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FILM 8 OF 14 · 199608
STAR TREK

First Contact

NOMADIC PICK · ESSENTIAL VIEWINGMany fans' favourite Next Generation film.
US RELEASE
22 November 1996
UK RELEASE
13 December 1996
RUNTIME
111 minutes
DIRECTED BY
Jonathan Frakes
MUSIC
Jerry Goldsmith
BUDGET
$45 million
BOX OFFICE (WORLDWIDE)
$146 million
FIRST STARDATE
50893.5

WRITTEN BYScreenplay by Brannon Braga & Ronald D. Moore; story by Rick Berman & Brannon Braga & Ronald D. Moore

PRODUCED BYRick Berman

IN BRIEF

SPOILER-FREE

When the Borg travel back in time to stop humanity's first meeting with aliens, Picard follows them to 2063, where he must face both the enemy that once assimilated him and his own thirst for revenge.

SYNOPSIS

SPOILERS
Red alert: the full plot, ending included. Haven't watched yet?REVEAL SYNOPSISHIDE SYNOPSIS

Picard wakes from a nightmare about his assimilation by the Borg six years earlier. When a Borg cube attacks the Federation, Starfleet keeps the new Enterprise-E away from the battle, doubting Picard's judgement. As the fleet falters he disobeys orders, joins the fight and, using his lingering link to the Collective, helps destroy the cube. A smaller Borg sphere escapes into a time vortex, and Earth's history changes: the planet is now entirely Borg. The Enterprise follows the sphere into the past.

Arriving on 4 April 2063, the crew destroy the sphere, but not before it damages the Montana base where Zefram Cochrane is preparing the Phoenix, Earth's first warp ship. Its flight the next day is meant to catch the attention of a passing Vulcan ship and set humanity on the path to the stars. Riker, La Forge and Troi stay to help with repairs and find that their hero is a cynical, hard-drinking man more interested in money. Meanwhile, surviving Borg have boarded the Enterprise and begun assimilating its crew. Data is captured, and Cochrane's assistant Lily Sloane, brought aboard for treatment, becomes Picard's unlikely ally.

As the Borg spread, Picard becomes obsessed with fighting them deck by deck. When Worf urges abandoning ship, Picard furiously refuses, until Lily compares him to Captain Ahab. Shaken, he orders an evacuation, sets the self-destruct and goes back alone for Data. The Borg Queen has tempted Data by grafting human skin onto him, and Data appears to side with her, cancelling the self-destruct and firing torpedoes at the Phoenix. They miss. Data has been playing along, and he ruptures a coolant tank whose vapour destroys the Queen and her drones. Cochrane's flight succeeds, and that night a Vulcan ship lands. As Cochrane greets humanity's first visitors, the Enterprise slips home to the 24th century.

BEHIND THE CAMERA

Following the success of Generations, Paramount wanted a second Next Generation film. Rick Berman wanted a time travel story, while writers Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore wanted the Borg, so they combined the two. An early draft set in the Renaissance gave way to the dawn of human warp flight in 2063. Paramount's Jonathan Dolgen felt the script needed an individual villain, which led to the Borg Queen. Jonathan Frakes, who had directed episodes of three Star Trek series, made his feature directing debut. Scenes were shot at the Titan Missile Museum in Arizona and in the Angeles National Forest. The planned title Resurrection was dropped in May 1996. The film was praised by critics and earned around three times its budget worldwide.

DID YOU KNOW?

  1. 01The film was going to be called Resurrection until 20th Century Fox announced Alien Resurrection. Other titles considered included Star Trek: Borg and Star Trek: Destinies.
  2. 02A disarmed nuclear missile at the Titan Missile Museum near Tucson, Arizona, fitted with a fibreglass capsule, stood in for the Phoenix rocket.
  3. 03Robert Picardo appears as the Enterprise-E's Emergency Medical Hologram, and Dwight Schultz returns as Lt Reginald Barclay.
  4. 04Ethan Phillips, Neelix in Star Trek: Voyager, has a cameo as a holographic maître d'.

CONNECTIONS

  • Picard was assimilated and became Locutus in The Next Generation two-parter “The Best of Both Worlds” (1990).
  • Zefram Cochrane first appeared, played by Glenn Corbett, in the original series episode “Metamorphosis” (1967).
  • The Enterprise episode “Regeneration” (2003) deals with the remains of the Borg sphere destroyed in this film.

AWARDS

Academy Award nomination (makeup); three Saturn Awards (supporting actor for Brent Spiner, costumes, make-up); Hugo Award nomination

SOURCES WE CHECKED