Star Trek : Premier Contact

The new crew takes on the great villain of the new era, the Borg. The Borg have sent one cube and the Federation is gathering a force. On the other hand, the Enterprise is told to patrol the neutral zone with the Romulans. Starfleet Command doesn't trust Captain Jean-Luc Picard. When the battle goes badly, Picard disobeys orders and returns to earth. The Borg cube is destroyed but a small ship escapes. The small ship travels back in time changing the present and the Enterprise follows them to repair the damage to the past. They travel to 2063 when Zefram Cochrane (James Cromwell) is about to make first contact.

A working knowledge of the Star Trek world is beneficial. It's a good thing that the filmmakers have figured out that a movie requires the greatest villains and the Borg is definitely one of the most compelling. It has a few laughs at the right time. It touches some profound literary concepts like Moby Dick. The space walk combat is cool. Jonathan Frakes takes the directing helm and he does a reasonable job. The story is the star here.

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.

Clearly one of the best Star Trek TNG films, this film minimizes typical TNG goody-two-shoes lameness in favor of action, and the result is quite good. There is no Wesley Crusher YA angst here; that character is thankfully absent. Patrick Stewart is excellent as usual, particularly in his "Captain Ahab" diatribe. Alfre Woodard was very good; I wish we could have seen her in more Star Trek productions. We even have a decent villain for a change, who has some pithy lines.

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

I like Star Trek, but the TNG/DS9/Voyager series are more about smarmy franchise-building than hardcore S/F. I give this film seven (7) stars.

Star Trek VIII: First Contact - Stardate: 50893.5

Finally, after the dismal Generations outing, they got it right with this one! First Contact indeed is on par with the very best of the Star Trek films - The Wrath of Khan and The Undiscovered Country. Unfortunately, they won't get it right again to the present day (with the above average but still not as good Insurrection and awful Nemesis). The script is very solid, the acting above par (with kudos going to Alice Krige as the seductive Borg Queen and Alfre Woodard as the trusting Lily Sloane), and the score by Jerry Goldsmith again another hit. All of that combined with visual effects that service the story and not is the story makes this outing a spectacular success - a solid 9 out of 10!

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"