Discuss Star Trek: First Contact
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Is this considered the best TNG film?
posted by Midi-chlorian_CountSTAFFMOD on July 6, 2021 at 7:07 AM
Was re-watching at the weekend and would say it probably is. Borg on the big screen (although unfortunately their involvement trickles down to TV episode levels in the end), plus nicely latches into Star Trek folklore with Zefram Cochrane's involvement (even although he bears as much resemblance to the TOS character as Benedict Cumberbatch did to Ricardo Montalbán!).
My TNG rankings:-
- First Contact
- Generations
- Insurrection
- Nemesis
Reply by tmdb82469342
on July 6, 2021 at 7:33 AM
I think 99% of people would agree with that ranking.
Reply by Nexus71
on July 6, 2021 at 9:28 PM
I am the 1% 1)First Contact 2)Nemesis 3)Generations 4)Insurrection
Reply by tmdb82469342
on July 7, 2021 at 2:57 AM
Vive la différence
Reply by Midi-chlorian_Count
on July 7, 2021 at 6:55 AM
That's interesting you'd rate Nemesis so highly of the four. Am I not correct in thinking you're quite a big Star Trek fan? (seem to recall a lot of posts on here)
Reply by Nexus71
on July 7, 2021 at 12:02 PM
Yes but let's face the whole Nexus plot of Generations was stupid and made Picard look retarded, Guinan says in the Nexus to Picard "YOU CAN GO BACK ANYWHERE ANY TIME". So why in the name of Spock's beard would you go to the moment right before Saron launches his missile and why would you ask a "retired" elderly captain to help you if Picard had any of the wits he had on the TV show he would have gone back to the moment where he first met Saron(Ten Forward) and punched him in the face or called for Worf and a Security team and put Saron's ass in the brig.Or even more clever let Picard go back a couple of weeks so that he can warn his brother Robert to get a fire-suppression system in his house so he and his son Rene won't die in a horrible fire .As for insurrection don't get me started on the plot holes and silly writing in that movie .But that movie made Picard look like a racist hypocrite considering something similar happened in the TNG episode Journey's End certainly after that speech he made to Wesley (who was actually more in the right by defying Starfleet orders than Picard was in Insurrection)
Reply by Midi-chlorian_Count
on July 8, 2021 at 5:37 AM
Yeah, good point. I do remember thinking that was a bit stupid.
Having said that, doing that as a device to add some urgency to proceedings isn't unique to this film. Pretty much the same in BTTF Part 3 when Marty sets the time circuits to a few days before the Doc is going to get shot in the back (although I guess that would have been irrelevant had the fuel tank not been punctured).
There's also even an element of that in Star Trek IV when they bring the whales back to exact time when the giant space cigar is pounding Earth. A few weeks earlier would have made getting them released a less frantic affair. Just great exact calculations on Spock's part I guess!
Reply by VobIdem
on July 9, 2021 at 9:51 AM
None of the TNG movies were good.
They all failed in upholding the standard set by TNG, Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner had too much power behind the scenes, and so began the big (ret)con that Picard and Data were best friends
Reply by wonder2wonder
on July 9, 2021 at 10:27 AM
Data is dead, long live Picard, the new android.
Reply by VobIdem
on July 10, 2021 at 7:14 AM
Made by fans of TNG as Alex Kurtzman said. I think I'm gonna throw up
Reply by Knixon
on July 8, 2022 at 3:16 PM
Because Plot/Because Drama is the most significant aspect to all such things, of course. i.e., "because it was written that way." Although you can make a few "logical" cases such as if they had brought the whales to a point before the "giant space cigar" is attacking Earth, it sets up a paradox/loop because if the "giant space cigar" never attacks Earth, they have no reason to go get the whales at all, and so the "giant space cigar" DOES attack Earth, and so...
The worst holes in the BTTF movies though, are the heavy doses of pre-destination. The Delorean won't start until just the exact moment when it HAS TO start to get to the wire at exactly the moment when lightning strikes etc? Balderdash. Sure they "know when the lightning will strike" according to the old newspaper story, but that's only to the MINUTE, not the SECOND or even closer, which would be required if you were going to drive past at exactly the right moment...
Reply by northcoast
on July 9, 2022 at 5:01 AM
I liked First Contact because it seemed more adult, more gritty. Similar to the Wrath of Khan, in that respect. I remember when First Contact came out, certain critics didn't like it because of its violence, but the studio's defense was that it had to up the menace of the Star Trek franchise if it wanted to compete with the increasing tempo of violence in film at the time. There was similar negative criticism of the later seasons of Deep Space 9 for the same reasons (chiefly the violence, and the movement away from Star Trek's focus on space exploration, into a wartime mode along the lines of Star Wars. Personally, I thought the later seasons of DS-9 were its best).
I feel many people didn't like Insurrection for the "smallness" of the story, but I enjoyed the movie for the break it took from the larger universe.
I enjoyed Nemesis for many of the same reasons I liked First Contact, but I didn't quite like the way they handled the ending with Data, and also, I felt it kind of "jumped the shark" when the shuttle was flying through the corridors of the alien starship.
And Generations? Mixing the old and the new casts together, to me it just seemed like the movie couldn't decide what it wanted to be, plus, really, it just seemed kind of cheap, like a TV movie.
But, that's just me.