Star Trek: Primer contacto

When the Borg launch an attack on Earth, the Enterprise is sent to the neutral zone due to the Admiralty's mistrust of Picard's abilities as he had been assimilated in the past. The Enterprise however, disobeys and returns to help destroy the Borg ship. However a smaller ship escapes and travels back in time, causing the assimilation of Earth in the future. The Enterprise follow the ship back in time and have to undo the damage the ship did on the surface to an experimental warp drive unit that will led Earth to it's first contact with alien life. Meanwhile, on the Enterprise, survivors of the Borg ship begin to assimilate decks within the ship itself.

The trend of the `even good, odd bad' continues in Star Trek with this good entry in the series. Linking to previous story lines, the film starts immediately and continues at a good pace. Where the previous time travel excursion for the crew was more funny than anything else, this film goes down a more dramatic route with the main plot not turning out to be on the ground (as I first thought it would be) but on the ship where the crew struggle to contain the Borg's advances. This aspect works well - it is not edge of the seat stuff, but it is dramatic and involving.

In contrast the stuff on the surface is more a side issue that is used well to contrast with the pace on the Enterprise itself. There aren't many laughs but it does have a nice little bit of self mocking humour that raises it's head occasionally. The cast (crew?) all do good work, but it is Stewart's film and his Borg past help to enrich his character well. Frakes does an able enough job as director but as an actor he has little to do, as indeed do most of those on the Earth aside from a cameo from Cromwell who adds humour. Woodard is OK in her role but not as good as I've seen her be in other things.

Overall this is a solid Star Trek film, which although not excelling in any one area, has a strong backbone of drama and action aboard the ship that works well with the lighter stuff on the earth.

The next generation crew of the Enterprise star in their best movie. Picard and his crew hitch a ride back in time to save the Galaxy from being infested with Borg, by saving the drunkard who invented Warp Drive from being killed by the Borg. This Star Trek movie is nuanced enough for the 'trekkies' to get into, while still being very accessible to the rest of the cinema going public. Johnathon Frakes, for all of his smarmy, cocky demeanor, still I have to admit that he hits a home-run in this initial outing (now his "Insurection" is a whole nother story, one for a different day) This film is action-packed, features good performances, and is just plain fun. All those aforementioned traits easily puts it among the top echelon of Trek films.

My Grade: B+

DVD Extras: Disc 1) Commentary with director/actor Jonathan Frakes; Second commentary with writers Brannon Braga and Ronald Moore; Text Commentary with Michael and Denise Okuda Disc 2) 12 featurettes (Making 'First Contact', The Art Of 'First Contact', "The Story, The Missile Silo, The Deflector Dish,From 'A' to 'E', Jerry Goldsmith: A Tribute, The Legacy Of Zefram Cochrane, 'First Contact': The Possibilities, Unimatrix One, The Queen, and Design Matrix); 3 Scene Deconstruction;Storyboards, Photo Gallery; Teaser & Theatrical Trailers; and Trailer for the Borg Invasion Hilton show in Vegas

3 Easter Eggs: In the Main Menu, click on the sun for a list of all the alternative titles considered; In the Star Trek Universe menu highlight a circle for an interview with Ethan Philips; In The Borg Collective menu highlight a circle for an interview with Alex Jaeger

Many of the Star Trek Films have relied heavily on character interaction, dialogue, and suggested events to tell the story. Star Trek: First Contact breaks from this tradition by producing a sharp, fast paced action film that never relents from beginning to end. There are moments of reflection for the characters, but the movie has an inertia that makes the other entries in the franchise seem as if they plod along at five miles an hour. The result is one of the most satisfying films in the series.

Part of the appeal of Star Trek: First Contact, is that the central enemy is the Borg Collective, which has surpassed all other villainous races in the Star Trek universe in popularity. The central villain in this chapter is the Borg Queen, played by the chilly yet seductive Alice Krige. Krige is confident, convincing, and absolutely threatening in her performance, and seems to almost border on a character from a horror film. She lends an edge that is unique from other villains in the series, and is perfectly suited to the nature of the Borg. The design for both the Queen and the rest of the Borg is unsettling, and the story line and history of this race serves to illicit an emotional continuity between the events in the television show and the films.

Star Trek: First Contact probably has the widest appeal of all of the episodes, in much the same way as Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home did in 1986. It is action packed, filled with decent visual effects, clearly plotted, and supplies a threatening villain. This is definitely the best Next Generation film to date, and one of the strongest movies in the entire series.

Probably my favourite film of all time. The thing about First Contact is that it's not just about Star Trek. If you don't like Star Trek but can live through the first 20 minutes you'll find a gem of a movie which is as much about the future of humanity & an invention so wonderful as it is about Yet More Star Trek Plot.

Warp Speed - they've been saying that since Captain Kirk. But how did it happen? and why might it all not happen, our future could be in ruins and one flight of one makeshift spacecraft some time after world war III will make all the difference.

The on-screen relationship between Picard & Lily is totally magic, as is the relationship between the Enterprise crew members - you get a sense of team, of family.

First Contact is one film I enjoy watching again & again. The flight of the Phoenix is one scene I totally love, along with the end scenes.

The only sad thing about the movie is that you come away and deep down you know there is no Cochrain, no FTL engine around the corner. Well, not yet!

"I envy you, the world you're going to" "I envy you, taking these first steps"

'Star Trek: The Next Generation' may not be quite as influential or as ground-breaking as the original 'Star Trek' series (though it certainly has those elements), but quality-wise it is every bit as good with a few improvements.

The first "Next Generation" 'Star Trek' film, 'Generations', was to me not that bad but was frustratingly uneven (namely the treatment of Kirk and the emotion chip subplot). The next film, 'First Contact', was a significant improvement and highly deserves its reputation as the best film based of 'The Next Generation' series and one of the best 'Star Trek' films overall. Giving some of the supporting characters, like Worf and Crusher, more to do rather than giving them little screen time and not having them do much, was pretty much the only thing that 'First Contact' could have improved on.

'First Contact' is one of the best looking 'Star Trek' films, feeling more expansive and cinematic and benefiting from significant technology advances. The cinematography is intimate, colourful, brooding and immersive, while the sets rich in detail and the special effects are first rate with a real sense of awe. Bringing Jerry Goldsmith back was a good move, and he and his son Joel produce a score that's rousing, haunting, menacing, melancholic and sometimes even pastoral. Oh and the main theme tune is a classic.

Writing-wise, 'First Contact' is one of the best written and balanced of the films. The humour is genuinely funny and sometimes affectionate with the in-jokes, the emotional moments have real poignancy and a grandiose sweep and there is a real tension at times too. The story is perhaps the best paced, with no wasted or extraneous scenes and the one that gets to the point the most. The action is simply thrilling, and while some characters are underused there is still some interesting character development and interaction, namely a more conflicted Picard (in a way that's reminiscent of Captain Ahab), the scene between him and Lily and Data and the Borg Queen.

Patrick Stewart gives his most intense and moving performance of all the 'Next Generation' films, and still has the commanding presence and the dignified gravitas. Brent Spiner is strong too, and he is much more restrained here with Data significantly better written. Jonathan Frakes is compelling as Riker but does even better in the director's chair, he doesn't lose any of what makes the series so great in the first place or what makes it so influential while showing some freedom to show his own style and open things up.

Alice Krige is on seductive and deliciously slimy villainous form, while the Borgs are genuinely fearsome even now. James Cromwell and Afre Woodard excel in atypical roles to the work they're best known for, Cromwell in particular.

In conclusion, first rate and a high point of the 'Star Trek' franchise. 9/10 Bethany Cox