trek , much more so in The Next Generation than in the original series. In The Next Generation you have these incredible machines that will make anything for you on the spot and on demand—the replicators—and in a way the replicator is a metaphor for universal automation the way it is described in Asimov’s robot stories.”

Manu Saadia on Star Trek characters:

“They are consistent with the economic circumstances in which they live. Imagine yourself growing up in a society where there is never any want or need or financial insecurity of any sort. You will be a very different person. You will be absolutely uninterested in conspicuous consumption. … You will probably be interested in things of a higher nature—the cultivation of the mind, education, love, art, and discovery. And so these people are very stoic in that sense, because they have no worldly interests that we today could relate to. … I usually say that they’re all aliens, in a way. My friend Chris [Black], who wrote on the show, said it was really hard for the writers, because it’s a workplace drama, but there’s no drama.”

Manu Saadia on the Ferengi:

“I love the Ferengi because they are sort of a parody of the 1990s or 2000s American acquisitive businessman. … The Ferengi are really ignoble, really awful people, and they’re really funny as a result. But they do change over time. When you watch the whole arc of the Ferengi in Deep Space Nine , the Ferengi, just by contact with the Federation, become more like the Federation, they become Keynesian social democrats, by the end. Suddenly you have the right to have unions and strikes, and there’s health care for everybody. … I always thought that this story of the Ferengi becoming more humanitarian just by contact with the Federation was a metaphor for all of us becoming better by watching Star Trek .”

Manu Saadia on the Borg :

“The Borg are such great villains because they’re so similar to the Federation, when you think about it. The Borg have perfect allocation of goods, and supply and demand, and everybody is connected to everybody in the beehive, and they just seem to be extremely efficient. They’re also the other society in Star Trek that could be characterized as ‘post-scarcity.’ Any Borg drone never wants or needs anything, it’s always provided by the Collective. So it is the mirror image—and the dangerous image, almost—of what a society that is both redistributive and satiated could look like. It’s almost as if the writers tried to incorporate the criticism of the society they propose.”

• Geek's Guide to the Galaxy

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• Star Trek: Shadowstar Station
• Star Trek: The Adventures of Argus

Eastern Coalition

• Edit source
• View history

The emblem of the Eastern Coalition.

The Eastern Coalition of Nations (or ECON ) was an alliance of nation states on Earth during the mid- 21st century . The ECON was dominated by The People's Republic of China and included other Asian and Middle-Eastern states. ( Star Trek: First Contact )

The Eastern Coalition was formed in 2026 , in the aftermath of the United States of America 's retaliation for several nuclear bombs exploding in twenty five US cities (an act of terrorism actually committed by the Optimum Movement ). Immediately the ECON declared war on the US and its allies, beginning World War III . ( ENT : " In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II ", Star Trek: The Adventures of Argus : " Nuclear Time ")

In 2031 , the Coalition was one of several groups that pooled resources to divert a series of asteroids from their collision course with Earth. These asteroids would later form the basis of early warp field tests by Zefram Cochrane . ( The Lost Era novel: The Sundered )

During the 2030s and 2040s the state of war between the ECON and the United States and the European Union continued until the US and EU (now under the banner of the Optimum Movement) launched a massive nuclear strike on 1 May 2053 . ECON retaliated with a strike of their own, crippling the Optimum's ability to further make war and effectively ending World War III. However their cities were among the hardest hit, and many areas of Asia fell into chaos. The so-called " post-atomic horror " was at its height in 2079 , and would last into the early 22nd century . ( The Sundered , Star Trek: First Contact , TNG : " Encounter at Farpoint ", " All Good Things... ", Star Trek: The Adventures of Argus : " Nuclear Time ")

In the late 2120s , the South American Union and the Eastern Coalition joined the United Earth Republic rather than be overthrown by their own people. ( Last Unicorn Games RPG : All Our Yesterdays: The Time Travel Sourcebook )

• 1.1 TOS novel: The Galactic Whirlpool
• 1.2 Delta Dynamics
• 1.3 Star Trek: Shadowstar Station
• 3 External links

Alternate continuities [ ]

Tos novel: the galactic whirlpool [ ].

In this continuity, there was a Third World Alliance that consisted of at least 33 nation-states. The alliance was originally an economic consortium, a reaction to the construction of a space station at the L5 point constructed by the United States of America , Japan and the Soviet Union . The station provided solar power, and nations in the developing world wanted to build their own satellite rather than purchase power from others.

Delta Dynamics [ ]

In this continuity, most Asian nations formalized their relationship into the Eastern Coalition in 2031 after the asteroids were averted. ( Star Fleet Starship Recognition Manual : Report #301 : Aphrodite Mission Spacecraft )

Star Trek: Shadowstar Station [ ]

In this continuity, the plot to detonate nuclear weapons in American cities in the 2020s was thwarted.

The Coalition was formed (its formation is contemporary with the Mind Control Riots in the 2040s ) from some countries that had been members of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) as well as member states of the Pacific Alliance. ( Star Trek: Shadowstar Station : "Renée"). The Coalition's first president was Li Qan .

Many of the member nations of ECON felt strongly that the New United Nations would not be willing nor able to address their needs anymore than the "old" United Nations had. ("Renée")

In Paris in 2054 , anti-Eastern Coalition rioters killed Dorian Qan, daughter of Li Qan, and her husband.

By the 2060s , Indonesia and the Philippines were among the nations that had seceded from the Eastern Coalition to form the short-lived Southeast Asian Confederacy ( Star Trek: Shadowstar Station : "Soledad").

Gallery [ ]

External links [ ]

• Eastern Coalition article at Memory Alpha , the canon Star Trek wiki.
• Eastern Coalition article at Memory Beta , the non-canon Star Trek wiki.
• 1 USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-G) (Excalibur class)
• 2 USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-H) (Endurance class)
• 3 Dominion War

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First Contact In The Star Trek Universe Explained

After the end of World War III, humanity will be left scattered and destitute. Colonel Phillip Green will lead a freelance army of eco-terrorists, controlled by drugs, to the slaughter of 37 million people. Nuclear bombs will be dropped, and much of the planet's surface will be seared by radiation. All the governments will have fallen, and torturous kangaroo courts will take the place of truth and justice. People will move into small enclaves throughout the world, modestly enjoying their limited resources and waiting for a proper economic system to restart. 

In the middle of this terror, Earth will also experience its greatest day. On April 5, 2063, an engineer named Zefram Cochran will invent a craft that can, thanks to an energy field capable of warping the fabric of space, fly faster than the speed of light. On the maiden voyage of Cochran's ship, the Phoenix, a passing starship piloted by space aliens will change course to investigate. A cadre of Vulcans will land in Bozeman, Montana  and introduce themselves to humans . Humans, realizing they are not alone in the galaxy, will begin a new age of togetherness and peace, understanding they are but new citizens in a much larger community. Over the years, warp technology will be used as the basis of a new age of exploration, allowing humanity to build enormous crafts capable of reaching other planets.

Over the course of the next century, Vulcans will prepare humanity for the next leg in the evolution of their civilization: Traversing the stars. We see the fruits of this, and examples of additional First Contact with alien species, in the new series "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds."

First Contact as an institution

These details are all laid out explicitly in Jonathan Frakes' 1996 film " Star Trek: First Contact ." And, as with all lore introduced in "Star Trek," it became an oft-referred-to part of the franchise's lexicon. More importantly, however, first contact is — in the grand arc of "Star Trek" — the origin of Gene Roddenberry's benevolent vision of a peaceful future. 

In the future of "Star Trek," humanity doesn't steadily and instinctually improve as a natural and expected outcropping of its history to date. "Star Trek" is not a story of how Earth nations decided to spontaneously get along, or how humans elected to rid themselves of prejudice merely out of the goodness of their hearts. "Star Trek" argues that humanity is capable of acting that way, yes, but that, when left to our own devices as a species, we lilt toward destruction and entropy. Gene Roddenberry looked out at the world as it was in the 1960s and saw a lot of problems. War, racism, sexual repression. These things were common. And they would not be undone by a starship, a transporter, or a stalwart military captain. 

You'll notice that the optimistic future of "Star Trek" requires a clean slate. Much needs to be destroyed and removed before growth can begin. We needed to prove to ourselves, as a species, that we are capable of self-annihilation before we can build. The future can begin only after we allowed World War III to nearly wipe us out. Only at a moment of weakness, a moment of humility, a moment of shame, will our technical innovation be achieved ... for its own sake. In "First Contact," Cochran admits that he only wanted to achieve space flight as a means of making money. It wasn't until he was in space, looking back at a distant Earth after only flying for a few moments, that he realized the scope of his invention. 

Paired with that innovation during a desperate time was First Contact. It's 2063, and humanity is essentially at its worst, and that was when another species reached out to shake our hands. To see that we were capable of a lot. First Contact was not just a plot point, but the beginning of Roddenberry's optimistic future. Seeing the greatness in ourselves through the eyes of other members in our astral community. First Contact is the "Star Trek" origin story.

First Contact throughout Trek

Because First Contact was so significant for humanity, it was depicted as a very careful process in future "Star Trek" episodes. Thanks to the franchise's well-known Prime Directive — the law that forbids Starfleet from interfering in the natural course of a society's development — the Federation is persnickety about how they introduce themselves to new worlds. Most importantly: The species in question has to be capable of faster-than-light travel. Often — as depicted in a 1991 " Star Trek: The Next Generation " episode called "First Contact" — Starfleet will send representatives in disguise down to a world that is on the cusp of developing warp flight to ensure that they are united. Are they eager to take to the stars, or are they only incidentally developing space flight while the rest of the planet preps for more war? 

If the Federation finds the species in question is "ready" — there are no scientific measurements for said readiness, mind you; It appears to be based solely on diplomatic intuition — they will reveal themselves to the planet. Presumably, this will usher in a new era of peace and togetherness for that planet the same way it did for Earth. The Federation will them begin trade and, in some cases, many, many years of training to assure the species in question won't do anything reckless in the stars. 

That last bit was the premise of " Star Trek: Enterprise ." First Contact was in 2063, but the first Starfleet vessel didn't take off for another century. Those 100 years were needed for humanity to rebuild after the war, unify the governments, and gather resources to build the ships.

First Contact between two species that have both already achieved warp flight seems to be little more than a careful, polite, and formal introduction, and can be handled over a viewscreen. There is little concern with sociological evolution or culture taint in these cases. 

Second Contact

Given the number of species seen on "Star Trek," First Contact seems to be common. It's mentioned frequently that Starfleet vessels have First Contact protocols, and, on " Star Trek: Lower Decks ," senior officers talk about how much they love doing it. For them, it's a mere perk of the job. 

One of the central gags of "Lower Decks," though, is that the central starship, the U.S.S. Cerritos, is often assigned the least desirable jobs in Starfleet. "Lower Decks" points out that "Star Trek" — however utopian it may be on paper — is still full of petty bureaucracy, heavy lifting, and mindless repetitive tasks. As such, "Lower Decks" has introduced the notion of Second Contact. While first introducing yourselves to a new species is thrilling, someone will have to follow up on the promise to begin a cultural exchange. The Cerritos is called in to negotiate trade, open lines of diplomacy, start tracking the new world's culture and the language, and share just enough tech to help them without giving them so much that their society would be tainted. 

The captains get the fun of making a big speech about togetherness, but then someone else has to fly in and start quantity surveying. 

Like most things on "Lower Decks," Second Contact is meant to point out that not everything is "Star Trek" is as easy as an inspirational speech. There's also an overwhelming amount of logistics that goes into it. Second Contact is proof that First Contact carries with it a lot of practical concerns. 

Screen Rant

10 ways star trek: first contact improved the franchise.

Released to celebrate 30 years of the Star Trek franchise, First Contact laid the groundwork for its next 30 years from Enterprise to Picard.

• Star Trek: First Contact had a profound impact on the wider franchise, influencing future character development and storylines for years to come.
• The movie introduced significant elements such as the origins of the Federation, the character of Zefram Cochrane, and the terrifying Borg Spheres.
• First Contact also marked the debut of the iconic Borg Queen, who became a prominent and influential villain in the Star Trek universe.

The most acclaimed Star Trek: The Next Generation movie, Star Trek: First Contact improved the wider franchise in a number of ways. Released in 1996 to celebrate Star Trek 's 30th anniversary, the movie saw Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) travel back in time to save Federation history from the temporal manipulations of the Borg Collective. Star Trek 's 30th anniversary celebrations were a hugely exciting time for fans, that in retrospect feel like an early version of the extensive shared fictional universes that dominate the current pop culture landscape. As well as First Contact , there were special episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager that celebrated the franchise's past in unique ways.

Various events and innovations seen in Star Trek: First Contact went on to influence the wider franchise for years to come. For example, it's arguably First Contact , more than the classic Star Trek: The Next Generation 2-parter "The Best of Both Worlds" that influenced the characterization of Admiral Picard in his eponymous 2020s spinoff series. First Contact dug deeper into Picard's post-traumatic stress from his assimilation into the Borg Collective, and showed how that trauma was capable of clouding his usually impeccable judgment. This is just one of many ways that Star Trek: First Contact improved the wider franchise for the next 30 years and beyond.

10 Star Trek: First Contact Impacted DS9's Dominion War Arc

In the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "In Purgatory's Shadow", Sisko observes that the Borg attack in First Contact has weakened the Federation further, making it the perfect time for the Dominion to invade the Alpha Quadrant. Present at this meeting is Gul Dukat (Marc Alaimo) who later leaves Deep Space Nine in a hurry, knowing that invasion is imminent, placing DS9 at the center of the conflict. In the very next episode, "By Inferno's Light", Dukat announces the Cardassian Union's alliance with the Dominion, deciding to join the winning side. If the Borg hadn't attacked in First Contact , then Dukat may not have entered into this pact that ultimately led to his death and the devastation of Cardassia Prime in DS9 's finale.

9 Star Trek Reintroduced Zefram Cochrane, Made Him Better

There were several legacy characters featured in the Star Trek franchise's 30th anniversary celebrations. Star Trek: Voyager had Captain Hikaru Sulu (George Takei) and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine had the cast of the TOS episode "The Trouble with Tribbles". Star Trek 's warp speed inventor Zefram Cochrane (James Cromwell) was the legacy character featured in Star Trek: First Contact . In the TOS episode "Metamorphosis", Zefram Cochrane (Glenn Corbett) was already a legend, living out a strange existence on an asteroid. First Contact brilliantly took the time to explore why Cochrane became such a legend, by showing the flawed but brilliant scientist conduct his history-making first warp flight.

8 Star Trek Finally Got Its Origin Story

The origins of Star Trek 's United Federation of Planets were so nebulous that Gene Roddenberry didn't settle on a name for Starfleet for a number of episodes. Star Trek: First Contact finally gave fans an origin story for the Federation, in the form of the first meeting between humanity and the Vulcans. This key moment was enough to open humanity's eyes to the stars, and put them on the path to seeking out strange new worlds and civilizations. First Contact in Montana expanded the Star Trek universe by showing the extensive relationship between humanity and the Vulcans, and also gave the franchise a brand-new period of history to explore.

7 First Contact Set Up Star Trek: Enterprise

In opening up the Star Trek canon by depicting the first step toward the foundation of the United Federation of Planets, First Contact paved the way for Enterprise . The great thing about Star Trek: Enterprise was how it opened up the franchise again by stripping it back to basics. Focusing on the emotional connections between the characters, and dedicating episodes to sending messages back to Earth rooted Enterprise in a believable reality that suggested Star Trek 's utopia was in our reach. Enterprise would also deal with the direct fallout from First Contact in season 2, when leftover Borg drones were reactivated in Antarctica, causing chaos for Captain Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula) and the crew of the Enterprise NX-01.

6 First Contact's Voyager Cameos Emphasized The Wider Star Trek Universe

Star Trek: First Contact is resolutely a Star Trek: The Next Generation movie, but it contains many nods to its franchise stablemates. As well as the cameo by Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 's USS Defiant, First Contact also featured two cameos by actors from Star Trek: Voyager in different roles. Robert Picardo played the role of the Emergency Medical Hologram on the USS Enterprise-E, which arguably set up the DS9 episode "Doctor Bashir, I Presume", in which Starfleet are looking for a brand-new model for the second wave of the EMH program. Voyager 's Neelix, Ethan Phillips, also appeared as the nightclub maitre d in the Dixon Hill holonovel activated by Picard and Lily Sloane (Alfre Woodard) .

5 Picard's "The Line Must Be Drawn Here" Speech

Star Trek: First Contact arguably gives audiences the last standout speech for Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard until his 2020s spinoff series. Picard has always been shown as a fair and balanced man, who toes the line when it comes to Starfleet rules and the tenets of the Prime Directive. In First Contact , however, he delivers a furious speech about his own thirst for revenge against the Borg Collective. Lily compares Picard to Captain Ahab from Moby Dick , and she's not wide of the mark. The comparison is enough to snap Picard out of his bloodlust, resolving to put the safety of his crew above his own desire for vengeance, avoiding the fate of Captain Ahab.

4 First Contact Improved Data's Star Trek Generations Story

The story of Lt. Commander Data (Brent Spiner) and his emotion chip in Star Trek Generations is an irritating distraction from the more interesting stories taking place elsewhere. Star Trek: First Contact takes a far more interesting approach to Data's quest to understand what it is to be human. Captured by the Borg Queen (Alice Krige), Data is seduced with promises of being able to feel the sensory pleasures of human flesh. There's a degree of ambiguity throughout whether Data has truly turned to the dark side, but of course he remains loyal to Picard and the Enterprise. It was an affirmation that Data would become human in Star Trek on his own terms, without sacrificing his integrity.

3 Borg Spheres Were Introduced Into The Star Trek Franchise

Borg Cubes are enough to strike fear into the heart of the bravest Starfleet officer, but Star Trek: First Contact provided a new innovation. In a way, the Borg Sphere scout ship was even more terrifying as it was faster, more maneuverable, and capable of time travel. Borg Sphere's also gave the Collective a way out, doubling up as an escape pod when the Cube was destroyed by the Enterprise in First Contact 's opening battle. Ultimately, the Borg Spheres also look really cool, and would appear again in later episodes of Star Trek: Voyager .

2 First Contact Was Star Trek's First Proper Action Movie

Star Trek: First Contact was clearly a huge influence on the beloved first-person shooter Star Trek: Voyager - Elite Force , which pitted players against all manner of villains. The scenes of Picard, Data, and Worf moving through the corridors of the Enterprise dispatching Borg drones were thrilling action set pieces tinged with survival horror. The battle on the Enterprise-E's saucer section and Picard using a tommy gun to dispatch the Borg are hugely memorable moments that truly gave the franchise its first action movie. It's the tone of First Contact that the J.J. Abrams Star Trek movies would later adopt, favoring action and spectacle over the more cerebral ideas of earlier Star Trek movies.

1 The Borg Queen's Star Trek Debut

From the moment that the Borg Queen's body was assembled in Star Trek: First Contact , something brand new and exciting was gifted to the franchise. The Borg Queen was a controversial addition on First Contact 's release, but she became an iconic Star Trek villain. Where the Borg drones, with one or two exceptions, had no character with which to engage, the Borg Queen had a distinctive personality. This gave Patrick Stewart someone to act opposite, lending real weight to Picard's quest for vengeance in First Contact 's thrilling climax.

The Borg Queen's seductive tactics, her status as a nemesis for Picard, and the hints of her loneliness ultimately set up the next few decades of Borg stories. The introduction of Alice Krige's Borg Queen in Star Trek: First Contact had such a huge impact on the franchise for the subsequent three decades. That story appears to have finally come to an end with the climax of the Star Trek: The Next Generation reunion in Star Trek: Picard season 3, but she leaves behind an extensive legacy, starting with her memorable entrance in First Contact .

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5 Things We Learned About ‘Star Trek: First Contact’ On Its 25th Anniversary Year

| April 6, 2021 | By: Kayla Iacovino 20 comments so far

Yesterday’s virtual First Contact Day event put on by CBS has come after over a year of virtual “conventions” that haven’t been able to hold a candle to their normally in-person counterparts. But, with a year of learning and planning, CBS showed that this virtual event thing can actually work. During the “Remembering First Contact” panel, host Wil Wheaton asked insightful questions of Star Trek vets Jonathan Frakes, Patrick Stewart, Brent Spiner, and Alice Krige, getting them to spill a few stories I for one had never heard before about Star Trek: First Contact, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year.

Here are a few of my favorite takeaway tidbits that were new to me. For those of you walking Star Trek history encyclopedias, please feel free to expound on these stories in the comments!

Renaissance-era setting nixed for budgetary reasons… and the absurdity

During the “Revisiting First Contact” panel celebrating 25 years since the release of the beloved TNG film, Jonathan Frakes spoke about the genesis of the story of First Contact , saying:

“All three of the writers wanted a time travel story. So, the objective was to find a way to marry those big concepts [Borg and time travel]. Originally it was going to take place in Renaissance Italy, perhaps, and we were going to fight the Borg with swords? Thankfully that idea was taken away for financial reasons and logical reasons and absurd reasons, I’m sure. And, we were blessed with this, arguably the best of the Star Trek movie scripts certainly.”

We had to wait until Star Trek: Picard to get those sword fights.

Patrick Stewart had to OK Frakes as director, over Reuben sandwiches

After Jonathan Frakes was asked how he got the job as director, he told the story of the most memorable Reuben sandwich in his life.

“I believe, if the urban myth is true, the movie was offered to Ridley Scott, John McTiernan [who weren’t interested]. As I understand it Sherry Lansing, who was the head of Paramount at the time, told Rick Berman, who was the keeper of the reigns: ‘Why don’t you hire who you like?’ So, there was one caveat. The director that they hired had to be approved by now Sir Patrick Stewart. So, Rick said, ‘I’d really like you to do the movie, but Patrick’s going to have to approve you.’ So, Patrick and I had lunch at Jerry’s Deli in Studio City. And, he said, ‘I’m okay with you directing the movie. I was told that I had to make it official with you. And, that… it kind of changed my life. I believe we both had Reuben sandwiches.”

The group shares a laugh over Jonathan’s memory of his favorite reuben sandwich.

Alice Krige asked for a second audition because she thought she blew it (she didn’t)

Before her audition for the role of the Borg Queen, Alice Krige had no real knowledge of what Star Trek was all about. It took doing the audition for her to find the character, and in doing so, she was convinced she had totally biffed the audition. Of course, she hadn’t.

“My agent called me one day, and she said, ‘here are some sides for the next Star Trek movie.’ Now, I have a confession to make that I had never seen an episode of Star Trek. I said okay, but where’s the script? I can’t go in without a script. She said, ‘No, you don’t understand. NO ONE sees a script.’ I had a friend who wrote for Star Trek. I ran over to his house, and I watched all of the Borg episodes that he had on tape. I learned my lines, and I went into Paramount. And, there was Jonathan, and I did the three scenes. And, as I was doing them, I actually started to understand [the role] – it was the act of doing it – it was not intellectual. It was like a channel opened up. They thanked me politely, and I left. I ran to my car, and I drove to find the first pay phone I could find. I called my agent, and I said ‘I screwed it up. Please tell them that I can do better. And, I really want to do it again.’ Well, we didn’t hear from them for three weeks, and I thought ‘another one bites the dust’. And, then I got another call! I went in, and I did the same thing again, and I was offered the Borg Queen.”

Alice Krige as the Borg Queen.

Alice Krige needed 8 Borg wranglers to work in the Borg Queen costume

Alice Krige – who absolutely slayed in her role as the Borg Queen – spoke about how she got the role and what it was like playing the iconic character. One amusing tidbit was her mention of around eight “Borg wranglers” that were needed during her scenes.

“All the Borg wranglers. Because I must have had eight maybe? Someone who looked after my battery packs, someone who had a big pot of glue and glued the cracks. Someone looked after my feet, my hands, my head. Someone had a huge tube of – what was it? – KY jelly and a sponge. Every one of them helped make [the Borg Queen]. This was the apotheosis of collaboration for me, this role.”

Krige on the Borg Queen rig with director Jonathan Frakes during the filming of Star Trek: First Contact.

Brent Spiner was terrified of doing the missile silo jump stunt

While Brent Spiner had high praise for the film’s director, script, and co-stars, there was one aspect of making the film that wasn’t to his liking.

“We were standing alongside the missile on a platform that was very high in the air. Patrick [Stewart] knows that I am terrified of heights, so he would be bouncing on the platform to terrify me – which it did. [In the film] Data jumps off the platform and sail to the ground, and nothing happens to him. Initially, it was my stunt double, Brian Williams. He did that jump, and Jonathan [Frakes] shot him coming down from the missile silo, and then Jonathan cut to me. They printed all of that, then Jonathan came to me and said, you can tell that it’s not you. You’re going to have to do it. They took me to a soundstage, put me in a harness. And I was terrified. I hated it. They brought me up 3 feet and dropped me, and I hated it, then they took me all the way to the top, and they were to drop me, and a few feet before I hit the ground, a hydraulic slowed me down. I had to be Data, and I was able to do it, and look confident, and I landed, and the crew applauded, and I was so glad it was over. And then ‘Two-Takes Frakes’ came to me and said, ‘can we do that again?'”

That first step is a doozy.

Watch the full 25th-anniversary panel

Paramount+ has uploaded the entire Star Trek: First Contact anniversary panel to Youtube.

Find more articles on Star Trek history at TrekMovie.com .

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Alice Krige wax the only logical choice to play the Borg queen. While Susanna Thompson was good on Voyager, Alice nailed it and I’m glad she also came back to the roll.

the 1st time Star Trek was a ‘cool’ movie to go see at the cinema

What about The Voyage Home?

yes but that was more of a comedy like Crocodile Dundee/BTTF in space, not so much an Aliens/Terminator type ‘cool’ pg13 scifi action movie that kids teens non fans could rave about in the playground, water cooler, pub etc

The first Trek movie I got to see in the theater…I was 4. I still remember gagging in my seat when Data made out with the BQ. Also I love this cast so much, I wish I was around to get pranked.

This panel was great! And yes even after 25 years and endless conventions it’s always nice to hear new stories and anecdotes which this had a lot of. Spiner’s story about being afraid of heights and doing the jumping scene in the movie was hilarious!

FC definitely had an amazing script and felt the most cinematic out of all the movies not counting TMP or the Kelvin movies. The premise worked so well and a great way to tie into the 30th anniversary sort of how well TUC and its premise tied into the 25th.

While I liked Beyond that was one of its biggest missed opportunities and not having a bigger hook that tied into the 50th anniversary more. It’s a story that could be told in any episode. But I digress.

Anyway great panel!

50th anniversary movie was there for the taking (Orci/Shatner/battle for the timelines) and could’ve been as pleasing as VI and FC, but,like a poor marksman, they missed the target..

I was on set standing in Picard’s Ready Room doorway they filmed all the takes of the “interplexing beacon” dialog scene where Alfre Woodard and Picard come up through the floor. I was so stunned that I was on set watch the new film being made. I remember touching the embroidered delta shield insignia on the back of the seats on the bridge. Jonathan Frakes made the cast do one more take of a shot and said “ok, once more with grace and alacrity” and Patrick Stewart started into a whole Shakespeare joke about the epic love story of Grace and Alacrity, acting it out while the cast and crew laughed as the lights were moved. It was all very funny and surreal. I also got to sit in the Phoenix cockpit and walk (only on the very edge) of the deflector dish. I can’t believe that was 25 years ago. Yikes. I’m old. Oh and I also interviewed Alice Krige in her house in Malibu about playing the Borg Queen. She fed me salt and vinegar potato chips and her little black dog kept licking the crumbs off my fingers. 25 years?? Where does time go???!!!!

That’s a lovely story!

Yes that is a great story. But I thought the interplexing beacon scene was on the bridge? But I love that whole bit. It had some great lines:

“The reports of my assimilation have been greatly exaggerated” “I am a Klingon” “I think’s it time we take a little stroll”

And the gag with Worf scared of zero-G. Love it. Why can’t all Star Trek films be more like this?

Wow. 25 years. I saw this movie in the theaters when I was in college. Dang I feel old now. But I just watched it again yesterday for FC Day and it still holds up very well. I love this movie.

I did hear the Renaissance story before. But it was actually someone wanted to do the time travel to the Renaissance story and someone else wanted to do the Borg. I’m glad they dropped the Renaissance bit and went with the Zephram Cochrane and First Contact story instead.

My regret is that Tom Hanks was initially cast as Zephram Cochrane, which I think would have made for a better and more popular movie. He couldn’t do it since he was directing another movie, but he did want to since he was a big Star Trek fan. James Cromwell was ok, but Hanks would have brought a big name to Trek.

Didn’t Tony Pascale do a DVD commentary for it with Damon Lindelof?

I don’t agree. Hanks was too famous. Too big. I would have watched all the Cochrane scenes and just thought “that’s Tom Hanks talking to Will, Deanna, and Geordi”. Same with the abandoned Eddie Murphy role in Star Trek IV. I’m glad they didn’t happen.

Now, if they want Hanks to cameo as Captain April on SNW, I can be down with that.

But the fact he was so famous could’ve been an added bonus for the character as Cohrene was this huge mythical figure that the TNG guys were in awe of

Tom Hanks is a fantastic actor and I think his performance would have quickly allowed the audience to believe he was Zethran Cochrane in the movie.

Big name actors appear all the time in Star Wars, just check the names.

Cromwell was great as Cochrane (and even more prestigious when you take into account he was in the classic LA Confidential the following year) but yeah Hanks in FC would’ve been a huge deal for a Trek movie in the mid 90s when Hanks was pretty much the biggest movie star on the planet at that time (along with Mel Gibson & Tom Cruise), and maybe brought in another 50 even 100m in box office worldwide

I prefer Cromwell, much more believable as a drunk, also he’s a fantastic guy and an activist I’ve marched alongside. Meeting him was a big deal for me, I never thought I’d be meeting the man who invented warp drive!

Cromwell was also coming off of an Academy Award nomination that year, so he leant a nice little nugget of prestige in his own way.

i still cringe when everyone, including the Vulcans, have their little dance party, twisting the night away to Roy Orbison’s Ooby Dooby. Not Trek’s finest moment!

The end shot was also very similar to Trek V

I remember during the live watch of First Contact with Jonathan Frakes some months back, he also related how Patrick had to approve him directing. He didn’t mention the sandwich thing though at that time. Also, the tone I got from the live watch was that Frakes was never in any danger since he and Patrick are good friends and Patrick rubber stamping Frakes’ directorship was basically a formality.

• Cast & crew
• User reviews

Star Trek: First Contact

The Borg travel back in time intent on preventing Earth's first contact with an alien species. Captain Picard and his crew pursue them to ensure that Zefram Cochrane makes his maiden flight ... Read all The Borg travel back in time intent on preventing Earth's first contact with an alien species. Captain Picard and his crew pursue them to ensure that Zefram Cochrane makes his maiden flight reaching warp speed. The Borg travel back in time intent on preventing Earth's first contact with an alien species. Captain Picard and his crew pursue them to ensure that Zefram Cochrane makes his maiden flight reaching warp speed.

• Jonathan Frakes
• Gene Roddenberry
• Rick Berman
• Brannon Braga
• Patrick Stewart
• Brent Spiner
• 368 User reviews
• 126 Critic reviews
• 70 Metascore
• 8 wins & 21 nominations total

• (as Levar Burton)

• Zefram Cochrane

• Lt. Daniels

• Holographic Doctor

• Lt. Barclay

• Defiant Conn Officer

• Admiral Hayes

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• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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• Trivia On account of budgetary restrictions, the crew of Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987) was never quite satisfied with the Borg sets and costumes as used during the series. However, the significantly bigger budget for this film finally allowed them to design the Borg in a way that was much closer to what they had intended. As a result, the suits and sets were reused extensively on Star Trek: Voyager (1995) .
• Goofs When Geordi is asking Cochrane to look at the intermix chamber blueprints, he is wearing sunglasses, even though his artificial eyes don't require protection from the sun. The sunglasses are probably needed in case a local comes looking around. Only Cochrane and Lily knew about time travelers, and Geordi's futuristic implants could blow their cover. Geordi used dark glasses for the same purpose in Time's Arrow, Part II (1992) as well.

Captain Jean-Luc Picard : [Quoting "Moby Dick"] And he piled upon the whale's white hump, the sum of all the rage and hate felt by his whole race. If his chest had been a cannon, he would have shot his heart upon it.

Lily Sloane : What?

Captain Jean-Luc Picard : "Moby-Dick".

Lily Sloane : Actually, I never read it.

Captain Jean-Luc Picard : Ahab spent years hunting the white whale that crippled him, a quest for vengeance, but in the end, it destroyed him and his ship.

Lily Sloane : I guess he didn't know when to quit.

• Crazy credits After 'Stunt Players' are listed, the 'Stunt Borg' are listed.
• Connections Featured in Siskel & Ebert: Space Jam/The Mirror Has Two Faces/The English Patient/Breaking the Waves (1996)
• Soundtracks Theme from 'Star Trek: The Motion Picture by Jerry Goldsmith

User reviews 368

• Feb 23, 2005
• How long is Star Trek: First Contact? Powered by Alexa
• When was the Wilhelm scream heard in the movie?
• What is 'First Contact' about?
• Who returns from the previous movie?
• November 22, 1996 (United States)
• United States
• Memory Alpha, the Star Trek wiki
• Star Trek 8
• Titan Missile Museum - 1580 W. Duval Mine Road, Green Valley, Arizona, USA
• Paramount Pictures
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $45,000,000 (estimated)
• $92,027,888
• $30,716,131
• Nov 24, 1996
• $146,027,888

Technical specs

• Runtime 1 hour 51 minutes
• Dolby Digital
• Dolby Surround 7.1

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Breaking news, n.y. appeals court overturns harvey weinstein rape conviction, ‘star trek’: the story of the ‘next generation’ crew’s greatest movie.

Jonathan Frakes, Brannon Braga, and more look back at 'Star Trek: First Contact' 20 years after the groundbreaking 1996 hit took 'Trek to new heights.

By Aaron Couch

Aaron Couch

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In 1996, Star Trek was at its apex.

On the small screen, Deep Space Nine and Voyager were carrying the Trek  legacy — and on the big screen, the Next Generation crew was still in its prime, having delivered a hit movie with 1994’s Generations after ending a seven-season run at the height of its popularity.

But the Trek creative team longed for more. Longtime writers Ronald D. Moore and Brannon Braga weren’t completely satisfied with Generations — a film they wrote but that was saddled with mandates that saw Picard (Patrick Stewart) share top billing with original series captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner ). For their next project, the pair were determined to do right by the Next Generation crew, pitting them against their greatest nemesis , The Borg — a collective consciousness bent on assimilating all life in the galaxy — and creating of a time-travel narrative that examined the origins of Star Trek itself. 

Jonathan Frakes (Commander Riker ) had proven himself to be a top-notch director on Next Generation , and was tapped to lead the crew of the Enterprise behind the camera for his debut feature. It proved to be a wise choice, with Frakes commanding respect and affection from the cast and crew and utilizing his TV director’s ability to make the budget look much bigger than it was.

When  Star Trek: First Contact hit theaters 20 years ago on Nov. 22, 1996, it went on to earn $146 million worldwide against a $45 million budget — making it at the time the second-highest-grossing Trek film ever. It also would be considered a high point in Trek lore, with many fans arguing only Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan can top it.

“WE WANTED TO REDEEM OURSELVES”

1994’s Star Trek: Generations is still in theaters and screenwriters Ronald D. Moore and Brannon Braga are approached by producer Rick Berman about crafting a follow-up. The pair immediately agree — eager to get right what they feel they got wrong with the previous film.

Brannon Braga , screenwriter : When Generations came out, Kirk and Picard were on the cover of Time magazine and it’s like, “OK, how much bigger does it get?” But at the same time, Ron and I felt that we had made some missteps with Generations and we wanted to redeem ourselves and make a really great movie.

Ronald D. Moore, screenwriter : The big difference between First Contact and Generations was right at the start, there really wasn’t a list of things to do. There was no mandate. When we did  Generations , there was literally a list of things that the movie had to accomplish. It had to be a transition from one cast to the other. You could only have the original series cast in the first 10 minutes. It had to have the Klingons in it, it had to have a big villain, it had to have time travel in it. It was all this stuff. With First Contact , it was really just, “OK, what do you want to do?” So the three of us worked on the story together, and I think Rick was interested in doing time travel and Brannon was interested in doing the Borg.

Braga : The first draft had Riker fighting the Borg on the ship and Picard down on the planet and everything was just backwards. Patrick Stewart, who had read that first draft, said, “Why am I not on the ship? I’m the one who got raped by this species.” We were like, “OK. Obviously he is correct.” 

Moore : There were a lot of budgetary constraints. Even though the budget was obviously much bigger than your average episode was, it was still astonishing how quickly that got chewed up by visual effects budgets of the day. Paramount didn’t really spend a lot on those movies. We were reusing the sets and reusing old stuff. At the beginning, when the Enterprise comes in and the Borg are attacking Earth and there’s a huge fleet battle, that got way cut back. Likewise, a lot of the action that took place on board the Enterprise, you’ll note that we are still down to counting phaser bolts, which was such a pain in the ass, where we’re budgeting, “Well how many shots can the security guys take?” “Oh, it’s $10,000 a shot” and you’re negotiating with the production people.   

Braga : There were a few “aha” moments. Definitely when we conceptualized the Borg Queen, because at an early stage we were realizing the Borg are zombies but they don’t talk and we wanted some depth. We wanted these villains to want to be understood. And the other “aha” moment for me was the idea that the hero to all of the people on the Enterprise, Zefram Cochrane, was a drunk asshole who is creating warp drive for all the wrong reasons and him realizing why he needs to do it because it’s going to change the world and I thought, if you could go back in time and meet one of your great heroes from history and they’re a jerk, it’s very shocking.

Jonathan Frakes , director and Commander Riker : Sherry Lansing, who ran Paramount at the time, said to Rick Berman, “I’ll leave this in your hands because you know this franchise.” First Contact was Star Trek 8 . Ridley Scott was not going to direct this movie. Spielberg was not going to direct this movie. The big action guys certainly were not interested in doing the eighth version of a Star Trek movie. So I threw my hat in the ring with the rest of them and I was blessed to get arguably the best job of my life.

“ GODMOMMY , I’M GOING TO DIRECT FIRST CONTACT “

The crew of the Enterprise welcomes three new additions — Alice Krige as the Borg Queen; James Cromwell as warp drive inventor Zefram Cochrane; and Alfre Woodard as Lily Sloan, Cochrane’s assistant — who would challenge Picard in ways no other character ever did.

Alfre Woodard, Lily Sloane:  We are the same age, but I’m Jonathan Frakes ‘ godmommy . We were all young actors to Hollywood. We are like 22, and we would sit around and pool our money for chicken and beer and other things. It was a big gang of us and we would just crash at each other’s apartments. Besides silly and bawdy conversations with Jonathan, we also had poignant conversations, and I was talking about what my godmother meant to me. His eyes were moist and he said, “I don’t have a godmother.” I said, “Are you kidding?” Then he looked at me and said, “Will you be my godmommy ?”  

Frakes : I think she’s one of our finest actresses, and Rick shares that feeling. When he found out I had a relationship with her, we just offered her the part. We had met with a number of movie stars and then it became clear that casting Alfre in that part, not only is she a great actor, she isn’t who you think of in an action-adventure-horror movie. She added a gravitas and she also could go head-to-head with Patrick. At the core of what makes the movie work is that wonderful scene in the conference room where she says, “You broke your little ships.” It’s brilliant.

Woodard : I got a call, and it might have been Jonathan saying “ Godmommy , I’m going to direct First Contact. ” I said, “Yes!” My godson was going to direct me. “Hell yeah.” Then I thought, I don’t know anything about this. I remember that first day on set, Jonathan said, “You’re from a different time anyway, so you won’t even know half the things — it will work, it will work.” That first day, I had to come through a Jefferies tube and I said, “Jonathan, who’s Jeffrey?” And he looked at me and he said, “Oh my god, what have I done?”

Frakes : Cromwell was also unlikely casting. That was the year he was up for Babe [for an Oscar nomination]. He was an actor that Rick and I had discussed because we thought it was quirky, interesting. He was appealing, he was absurd and he seemed intelligent. He felt like he could be a mad scientist.

Alice Krige , the Borg Queen : I just got sent three scenes by my agent and I said, “I’ll go in on this, but I need to see the script if they want to meet me.” She said, “No, you don’t understand. No one sees the script.” I had never seen an episode of Star Trek . So I ran over to a friend’s house, who had a whole lot of Star Trek episodes on tape. And I watched the Borg episodes. I did the audition for Jonathan and Rick and [casting director] Junie Lowry. In the course of doing those scenes for them, I suddenly kind of got her. I suddenly experienced the Borg Queen. I came out and I thought I had completely blown it. So I ran off the lot and found a payphone at a gas station and I called my agent and said, “I really, really messed that up. But I really, really want to do it. Would you ask them if I could come in again?” She phoned them and we didn’t hear anything for three weeks. I thought, “Oh well. Another one bites the dust.” And three weeks later they called and said, “Would you come in again please?” I went in and met the three of them again and, as I remember, as I left they made the offer.   

Scott Wheeler, makeup artist : That character would not have worked without Alice playing the role. They were talking about Cher playing the role. And no offense to Cher, she’s had some great moments, but it would have been so gimmicky and I doubt she would have been willing to sit through the 4 1/2-hour makeup we were putting on Alice.

“THE BORG QUEEN WAS BORN”

The painstaking work of hundreds of movie artisans brings the film to life in an era when practical effects still ruled and CG was just coming on the scene. The Borg Queen is among the film’s crowning achievements under a team led by legendary makeup artist Michael Westmore .

Wheeler:  Jake Garber and I basically redesigned the original TV version of the Borg. I always thought of them as this metaphor for technology destroying humanity, like Communism over free will, the collective being prioritized over the individual. It started to represent technology almost raping humanity and biology. The whole basis of the actual paint scheme was based on cadavers to represent death.

Frakes :  All the Borg were on a different clock. There was an entirely different crew that showed up at 2:30 in the morning, their own set of ADs , their own set of and makeup artists, and Alice was part of that. So by the time we showed up at 6 or 6:30, they had already been there for four hours getting Borgified .

Jacob Garber, special makeup effects artist: We were the first ones there and the last ones gone. I don’t recall anything less than a 14-hour day. I ended up sneaking in a bunch of hidden messages in the Borg head pieces. I think I got about every makeup artist’s name in there somewhere. I snuck one in there that was Westmore’s House of Barbeque, I put me and a girl I was dating at the time in there. 

Scott G.G. Haller , sound effects editor:  It was a fun moment to be walking to lunch on the Paramount lot and seeing an extra in full Borg costume sitting on a chair outside of a sound stage, smoking a cigarette and reading a newspaper.

Wheeler: With the Borg Queen, the script had one simple description: hauntingly beautiful. I thought, “OK, why is she hauntingly beautiful?” Maybe the Borg needs a certain appeal. Maybe she’s hauntingly beautiful, because she’s sort of the seductress of the ideals that the Borg are supposed to represent. There was this beautiful face that is basically stretched over a biomechanical form. In the very front is a façade of beauty, and as you go further back and look at her, more and more you see the horror and the rot and the decay.

Krige :  By the time it was all on and all done, quite simply, I felt like the Borg Queen. It was as if I had gone through a type of time warp or portal. By the time they put in the lenses, it was not me anymore. That was phenomenally helpful. And I always think of it as a collaborative performance, because you can’t think of the character separate from what she looked like.

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Wheeler: We did some tests and the film dailies came back without them being properly timed. They were way too contrasty and too saturated. Rick didn’t really quite understand that was the situation. Rick felt it was way too dark and he asked me to lighten it up. His first note was just make it off white. “Don’t have any of the discolorations or the rotting.” I said, “No, I’m not going to make her into a giant egg head.” I wanted to keep the paint scheme the same. I said, “Let me lighten it up and I’ll show you.” So what I actually did was I painted another head exactly the same way I painted the first one, and then I took the original and I darkened it. I took those up to him and said, “Here’s the original, the one you don’t like that’s too dark, and here’s the new painted version, are you OK with it?” He goes, “Yeah, yeah, that’s much better.” So I got to keep the paint scheme the way I wanted it.

Todd Masters, designing supervisor, the Borg : We actually made a special suit for Alice that we didn’t put on the budget, because she was so awesome that we really wanted her performance to work. We initially made a suit that was a little too dense, a little too hard, and she was having trouble with it, so over the weekend, we made her a new one, which was not easy to do. The all-nighters were definitely a fact.

Wheeler :   We did the initial makeup test, and it was one of those things where we didn’t know how these elements were going to come together. We put her in the costume and we were in this special trailer just for her to do her makeup and wardrobe. Frakes was there, Mike Westmore was there and Rick Berman was just walking in while the lens technician was putting in the metallic contact lenses. When the lenses went in, Alice looked in the mirror and you could see how the look all of a sudden informed her about the character. She changed her posture and her presence. She turned around — and when she turned around, I kid you not, everyone gasped and stepped back. It was that moment when we went, “OK. It works.” The Borg Queen was born.

Masters : The whole part of the Queen coming down from the rafters when the head and shoulders are plugged into her body — that was unexpected at that time, the manner we approached it. Practical effects were still the rock star of the set, but CG was coming in. And we were one of the first groups to start integrating the two. So the whole thing with Alice coming down from the rafters and plugging in — most of the production didn’t believe we could pull it off.

Tracee Lee Cocco , the Borg Queen’s stand-in : They had me go up in a hoist on a flat kind of board and they turned the mechanism to make me turn over. And I’m so high and I’m afraid of heights anyway. Stand-ins have to do exactly what the actors do in every scene to get the lighting right.

Masters:  I didn’t think it would have worked as well if it was shot in two different parts, if we shot Data in month one and three months later we’re shooting Alice on a blue screen. I really argued for shooting it all on one stage and no one knew what the hell I was talking about it. It was like, “Well how do we do that?” She doesn’t have a body. We came up with this whole, bizarre system of old technology meets new — and it worked beautifully and ILM composited this thing together like gangbusters. And it’s still shocking today. I have visual effects supervisors coming to me today asking how we did that shot.

A NEW ENTERPRISE

After saying goodbye to the Enterprise-D in Generations , a new ship needs to be constructed. To add to the pressure at Industrial Light & Magic, a key piece of equipment broke just before they began work on the Enterprise-E, which would end up being the final model Enterprise used for a film or television show. It takes around 35 people months to complete.

John Eaves, illustrator:  The Enterprise-D in Next Generation was a much shorter Enterprise from what you had previously seen. They wanted to be able to show a ship that would fit on TV screens all at once as opposed to being way far away to show the whole ship. For the Enterprise-E, I went back to the old, original Matt Jefferies Enterprise, which was longer and used an Excelsior that Bill George at ILM created. It was a mix of the two and being able to make that length again added a nice balance to the whole ship.

John Goodson , model project supervisor : The model was 10 feet long. They really wanted to be able to look in the windows and see into the rooms. In the past, all those types of models, you wouldn’t see anything inside the room, you’d just see a light. We tried a bunch of different solutions and we just couldn’t get it to work. Eventually we cut little 16th  of an inch window frames for each window on the ship out of plexiglass . We put a piece of 32-inch plexiglass in the window frame and in the back of it we mounted a piece of plexiglass that was a quarter of an inch thick. We took photographs from a technical manual that’d been done on CD-ROM for Next Generation and we photographed a bunch of the rooms, just taking a camera and shooting it off the monitor. We put the slides in the windows. Later we had to change the dish, because halfway through the show, they added the whole thing where they fight the Borg on the dish and they built a live-action set.

Frakes :  [Production designer] Herman Zimmerman built the saucer on half of one of the sound stages. We storyboarded that sequence so we could tell the story that they were upside-down but shoot them right-side-up. I wasn’t as thrilled with that scene in retrospect when I watch the movie again. That scene in one of J.J.’s [Abrams] budgets would have been visually more amazing. I think we would have seen more shots of them in medium-wide shots where you would feel like they were actually doing this in space. There were a lot of close-ups in ours. There were practical close-ups of the boots on the set and the people against a blue screen and there weren’t a lot of medium- wides where you saw the whole dish and you felt it. But I look back at what we did for what we had and I’m very, very proud.  

“WE KEPT THAT LILY AND PICARD RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TAKES”

Alfre Woodard’s character Lily is at the heart of the film. Lily and Picard share a special chemistry, which culminates with a now-classic scene in which she challenges him to admit that he has embarked on an Ahab-like quest against the Borg.   

Woodard: That one and the luscious day I spent in Picard’s quarters with Patrick — that’s one of those days you don’t want to end. You have them occasionally with an actor and this is what we do. We’re in the middle of the music right now.

Frakes : I remember like it was yesterday, sitting under the camera and looking up at these two heavyweights duking it out and just getting a couple of different sizes and let the acting tell the story.

Woodard:  All three of us are from the theater, so we knew what the scene was. We worked the same way. We know about finding your intention and all that. The words will come. The words are the writers’ direction to get you to the plot, but the real activity happens between what is said. What is said is not as important as what you mean, what you’re not saying. Jonathan said, “Where would you be moving naturally?” And then one of us would say, “OK I think by this point …” and he said, “This is all I need you to do — be over here by the ships.”

Frakes :  Sometimes you tell the story with the camera, but this was just capturing and letting the actors tell the story.

Woodard : One of the things I was nervous about was the candy glass. When those kinds of things are set up, Patrick has got to hit exactly where it is, but you don’t want to be thinking about it. Patrick I were great friends, but for that whole morning and afternoon, we kept that Lily and Picard relationship in between takes. You know you have a partner. But even though you focus and you are in your character and you are seeing from your character’s reality, there is somewhere in the back of you, where you know that you are an Olympian running with a teammate passing that baton back and forth.

Moore: The relationship between Patrick and Alfre’s character was really strong. It was more of a romance in the earlier drafts and I think there was more to the kiss [at the end of the movie] and it was shot to have a more romantic element to it. I think what happened was, it wasn’t quite playing as well on screen and that got kind of cut back through post and through the editing process. It wasn’t an overt romance, it was never scripted that he falls in love with her, but there was definitely more of a chemistry between the two of them. The chemistry onscreen between the two of them was interesting, but it was a little more adversarial and they were challenging to each other on an intellectual level. It wasn’t sort of sparking off romantic sparks the way we thought it would initially.

Krige : The day I got cast, they went off to the Angeles Forest for the Zefram Cochrane scenes, so it was more or less [Data actor] Brent [ Spiner ] and me back in L.A. So I spent some time with him on the lot and he was incredibly helpful. I was under the impression that it was all about the Borg Queen and Picard. Brent kind of put me right. He said, “No, no, no. It’s all about the Borg Queen and Data.” And of course he was right. She’d been there, done that in respect of Picard.

Moore : Once we were dealing with Data having an emotion chip, then you really started to have to face the question, “What would he do with the chip? How human could he be? What would he be seduced by emotionally?” For a while, we weren’t quite sure what to do with Data. I think it was more of a comedic line for a little while, and then once we were developing the Borg Queen, I remember us early on saying, “Well you know, Data is an android. She’s a cybernetic being, perhaps she can find a way to seduce him in a way that no one else really can, because she sort of understands his side of the equation as well.”

Krige : In Data she meets her match. Whoever trumped the Borg Queen? But he manages to. I don’t know where the sensuality or sexuality or visceral physicality came from, but it’s kind of who she was, because she kind of does a similar thing with Seven of Nine with  Voyager . It’s just part of who she is. It’s one of the things she does to draw people in. She uses it with Data, but she kind of gets hoisted on her own petard.  

James MacKinnon , prosthetics makeup artist: Michael Westmore asked me to work on Data’s arm. It’s a little flap of skin. We’re gluing wires from one side to the other and I’m squeezing the bottle of two ounces of super glue and it’s not coming out. All of a sudden I squeeze hard and the whole bottle explodes on my arm. The super glue sets quick. My arm is attached to my chest. It’s kind of smoking because it makes super glue go faster. Now my arm’s burning. I finished my makeup with one hand and it takes me two hours to get out of the super glue.  

Masters : The back office didn’t like what we were doing, because we didn’t have a budget. We kind of kept going until they told us to stop. Things like the Locutus suit. They told us to stop. They said, “We don’t have the budget for the Locutus suit! We’re going to use the Locutus suit from the television show.” I put my foot down and I said, “There’s a big difference between what we’re doing here and what was done from the TV show.” That was black long Johns with Battleship parts. It had phone cords wrapped around. No disrespect to the people who made that stuff, but it was made for a small screen. Our stuff had to be projected on these huge, 300-foot wide screens. I finally convinced the producer to bring in Picard’s double, so we put the television suit on the double to prove to them. Still, they said, “We don’t have the budget.” My team somehow cobbled together a suit for Locutus out of Borg parts. So we didn’t use the TV suit. We actually made it. I think the top is part of the Queen’s suit and part of one the male Borg suits. It actually didn’t close in the back, so you never see Locutus from the back.

“HEY, THAT WAS A REAL SUPERSONIC MISSILE”

First Contact was the rare Trek outing for the Next Generation cast away from the studio lot. They shot the Earth scenes in Angeles National Forrest and the Titan Missile Museum, south of Tucson, Ariz. The old missile silo doubled for Cochrane’s lab and featured an actual (unarmed) Titan II missile.

Dennis Tracy, Picard’s longtime stand-in: The Titan Missile Silo was closed down in the early ’80s and officers who had been stationed there resigned their commissions and they got permission after many years from Washington, D.C., to keep it as a museum of missiles. They had to go through a lot of red tape. I remember one night we were shooting late and I wasn’t needed, and I left the silo and I’m walking around in the desert with 50 trucks, motor homes, all this stuff in the middle of the desert, just humming, making this marvelous movie in the middle of the desert and the rest of the world is sound asleep and here is this little creative community at 11 at night, just humming in this missile silo, of all places.

Doug Drexler, designer/scenic artist: Star Trek fans can be picky. I had one guy come at me about the missile that was in the silo, that it was supposed to be a supersonic, but it had rivets on it. How could we make such a foolish mistake? I got to say, “Hey! That was a real supersonic missile. We just put a nose cone on it.”

Frakes : It wasn’t glamorous, but it was nice to get out of the studio. We were shooting at night in the woods. I think it was a couple weeks of nights. A lot of us ended up staying in hotels up there close to the Angeles Crest so we could sleep during the day and just roll into work.

Eaves : For Zefram’s ship, the script read beautifully: They had built it out of a missile. They were using crude materials. We went back to the Apollo style of the big thruster cones and all of that. But we figured only the capsule came back to Earth. We hadn’t read that in the script, and we’re watching the movie and they are on this missile silo looking at it and Picard goes “Yeah, I’ve seen this in the Smithsonian many times,” and I’m going, “What?! The whole thing comes back!” It was never designed to do that.

David Takemura, visual effects supervisor : For the Vulcan ship, the actual landing was a computer graphic model. The art department built the landing foot, which was one of the landing legs on the ship, and the Vulcan ambassadors walk out of that. That was an actual set piece they walked out of. Then we had some additional shots where we blended the computer graphic Vulcan ship you see in some of the wider shots in back of the landing leg.

Braga: I think the most important plot aspect of the movie and what gave it its title was that Vulcan encounter at the end. This is what Star Trek is and this is where it all began. And you want it to happen. It’s what’s at stake —  Star Trek itself — and that to me gives the movie such a strong core.

POST-PRODUCTION BEGINS

The film was perfect balance between practical effects and CG. After shooting wraps, there’s more work to be done.

Takemura: We did Geordi’s eyeball. There’s a little gag where you see his now-bionic eyes. His bionic pupils rotating. In this high-tech, visual effects world that we live in, that was decidedly low-tech. It was actually a crystal faucet shower handle that I found at Home Depot. I just took some still photographs of it and I worked with one of the compositing artists at Pacific Ocean Post. It was just rotating that crystal shower faucet handle and doing some expansions of his iris to make it look mechanical.  

Adam Howard, visual effects supervisor: I had one shot that I worked on where Patrick Stewart is in a night club and he pulls out a Tommy gun and fires it. There were two takes, apparently — and one of them had him reacting fully with the gun and the second take had him reacting much less. They chose the second take for us to work on to put the Tommy gun muzzle flashes into, but then they realized there wasn’t enough kick in his arms or a real reaction in his body from the power of the gun. I literally cut his body apart digitally and I adjusted the kickback in his arms and added a very slight jiggle to the skin in his face and we put very slight blinks in his eyes so there were reactions to muzzle flashes going off in front of him. 

Haller : I also was tasked with cutting a little buzz every time a light blinked on a Borg costume — and there were a lot. I ended up crafting Borg-ified tribbles with blinking LEDs as gifts to my supervisors.

IT’S A HIT

The film opens on Nov. 22, 1996, to acclaim from critics and fans. It’s the biggest smash in Star Trek history at the time, only trailing the beloved 1986 film Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.

Moore: Opening weekend, we rented a limo and Brannon and I, we drove around and went theater to theater, stood in the back, watched various crowds watching the different sections of the movie, then we’d drive off to the next theater. It was really fun and it was just a great night. You could just feel the energy in the house, when you were there and they were watching the sequences. Cheers and laughter and gasps and you just knew it was working.

Braga : When First Contact was released and did as well as it did, both critically and financially, I really felt — at least from my personal perspective — I never reached that height again. I would have great experiences on Voyager and became showrunner for it and all that stuff, but there was just something about going out on Friday night to go pop into audiences and see that theaters were packed and people were cheering. It was a fun time.

Frakes : Opening weekend, my wife and I went to stay with friends in Berkshires in Western Massachusetts and we stayed in a barn and I put my head down and one of my fondest memories from the entire weekend was I got a phone call from [original series star] Deforest Kelley, who I had only met briefly at Rick Berman’s house. He was a neighbor of Rick’s. And I guess he had seen the movie and he contacted Rick and asked Rick how to get in touch with me. And he called to congratulate me on how wonderful the movie is and on the success. And I carry that with me to this day.

Moore:  It was still in theaters, and again, Rick said, “Hey, this comes from Sherry Lansing. They want to start working on the next one.” Brannon and I — this time we didn’t jump at it. This time, we said, “Let’s think about this. Do we really want to do it?” There was a sense of get out on a high note. We just had a gut instinct that we didn’t want to now risk it. We had just achieved what we wanted to achieve, we had bettered Generations . We felt like we had scored that. This was a big movie. Everyone liked it. Let’s not push our luck. Rick was disappointed and Paramount was disappointed. Rick really pressed us for a while, because I think he was disappointed, but he understood ultimately and we just bowed out. We just walked off stage. This was it.

'Star Trek': The Story of the Most Daring Cliffhanger in 'Next Generation' History

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Star Trek: First Contact

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Watch Star Trek: First Contact with a subscription on Max, rent on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV, or buy on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV.

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While fans of the series will surely appreciate it, First Contact is exciting, engaging, and visually appealing enough to entertain Star Trek novices.

Audience Reviews

Cast & crew.

Jonathan Frakes

Patrick Stewart

Captain Jean-Luc Picard

Commander William Thomas Riker

Brent Spiner

Lieutenant Commander Data

LeVar Burton

Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge

Michael Dorn

Lieutenant Commander Worf

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“Star Trek: First Contact” is one of the best of the eight “ Star Trek ” films: Certainly the best in its technical credits, and among the best in the ingenuity of its plot. I would rank it beside “ Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home ” (1986), the one where the fate of Earth depended on the song of the humpback whale. This time, in a screenplay that could have been confusing but moves confidently between different levels of the story, the crew of the Enterprise follows the evil Borgs back in time to the day before mankind made its first flight at warp speed.

That flight, in 2063, was monitored by an alien race, the Vulcans, who took it as evidence that man had developed to the point where it deserved to meet another race. But now the Borgs, starting from the 24th century, want to travel back through a temporal vortex (how I love the “Star Trek” jargon!), prevent the flight and rewrite history, this time with Borgs populating the Earth instead of humans.

The latest edition of the starship is the “Enterprise E” (and there are plenty of letters left in the alphabet, Capt. Picard notes ominously). It is patrolling deep space when it learns the Borgs are attacking Earth. The Enterprise is ordered to remain where it is--probably, Picard ( Patrick Stewart ) notes bitterly, because he was a prisoner of the Borgs some six years ago, and “a man who was captured and assimilated by the Borg is an unstable element.” These Borgs are an interesting race. They are part flesh, part computer, and they “assimilate” all the races they conquer into their collective mind, which organizes their society like a hive. There is even a queen ( Alice Krige ), although she is not fat and pampered like an ant or a termite, but lean, mean and a student of seduction. One of the movie's intriguing subplots involves Data ( Brent Spiner ), the Enterprise's android, who is captured and hooked up to a Borg assimilating machine--which fails, because it can't crack his digital defenses. Then the Queen tries some analog methods all her own.

The central plot takes place as the Enterprise follows a Borg ship back through time to Earth, which, the Trekkers are dismayed to learn, is now populated by Borgs. To turn history around again, they need to be sure man's first warp flight succeeds. Earth is recovering from World War III, and a brilliant inventor named Cochrane ( James Cromwell , the tall farmer from “ Babe ”) has adapted a missile for this historic flight.

He leads a commune that seems to be part hippie, part survivalist, and spends much of his time listing to rock 'n' roll and drinking, to the despair of his associate Lily ( Alfre Woodard ). These two do not believe the weird story they get from the starship crew, and at one point Lily nearly fries Picard with a stolen gun. (He: “Maximum setting! If you had fired, you would have vaporized me.” She: “It's my first ray gun.”) The plot moves deftly between preparations for the Earth launch, Data's assimilation tortures on the Borg ship, and a fight against a Borg landing party on the Enterprise, which Picard personally directs, overruling doubts expressed by his second-in-command, William Riker ( Jonathan Frakes ) and their own assimilated Klingon, Worf ( Michael Dorn ).

Some of the earlier “Star Trek” movies have been frankly clunky in the special-effects department; the first of the series came out in 1979 and looked pale in comparison to “Star Wars.” But this one benefits from the latest advances in f/x artistry, starting with its sensational opening shot, which begins so deep inside Picard's eyeball, it looks like a star-speckled spacescape and then pulling back to encompass an unimaginably vast Borg starship. I also admired the interiors of the Borg probe, and the peculiar makeup work creating the Borg Queen, who looks like no notion of sexy I have ever heard of, but inspires me to keep an open mind.

“Star Trek” movies are not so much about action and effects as they are about ideas and dialogue. I doubted the original Enterprise crew would ever retire because I didn't think they could stop talking long enough. Here the story gives us yet another intriguing test of the differences among humans, aliens and artificial intelligence. And the paradoxes of time travel are handled less murkily than sometimes in the past. (Although explain to me once again how the Earth could be populated with millions of Borgs who are expected to vanish--or never have been--if the Enterprise succeeds. Isn't there some sort of law of conservation of energy that requires their physical bodies to come from, or be disposed of, somewhere, somehow?) “STFC” was directed by Frakes, who did some of the “ST Next Generation” shows for television, and here achieves great energy and clarity. In all of the shuffling of timelines and plotlines, I always knew where we were. He also gets some genial humor out of Cromwell, as the inventor who never wanted fame but simply enough money to go off to a “tropical island with a lot of naked women.” And there is such intriguing chemistry between Picard and the Woodard character that I hope a way is found to bring her onboard in the next film. “Star Trek” movies in the past have occasionally gone where no movie had gone, or wanted to go, before. This one is on the right beam.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film credits.

Star Trek: First Contact (1996)

Rated PG-13 For Some Sci-Fi Adventure Violence

112 minutes

Brent Spiner as Data

Alfre Woodard as Lily Sloane

LeVar Burton as Geordi La Forge

Marina Sirtis as Deanna Troi

Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard

James Cromwell as Zefram Cochrane

Alice Krige as Borg Queen

Jonathan Frakes as William Riker

Michael Dorn as Worf

Gates McFadden as Beverly Crusher

Directed by

• Jonathan Frakes
• Ronald D. Moore
• Brannon Braga

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Movie Review: 'Star Trek: First Contact'

Spanning the universe within the confines of an eyeball, Star Trek: First Contact opens deep in the unblinking peeper of Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), commander of the starship Enterprise . Then the camera pulls way back, revealing the captain imprisoned in a humongous cube of a fortress floating in deep space. The cube belongs to the terrible Borg. And Picard, it turns out, is having a flashback to a time (dating from the second TV season of Star Trek: The Next Generation ) when he was taken over by the galaxy’s most lethal, cybernetically gussied-up aliens, who are capable of assimilating all life, everywhere. ”Resistance is futile!” is the Borg war cry, and it was only by dint of his extraordinary Picardosity that J-L and his core company survived. As a result, though, the guy bears a huge personal grudge. So when news reaches the Enterprise , out there in the 24th century, that Picard’s nemesis is making another pass at evil — this time aiming, through a blip in the space-time continuum, to wreck the course of history by preventing the profound 21st-century first contact between earthlings and aliens — he and his crew hustle to stop the madness.

”Resistance is futile” may as well be the slogan of the whole 30-year-old Star Trek empire. But in zooming out from Picard’s glinty eyeball, this eighth feature film from the Trek factory displays a zippy new energy and a sleek, confident style fully independent of its predecessors: First Contact jettisons all vestiges of the later, lumbering, mat-haired William Shatner years (the baton, you remember, was officially passed two years ago with all the pomp of a papal election in Star Trek Generations ).

For this Trek (directed, in his first feature-film project, by Jonathan Frakes, who also runs in front of the camera to play Comdr. William Riker), the Enterprise itself has been spruced up. The famous command bridge no longer looks like a Best Western lobby. The team uniforms no longer look like Halloween costumes. Self-aware wit — that characteristic dialogue tone of the ’90s — is woven throughout the script by Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore, while the plot maintains the conventions of Trek feature films, i.e., parallel stories of trouble on earth and in space. Data (Brent Spiner) gets a very special subplot involving the Borg queen (Alice Krige), whose entire head is permanently, erotically lubricated. And it’s a pleasure to see guest stars Alfre Woodard and James Cromwell, as a couple of 21st-century pioneers, used in inventive contrast to their better-known images as Serious Dramatic Actress and dancing farmer in Babe . (Cromwell plays Zefram Cochrane; Trek kers will recognize him as an old friend.)

The Borg, by the way, look fabulous, owing a big debt to the creations of Alien designer H.R. Giger. They’re a breath of fresh carbon dioxide for the Next Generation team, who rise briskly to the occasion. By the time Worf (Michael Dorn), knocking off a slimy attacker, growls a Schwarzeneggerish ”Assimilate this!” we’ve already done so, with pleasure. B+

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Film / Star Trek: First Contact

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"I will not sacrifice the Enterprise . We've made too many compromises already, too many retreats. They invade our space, and we fall back. They assimilate entire worlds, and we fall back. Not again. The line must be drawn here! This far, no further! And I will make them PAY for what they've done! " — Captain Jean-Luc Picard

The one where the Borg Time Travel to Make Wrong What Once Went Right .

Star Trek: First Contact is the eighth movie in the Star Trek film series, released in 1996.

The most popular Next Generation villain, the Borg, make another attempt to assimilate Earth . The newly-commissioned USS Enterprise -E scrambles to confront them, only to learn that the Borg have decided to use Time Travel to stop Earth's First Contact with aliens and Take Over the World , thus preventing The Federation from ever existing. Arriving above Earth in the year 2063 , the Borg aim to stop Zefram Cochrane, the inventor of warp drive , from making his historic flight.

Captain Picard is having none of that. An away team (led by Riker, Troi, and Geordi ) immediately beams down to Set Right What Once Went Wrong , discovering in the process that the man their history paints as a visionary luminary was really a cynical drunk who just wanted to get rich . Regardless, they work to restore the damage the Borg caused and make sure that first contact goes as planned.

Meanwhile, as if the remaining crew didn't have enough problems, they soon discover the Borg have invaded the Enterprise and are slowly assimilating her. Picard, who was assimilated by the Borg in the TNG two-parter "The Best of Both Worlds", is a little unstable , and becomes moreso as the plot progresses. His third-in-command, Data, isn't of much use either, as he's been captured and brainwashed by the Borg Queen .

Often seen as one of the best of the series—let alone the best TNG film—as well as a major step-up from Generations . Continued with Star Trek: Insurrection .

First Contact provides examples of the following tropes:

• Abandon Ship : Captain Picard finally realizes the fight for the Enterprise is futile, and orders his crew to leave the ship in escape pods aimed at an isolated island.
• Accidental Misnaming : Cochrane to Troi, establishing the former as a Bunny-Ears Lawyer . Cochrane : Look, Deena— Troi : De anna !
• Actionized Sequel : Compared to most of the previous films this movie is notably action heavy (and has been praised by some for it).
• Actor Allusion : La Forge's exposition to Cochrane about how the whole launch site will become a museum and Cochrane is standing where his statue is going to be sure channels LeVar Burton 's work on Reading Rainbow .
• After the End : The crew travels back in time to the mid-21st century, when civilization is in ruins following World War III (the Enterprise herself comes from centuries further ahead, After The New Beginning as it were, and Zefram Cochrane's warp-drive experiment is about to give Earth a huge push in that direction).
• Alas, Poor Villain : Data, and to a lesser degree, Picard, are a little sorry that the Borg Queen is dead in the end.
• The Alcoholic : We first see Dr. Cochrane stumbling drunk out of a bar before the Borg attack sobers him up in a hurry, and the next time we see him he is getting thoroughly re-plastered in the same bar. He also sneaks nips from a flask, so when Geordi La Forge spots someone in the woods from some distance away he knows it's definitely Cochrane when he sees him take a drink.
• Alien Arts Are Appreciated : Apparently not , since the Vulcans seem a little weirded out by Cochrane's choice of music.
• Alien Invasion : Implied as to the Borg's motives — had they succeeded, they'd have invaded and assimilated the entire Earth, as the Enterprise detects whilst in the time vortex.
• Aliens in Cardiff : In the Star Trek universe, First Contact with an alien species takes place in rural Montana.
• Aliens Speaking English : The Vulcan envoy addresses Cochrane with the traditional Vulcan greeting, "Live long and prosper" in clear English, despite this being the Vulcans' first encounter with humans and no evident Translator Microbes . But it had long been established in the novels (and would later be canonized in ENT) that the Vulcans had been observing Earth for decades by this point, and they made First Contact now because it occurred during one of these survey missions.
• Allegiance Affirmation : Data pulls a Fake Defector on the Borg Queen. During the scene where he's supposedly turned on Starfleet, the Queen makes Picard watch as Data fires torpedoes at The Phoenix. She doesn't notice in the background as he gets closer and closer to the coolant tanks, until the torpedoes miss the Phoenix entirely. She turns, realizing a moment too late what's happened, as Data smugly declares his allegiance to Starfleet by declaring that "Resistance is Futile."
• The Star Trek: Voyager episode " Scorpion ", which aired months later, fully explains the Borg assimilation process such as the Borg nanoprobes which is shown but left unexplained in this film.
• Earth (and, by proxy, the Alpha Quadrant) has already been conquered in alternate 2373.
• By the end of the movie, much of the interior of the Enterprise -E resembles a Borg Cube. Picard's madness is more understandable when you recall that he's now lost three ships, this one practically new.
• And I Must Scream : The Enterprise crewmembers who are being assimilated all look like they know what's happening to them and are powerless to stop it.
• Anywhere but Their Lips : Picard gives Lily a peck on the cheek.
• Apocalypse How : It's set shortly after a major nuclear exchange has caused a human die-back on Earth note  killing 600 million out of the projected world population of 8-10 billion(6-7.5%), although that may just be direct casualties, and the death toll from long term radiation effects could have been many times higher, especially if the Vulcans hadn't arrived to offer advanced medical treatments (Class 1, bordering on Class 2). Naturally the Borg want to escalate it to engineered human extinction or Assimilation.
• Art Evolution : The movie was right in a transitional phase for both the franchise and Hollywood in general in switching to both CGI creations and digital compositing, as opposed to traditional physical models and optical compositing. Most of the new ship designs seen in the opening battle were entirely CG models, along with a number of other visual effects like the escape pods, the Phoenix taking off and uninterrupted opening shot of the Borg complex that would have been much more difficult with older techniques.
• Ascended Fanboy : The whole Enterprise crew, but especially Riker and Geordi, who go from reading about Cochrane's first warp drive flight to helping him prepare for it. And in Geordi and Riker's case, they get to take part in the actual flight!
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership : After the admiral's ship is destroyed, Picard takes command of the fleet by virtue of flying the most powerful ship in the armada, even though a large majority of the other Federation starships' commanding officers in the battle are also likely ranked Captain. Star Trek: Voyager will later establish this as a regulation that the most powerful ship in battle takes charge when two or more commanding officers of equal rank are in combat without a superior officer (in this particular case, Commodore or higher) present.
• Assimilation Plot : Since this film deals with the Borg, it's a foregone conclusion.
• Attack! Attack! Attack! : Starfleet resorts to this as the Borg Cube begins to reach Earth, after the Starfleet admiral leading their defense had been lost and the battle appeared to be the Federation's last stand.
• Attack Its Weak Point : Once Picard and the Enterprise are on the scene of the Borg's attack, he rallies the battered remnants of the armada and focuses all their firepower on a seemingly non-vital system, which reduces the entire Borg cube to a massive green explosion. Also, from a historical perspective, the Borg travel back and attack mankind at their weakest point; 10 years after World War III when the planet is in ruins, most of the world's cities and governments are gone, and over 600 million people are dead. For bonus points, by interfering with Human/Vulcan First Contact, they will prevent the Federation from forming and weaken the entire Alpha Quadrant in the process.
• Picard, after being confronted with the decision to destroy the Enterprise or to continue fighting a near-hopeless battle against the Borg. (See his quote above.)
• The Borg drone that was originally Lieutenant Hawk is noticeably aggressive and murderous, as he attempts to kill Picard outright rather than assimilate him.
• Bad Present : Borgified Earth. The atmosphere is copper brown note  consisting of high concentrations of methane, carbon monoxide and fluorine , of all things , the landscape is metallic grey, and transport links stretch like cobwebs over the oceans.
• Badass Boast : " Brave words. I've heard them before, from thousands of species across thousands of worlds, since long before you were created. And now, they are all Borg." Data counters "I am unlike any being you have ever encountered."
• Batman Gambit : Data's attempts at lying earlier in the movie are really really REALLY poor. This turns out to be a ploy to trick the Borg Queen into thinking he's a terrible liar, so when he later lies convincingly about his change of allegiance, the Borg Queen fails to realize he's playing her.
• Become a Real Boy : The Borg Queen attempts to win Data over by giving him the gift of organic skin and the ability to experience tactile sensations as a human would, something that the movie sets up earlier on that he can't do.
• Been There, Shaped History : Played straight and averted. The only change that the crew really does is that Riker and Geordi take the flight with Cochrane instead of Lily (though see Stable Time Loop below). However, Picard instructs his crew while abandoning the Enterprise to take their lifepods to Gravett Island (an isolated isle in the South Pacific) and as for the rest of the crew already in Bozeman, to find a "quiet corner of North America and stay out of history's way." The crew also only stick around in the background to watch first contact (who wouldn't?) before making a quiet exit, stage left.
• Big Bad : The Borg Queen is the leader of the Assimilation Plot employed by the Borg by preventing the first Earth warp flight, enabling the Borg to take over Earth. For what it's worth, she's the only female Big Bad in all thirteen Star Trek movies to date.
• Big Damn Heroes : After the Enterprise saved the Defiant , Worf returns the favor when he saves Picard from an assimilated Hawk.
• Big "NO!" : Picard yells "No!" when Lily tells him to blow up the Enterprise due to his revenge against the Borg getting the better of him, complete with smashing his model ship collection .
• Blind Shoulder Toss : After having a glass of "the good stuff" with Troi, and gagging on it, Cochrane decides it wasn't so good and tosses the bottle away.
• The Borg take a level in gross for their trip to the big screen. Especially the Queen, who is introduced as a disembodied head attached to a snakelike robotic spine before she's fitted onto her largely mechanical body. Also, assimilation in general. There is entire montage of footage in the film showing the Borg quickly assimilating the ship and crew, ending with the fresh drones being escorted in with their skin in patches, turning white with gray blood vessels; the sickbay converted to an assimilation chamber with crew hooked up to strange medical equipment; and seeing the attachment of the Borg prostheses. Bonus horror points: the score for the entire scene is "Smorgasborg."
• Data, as more and more of his artificial skin is replaced with organic flesh takes on a ghoulish appearance as if sewn together from several corpses . Appropriate, since the only source of flesh the Borg would have is what their new drones don't need... Even worse is after the climax, seeing Data after all of the organic flesh has been burned off his body and you can see the exposed circuitry underneath.
• Dr. Cochrane borrows Picard's "Engage!" when he gives the first order to engage a Human-made warp drive. Riker and LaForge , on board as flight technicians, exchange giddy glances, knowing the historical weight of the context.
• Data borrows the Borg's catchphrase when he reveals he was faking his betrayal. "Resistance is futile."
• Brick Joke : The jukebox's loud music.
• Broken Faceplate : Picard takes a blow to the head while wearing a Starfleet space suit, causing the visor to crack. Fortunately for him, it still holds.
• Broken Pedestal : Cochrane. Unusually for this trope, the crew doesn't seem to mind. Cochrane slowly coming around is a lighter inversion of Picard falling from the "more evolved" sense of responsibility and morality he tells Lily humans have in the 24th century.
• Cochrane is without a doubt one of the brightest minds of his time. He's also a heavy drinker and thinks first contact is best celebrated with whiskey and dancing. In the Novelization , based on the original script, it's revealed that Cochrane is bipolar and was fitted with a cerebral implant to administer the proper medication, but since he couldn't get refills for it after World War III, he took to self-medicating with alcohol.
• Reg Barclay, Enterprise ' s own resident Bunny-Ears Lawyer , also has a small cameo as part of the engineering team helping to fix the damaged Phoenix . In between showing Geordi the makeshift plasma conduit he managed to rig together out of bits of spare junk, he also geeks out over meeting Cochrane.
• Can't Hold His Liquor : Troi gets royally plastered trying to get information with Cochrane. Then again, if you spent most of your life drinking Synthehol, what chance would you have against Post-Apocalyptic moonshine?! Troi: (slurring, stumbling over tables) I'm just trying to blend in! Riker: You're blended, all right.
• Moby-Dick is a major theme in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , though from a villainous angle, with Khan quoting Ahab, "To the last, I will grapple with thee... from Hell's heart, I stab at thee! For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee!" Picard quotes from the exact same scene, from the narrator's perspective; Picard: "And he piled upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the rage and hate felt by his whole race. If his chest had been a cannon, he would have shot his heart upon it."
• The Enterprise-E is a Sovereign -class, which is a huge design call-back to the TOS-era Constitution class, but flattened out, larger and sleeker.
• One of the ships in the Fleet vs. the Borg was the Bozeman from the television episode " Cause and Effect ".
• When the Borg Queen asks Data when the last time he had sexual intercourse was, his answer (including Data's comment that's he's "fully functional" and "programmed in multiple techniques") dates back to TNG 's second episode " The Naked Now ". (On a side note, this means that he never had sex with Jenna D'Sora in the episode " In Theory ".)
• The holonovel Picard runs in order to access a Tommy Gun is " The Big Goodbye ". This callback is especially apt as the plot of that episode is not only the first ever Holodeck malfunction, but also features a character being maimed with a holographic gun. In this case, the safeties were deliberately turned off to achieve the same effect.
• Also in the list of holographic programs are " Cafe des Artistes " and " Charnock's Comedy Cabaret ".
• Worf's "Perhaps today is a good day to die!'' is a call-back to a few Klingon episodes.
• Riker calls the Defiant a "tough little ship"; Thomas Riker had said the exact same thing to Sisko . Given First Contact co-writer Ronald D. Moore also wrote "Defiant", it's almost certainly an intentional callback. Worf: (displeased) ...'Little'??
• Data rapidly encrypts the Enterprise systems, just like he did in the TNG episode " Brothers ".
• The order to arm a self-destruct sequence on the Enterprise requires two bridge officers to give a code followed by a final authorization code from the Captain, just as in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock .
• The film's closing shot is a close replication of the closing shot of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier . Co-writer Ronald D. Moore notes on the invoked DVD Commentary that the writers had a very firm policy of not acknowledging that film's existence in any way, shape or form, but didn't take it so seriously as to demand that director Jonathan Frakes remove the shot.
• Lily's argument with Picard has some similarities with Picard's own argument with Ambassador Sarek in TNG's " Sarek ", as an emotionally-compromised character is confronted about being unable to control their own emotions after their subordinates were unwilling to stand up to them.
• The Cameo : Robert Picardo as the Enterprise -E EMH and Ethan Phillips along with producer Brannon Braga in the holodeck club scene, with Phillips being the one stopping the drones and being disrupted by Borg laser scanners. Dwight Schultz as recurring character Reginald Barclay also appears. The Millennium Falcon can also (just barely) be seen zipping around the battle with the Borg cube as a Creator In-Joke on the part of Industrial Light & Magic .
• Capital Offensive : This is the second time the Borg launch an attack on Earth directly, though this time they actually come close enough to bombard the surface.
• Cargo Ship : Lampooned in-universe by Troi. Picard reaches out and touches the Phoenix , because he was never allowed to do so seeing her at a museum, and Data tries to understand why touching her would mean anything, which makes for an interesting conversation for Troi to walk in on... Troi: (amused) Would you three like to be alone?
• Casting Gag : The Enterprise ' s Emergency Medical Holographic program (EMH) is played by Robert Picardo . At the time of the film's release Picardo was starring as a different iteration of the same computer programme on Star Trek: Voyager .
• Catapult Nightmare : Averted and then played straight during Picard's Dream Within a Dream . When he falsely wakes up from his first nightmare he simply opens his eyes while sitting in his desk chair; when he wakes up for real, he jumps up from his bed (although what wakes him up is a distress call, so there's somewhat more logic to it).
• Character Development : Again, this film is Worf's first return to the TNG corner of the 24th Century since joining DS9 . So he gets to demonstrate his character growth during his time serving under Sisko and after shifting from security to the command track. In particular, the Worf of TNG would never have stood up to Picard and openly challenged his continuing to fight a hopeless battle against the Borg.
• Chekhov's Gun : During the battle against the Borg cube, Picard hears the Collective in his head, allowing him to exploit a weakness in the cube and destroy it. Later, while he's on the surface of 21st-century Earth, he hears the voices again and realizes that the Borg are on the Enterprise . Towards the end, as he's preparing to evacuate the self-destructing Enterprise, he hears Data's voice in his head and realizes that Data is still onboard the ship and in the Borg's captivity.
• Chekhov's Lecture : Picard's plan in the battle on Deck 16 is to rupture one of the coolant tanks by the warp core, flooding Engineering with the corrosive materials inside and destroying the Collective the Borg have established there. This plan is repelled by the Borg before Picard's team even gets inside Engineering, but breaking one of the coolant tanks is how Data finally defeats the Borg in the climax of the film.
• Chewing the Scenery : During the scene where Picard gives his Motive Rant to Lily about where he was once Borgified and made into Locutus as the reason for his hatred of the Borg , Picard lets out a Big "NO!" (not willing to let go of and blow up the Enterprise ) and smashes a glass display of past Enterprises, including the 1701-D, which he helmed.
• China Takes Over the World : The Eastern Coalition or ECON, one of the factions in the Third World War (and who Cochrane originally thinks the Borg's attack comes from) is said to be a version of this in the Star Trek Expanded Universe , although it's not detailed in the film itself.
• Choke Holds : During the melee on Deck 16, Data kills a Borg drone by grabbing its neck and slamming it into a wall.
• City Planet : Earth has become this under Borg rule in an alternate timeline. Oddly enough the population consists of only 9 billion Borg even though the planet's entire surface seems to have been completely urbanized and technified. Presumably, the rest of the space is taken up by automated factories or other automated urbanization. Possibly justified —at the end of 2012, the world population was only 7 billion, and realistically, without significant advances in farming and food production, the world cannot support much more than about 9 or 10 billion. A significant amount of humans were most likely rendered unable to be assimilated by use of nuclear weaponry. 9 billion may be a high number. The Borg may have also moved drones both on and off the planet in the 300-ish years, so it's anyone's guess as to how many of those 9 billion life forms were once human.
• The Borg drone who is slashed up by Worf makes a small hole in the knee of Worf's spacesuit, forcing him to pause and try and close the leak. Of course by then, it's too late for the drone.
• Lily, probably due to her having to live in the post-atomic horror. She's fully willing to shoot at two (seemingly) unarmed men who are claiming to help her, even shooting one of them in the back when given the opportunity to do so. When she later finds out that the Enterprise crew has the ability to auto-destruct the ship and escape she's absolutely flabbergasted that they haven't done so.
• Comic-Book Adaptation : By Marvel Comics .
• Conqueror from the Future : The Borg's plan.
• Robert told Jean-Luc in " Family " that he was going to have to live with being turned into one of the Borg for a long, long time. This film showed that, yes, Picard definitely had not gotten over it, even after having dealt with Hugh .
• The moon hiding the Enterprise -E from the approaching Vulcan ship is probably a nod to The Wrath of Khan , where the Enterprise hid from the Reliant by circling around Regula on its opposite side.
• When Picard shatters the glass case in the Ready Room and the starship models fall to the ground he takes a long look at the Enterprise -D, destroyed in the previous film . Heavily implied in the movie, the novelization confirms that he was wondering if he was upset over losing another Enterprise or if he was actually lost in revenge .
• Data's sexual experience with Tasha is referenced, and the time since is even accurate In-Universe .
• The Enterprise -E is also carrying Quantum Torpedoes, which had debuted on DS9 during the interim between Generations and this film.
• Doctor Crusher's mention of the Borg coming from the Delta Quadrant is a hint that the Voyager crew would be encountering them in the future.
• The USS Defiant was introduced on Deep Space Nine as being a prototype starship specifically designed to fight the Borg. Apparently it was a running fight from where the fleet engaged the cube to when it came in orbit around Earth. This is the only time the ship got to fulfill her purpose, and despite her size, she lasted the entire running fight from initial contact all the way to Earth, which lasted three hours .
• One of the starships fighting the Borg was the Millennium Falcon in a sub-blink-and-you-miss-it cameo courtesy of ILM who worked on special effects for the film.
• The Borg Cube, as in the series, is a huge, menacing cube of circuitry and organics, flying ominously through space.
• Cowardice Callout : After the Borg have taken over several decks of the Enterprise , Picard insists they stay and fight, against Worf's suggestion that they evacuating the ship and setting her to auto-destruct, resulting in the following exchange: Worf : With all due respect, sir, ...I believe you are allowing your personal experience with the Borg to influence your judgement. Picard : You're afraid. You want to destroy the ship and run away. You coward. Crusher : Jean-Luc... Worf : ( Death Glare ) If you were any other man I would kill you where you stand. Picard : Get off my bridge .
• Crapsack World : By all accounts, Earth of 2063 is a pretty miserable Scavenger World in which everyone is suffering from radiation poisoning to one degree or another, and things like murder are commonplace. Not surprising, considering it's the aftermath of World War III .
• First Contact occurs in rural Montana, outside Bozeman. Writer Brannon Braga is from Bozeman, Montana. It also, retroactively, makes an appearance of the USS Bozeman in the tv series more meaningful.
• Zefram Cochrane himself, who was firmly established in TOS as being an inhabitant of the Alpha Centuari system, is retconned here into being an Earthling (an American Earthling, naturally).
• Cruel and Unusual Death : The Borg Queen is killed by Data dragging her into a cloud of plasma coolant engulfing main engineering, liquefying her organic components as she screams in agony. Even that is not enough, however. After Picard uses the ventilation system to clear out the gas, her robotic brain and upper spine are still helplessly writhing on the floor. Picard snaps that in two to finally kill her, which is probably a Mercy Kill .
• Cryptically Unhelpful Answer : The Borg Queen's answer to Data's question of whether she controls the Borg. Queen: I bring order to chaos. Data: An interesting, if...cryptic, response.
• Curb-Stomp Battle : Starfleet fares better against the Borg than at Wolf 359, but the battle still goes very badly: the Borg Cube tears through Starfleet's lines in seconds, and destroys or cripples at least 10-15 Federation capital ships. Listening to the subspace transmissions of the damage and request for help convince Picard to take the Enterprise into battle. Picard's crew don't do so well against the Borg inside the ship either; they manage to assimilate half the ship in a matter of hours and only stop momentarily to use the Deflector Dish as an interstellar communication device so they can contact the other Borg.
• Curb Stomp Cushion : Though the Starfleet armada still gets the shit kicked out of it before the Enterprise rallies the armada, they manage to inflict heavy damage to the Borg cube's outer hull and are causing power grid disruptions; a far better showing than at Wolf 359.
• Cut the Juice : After taking over engineering, the Borg reroute all the power to Deck 16, making other decks inoperable.
• Dawn of an Era : Zefram Cochrane's first warp flight not only gives humanity a means of practical interstellar travel, it also prompts the Vulcans to come meet us face-to-face. When humanity discovers it is not alone we mature enormously, which ushers in the end of post- World War III misery and leads eventually to humans and the Earth becoming one of the founders of the Federation. Deanna : It unites humanity in a way no one ever thought possible when they realize they're not alone in the universe. Poverty, disease, war. They'll all be gone within the next fifty years.
• Darker and Edgier : TNG was sometimes criticized for lacking in action and character drama, which admittedly was because Gene Roddenberry wanted a series that spent more time on ideas rather than violence and characters who argue all the time. This movie is a rock-em action flick with some serious interpersonal conflict (Picard and Worf especially), with a literally darker color palette in both the new uniforms and the sets even before Borg assimilation. This was the first Star Trek film to receive the PG-13 rating, although in the UK, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan was initially rated 15. note  Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country only averted it by changing the color of Klingon blood
• Deadly Gas : The plasma coolant, once exposed to air, manifests as a gaseous substance heavier than air, creating a brownish-green fog of death on the ground floor of Engineering.
• Deal with the Devil : Data seems to accept the Borg Queen's offer to give him organic skin and tactile sensation in exchange for his support of her cause. However, he was a Fake Defector the whole time. Picard later asks him if he actually considered her proposal, and Data replies that he did... for "0.68 seconds, sir." note  "For an android, that is nearly an eternity."
• Department of Redundancy Department : Think time travel is confusing now? Try discussing it with alcohol. Troi: TIMELINE?! This is no time to argue about time ! We don't have the time ! (hic) What was I saying?
• Detrimental Determination : Picard starts slipping down this slope in fighting the Borg assimilation of the Enterprise-E , but is eventually pulled out of it by an escalatory needling from Lily. She compares Picard to Captain Ahab , which he acknowledges when he snaps out of it .
• Did the Earth Move for You, Too? : When the Borg Queen blows lightly on Data's new skin, causing goosebumps, Data gasps at his first organic sensual experience. She invokes the trope, asking, "Was that good for you?"
• "Die Hard" on an X : Picard's storyline in last third of the movie is pretty much Die Hard on the Enterprise . Picard is the last (fully) human crewmember on the ship that has been taken over by the Borg and feels obliged to rescue Data. While all the Jeffries tube crawling has taken place already earlier in the movie, it should be noted that in this last segment Picard even sports a very John McClane -like tank top. It isn't the first time, though.
• Disobeyed Orders, Not Punished : Picard has been ordered by Starfleet Command to stay away from Earth and the approaching Borg cube, fearing "an unstable element" due to his prior experience with being assimilated. Picard overhears the carnage befalling the fleet over subspace radio, and then informs the crew that he's about to disobey a direct order from Starfleet, and if anyone has any objections, speak up and it will be noted in the ship's log. It turns out that Starfleet's concerns were NOT unfounded, but Picard managed to save the day and is not punished for it.
• Distressed Dude : Data is captured early on by the Borg and held in engineering.
• Does Not Know His Own Strength : Played with when Data tries to use the manual override to open the door to Engineering and the handle comes off in his hand, though this is more because the Borg have sealed the door.
• Picard's hate for the Borg in his "The line must be drawn here" speech is like a person's hate for a rapist. Many actors and producers have said Picard's trauma after assimilation was modeled on a rape victim, while the Body Horror of assimilation was specifically designed to evoke a sexual assault.
• It's also a Cold War reference, containment and domino effect; it's why the United States fought The Vietnam War — This Far, No Farther! Older pulp sci-fi often represented communism as Borg-like in the era's rhetoric (the accusations of its collectivist, materialist, and racially uniform nature at home here and in Cold War propaganda, though fascism and other foreign ideologies were described similarly ).
• The interactions between Picard, Data, and the Borg Queen come across as a jilted girlfriend wanting to show her ex how he could never measure up to her new boyfriend, and prove that she's totally winning the break-up.
• The Borg Queen introducing Data to the *ahem* pleasures of the flesh. See Did the Earth Move for You, Too? , above.
• Early in the film, after briefing the command crew of the orders from Starfleet to keep the Enterprise on the Neutral Zone, Picard is in his quarters, looking out the window, listening to loud opera. note  Berlioz, as he notes in the scene We see Riker's reflection enter the scene just as the music hits a crescendo.
• Later in the film, Lily is holding Picard at phaser-point, saying she wants to get out of there. Picard taps a panel, opening a slot in the wall, showing the Earth, revealing for the first time to her that she's currently in space. Lily, stunned, realizes there's no glass. Picard touches the surface, revealing the force field keeping the air in.
• Dramatic Space Drifting : As Picard, Worf, and Lieutenant Hawk attempt to disconnect the interplexing beacon from the Enterprise , a Borg drone advances on Hawk before being shot with a phaser rifle, the force launching him off the hull and leaving the drone to aimlessly drift in space.
• Dramatic Shattering : Picard smashes the model ships in his quarters in his rage at the Borg, prompting Lily to remark, "You broke your little ships".
• The Dreaded : Picard notes in his log that the Borg are the Federation's most lethal enemy bar none and that he has been dreading another attack by them for nearly six years.
• Dream Intro / Dream Within a Dream : The film starts with not one but two of these, as Captain Picard is having nightmares about his assimilation by the Borg seven years prior. He is on the Borg cube, but it's All Just a Dream , so he rinses himself off when a Borg implant pops from his face, but that's All Just a Dream too!
• Early-Installment Weirdness : The viewscreen on the Enterprise -E's bridge is depicted in this movie as a hologram — when the viewscreen is turned off, the front of the bridge is just a blank wall. In subsequent movies, the Enterprise -E has a more conventional viewscreen like other Star Trek ships.
• Embarrassing Statue : The crew assisting Cochrane in getting the Phoenix ready keep showering him with hero worship, but it's when Geordi starts telling him about the statue that will be built of him in the future that he snaps and tries to escape. Cochrane : I don't want to be your statue! Riker : We don't have time for this. ( stuns Cochrane with a phaser then turns to Geordi ) You told him about the statue?
• Emergency Temporal Shift : The Enterprise is able to destroy the Borg cube before it can assimilate Earth; unfortunately, the Borg themselves escape the destruction of their ship via a sphere ship that they promptly pilot through a temporal warp before it can be shot down down. As a result, a Bad Future ensues in which Earth was assimilated by the Borg long before Starfleet was ever established, forcing the Enterprise to follow the Borg through the warp in order to preserve the past.
• The End of the Beginning : The film ends with the dawn of the new era ushered in by the eponymous first contact with the Vulcans.
• Epic Launch Sequence : The Phoenix arguably manages this twice in one flight - first as she blasts off from her silo in Bozeman, Montana (with Steppenwolf 's "Magic Carpet Ride" blaring on the way up), and second as she deploys her prototype warp engines and makes the jump to lightspeed, setting in motion a path that will change the face of the galaxy forever .
• Epic Tracking Shot : The movies start almost inside Picard's eye and then pulls back to show the humongous Borg complex he was in, All Just a Dream , or rather a traumatic memory.
• Escape Pod : The crew evacuate the Enterprise in several of them. We never see them go back up when the ship gets saved.
• Evil Overlooker : The poster does this in a pretty interesting manner. Data and Picard are wary of an approaching army of Borg drones underneath them, but the Borg Queen, the film's Big Bad , is hovering over them both.
• After figuring out where on Earth the Borg were attacking, Picard needs to know the date and realizes what's really going on. Picard: They were firing at the surface. Location? Riker: Western hemisphere, North American continent. Looks like a missile complex in central Montana. Picard: A missile complex...the date! Mister Data, I need to know the exact date. Data: April 4th, 2063. Riker: April 4th. The day before First Contact . Data: Precisely. Crusher: Then the missile complex must be the one where Zefram Cochrane is building his warp ship. Picard: That's what they came here to do. Stop First Contact.
• Picard, when he asks Lt. Hawk to describe the environmental conditions in Engineering: Hawk: Atmospheric pressure was two kilopascals above normal, ninety-two percent humidity, thirty-nine point one degrees Celsius. Picard: Thirty-nine point one degrees Celsius. ...Like a Borg ship. They knew their ship was doomed. Our shields were down; somehow, they transported over here without being detected. They'll assimilate the Enterprise and then...Earth.
• Eye Scream : To Picard. In the freaking opening sequences, no less! Later on, assimilated Enterprise crew appear to have had one of their eyes gouged out and replaced with some kind of interface circuitry prior the the installation of an eyepiece.
• Facepalm : After Drunk Cochrane restores power to the jukebox and starts drunkenly dancing again, Riker dances slightly too... and then Troi passes out, which Riker promptly responds to with a facepalm.
• Failed a Spot Check : When discussing why the Borg stopped on Deck 11, the crewmember names several departments including Deflector Control, before dismisses it as not being a vital system. In "Best of Both Worlds," the crew of the Enterprise-D were capable of turning the deflector dish into an anti-Borg cannon. Thanks to Locutus, it didn't work , but the idea that that system could be turned into a weapon probably should have been considered by the crew. This becomes particularly baffling when you remember that the deflector dish is the only thing allowing the ship to travel at Warp without being destroyed by space dust. Considering at this point the Borg also controlled engineering, how did they know they weren't intending to head back to the Delta Quadrant after sabotaging First Contact?
• Failsafe Failure : In order to get into the sealed off Engineering, Data accesses the main door's manual release system. And then he manages to tear the whole thing out of the wall. Oops. And of course this wakes the Borg up.
• Fake Defector : Data is seduced by the Borg Queen with the promise of becoming more human by having human skin grafted onto his body and serving as her consort. He pretends to join them by deactivating the Enterprise ' s self-destruct and firing at the Phoenix ...only for the shots to deliberately miss, at which point he reveals his duplicity to a furious Borg Queen and enacts the warp core plasma coolant rupture plan, willingly forsaking the superficial opportunity of becoming more human by experiencing the sensation of skin in exchange for retaining his deeper humanity by remaining loyal to his friends and nation. Data notes that he actually considered the offer for 0.68 seconds — for an android like him, that is almost an eternity. (viewscreen shows torpedo volley missing the Phoenix quite deliberately by a hair) Borg Queen: (furious) DATA!!! Data: Resistance. Is. Futile. (Data smashes open the warp core's plasma coolant tank and immediately gets a facefull as the contents spill out into the room)
• Fan Disservice : What's left of the Borg Queen after her flesh melts off.
• Fashions Never Change : Averted. Picard tells the computer to replicate mid-21st century clothing for the away team before beaming down.
• Fate Worse than Death : Picard expresses this conviction about being turned into a Borg drone. While the strike team is preparing after the Borg are found to have infiltrated the Enterprise , he tells his men that when they encounter assimilated crew members they shouldn't hesitate to kill them, because they'll be doing them a favor.
• First Contact : Obviously. Also the very thing that the Borg try to prevent.
• Before first leading the crew into battle against the Borg, Picard advises Data to switch off his emotion chip when he starts feeling fear, then glibly says "Data, there are times when I envy you..." after he complies. Around the climax of the film, Picard's struggle with his own emotions turns out to be one of the movie's primary themes, becoming evident when his desire for revenge against the Borg nearly drives him mad .
• Foreshadowing the same madness, Picard starts screaming in rage as he machine-guns down a couple of Borg drones inside the holodeck and is about to pistol-whip the corpse before Lily stops him.
• Before heading to the surface with a team, Geordi observes it's unusually warm in engineering and tells a subordinate to check the environmental controls. We later learn this is the first indication the Borg have snuck aboard and are slowly taking over the ship.
• Lily and Riker. Both are Number Two for their respective places, but get switched for story purposes. Lily is a 21st Century person involuntarily dropped in the middle of 24th Century affairs, she helps keep Picard grounded and not become overwhelmed by the task of defeating the Borg. Riker, on the other hand, is a 24th Century person, put in a 21st Century position, where he helps put Cochrane back on task of completing his flight.
• Cochrane and Picard. Cochrane is running from his destiny, while Picard charges head first into facing his past.
• Crossing over with Deliberate Value Dissonance, the mid-24th Century and late 21 Century. The former is enlightened, has no need for money, and (Picard not withstanding) is above revenge and being hurt by their idol not living up to the image. The latter is cynical and war-weary, paranoid, and humanity's Darkest Hour .
• Foregone Conclusion : In-universe example. Picard's known ever since Wolf 359 that another Borg attack on the Federation was inevitible. He admits in his log that he's been dreading this day for nearly 6 years.
• Frontline General : Picard personally leads the first attempt to retake engineering.
• When Cochrane whacks the jukebox back to life, a drunken patron is jolted awake and immediately goes back to drinking his booze.
• When Picard is using a holographic tommy-gun to fill a couple of Borg with holographic lead, most of the holodeck program's NPCs are running for cover... except for Nicky "The Nose", who's still sitting at his table, calmly smoking his cigar.
• Well, not "funny" in the slightest, but watch when the Borg cube goes up. One of the Starfleet ships doesn't quite manage to get out of the blast radius. Poor souls.
• Future Imperfect : Only applies in the crew's hero worship of Cochrane. Otherwise — like many other Time Travel Tropes in this film — averted. Picard simply asks the computer to make them some period costume and then they fit right in.
• The Future Will Be Better : Not from the perspective of the viewers, but from that of the people living in the wreck of late twenty-first century Earth. Although there is a little bit of linguistic confusion.
• Picard says this to Lily when she confronts him about his lust for revenge against the Borg.
• Earlier, Picard tells Worf to get out of his bridge when he said he would kill Picard right where he stood if he was "any other man", after Picard called him a coward for suggesting they get off the Enterprise .
• Giving Someone the Pointer Finger : Marina Sirtis likes her drunken bar scene the best, because seven years of playing Troi had erased her ability to be funny. "So (poke) don't (poke) go criticizing (poke) my counseling (poke) techniques!"
• Going Down with the Ship : Even after Picard reluctantly agrees to set the self-destruct sequence on the Enterprise -E in order to destroy the Borg, he remains behind due to the fact that Data is still in the Borg's clutches.
• Greeting Gesture Confusion : The Vulcans greet Cochrane and humanity with "Live long and prosper" and its accompanying salute. Cochrane tries to return the salute himself, but can't, deciding to simply shake his hand saying "Thanks", instead.
• Grievous Harm with a Body : Data throws a dead Borg drone into two more.
• Gunship Rescue : During the space battle between the Federation fleet and the Borg cube, the Defiant (captained by Lt. Commander Worf) is almost destroyed and prepares to ram herself into the cube, before the Enterprise shows up to position herself between the Borg and Worf's ship. Worf: Report! Helmsman: Main power's offline, we've lost shields, and our weapons are gone! Worf: ( pounds a console in frustration ) Then perhaps today is a good day to die! Prepare for ramming speed!! Helmsman: Sir, there's another starship coming in! It's the Enterprise !
• Also hand waved is the explanation on how the Borg Queen survived the destruction of the Borg cube that Picard was on as Locutus .
• Hearing Voices : Picard can't get the Collective out of his head...
• Heel Realization : Picard, after Lily finally gets through to him that he is on a Captain Ahab -esque revenge quest, which is going to get his crew killed. "And he piled upon the whale's white hump, a sum of all the rage and hate felt by his own race. If his chest had been a cannon, he would have shot his heart upon it."
• Cochrane's "Oh, wow " line toward the end of the warp flight (and his cameo early in "Broken Bow" ) indicate that he's on his way to becoming the man history remembers by the end of the film, however. And the novelization indicates that Cochrane had major mental illnesses that he was self-medicating with alcohol when his supply of meds ran out during World War III.
• Hitler Cam : When Lily meets Worf, the camera angles have Worf (a large fellow) looming over the more petite Lily, emphasizing how intimidating he is to her.
• Hive Queen : The Borg Queen, who claims to somehow be the Collective rather than simply control it (don't worry, the characters don't quite get it, either). Presumably the "Queen" is simply a personification of the Collective, assembled whenever one is deemed necessary for one-on-one interaction. Especially considering the number of times she has come back from the dead. Ever since her debut in First Contact , whether her existence is a good or bad idea has been a matter of great debate. Note that she never actually refers to herself as a Queen, or even the leader of the Borg. The other characters do. "You imply disparity where there is none. I AM the Collective."
• Hold the Line . The Captain Ahab variety. Picard: They invade our space and we fall back. They assimilate entire worlds and we fall back. Not again . The line must be drawn here ! This far, no further !

• Horde of Alien Locusts : The Borg exist only to assimilate everything into their collective to bring them closer to "perfection" and expand infinitely. Like a swarm of insects, they can't be bargained with.
• Humans Are Morons : Humans of the mid-21st Century live in a post-apocalyptic society with just barely enough infrastructure to continue research on a warp drive , while the other races have already begun exploring the galaxy and view humanity as being "too primitive". The main goal in the movie is to ensure that humanity overcomes that notion and gains recognition from the alien community at large (or at least the Vulcans). Naturally, as the large majority of the rest of Star Trek canon shows, humanity generally overcomes this view among alien races to become the dominant space-faring race .
• Humans Are Special : Why are the Borg going to such extreme lengths to assimilate Earth? Because once Earth rolls over, the rest of the Federation will be a piece of cake and assimilating Earth in the past saves them even more trouble by preventing the Federation from even existing. Makes sense considering the Federation only exists because humans worked so hard to unite the other races and encourage trade and development between them as opposed to the apparent "every species for itself" approach of before, leading to massive developments in technology and resistance.
• I Am the Noun : Data: Who are you? Borg Queen: I am the Borg. Data: That is a contradiction. The Borg have a collective consciousness. There are no individuals. Borg Queen: I am the beginning, the end, the one who is many. I am the Borg.
• I'm a Doctor, Not a Placeholder : The EMH calls this by name - he's a doctor, not a doorstop. Appropriate for the franchise that named the trope.
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight : Picard tries this with an assimilated Data and fails. Subverted when Data reveals he was faking the whole time.
• As Geordi goes on and on about Cochrane's impact upon human history, Cochrane tells him he has to take a leak, but it's just an excuse to go off and drink in private.
• A subtle one, but the Vulcan envoy that Cochrane decides to serenade with a loud rendition of Roy Orbison 's "Ooby Dooby" takes a very quick gulp of his drink.
• Data, being made of metal and all. Rule of Funny also plays a small part, as well. Leads to a Continuity Snarl given how he was only semi-resistant to arrows in the episode Q-Pid .
• Averted with the Borg, fortunately for Picard. This started a long fan debate over why Starfleet doesn't issue firearms, which ignores the fact that Picard's submachine gun worked because it was unexpected, not necessarily because it's a Weaksauce Weakness (it successfully killed two drones, but the number of drones that get sacrificed before the Borg adapt is usually about three). There is on-screen evidence that the Borg were already starting to adapt as early as the second drone given how Picard took twice as long to gun it down.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice : The Borg attempt to access Data's neural net by drilling into his head.
• Info Dump : Actually handles this very well, getting out all the information the non-Trek fans need in a few lines after the Enterprise travels back in time. Particularly impressive when they have to describe an up-to-now entirely unseen time period (Earth in the 2060s ).
• The Vulcan's view of Earth and humanity until they witness the Phoenix ' s first flight. Troi : They're on a survey mission. They have no interest in Earth; too primitive. Cochrane : Oh.
• After completing the flight, Cochrane observes that Earth does look so small from this distance. Riker observes it's about to get a lot bigger .
• On the other hand, Data is shown numerous times during the run of TNG that he's a very good actor , so he might simply be putting these skills on display. It may also be that the original "deception" was a double bluff; he put on an unconvincing lie in order to make a more convincing one later.
• In-Universe Catharsis : When Picard severs the cybernetic spine of what remains of the Borg Queen with his bare hands after the plasma coolant miasma is flushed from the engine room, he does so with a certain relish. Not only did she violate him when he was assimilated and turned into Locutus of Borg, but he still has a bitter aftertaste from the Revenge Before Reason tangent over the ordeal that he was pulled back from by Lily. Not only does he get revenge for his violation, but he knows he can do so now without madly endangering his crew.
• Ironic Echo : Data repeats the Borg's famous line "Resistance is futile" right before he reveals he was playing the Borg Queen and releases the gas which will destroy them.
• Lampshaded example of using a nuclear missile (a weapon of mass destruction) for the first warp flight which brought world-wide peace.
• Despite the Enterprise swarming with Borg, Picard is hellbent on saving the ship, refusing to admit defeat to the Borg again. He eventually relents and orders an Abandon Ship, preparing to self-destruct the Enterprise ... shortly after which an opportunity to save the ship arises.
• I Surrender, Suckers : The Borg allow their sphere to be destroyed so they can beam aboard the Enterprise and start assimilating it.
• It Is Beyond Saving : By the climax of the film, most of the Enterprise and her crew have been assimilated, and the surviving officers try to convince Captain Picard that evacuation and self-destruction is the only option left.
• It's Personal : Turns out Picard still has unresolved issues from being kidnapped, Mind Rape d , and otherwise violated in every single way it is possible for a being to be.
• While Admiral Hayes wasn't entirely right to send Picard away when the Borg attacked Earth (and Picard's showing up to the party proved to be the vital element that won the battle), his assessment of Picard as a potentially "unstable element" in a critical situation wasn't really wrong either, as we see in the latter parts of the film.
• During Lily's argument with Picard, Picard says that he killed Lynch because there was no way to save him. While this is presented as part of Picard's Sanity Slippage , this is unfortunately true: the process to rescue Picard was long and tedious, nearly killed him, and would be impossible due to the Borg cutting off power to everywhere except the Engineering deck. Also, given the Borg's adaptability, they had probably refined the assimilation process by this time to make it harder to reverse.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold : Cochrane.
• The Juggernaut : The Borg, naturally. Their cube is met by a small fleet's worth of ships that follow it all the way to Earth, and the most it's got to show for it by the time it gets there is heavy outer hull damage and a few power fluctuations. The Cube itself is still entirely operational and is shown swatting Federation capital ships like flies.
• Jumped at the Call : Picard is directly ordered by Starfleet to sit out the battle with the Borg Cube, so he eavesdrops on the battle's progress. He manages to listen for about 20 seconds before heading for the battle.
• Keystone Army : When the Queen is killed, the Borg are defeated. Makes sense; the Borg contingent on the Enterprise is cut off from the rest of the Collective in that time period, and relies on the Queen to be the hub through which they function.
• After the Borg adapt to their phasers, Picard lures a couple of drones into the Holodeck and shoots them with a Tommy gun. This has led to fan speculation that Borg shields suck against kinetic attacks, which is semi-verified in noncanonical novels. It's reflected in the visual effect of the Borg adapting to weapons fire. The series had what looked like an actual shield pop up and the phaser shot doing no damage. Starting with this movie the phaser blast seems to be dissipated into the full body of the drone, which suggests that it isn't a personal shield but the actual body armor of the drone allowing it to absorb energy. This makes projectile weapons logical.
• The Red Shirt getting his ass handed to him might have been because he hit the drone in the chest. The drone that Worf takes down with his phaser rifle was hit in the neck.
• Worf, being a Klingon, is *somewhat* more resistant to assimilation than humans are due to his physiology (Klingons can still be assimilated—in fact, we do see at least a couple Klingon Borg in the film—but due to their immune systems being able to hold the Borg nanoprobes at bay for a time, it takes significantly longer, so even if Worf does get pricked by the assimilation tubes there is time to remove them before he goes Borg), and also stronger than humans, while Data is downright immune to assimilation and ridiculously strong compared to humans (which is why the Borg Queen had to resort to weird methods to try to turn him). Thus it makes sense that only these two were somewhat effective in melee.
• Know When to Fold 'Em : Picard, being a Determinator when it comes to the Borg, is (initially) utterly opposed to any notion of retreat or surrender regarding them. Lily makes Picard re-evaluate his priorities when she compares him to Captain Ahab , being so bent on revenge that nothing else matters. This finally gets through to Picard, who realizes the horrible mistake he's been making. Lily: I guess he [Ahab] didn't know when to quit. (Picard smiles.)
• Last Note Nightmare : The opening titles. Beautiful, uplifting music that fades into silence... and then ... WHAM!
• Lead the Target : The quantum torpedoes, when first shot, are aimed ahead of the Phoenix but in her path, and as the torpedoes travel, they continue to get closer and closer to the target. They miss just behind the Phoenix ...as Data intended.
• The Klingon theme, the Enterprise theme, and the "busy man" theme from Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Star Trek V: The Final Frontier return as leitmotifs for Worf, the Enterprise-E , and "first contact". (No surprise, as Jerry Goldsmith scored all three of these movies.)
• The Borg get a new one, four bass notes in a minor key first used in a stark, loud, and downright terrifying manner as the Borg Cube is first shown in the movie.
• Let Me Get This Straight... : Invoked by Cochrane.
• Limb-Sensation Fascination : Data is captured by the Borg and then has patches of organic matter — actual skin — grafted onto his exterior and integrated into his systems by the Borg Queen. Notably, when he tries to escape, one of the patches is cut, allowing Data to experience pain for the first time; the experience confuses and fascinates him so much that he agrees to allow the Borg to graft more of it onto him.
• A Little Something We Call "Rock and Roll" : An inversion of the trope, as it's Cochrane (re)introducing it to the time travelers from the future. Never lift off without it!
• Macgyvering : On the hull of the Enterprise-E . Once Worf runs out of phaser ammo (the Borg shrug off each modulation), he resorts to using his Mek'leth sword. He lops off a Borg's arm, but his adversary doesn't even blink and swipes at his leg, causing Worf's spacesuit to decompress. When we next cut to Worf, he has tightly tied the Borg's severed cables around his leg just above the breach, sealing it shut.
• Made of Explodium : The main deflector dish is charged with antimatter , which explains why the crew doesn't just shoot the interplexing beacon being built on top of it—if they miss the beacon and hit the dish instead, they'd blow up half the ship. This explosivity is later demonstrated after the dish is cut free of the ship; once the dish is far enough away, Worf blows it up with one shot from his phaser rifle.
• Magical Negro : Downplayed with Lily. Though she's a fairly well-rounded character, and she has her fair share of vulnerable moments over the course of the film, she's the one who ultimately sees through Picard's bull and gives him a What the Hell, Hero? speech about his self-destructive desire for revenge against the Borg.
• The Main Characters Do Everything : It's typical for a Trek film to have the bridge officers do almost everything, but where this trope really stands out is with Zefram Cochrane. He both invents the warp drive and pilots the first warp ship. In comparison this would be like having Werner Von Braun be the first man on the moon, or having Yuri Gagarin designing his own spacecraft.
• Make Wrong What Once Went Right : The Borg plan is to travel back to the eve of humanity's First Contact , sabotage it, then assimilate the planet while it's a post-apocalyptic wasteland. It works, but the wake of their temporal conduit protects Enterprise from the changed timeline, allowing them to Set Right What Once Went Wrong .
• Mauve Shirt : Lt. Hawk. He is the ship's navigator for the film, and thus appears in nearly every scene featuring the bridge until he goes on the EVA mission with Picard and Worf where he is caught, assimilated and killed by Worf.
• Meaningful Background Event : When Lily is following Picard through the Enterprise and she's asking questions about the future, Picard mentions at one point that money no longer exists in his time and that people instead work for the betterment of humanity as a whole, comparing it to the work she and Cochran did on building the Phoenix . Unseen by Picard, Lily gives him a rather perplexed look behind his back. Later, Cochran admits to Riker that he only built the Phoenix so he could get rich from selling warp-travel technology.
• Meaningful Name : The Phoenix , the first warp-drive ship, can be seen as having risen from the ashes of World War III.
• During the fighting a few scenes later, he puts his phaser where his mouth is and shoots a Red Shirt whose body is being consumed by nanoprobes. And then later on, he Tommy-guns Ensign Lynch.
• Mundanization : Averted. This is one of the few time-travel stories that involves people from the far future going back to the near future, rather than the present day or past. Another Star Trek example is the Deep Space Nine episode "Past Tense".
• Mission Control : Troi acts as ground control for the Phoenix launch.
• Made more amusing by Picard quoting Moby Dick, Lily not recognizing it and saying "What?", and then confessing that she hadn't actually read it.
• The music during the opening credits is quite beautiful and majestic, until the Scare Chord that heralds the transition to a Borg cube, with Picard as an unwilling passenger.
• The scene where Lily tries to machine-gun Data is seriously funny, along with her fainting—until Data suddenly says that she requires medical attention. Turns out the fainting wasn't a reaction to Data withstanding her machine gun fire, but was instead due to theta radiation poisoning, and everyone there would have to be inoculated.
• My God, What Have I Done? : Picard's reaction after Lily's quoting of Moby-Dick and his Unstoppable Rage smashing his model ships ( Enterprise -D and -C for extra pathos, if you're an astute observer) makes him realize he's throwing the crew's lives away because of his own vendetta against the Borg.
• The first time we see Worf the Klingon theme from Star Trek: The Motion Picture plays. Both movies were composed by Jerry Goldsmith.

• As they're about to conduct warp flight, Cochrane yells "Engage!", which is something of a Catchphrase for Picard (really, for the entire Federation). Riker and Geordi grin at each other after he does this.
• Near-Villain Victory : "Watch your future's end...".
• During the assault team's attack on Borg-held Engineering, Data kills one of the drones by breaking his neck, undoubtedly helped by his superhuman strength.
• Picard finishes off the still-wriggling non-organic remains of the Borg Queen's head after the mess of Data's successful deception gambit is cleaned up , severing it just under the third cyber-vertebra.
• The trailer depicts Picard's " The line must be drawn HERE !" speech as a Badass Boast , instead of the Roaring Rampage of Revenge / Sanity Slippage on Picard's part. Additionally, the trailer also features Data's sneering "Resistance is futile" retort, but makes it seem as if Data had been fully subverted by the Borg, instead of being a Pre-Mortem One-Liner aimed at the Borg Queen as his trap of duplicity against her is sprung. And more importantly, the trailers made it look like the Borg were mounting a full-scale invasion against the Federation, instead of only attacking Earth.
• The original teaser did not feature any new ship footage and was comprised entirely of stock footage from TNG episodes and Star Trek: Generations . This seemed to suggest that the new Enterprise would be the same model as the old ship. It also featured a shot of Voyager fighting a Borg cube.
• Data does this literally. When the security detail attempts to gain access to engineering, Data inadvertantly breaks the manual release to the door by pulling a little too forcefully . Doubly so, since the Borg sense this as a threat and activate.
• On the deflector dish, Lt. Hawk panics as he sees a Borg drone approaching him, and he fires two shots at it, giving the other drones ample time to adapt to their phasers immediately.
• Nightmare Sequence : The film opens with Picard finding himself inside a Borg cube and part of the collective hive mind, before he's experimented on and his eyes are almost pierced by a needle. There's a fakeout where it seems like he's woken up, but then a Borg implant bursts out of his cheek! And then he wakes up for real.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot : Klingon Borg!
• Nobody Poops : Lampshaded when Zefram Cochrane asks if nobody from the 24th Century pees.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed : There are more than a few similarities between the character of Zefram Cochrane and Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry . Both were men who were elevated to near-mythic status posthumously, seen as legends and visionaries with "a dream" — and both were lecherous, with substance abuse problems, and primarily motivated by money (not to mention extremely tall). The filmmakers claim they didn't base Cochrane on Roddenberry, but the similarities are there. One commentary noted that the scene where a star-struck Reg Barclay meets Cochrane was like a star-struck Trek fan meeting Roddenberry. And both, in different senses, created the world of Star Trek .
• No One Gets Left Behind : Picard refuses to leave the self-destructing Enterprise without Data.
• Non-Mammal Mammaries : The Borg Queen's body is almost entirely robotic, with only parts of her brain, head and neck being composed of living tissue. So why, exactly, does she have boobs? The Borg aren't known for concerning themselves with attractive appearance.
• The Not-Love Interest : Picard and Lily actually display a great amount of mutual attraction on screen, but given their different worlds and timelines, they don't end together.
• The Enterprise 's Deflector Shields take at least two attacks from the Borg cube without suffering damage.
• During the first corridor fight, one of the Enterprise security officers attempts to take down a Borg drone by bashing it with his phaser rifle. The drone doesn't even slow down and instead smashes the poor guy's chest in for his trouble.
• Lily empties most of a machine gun into Data and it does nothing.
• Not in Kansas Anymore : In a rare case of someone using the line without trying to make a joke, Picard tries to explain to a phaser-wielding Lily that she'd be transported to a starship: Picard: This may be difficult for you to accept, but you are not in Montana anymore....
• Not So Above It All : The Dixon Hill program suggests that this supposedly-upright captain with his liking for opera also enjoys fist-fighting thugs and snogging ditzy blondes. This isn't a surprise to Trekkies (familiar with Picard's love of Noir detective stories and his wild past in "Tapestry"), but leads to the more serious drama of Picard screaming in rage as he machine-guns an assimilated ensign, then trying to bash his body with a tommy gun . Lily remembers this incident when later accusing Picard of not being above revenge, despite supposedly coming from a more enlightened time.
• The Borg Queen tries to convince Data that they are not so dissimilar when they try to assimilate him. Data: You must be aware that I am programmed to evolve — to better myself. Borg Queen: We, too, are on a quest to better ourselves, bringing us closer to perfection.
• Picard introduces Lily to the better future of the twenty-fourth century in their conversations, but then she points out that his hatred of the Borg is making him not act like a member of the perfect future society he's describing.
• Not so Dire : Just as the Phoenix is about to launch, Cochrane starts panicking over something he might have forgotten, which they can't lift off without. Riker is about to abort when Cochrane finds what he needs: a disc with the song "Magic Carpet Ride". "Let's rock and roll!"
• Notable Non Sequitur : Before beaming down, Geordi tells the guy he's leaving in charge to check the environmental controls, as it's getting a little warm in engineering.
• Not Using the "Z" Word : Averted. Lily refers to Borg as bionic zombies on a couple of occasions.
• Off-the-Shelf FX : The transponder rods for the interplexing beacon were originally bird feeders while the neural processors were made from Marlboro lighters.
• Data visibly pauses as he reads out the date that they and the Borg have time-traveled back to, suggesting that he realizes at the same time as Picard that they've gone back to the day of First Contact.
• Picard has an amazingly understated one when the manual release to Engineering's main door doesn't work. (" Perhaps we should just knock. ")
• Riker and Geordi share a look that just screams this when, after being told that a system has malfunctioned, Cochrane proceeds to hit the controls , shrug, and say, "Don't worry!"
• The helmsman of the Defiant has a major one upon realizing that they've lost weapons and shields. Then Worf orders him to ram the Borg Cube .
• When the engineers on the ship are ambushed by Borg, Picard briefly hears the Collective's voice.
• An Enterprise crewman looks scared shitless when Picard orders the crew to start fighting the Borg hand-to-hand. Worf's successor as Security Chief, Lt. Daniels pointedly gives Worf a look, silently asking him to try to talk some sense into Picard.
• Lily's clearly terrified after she empties her machine gun into Data's back and he doesn't even slow down.
• She then comes close to completely freaking out when she has her first encounter with the "bionic zombies".
• After the two previous traumas, she's momentarily scared (but not all-out terrified) when she meets Worf, her first non-malicious Rubber-Forehead Alien .
• "39.1 degrees Celsius... like a Borg ship."
• Once More, with Clarity : When Picard encounters the Borg Queen, he states that he remembers her from when he was assimilated. We're then treated to a flashback of his assimilation into Locutus in " The Best of Both Worlds ", but this time the Borg Queen (who was never actually present in that episode) is part of the scene and is shown cavorting with her new drone.
• The Oner : The opening shot which pulls back from Picard's eye to show the Borg cube's interior.
• Only in It for the Money : In the Star Trek universe, Federation scientists and engineers such as Geordi LaForge revere Zefram Cochrane for inventing the warp drive, which allowed the Humanity to take to the stars. The Cochrane that Geordi meets in this film breaks the pedestal somewhat: he invented the warp drive to get rich and had no idea what would happen because of it. Riker seems to understand where Zefram is in his life right now, thankfully, and offers one of Zefram's own quotes from the future as words of wisdom.
• When Worf - the Proud Warrior Race Guy , the man who hours before was planning to ram his ship into a Borg Cube- is saying that Picard's plan is too dangerous. Picard calls him a coward when he should know full well how deadly an insult that is to a Klingon: this is the same Picard whom in the series is the only person Worf trusts enough to confide in about Klingon problems and is trusted enough by the Klingon government to arbitrate a succession dispute. So both Picard chewing out Worf this way and Worf's response — "If you were any other man, I would kill you where you stand!" — are very significant. It also underscores how much respect Worf actually has for Picard, and his knowledge that the future is far more important than any single ship or man.
• He goes berserk when mowing down the two drones in the Holodeck; not only emptying the full magazine into them (possibly justified) while screaming madly at them (questionable composure), but attempting to beat their corpses with the butt of the rifle (definitely unnecessary) before Lily stops him. He doesn't show any form of emotion when Lily points out that the drone he killed used to be a crew member, either.
• When Worf suggests abandoning ship and self-destructing the Enterprise (a call that is entirely justified and the best hope for survival the crew has at this point) Picard calls him a coward and refuses to hear any other justification even from others in the crew. Add to this that to call a Klingon a coward is possibly THE worst insult you could wield against their species; you'd think Picard would be more careful with this were he not so blinded by vehement rage.
• His outburst in front of Lily in the ready room. He vents his frustration by destroying his display of previous Enterprises, then vents to Lily that falling back is not enough, that a stand must be made; very passionate and very unlike normal Picard. It's a valid reasoning in any other situation, true, but when the entire surviving crew and the future is at stake, it's just reckless and VERY likely to end badly. Add to this the final sentence he speaks and the truth comes out; he just wants to destroy the Borg regardless of cost, as revenge for when they assimilated him and for the destruction they are wreaking on his ship. This is so unlike Picard that even Lily (who barely knows him) picks up on it.
• Our Founder : When informed that he's standing in the exact same spot as his future statue, Cochrane goes a little bit nuts. (See Refusal of the Call below.)
• Out-of-Character Moment : Troi getting drunk trying to reason with Cochrane. Rule of Funny at play, yet justified because she's, well, drunk.
• Palette Swap : The Starfleet uniforms seen here are an inversion of the uniforms worn on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager , being predominantly black with grey shoulders and colored shirts, unlike DS9 / Voyager ' s uniforms which had gray shirts and colored shoulders. The DS9 crew would soon switch to these uniforms for the rest of the series, whereas Voyager ' s crew, stuck in the Delta Quadrant, stuck with their uniforms till the end, though subsequent episodes involving the Federation at home featured these uniforms.
• Worf also has a moment of this, pounding on the crippled Defiant's control console as if that's going to change anything on the touch-screen display.
• Cochrane also does this to his jukebox when it fails to power up. Becomes a Brick Joke at the end, much to the surprise of the visiting Vulcans.
• Pistol-Whipping : When the Borg begin adapting to the phaser frequencies, Worf takes one drone down by bashing it in the neck with his phaser rifle. A second crewman attempts to hit a drone in the chest with his rifle, but it doesn't work and he gets beaten to death.
• Phlebotinum-Proof Robot : Dr. Crusher activates the Emergency Medical Hologram to delay the borg, since he can't be assimilated by them.
• Pop-Cultural Osmosis : Lily never read Moby-Dick , but it's so well known, the basic point was still clear to her.
• Precision F-Strike : "BULLSHIT!"
• When Worf destroys the free-floating deflector dish and all the Borg drones floating with it. Worf: Assimilate THIS.
• Just after the torpedoes that Data fires at the Phoenix deliberately miss. Borg Queen: DATA!!! Data: Resistance. Is. Futile. (punctures a plasma coolant tank)
• The destruction of the Borg Cube in 2063 is followed up on late in season two of Star Trek: Enterprise , set 90 years after this film. During the episode, the surviving Borg using Enterprise (NX-01)'s comms to send a signal to the Delta Quadrant Borg; T'Pol estimates that a subspace message would be recived by the Borg in about 200 years .
• An explanation for the whispers would finally be provided 27 years later .
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis! : "Resistance. Is. Futile."
• Ramming Always Works : Worf was going to do this before the Enteprise -E decided to have a Big Damn Heroes moment.
• Random Event : While Picard is using the Dixon Hill program, a blonde approaches him. Picard's mild surprise in encountering her even though he specified the chapter for the program to run suggests that her presence works as one of these.
• Rapid-Fire Typing : Data locking out the main computer. Justified : Data's an android and can type at super speed (he did it all the time during the show). That's why he was asked to do it. He also devised a fractal encryption code for it, making him the only one who could un lock it.
• The Defiant surviving the Battle of Sector 001. Obviously, the ship had to survive as Deep Space Nine was still on the air and needed the ship for its own narrative. Amusingly Ronald D. Moore actually forgot this in an early draft and destroyed the ship...which understandably did not please DS9 showrunner Ira Steven Behr (hence the line in the final draft about the ship being adrift, but salvageable). note  This is despite Moore having joined the DS9 writing staff by this point, having written many episodes featuring the Defiant ... including one actually named after her.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech : Data gives an effective one with one sentence: Data: (to Borg Queen) Believing oneself to be perfect is often the sign of a delusional mind .
• The Starfleet task force fighting the Borg at Earth prior to the arrival of the Enterprise . They are doing far better then the fleet at Wolf 359 years prior, but they're still getting curb-stomped.
• The Enterprise security force continues the franchise tradition. However, unusually for Star Trek, they are shown to be quite competent, it's just that they're facing off against the Borg who can No-Sell pretty much everything the security officers can throw at them.
• Refusal of the Call : Cochrane, when he got overwhelmed with his role in history. He gets over it eventually. Cochrane : " I don't want to be a statue! "
• Captain Picard remembers the Borg Queen when she's first introduced. Could be justified by the fact he was a Borg for a while, but that doesn't explain why he doesn't mention this vital piece of information about a dangerous enemy onscreen, and Data seemingly knows nothing about her despite the fact that he presumably would have read any report Picard made after the incident. They attempt to Handwave this by implying that Picard had forgotten about her until they're reintroduced in the film — or else thought that she'd died aboard the cube, and didn't realize she might have survived in another body (as is implied).
• Lt. Hawk is the navigator on the Enterprise-E, and though he's never appeared before this movie, he's treated as if he's been a member of the bridge crew for years and Picard specifically addresses him several times throughout. Ultimately, this spotlighting is really just to make him a Mauve Shirt rather than a red one when he eventually is seized and assimilated by the Borg.
• Removing the Crucial Teammate : Starfleet took the one Captain with the most experience dealing with the Borg out of the fleet assembled to fight them. Granted, they were afraid Picard would take the battle extremely personally and go into a Roaring Rampage of Revenge , which he does, but they still could have relieved Picard temporarily of command instead of sending off the Enterprise -E; The first of the Sovereign -Class and crowning achievement of Starfleet shipbuilding, to simply study comets .
• Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated : When he returns to the bridge, Picard paraphrases the trope name as "Reports of my assimilation were greatly exaggerated."
• This movie shows Zefram Cochrane as the man who not only created warp drive, but also conducted the first warp flight and made first contact with an extraterrestrial species shortly afterward. In the TOS episode "Metamorphosis", where the character originated, he was simply said to be the inventor of warp drive. No more, no less. Cochrane was also called "Cochrane of Alpha Centauri" in "Metamorphosis". However, fanon had long since decided he was a human who just moved to Alpha Centauri after inventing warp drive, under the assumption that he was the inventor of warp drive for humans (where other races may have had it much earlier), and because of the unlikelihood that humans colonized Alpha Centauri prior to faster-than-light travel. Cochrane also looks much older than he should, according to dates given in "Metamorphosis." The semi-official explanation for this is that he is younger than he looks because of radiation poisoning.
• It's been noted that Picard's hatred of the Borg, to the point of Revenge Before Reason , wasn't really established in the TV series. At least, not nearly to the extent it's shown in the movie.
• Retool : Due to a higher budget than the show, the Borg underwent a dramatic change in appearance, instead of pale guys in armored suits it looked like they were almost rotting out from the inside . Great change too, as befits the Rule of Scary . This actually fits in with the original concept of the Borg as a race that simply replaces biological parts with mechanical ones as they wear out.
• Revenge Before Reason : Picard's motivation for fighting the Borg at any cost. Lily points this out with "Captain Ahab has to go hunt his whale!"
• Reversible Roboticizing : Inverted with Data when the Borg attempt to bribe him by grafting human tissue onto his android body, something that is stated as being beyond Federation science at that point.
• Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory : The Enterprise can see the timeline created by the Borg's interference, but since they're in the wake of the time disturbance caused by the Borg Sphere, they're unaffected. It's strongly implied that they'd vanish from existence had they not gone through the time aperture themselves.
• Robots Enslaving Robots : The Borg trying to make Data join them. They wanted him to choose to join them of his own free will, though. With a very tempting benefits package, too.
• Robots Think Faster : Data says that he was considering accepting the Borg Queen's offer for 0.68 second. Picard smiles because that's just the span of a fleeting thought for a human, but Data insists that "for an android, that is nearly an eternity."
• Sacrificial Lamb : Lt. Hawk
• Say My Name : At the climax. Borg Queen: DATA!!!
• Scale Model Destruction : Picard takes some of his anger out on the model ships (which are, symbolically, previous Enterprise models) in the stateroom.
• Screaming Warrior : When Picard empties a clip classic "tommy gun" drum magazine into two Borg drones. Lily notices that Picard is a little too bloodthirsty, and even continues to hold the trigger down after the magazine empties. Lily: I think you got 'em!
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right! : Captain Jean-Luc Picard disobeys the orders of Starfleet and goes to the front line to engage the Borg. And the crew are behind him. (The crew are listening to the radio chatter from the battle againt the Borg cube start off badly and go downhill from there, until Picard cuts the feed) Picard : Mr. Hawk, set a direct course for Earth, Maximum warp . (beat, Picard turns to face the rest of the bridge crew) Picard : I am about to commit a direct violation of our orders; any of you who wish to object should do so now , it will be noted in my log. (a long silence and conspicuous lack of objections) Data : Captain...I believe I speak for everyone here, sir, when I say... ( Beat ) to hell with our orders. (Riker, Troi, and Picard briefly smile) Picard: Red Alert ! All hands to battle stations! Engage!
• Screw You, Elves! : Lily's What the Hell, Hero? speech to Picard, who'd been lecturing her about how much superior 24th century humans were up to this point. Lily: I am such an idiot. It's so simple: The Borg hurt you , and now you're gonna hurt them back . Picard: In my time, people don't succumb to revenge . We have a more evolved sensibility. Lily: BULLSHIT! I saw the look on your face when you shot those Borg on the holodeck. You were almost enjoying it . Picard: How dare you... Lily: Oh, come on, Captain, you're not the first man to get a thrill from murdering someone! I see it all the time! Picard: GET OUT! Lily: Or what?! You'll kill me, like you killed Ensign Lynch ? Picard: There was no way to save him . Lily: You didn't even try ! Where was your "evolved sensibility" then?! Picard : I don't have time for this. Lily : Hey, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt your little quest! Captain Ahab has to go hunt his whale! Picard : What?
• Self-Destruct Mechanism : Of the Enterprise . It's activated after Lily snaps Picard out of his Roaring Rampage of Revenge and convinces him that it's the only sane option left.
• Series Continuity Error : Picard was able to deactivate the holodeck's safety protocols by himself to ensure that he would be able to kill Borg drones with a holographic tommy gun. On TNG, it was said that it takes two senior officers to deactivate the safety protocols.
• Serious Business : Cochrane is ready to abort his space flight... because he wasn't sure if he brought his Steppenwolf aboard.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness : Lampshaded . Borg Queen: Do you always talk this much? Data: Not always. But often. Borg Queen: Why do you insist on utilizing this primitive linguistic communication? Your android brain is capable of so much more.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong : An interesting use of the trope because, unusually, the historical event in question lies in our (the viewers') future, and we don't know exactly what it is until the end of the film. Lampshaded by Seven of Nine in the Voyager episode "Relativity." Lt. Ducane: So, in a way, the Federation owes its existence to the Borg? Seven: You're welcome.
• Shooting Superman : Lily unloading her machine gun at Data, who barely shrugs. Somewhat justified since she doesn't know he's an android. " Greetings ."
• To the Original Series. "I'm a doctor, not a doorstop."
• The Maglock system on the deflector dish has a subsystem designation of AE35 .
• Picard tells Lily "you are not in Montana anymore."
• One of the ships fighting the Borg at the start of the film is the USS Thunderchild , a reference to another ship that fought alien invaders .
• Twice, Cochrane's jukebox fails to start when he turns it on (once when he plugs it back in after Riker unplugged it, and then again at the end when he's introducing the Vulcans to Earth culture). How does Cochrane manage to start it? By thumping it , of course!
• The end title sequence is directly lifted from Star Trek V: The Final Frontier . As Jerry Goldsmith's score plays, the camera pans up from a forested area to a star-filled sky, the Trek theme plays, and credits roll.
• Shouting Shooter : Picard when taking down the Borg with a Tommy gun.
• Sickly Green Glow : This film establishes glowing green as the Borg's primary lighting. On TNG, Borg lighting more often used blue-whites or purples.
• Significant Reference Date : Humanity confirmedly made first contact with an alien species, the Vulcans, on April 5, 2063. According to co-writer Ronald D. Moore , he chose April 5 because that was his oldest son's birthday.
• Sinister Geometry : The Borg Cube and Borg Sphere, whose geometric shapes only add to their alien nature.
• Sleeves Are for Wimps : Picard is in a sleeveless uniform for the climactic showdown - possibly justified given the on-board temperature is 39.1°C at 90% humidity, akin to a jungle.
• Songs of Solace : After being told he will not be part of the fleet to defend Earth, Picard spends his time in his office listening to opera with the volume turned up so loud that objects on his desk vibrate. It's implied he's doing it to silence the Borg whispers in his head.
• Snipe Hunt : The Federation sends the Enterprise to patrol the Romulan Neutral Zone during the initial Borg attack, even though Data notes that the Romulans haven't made any hostile moves in almost a year. In truth, they didn't want Picard within light-years of the Borg.
• Later, a drunken Troi speaks about Zefram Cochrane: Troi: If you're looking for my professional opinion as ship's counselor... he's nuts. Riker: I'll be sure to note that in my log.
• Spheroid Dropship : The Borg Sphere.
• It's also not clear whether Cochrane's future quote about not trying to be a great man actually came from Cochrane, or whether it came from Riker telling Cochrane the quote, who would then go on to say the quote, which Riker would then learn and repeat to Cochrane, and so on.
• Sticky Shoes : Picard disables his EVA suit's magnetic boots to take a flying leap over some Borg on the outer hull of the Enterprise .
• Stock Scream : A man blown off of a roof during the Borg bombardment gives out a Wilhelm scream on the way down.
• In a more subtle variant, Worf has zero trouble working the Mag Lock manual switch while Picard and Hawk both notably struggle to get it into position, taking them significantly longer and leaving them vulnerable to the Borg and is what gets Hawk assimilated.
• Superman Stays Out of Gotham : A curious example. While the Defiant participates in the opening fight, none of the DS9 characters other than Worf are manning it. The real-life reason, of course, is the Defiant 's cameo is ultimately a plot device for bringing Worf back into the TNG corner of the 24th Century for this film (to say nothing of budgetary constraints, overcrowding the film's first Act, confusing audiences who hadn't been watching the spinoff, etc). No in-universe explanation has ever been given for Team Sisko's absence (though given Sisko's a Wolf 359 survivor, it's not unreasonable to conclude that Command probably had the same concerns about him facing the Borg again as they did with Picard).
• Theme Music Powerup : During the Enterprise ' s Gunship Rescue moment.
• After Data locks out the main computer, Worf reports, "The Borg have cut primary power to all decks, except 16." Picard: The Borg won't stay on deck 16.
• Worf has one when Picard reveals his plan to deal with the Borg on the Enterprise 's hull. Picard: Mr. Worf, do you remember your zero-g combat training? Worf: I remember it made me sick to my stomach. (face falls) What are you suggesting? Picard: I think it's time that we took a little stroll. Worf: ( You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me! look on his face)
• Time Travel : In this case, back to Star Trek 's own past, with the Borg aiming to prevent the entire history thereof from happening. Most of the film takes place in the mid-21st century.
• Tinman Typist : The Borg Queen stops her drones attacking Data with a wave of her hand when she should be able to do it with a thought as they're connected by a Hive Mind .
• Tired of Running : Subverted because it showcases Picard's obsession with destroying the Borg. Picard: We've made too many compromises already. Too many retreats. They invade our space, and we fall back. They assimilate entire worlds, and we fall back. Not again. The line must be drawn here ! This far and no further!
• As of 2016, the only one in the whole franchise: "You're all... astronauts, on... some kinda star trek !" This points further to Cochrane being an expy of Roddenberry. (The closest any other Trek production has come was the finale episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation when Q uses the phrase "trek through the stars.") It's worth noting, too, that First Contact was released during the 30th anniversary year for the franchise.
• Naturally, the phrase "first contact" is also used a few times. However, this is to be expected; the phrase is a very common science fiction term describing when two intelligent races meet for the first time. In fact, there was an episode of The Next Generation that is also titled "First Contact," though the plots are very different. Also, the "first contact" in question in this film is the First Contact, the first time humanity ever (officially and knowingly) had contact with any other alien race, ever.
• Token Black Friend : Lily to Cochrane. Subverted, in that the two spend most of the movie separated from each other after their initial introduction, giving Lily her own subplot.
• Braga and Moore admit on the DVD commentary that the actress playing the female ensign was hired because someone liked her scream hence her Genre Blindness .
• Took a Level in Badass : Starfleet took a heavy loss against a Borg cube at Wolf 359 in "The Best of Both Worlds," where 39 ships were wiped out in short order. In the aftermath this motivated increasing militarization, upgraded combat capabilities and new ship designs, many of which are showcased in this film (more new ship designs in a 5 minute sequence than the entirety of TNG). Whereas Wolf 359 was a Curb-Stomp Battle this rematch proves to be a Curb Stomp Cushion , it is not an easy fight by any means but the battle was a moving engagement from the Typhon sector to Earth and a slug fest. When the Enterprise arrives reports indicate the Cube is actually struggling against the fleet, and Picard is able to coordinate fire on a weak point to finish it off.
• Tranquil Fury : Played with when Picard has the audacity to call Worf a coward. Worf's reaction isn't quite tranquil, but it is restrained for his character.
• Trash the Set : The Defiant ' s bridge is shot to hell by the time the Borg Cube reaches Earth. Not surprising given the tough little ship lasted for the duration of the entire running battle. On a Meta level, this was likely due to one of the reasons why the Enterprise -D was destroyed in the preceding film: because the Defiant sets had likewise been built for a TV resolution rather than for higher definition Film. The darkened lightening, smoke, and damage thus is just as much meant to hide flaws or features that would have shown up on the big screen as it is to demonstrate the beating the ship's taken in universe.
• Try Not to Die : Lily asks this of Picard before he embarks onto the deflector dish. Lily : (referencing The Big Goodbye on the holodeck) Watch your caboose, Dix. Picard : I intend to.
• Also, the maglocks for the deflector dish work similarly, requiring separate authorization codes to release each lever. All three crew members manage to punch in their authorization codes, though Hawk gets seized by the Borg before he can move the lever at his station. After moving his lever, Picard has to go to Hawk's station to finish the job.
• Two Lines, No Waiting : For most of the film, there are three storylines going; Riker convincing Cochrane to make his flight, Picard fighting the Borg and Data's interrogation by the Borg Queen. Since Picard didn't voice his suspicion that the Borg are aboard the Enterprise before returning to the ship with Data (upon which they lost all communications), Riker, Troi, LaForge and the rest of the engineers on the surface never actually realize what's happening aboard the Enterprise until well after the fact.
• She turns up again in Voyager , more than once, which suggests that the "Queen" personality is simply downloaded into a specially-prepared drone body whenever there is need.
• Unfazed Everyman : Lily. Overlaps with The Watson .
• [Verb] This! : Occurs before destroying the Borg's interplexing beacon . Worf: Assimilate this !
• Villain Ball : The Borg's plan is to use time travel to prevent humanity from becoming a spacefaring civilization, allowing them to assimilate all of Earth in the past with minimal resistance. For some reason, they don't open their temporal vortex until after launching an all-out invasion of Earth in the present, which draws Starfleet's attention to their time travel plot and gives the Enterprise crew just enough time to follow them back into the past and stop them. Presumably, they could have opened their temporal vortex anywhere in the galaxy they wanted (and then traveled to Earth while already in the past), and they didn't need to pick a massive fight with Starfleet to do it.
• Villainesses Want Heroes : The Borg Queen wanted Picard to willingly submit to the Borg and be her... "consort." When that didn't work out, she goes for the same approach with Data, seducing him with the promise of making him more human and her physical charms.
• Virtual Danger Denial : A woman from the mid 21st century exposed to holodeck technology for the first time. She is surprised when Picard's holographic Tommy Gun has very real (and very lethal) effects on the two Borg that follow them in.
• Warts and All : Zefram Cochrane was the genius who gave the human race warp drive, thus taking the first step in the founding of The Federation . Star Trek: First Contact revealed that he was a cowardly, womanizing drunk whose motivation for building the first warp ship was "dollar signs, and lots of them." Riker: Someone once said "Don't try to be a great man. Just be a man, and let history make its own judgment." Cochrane: That's rhetorical nonsense. Who said that? Riker: ( grins ) You did, ten years from now.
• The Watson : Lilly, being an outsider brought aboard the temporally-displaced Enterprise due to a medical emergency, ends up having to have various aspects of the Enterprise , the Federation, and the Borg explained to her. Her status as an outsider also allows her to be much less restrained about calling out Picard for being increasingly unhinged.
• Weapon Stomp : When the Borgified Hawk reappears, he makes his presence known by stepping on the rifle Picard was about to use to sever the connection to the array. It doesn't seem to impede the weapon's function however, as Picard picks up again after Worf kills the Borgified Hawk and shoots the array off the deflector shield.
• We Need a Distraction : When Crusher is evacuating Sickbay, she activates the EMH to keep the Borg occupied. EMH: Please state the nature of the medical emergency. Crusher: Twenty Borg are about to break through that door. We need time to get out of here. Create a diversion! EMH: This isn't part of my program. I'm a doctor, not a doorstop. Crusher: Well, do a dance, tell a story, I don't care. Just give us a few seconds!
• "Population: 9 billion. All Borg."
• An in-universe one is "April fourth..." "The day before First Contact!" - but being a Title Drop it's not really one to the viewers.
• Picard's reaction to Hawk's summation of the ship's environmental problems: "39.1 degrees Celsius... like a Borg ship."
• Picard makes a deal with the Borg Queen to let Data go in exchange for him. The Queen releases his restraints and Picard tells him to leave. Data: No. I do not wish to go.
• Wham Shot : As noted above, the movie intentionally leaves it vague who the aliens that Cochrane will meet are until the very end when one pulls back his hood and reveals a pair of pointy ears. It was likely more surprising for the uninitiated than the fans, though.
• When Data seizes control of the main computer and fires a trio of quantum torpedoes at the Phoenix , they miss and sail out into the void. The obvious assumption is they were programmed to detonate once they were clear of anything they could damage, but it's never addressed in-universe.
• When the Enterprise arrives at Earth to help fight off the Borg, Commander Riker mentions that Admiral Hayes' flagship has been destroyed. It's not made clear whether Hayes himself was killed, and it wouldn't be until the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Hope And Fear" revealed he survived.
• Subverted by Picard and Lily when Picard kills the assimilated Ensign Lynch . Despite Lynch being fully borgified and covered in machinery, Picard is able to identify him by name, and Lily is visibly upset by his death. Later during the "The line must be drawn here!" scene, Lily calls Picard out for gunning Lynch down without attempting to save him. Picard: There was no way to save him. Lily: You didn't even try !
• Played straight with the rest of the Borg drones and the Enterprise crewmembers they assimilate, though. Mostly nameless, all are dead by the end of the movie, and while Picard and Data share a measure of regret at the death of the Big Bad Borg Queen, they express none at all at the deaths of the luckless individuals she enslaved and mind-controlled.
• What the Hell, Hero? : Picard's crew are visibly hesitant to follow his increasingly judgment-impaired orders, and Worf has a particularly venomous response when Picard calls him a coward for refusing to obey an order that's outright suicidal. Then Lily gives Picard an epic tirade for his willingness to sacrifice his crew to get revenge on the Borg instead of doing the necessary thing, not flinching an inch when Picard yells back. Picard finally wises up and orders the evacuation and destruction of his ship, like he should have earlier.
• What Year Is This? : Averted. The ship's sensors identify the approximate time period from orbit from the level of pollution in the atmosphere, and then narrow it down to a specific date when they see where specifically on Earth the Borg are attacking. Data also mentions taking astrometric readings, presumably comparing the stars where they are to where they should be in their present.
• Whole-Plot Reference : Not only does Picard's quest increasingly resemble that of Captain Ahab from Moby Dick , he starts to sound and act a lot like Khan Noonan Singh, except with less self-awareness.
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him? : Averted by Lt. Hawk regarding simply shooting the Borg deflector dish modifications instead of manually detaching them. Picard responds with Made of Explodium technobabble . It's also consistent; when they finally detach the dish, Worf then hits it once and it ignites into a giant fireball. The writers (Ron Moore and Brannon Braga) state on the commentary that their original intention was to blow up the dish in this manner. Then the Trek technical advisers stated that they couldn't shoot the dish because it would blow up the ship. And this was clearly shown in an episode of Deep Space Nine where the Jem'Hadar rammed one of their fighters in the USS Odyssey ' s deflector dish... causing it to explode violently.
• With Due Respect : Lieutenant Worf does genuinely respect Captain Picard, he is simply frustrated with the Captain's refusal to destroy the Enterprise obviously being clouded by his desire for revenge against the Borg. The argument almost turns deadly when Picard calls the Proud Warrior Race Guy a coward. He later apologizes. Worf: If you were any other man, I would kill you where you stand! Picard: Get off my bridge!
• Within Parameters : Subverted. When the Phoenix is about to launch, a red light is on, which Zephram attempts to fix by the age old " hit it hard " method. When it stays lit he says "Ignore it". It turns out not to be an issue, and the flight is successful.
• Woman Scorned : The Borg Queen, oh so much. It's revealed that part of the plot was revenge against Picard for rejecting his place in the Collective. When Picard offers to be her consort once again, she accepts, and when Data refuses to leave, she practically giggles that she has a new consort, and Picard is no longer needed. Except as a new Borg drone, that is.
• Mostly averted with the man himself though. In fact Worf is basically the only one other than Data who's able to fight the Borg hand to hand effectively.
• The World Is Just Awesome : After their short warp flight, an awed Cochrane comments how small Earth looks, finally starting to realize what he had just accomplished. Also when Picard shows Lily the Earth below her through a force field window.
• Would Hit a Girl : We see several female Starfleet officers being assimilated by the Borg, and in the "Big Goodbye" program, one of the Borg drones pushes a woman particularly hard.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness . Picard. Data: He will make an excellent drone.
• You Are in Command Now : Being aboard the most powerful ship in the fleet, and having enough veneration in Starfleet to be an admiral in all but name, Picard assumes command of the battle against the Borg cube once the Admiral's ship has been destroyed.
• You're Insane! : Data does point out that the Queen's assurance of her perfection is a symptom of "a delusional mind."
• You Shall Not Pass! : During the Battle of Sector 001, the Borg issue their usual ultimatum to surrender and allow assimilation to happen, declaring, as always, that Resistance Is Futile . Starfleet's response: Admiral Hayes: "All units, open fire!"
• You Talk Too Much! : When Data goes off on a technobabble tangent. Data: Tell me, are you using a polymer-based neuro-relay to transmit the organic nerve impulses to the central processor in my positronic net? If that is the case, how have you solved the problem of increased signal degradation inherent to organosynthetic transmission across— Borg Queen: Do you always talk this much? Data: Not always...but often.

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Published Apr 5, 2022

Watching First Contact In the Worst Possible Timeline

It’s become easier to understand the movie’s fear of losing the future.

StarTrek.com | Getty Images

This article was originally published on November 20, 2020.

Star Trek , at its core, is about a future where we’ve overcome culture clash to become a better society who can work together to a common good. Creator Gene Roddenberry spoke at length about why his Enterprise crew comprised people from different races and backgrounds, and how it represented a future beyond the time that gave birth to the series. Trek is matter-of-fact, even innocent, about a humanity without borders.

It’s for that reason that, in a series that features the meeting of disparate cultures as a constant theme and plot complication, the biggest culture clashes often happen between our Federation heroes and the humans of the past. In the first season episode of TNG, “The Neutral Zone,” when the Enterprise rescues three cryogenically frozen humans from the late 20th century, they are like boorish tourists, both overwhelmed by the miracle of the future and uncertain what to do with themselves in a world where wages and want don’t exist. In the DS9 episodes “Past Tense, Parts 1 & 2” Sisko, Bashir, and Dax find themselves dragged back to a 2024 ripe for violent revolution as society buckles under the weight of its every ill.

The past (that is, our present), is terrible and full of trouble, but every human in Star Trek walks around free from that burden. We are going to get over it, Trek reassures us. There’s hope. We can be better.

That future is what’s at stake in Star Trek: First Contact , the second TNG-cast film and Jonathan Frakes’ feature length debut as director. As the Borg pull a desperate gambit to travel back in time to Earth before its ascension into the Federation, they aren’t just trying to assimilate Picard again, but to completely erase the world that created him. In almost no other story in all of Star Trek is the fear of losing that future so immediate.

Watching it now, as the world groans under the weight of so much woe, is to view the film in a completely different light. It feels like we, too, are struggling against the promise of the future being callously snatched away.

Lily: How much did this thing cost? Picard: The economics of the future are somewhat different.

Coming as it did after Star Trek Generations , Star Trek: First Contact was also somewhat freer from its own past, but fighting for its future in a way. It was the first of the feature films without any of The Original Series cast, and so had to answer the question of whether or not the TNG cast could keep the franchise going on the silver screen two years after the end of its run on television. Whether fairly or not, it seemed like the movie had something to prove. (It did: First Contact is a damn good movie that expands on the juiciest series lore while remaining accessible to newcomers and packed with darling character moments and thrilling action.)

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In a recent interview , Frakes called the Borg “our best, most complicated, and interesting nemesis.” Where the Federation celebrates individuality, the Borg strip it away. Where Picard and the crew of the Enterprise seek to reason with other peoples and employ diplomacy, the Borg demand submission and swallow up other cultures. Their hive mind is as impenetrable to reason as their shields are to phasers.

It’s crucial that the movie understands why they are so scary. The first shot, zooming out from Picard’s pupil as he stands enthralled within a vast Borg cube, says everything about the captain’s antagonist. Years after his encounters with them, he lives in mortal fear of an enemy that will strip away his sense of self and turn him into a cog in a violent, callous machine.

A movie about a wounded Picard warping to Earth’s defense against “bionic zombies” would’ve been a serviceable TNG movie, if perhaps one that could’ve just been an overlong episode of the show. And this is why the moment their devious, time-traveling backup plan is revealed is such a brilliant end-of-an-act twist.

Picard: The date… Data I need to know the exact date. Data: April 4th… 2063.

It is not just the Enterprise and her crew hanging in the balance but the world that made these people we’ve grown to love across seven seasons of television. By putting it all on the line, First Contact becomes one of the most effective thesis statements on what Star Trek ’s vision for the future of humanity means.

Of course, that premise would just look like some very privileged people freaking out amongst themselves without the perspective of Zefram Cochrane and Lily. As the film switches between the mission down on the surface to ensure that a reluctant Cochrane goes through with his historic flight and Lily’s perspective of the desperate fight to stop the Borg from taking the Enterprise , it spends equal time reflecting on hope for the future and the fear of losing it.

Riker: It is one of the pivotal moments of human history, Doctor! You get to make first contact with an alien race! And after you do, everything begins to change. Troi: Poverty, disease, war - they’ll all be gone within the next 50 years.

To believe the fight against the Borg hinges upon simply blowing them up is to misunderstand them, of course. So it’s to the credit of the scriptwriters that the story pushes Picard to ever more callous and obsessive lengths to keep the fight going even as it becomes clear he’s essentially lost the Enterprise . When he guns down two drones on the holodeck and strips the corpses of what he needs, it becomes clear that it isn’t just the Enterprise he’s losing, but the “more evolved sensibility” of the future that he so proudly touts to Lily. The Picard we see barking orders to a terrified crew, clinging to a violent confrontation, and hurting Worf’s feelings is not the man we know.

It’s only after Lily gets him to realize he’s losing himself to pettiness and revenge that he forces the Borg to play to his own strengths: The absolutely unbreakable bond he has with his crew. His faith in his shipmates is borne out yet again as Data reveals he’s been playing the Borg Queen for a sucker all along and wrecks her plans at the last possible second. (The creepy seduction between the two is the only part of this movie I don’t really like, but it’s worth Data’s cold-as-ice betrayal.)

Ultimately, Picard and the crew of the Enterprise save the future with all of its best principles. Down on the surface, her brilliant, cooperative, well-educated, unflappable scientists repair the single most important machine in human history like it’s no biggie. On the ship, in a nightmarish fight for their lives, they don’t lose sight of what makes them human, and peacefully choose a life of self-sacrifice stranded in a strange time because it’s the right thing to do even though it sucks.

Lily: I envy you. The world you’re going to. Picard: I envy you. Taking these first steps into a new frontier.

It’s Cochrane’s story, though, that’s the most relatable. He hasn’t the slightest inkling he’s about to usher in a new age of peace hitherto only dreamed of, and  he’s understandably terrified. When the time comes, though, he finds that he’s equal to the task even if he doesn’t know precisely what he’s doing.

The world is unbearable right now, and the promise of a future like Star Trek has never felt further out of reach for all the same small-minded reasons Trek has always argued against. Watching First Contact again, though, is to be reminded that even our rosiest imaginings of the future have always told us that it was bound to get worse before it got better. First Contact is the eighth movie in the series, but it might be one of the best arguments for why Star Trek ’s is so important, and that we can get there together, with our heads held high.

A Timeline Through the Star Trek Universe

Kenneth Lowe (he/him) works in state government in Springfield, Illinois and also writes for Paste Magazine. You can follow him on Twitter @IllusiveKen.

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Eruption of mega-magnetic star lights up nearby galaxy

While ESA's satellite INTEGRAL was observing the sky, it spotted a burst of gamma-rays -- high-energy photons -- coming from the nearby galaxy M82. Only a few hours later, ESA's XMM-Newton X-ray space telescope searched for an afterglow from the explosion but found none. An international team, including researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), realised that the burst must have been an extra-galactic flare from a magnetar, a young neutron star with an exceptionally strong magnetic field. The discovery is published in the journal Nature .

On 15 November 2023, ESA's satellite INTEGRAL spotted a sudden explosion from a rare object. For only a tenth of a second, a short burst of energetic gamma-rays appeared in the sky. "The satellite data were received in the INTEGRAL Science Data Centre (ISDC), based on the Ecogia site of the UNIGE Astronomy Department, from where a gamma-ray burst alert was sent out to astronomers worldwide, only 13 seconds after its detection," explains Carlo Ferrigno, senior research associate in the Astronomy Department at UNIGE Faculty of Science, PI of the ISDC and co-author of the publication.

The IBAS (Integral Burst Alert System) software gave an automatic localisation coinciding with the galaxy M82, 12 million light-years away. This alert system was developed and is operated by scientists and engineers from the UNIGE in collaboration with international colleagues.

A curious signal from a nearby galaxy?

"We immediately realised that this was a special alert. Gamma-ray bursts come from far-away and anywhere in the sky, but this burst came from a bright nearby galaxy," explains Sandro Mereghetti of the National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF-IASF) in Milan, Italy, lead author of the publication and contributor of IBAS. The team immediately requested ESA's XMM-Newton space telescope to perform a follow-up observation of the burst's location as soon as possible. If this had been a short gamma-ray burst, caused by two colliding neutron stars, the collision would have created gravitational waves and have an afterglow in X-rays and visible light.

However, XMM-Newton's observations only showed the hot gas and stars in the galaxy. Using ground-based optical telescopes, including the Italian Telescopio Nazionale Galileo and the French Observatoire de Haute-Provence, they also looked for a signal in visible light, starting only a few hours after the explosion, but again did not find anything. With no signal in X-rays and visible light, and no gravitational waves measured by detectors on Earth (LIGO/VIRGO/KAGRA), the most certain explanation is that the signal came from a magnetar.

Magnetars: mega-magnetic stars, recently dead

"When stars more massive than eight times the Sun die, they explode in a supernova that leaves a black hole or neutron star behind. Neutron stars are very compact stellar remnants with more than the mass of the Sun packed into a sphere with the size of the Canton of Geneva. They rotate quickly and have strong magnetic fields." explains Volodymyr Savchenko, senior research associate in the Astronomy Department at UNIGE Faculty of Science, and co-author of the publication. Some young neutron stars have extra strong magnetic fields, more than 10,000 times that of typical neutron stars. These are called magnetars. They emit energy away in flares, and occasionally these flares are gigantic.

However, in the past 50 years of gamma-ray observations, only three giant flares have been identified as coming from magnetars in our galaxy. These outbursts are very strong: one that was detected in December 2004, came from 30,000 light-years from us but was still powerful enough to affect the upper layers of Earth's atmosphere, like the Solar flares, coming from much closer to us, do.

The flare detected by INTEGRAL is the first firm confirmation of a magnetar flare outside of the Milky Way. M82 is a bright galaxy where star formation takes place. In these regions, massive stars are born, live short turbulent lives and leave behind a neutron star. "The discovery of a magnetar in this region confirms that magnetars are likely young neutron stars," adds Volodymyr Savchenko. The search for more magnetars will continue in other extra-galactic star-forming regions, to?understand these extraordinary astronomical objects. If astronomers can find many more, they can start to understand how often these flares happen and how neutron stars lose energy in the process.

INTEGRAL, a key instrument in a race against time

Outbursts of such short duration can only be captured serendipitously when an observatory is already pointing in the right direction. This makes INTEGRAL with its large field of view, more than 3000 times greater than the sky area covered by the Moon, so important for these detections.

Carlo Ferrigno explains: "Our automatic data processing system is highly reliable and enables us to alert the community immediately." When unexpected observations like this are picked up, INTEGRAL and XMM-Newton can be flexible in their schedules, which is essential in time-crucial discoveries. In this case, had the observations been performed even just a day later, there would not have been such strong proof that this was indeed a magnetar and not a gamma-ray burst.

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Materials provided by Université de Genève . Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

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• Artist's impression of a magnetar

Journal Reference :

• Mereghetti, S., Rigoselli, M., Salvaterra, R. et al. A magnetar giant flare in the nearby starburst galaxy M82 . Nature , 2024 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07285-4

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