Star Trek: First Contact
From the Encyclopedia of Speculative Fiction - http://encyclopedia.wizards.pro
| Image:First Contact poster.jpg | |
| Series: | TNG |
| Release Date (US): | 1996-11-22 |
| Production Number: | 008 |
| Years: | 2373/2063 |
| Stardate: | 50893.5 |
| Story by: | Rick Berman & Brannon Braga & Ronald D. Moore |
| Screenplay by: | Brannon Braga & Ronald D. Moore |
| Directed by: | Jonathan Frakes |
"Resistance is Futile."
The Borg begin a new invasion of the Federation, but this time they take the battle to the year 2063: the launch of Earth’s first warp ship and First Contact with extraterrestrials.
Contents |
Summary
When the Borg begin a second invasion of the Federation, the newly commissioned Enterprise-E, commanded by Captain Jean-Luc Picard is given orders to patrol the Romulan Neutral Zone and stay out of the way during the coming battle. However, ignoring the orders, Picard orders the Enterprise to Earth. Upon arrival, the Enterprise discovers the USS Defiant, commanded by Lt. Commander Worf, badly damaged. The crew of the Defiant is beamed aboard just before the Borg cube is destroyed. (See also: Battle of Sector 001)
Before being destroyed, the cube launches a Sphere and opens a temporal vortex, Picard orders the Enterprise to pursue, and as a result, the ship is caught in a temporal wake and emerges to discover Earth populated by 9 billion Borg. Picard orders the Enterprise to follow the Borg into the past and upon arriving finds that they have arrived on April 4th, 2063, the day before Human First Contact. The Enterprise destroys the Borg sphere and beams an away team to the surface to investigate the damage done by the attacking Borg vessel. They discover the warp ship Phoenix in need of repairs and order an engineering team to the surface to make them. Picard and Data are attacked by Lily Sloane, who collapses due to radiation exposure. She is beamed aboard the Enterprise for treatment.
It is later discovered that the Borg were able to transport aboard the Enterprise before their vessel was destroyed. They begin to assimilate the Enterprise and its crew. Data is captured and enticed to join the Borg by their Queen. On the surface, Riker, Troi, and La Forge are able to convince a skeptical Zefram Cochrane of their origins and to continue with his warp flight. Picard orders the evacuation of the Enterprise and activates the self-destruct. He then proceeds to engineering, which has been taken by the Borg, to retrieve Data. He offers himself in exchange, but Data reveals that he doesn't wish to go and that he has joined the Borg Queen. Data fires a quantum torpedo at the Phoenix, but it misses by the smallest of margins.
Data then bursts a plasma coolant tank, releasing plasma coolant which will dissolve organic material on contact. Data is immersed in the coolant when he pulls the Queen down into it with him. The Borg queen is killed and this deactivates all the Borg drones. Picard survives by climbing above the coolant level before it gets to him. The Phoenix, piloted by Cochrane, Riker, and La Forge makes the jump to warp attracting the attention of an alien survey vessel nearby.
Later, the Vulcan survey vessel lands in Montana and makes first contact with Earth. La Forge duplicates the chronometric readings of the Borg sphere and the Enterprise returns to the 24th century.
Memorable Quotes
"Captain, I believe I speak on behalf of the crew when I say, 'To hell with our orders.'" - Data
"Tough little ship"
"Little?" - Riker to Worf, commenting on the Defiant
"Tell your men to stand their ground. Fight hand to hand if they have to." - Picard to Daniels
"Assimilate this!" - Worf, before blowing up the Enterprise's deflector dish.
"Jean-Luc, blow up the damned ship!"
"No! Nooooo!" - Lily Sloane and Jean-Luc 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 and no further!" - Jean-Luc Picard to Lily Sloane
"Borg? Sounds Swedish." - Lily Sloane to Jean-Luc Picard
Worf on the Defiant: "Perhaps today is a good day to die!"
Riker to Worf: "You do remember how to fire phasers...?"
Background Information
- Star Trek: First Contact marked the first time the words 'Star Trek' were ever uttered in the franchise.
- Working titles for the film included "Star Trek Destinies", "Star Trek: Resurrection", "Star Trek: Renaissance", "Star Trek Regenerations" and "Star Trek: Borg".
- Early drafts of the script of Star Trek: First Contact suggested that the Defiant was to be destroyed in the Battle of Sector 001. In the DVD commentary for the film, First Contact co-writer and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine producer Ronald D. Moore said that Deep Space Nine's Executive Producer Ira Steven Behr had seen the script and objected to the needless destruction of his ship in a story that didn't even involve the Deep Space Nine characters (apart from Worf). It would also prove to be inconvenient for the television show, so the Defiant was eventually allowed to survive the battle, and a line suggesting that the Defiant was "adrift, but salvagable" was added to clear up any ambiguity. No reference to the damage the Defiant received during the battle was ever made on Deep Space Nine.
- A CGI model of the "Millennium Falcon" (created for the "Star Wars" special editions) was inserted into the Borg attack on Earth by John Knoll, an Industrial Light and Magic visual effects manager. The ship appears only briefly in the background.
- When releasing the deflector emitter, each of the computer panels that Picard, Worf and Hawk use to enter the sequence, have the phrase "AE35" on them. This is a subtle reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey, AE35 being the communications link that the onboard computer HAL9000 disables.
- Ensign Lynch was named after Internet critic Timothy W. Lynch, who reviewed every episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
- Picard quotes Moby Dick and acts a lot like Captain Ahab. Two years later, Patrick Stewart played Captain Ahab in a 1998 TV mini-series.
- 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 Borg sphere was recovered in ENT: "Regeneration", while a slightly different version of Earth's first contact with Vulcans can be seen in ENT: "In a Mirror, Darkly".
- Jack Shearer would later reprise his role of Admiral Hayes in VOY: "Hope and Fear" and "Life Line".
- Don Stark (Nicky the Nose) had earlier appeared as Ashrock in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Melora."
- William Riker calls the Defiant a "tough little ship." In the DS9 episode "Defiant," Thomas Riker called it the same thing.
- Quark will speak the same words (line must be drawn here! This far and no further!) as Picard in "The Dogs of War."
- According to the apocryphal Customizable Card Game by Decipher, the Vulcan who greeted Zefram Cochrane was Solkar, the grandfather of Sarek and the great-grandfather of Spock.
- Robert Picardo (The Doctor), Ethan Phillips (the holographic maitre'D), Dwight Schultz (Lt. Reginald Barclay) and Alice Krige (the Borg Queen) would all later appear in the Star Trek: Voyager series finale "Endgame" together.
- Marina Sirtis (Councelor Deanna Troi), Robert Picardo (the Doctor), Ethan Phillips (Neelix), Dwight Schultz (Lt. Reginald Barclay) and Jack Shearer (Admiral Hayes) would all later appear in the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Life Line" together.
- The Error trilogy, First Contact has three continuity errors with TOS episodes. #1: First in Metamorphosis in which Kirk calls Cochrane "Zefram Cochrane of Alpha Centauri" much in the way you'd say "Wright Brothers of Kitty Hawk" suggesting warp drive was invented at AC. It has been explained in Enterprise that Cochrane lived there near the end of his life. #2: The second problem is that Cochrane says, "You're a Vulcan right?" Suggesting he didn't know Vulcans all that well, Enterprise even makes it more unlikely Cochrane would need to ask. #3: The third is the well known World War III error which has also yet to be explained.
- When Picard shows Lily Earth from orbit, New Zealand is missing.
Links and References
Cast
- Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard
- Jonathan Frakes as Commander William T. Riker
- Brent Spiner as Lt. Commander Data
- LeVar Burton as Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge
- Michael Dorn as Lt. Commander Worf
- Marina Sirtis as Counselor Deanna Troi
- Gates McFadden as Dr. Beverly Crusher
- Alfre Woodard as Lily Sloane
- James Cromwell as Zefram Cochrane
- Alice Krige as The Borg Queen
- Michael Horton as Lieutenant Daniels
- Neal McDonough as Lieutenant Hawk
- Marnie McPhail as Lieutenant Alice Eiger
- Robert Picardo as Emergency Medical Hologram
- Dwight Schultz as Reginald Barclay
- Adam Scott as Defiant conn officer
- Jack Shearer as Admiral Hayes
- Eric Steinberg as Lieutenant Paul Porter
- Scott Strozier as Security officer
- Patti Yasutake as Nurse Ogawa
- Victor Bevine, David Cowgill, Scott Haven, and Annette Helde as Guards
- Majel Barrett as Computer Voice
- C.J. Bau as Bartender
- Hillary Hayes as Ruby
- Julie Morgan as Singer in nightclub
- Ronald R. Rondell as Henchman
- Don Stark as Nicky the Nose
- Cully Fredricksen as Vulcan
- Tamara Lee Krinsky as Townsperson
- Don Fischer, J.R. Horsting, Heinrich James, Andrew Palmer, Jon David Weigand, Dan Woren, and Robert L. Zachar as Borg drones
- Ethan Phillips as Maitre d' (uncredited)
- Mike Boss as Extra in Holodeck Nightclub Scene (uncredited)
- Brannon Braga as Extra Man sitting on table in Holodeck Nightclub Scene (uncredited)
- Cameron as Ensign Kellogg (uncredited)
- Jeff Coopwood as Borg voice (uncredited)
- Ronald D. Moore as Extra in Holodeck Nightclub Scene (uncredited)
- Ray Uhler as Dancer in Holodeck Nightclub Scene (uncredited)
- Michael Zaslow as Eddie (hologram), the Town Barkeeper (uncredited)
References
2063; 2373; Ahab; Akira class; antiproton; USS Appalachia; assimilation; atomic weapon; auto-destruct; Battle of Sector 001; Berlioz; "The Big Good-Bye"; Bizet; Borg; Borg cube; Borg drone; Borg sphere; Borg Queen; USS Bozeman; USS Budapest; chronometric particle; Deep Space 5; USS Defiant (NX-74205); deflector control; deflector dish; Dixon Hill; Dyson; Earth; Eastern Coalition (ECON); Emergency Medical Hologram; emotion chip; USS Endeavour; USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-E); escape pod; First Contact; fractal encryption lockout; Gravett Island; holodeck; holodeck safety protocol; hydroponics; interplexing beacon; Ivor Prime; Kaplan (Enterprise-E); Lake Armstrong; USS Lexington (NCC-61832); Locutus of Borg; Luna; Lynch; USS Madison; "Magic Carpet Ride"; main engineering; maglock; mek'leth; Miranda class; Moby Dick; Montana; Nebula class; neuroprocessor; New Berlin; Norway class; Oberth class; "Ooby Dooby"; opera; ocular implant; Roy Orbison; kilopascal; phaser rifle; Phoenix; plasma coolant; quantum torpedo; Romulan Neutral Zone; Romulan Star Empire; Saber class; sickbay; Smithsonian Institution; Sovereign class; Starfleet Academy; Steamrunner class; stellar cartography; Steppenwolf; T'plana-Hath; tequila; temporal vortex; theta radiation; throttle assembly; USS Thunderchild; Titan V; tricorder; Tycho City; Typhon sector; Vulcan; warp drive; whiskey; World War III; USS Yeager (NCC-61947); Zefram Cochrane High School; zero-gravity combat training
External Links
| Some of this page is derived from Wikipedia. The original article was at Star Trek: First Contact. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with Wizards.pro, the text of Wikipedia is available under the GNU Free Documentation License. |
| Previous Movie: Star Trek: Generations | Star Trek Movies | Next Movie: Star Trek: Insurrection |