When First Contact was released, the City of Toronto hosted a large Star Trek Convention across multiple sites in the city. There were multiple cast members from across the franchise in the city. The CN Tower hosted George Takei and a special display of props. The Ontario Science Centre had a "Science of Trek" exhibit. Ontario Place had a large convention hall with booths selling merchandise, Chase Masterson, Majel Barrett, James Doohan and several authors like Peter David. It all culminated in a midnight screening of the film hosted by Gates McFadden. At the time it was the largest Star Trek experience ever in Canada, james Doohan was my favourite, he was a bit hard of hearing and used a stamp for many of his autographs because of arthritis, his assistant kept yelling into his ear and he finally snapped and said "Good GOD you're screaming into my Good ear!" When i was in front of him, he then apologized and asked my name and where I was from, we had a ten .inute chat when I told him my grandad was a pilot in the RAF during WW2, he was so funny and kind, i was one of the lucky ones who received a written signature in his book.
When there was a Star Trek exhibition in Toronto me and a couple of friends snuck in past the velvet rope and sat in Captain Kirk's chair. Not a replica, the real one from the set. It was very cool.
or you don't get 1) Gen Roddenberry Trek 2) Science Fiction 3) Proper Story telling and Character development If High-end storytelling and and complex thinking mans story is not up your end you can always try pew pew film like JJ Trek
I'm with you here. Just wacking the film. To the point of word vomitting waffle about windows. Well done trekculture. You make loads of fun, fan driven trek content. Then flap this out where the words Borg ball somehow replace Borg sphere. And you make it seem like you hate trek!
I admit I never liked that part. It felt like Strong Women were Vamps or Drunk in this movie. Beverley never questioned the Captain despite that literally being her job. Deanna got drunk on duty. The Borg Queen took sexiness to 11.
@@KatsuRyui think crusher only did that to keep the crew united. Seeing 2 senior officers have such a polarizing and heated arguement would shake moral and cause them to choose sides. Especially since a KLINGON is pushing for retreat and a famed diplomat is pushing to fight.
@@GrandInfernoElite to be precise I was talking about everything leading up to that moment. Picard - I used a Tommy gun to shoot down 2 drones and almost used the gun to smash in their heads when I ran out of ammo. Crusher - Maybe Starfleet’s concerns were justified…
The Borg Queen makes perfect sense ever since their first encounter with the Federation. Why was Picard sought after specifically for assimilation? Because the Borg wanted him as the specific individual to facilitate the assimilation of the Federation as the de facto leader. They thought even then that the Borg needed at least a figurehead at the top. Additionally, sending Hugh back to the collective was shown to have a powerful effect on the Borg, with many of them even breaking free of the collective as a whole. The creation of a Queen to help maintain order could be a response to an unanticipated idea that penetrated the Borg systems.
@@rtyler1869 but from what i understand, the queen of bees and ants doesnt direct and control the hive, they only serve as breeders. the borg dont need breeders. But the idea that the queen was made in reponse to protect the collective from stuff like Hugh is nice, but she fails misserably at that job (VOY:unimatrix zero and VOY:Endgame)
To be fair, once the Captain made up his mind that WAS it. The conferences were held to allow him to make an informed decision, but once he'd made it, there was no further discussion. It's simply that in this movie, there was no conference.
The "window" Picard shows Lily isn't a window, it's a hatch. Probably for cargo. If you really want to fault that, realize that there's no other way IN that room.
in a panic situation there`s no time to question the captain relieving him of duty would be suicide also theres no time to arrest crew that are assimilated
You missed the big one: this film is just a Star Trek version of James Cameron's Aliens, right down to making Worf say "Assimilate this!" instead of Michael Biehn saying, "Eat this!"
I always loved the Queen. She transformed the Borg from mindless machines into truly horrifying monsters. Her being sexy just made her all that much creepy.
She points out the irony of the Borg shields that can deflect phaser fire, but can't protect them from physical attack. The problem with this statement is that in The Best of Both Worlds, when they boarded the Borg cube to try and recover Picard, Worf attempted to grab him and was REPELLED BY A SHIELD! So, yeah, it would seem they CAN protect against physical attacks!
That looked very different from the personal energy weapon shields the Borg use though. It seemed to be a flat vertical barrier across the whole area Locutus was standing in, much like the internal force fields that can be set up in the Enterprise-D’s corridors. I can buy that they’re different things with different effects, though that does raise the question of why Locutus wasn’t protected by such a shield in Best Of Both Worlds part 2.
I've noticed that in melee fights, the borg lose a few drones but then immediately overpower whoever's doing so well against them. They adapt to physical attacks with better physical abilities, and to energy attacks with better energy shielding.
@@dreierdavid Holodecks use a combination of light. forcefields, transporter and replicator technology - it's very likely that the bullets in the "physical area" of a holodeck are real bullets until they pass the holodeck matrix where they are dematerialised - remember there are scenes where "materials" made in the holodeck can be taken out of it. One notable example is snow being thrown out of the holodeck.
I think at this point it was well established that Starfleet has/knows of many different ways to timetravel; but just don't... cause it's frowened upon. lol
Especially since going forward in time is actually relatively easy. Just follow relativity. I’m sure a ship like the Sovereign Class could push to relativistic velocities, and Data can accurately calculate time and distance.
I think it should also be stated that the temporal cold war is in full swing here and the temporal prime directive may have been a means to mitigate the damages
“Regeneration” from season 2 of Enterprise makes the retcon case that the Borg actions in First Contact created a stable time loop. Borg go back in time, fail, get stranded on Earth in the Arctic, get discovered, assimilate some humans, fire off a long distance call to the Delta quadrant explaining Earth’s existence as well as the use of time travel by future Borg. Jump ahead and the Borg go back in time to finish the loop.
@joermnyc Not popular theory, but I think the borg arrival in 2063 changed the timeline. Enterprise, discovery, etc are more advanced than the TOS timeline. Heck, they even have Cyborgs on them (the borg within). There is Kelvin, there is tos-tng, then there is also the FC timeline.
If I had to retcon an answer, I would have to say that Picard didn't have time to write a new program - even a simple one, but _did_ have time to modify an existing one by simply removing the safety protocols. The Holodeck _does_ create physical object to interact with when they become necessary,such as drinks and food, and perhaps books one might take out of a library-type program. Bullets _do_ stretch the reasoning here, but there is precedent for removing safeties and allowing people to be hurt for... reasons - like when Worf had his um... birthday celebratin with the pain sticks.
Well, the window is covered by a door, so, that's a door, Data's got more processing power than Spock's brain (whether inside his head or not) and can calculate the trajectories and general squibblies of the chronometric particles required to return to the future using the sensor data gathered during their time caught in the vortex, and the Holodeck was set up to act as a distraction, and as Picard din't have the time to multiply himself in a custom program, he just fired up one he knew was on file filled with people to hide amongst, the rest, I'm sure others can come up with answers for...
picard probably expliciately removed the safeties (which as captain at the very least we can see as logical) so the firearm and the ammo are probably replicated rather than holographic itself. That's how i'd explain that part away
@ExarchGaming because it's a nitpicking list. 🤷🏻♂️ Lily says straight out (paraphrasing), "I thought these were just a bunch of photons and forcefields. How are those going to kill someone?" And Picard says (while digging through Ensign Lynch's guts), "I disabled the safety protocols. Without them, even a holographic bullet can kill."
@@AirForceDunn but then, don't start your invasion. Since the borg are a hive-mind and constantly "recruit" new members, their shared consciousness is essentially immortal. So who cares if they need to prepare 100 years for their attack on earth? that shouldn't matter. And since they have time travel, it makes even less sense
@user-xf2qt5il7n I was waiting to see a little pyramid pop out of the ball when it exploded, just like the ball popped out of the cube. Maybe the pyramid could have a shape inside it too. Borg nesting ship. 🤣
Okay I like to point out that there was technically a moment of realization later in the movie near the climax of this where after destroying the display of the ships and being compared to Captain Ahab he realizes how far down he has fallen. And is able to come back and make things right.
I wouldn't even say technically, just actually. After she compares him to Ahab and he destroys the display he pauses, recites a passage from the book and then explains it meaning to Lily. Having just been compared to Ahab he is doing this to reason with himself as to what he has allowed himself to become because of the Borg.
There are at least two things I'd suggest adding to this list. First, Lieutenant Hawk. It's clear he was only created to have someone other than the main cast to kill off, but his presence just doesn't make a lot of sense. Sure, he's in the tradition of a "red shirt" (I know, not the color in TNG!), but he just feels shoehorned in - and a bit of a waste of Neal McDonough. Second, why would LaForge and Barclay gush over Cochrane when they clearly know they shouldn't be telling him about the future? And given that they're trying to restore the future, it's even more imperative not to ruin it further.
In the case of Cochrane, it was to add comedy. Nothing more. On Hawk, it was weird. At the time, online groups were shouting Hawk was gay, but like you said, he was just an extra, and nothing indicated his interests in any way.
The Borg Queen does make sense. How would the Borg decide what to do on a regular basis? From the movie Aliens (1986) Hudson: "Hey, what if it's like an ant-hive?" Vasquez: "Bees, man. Bees have hives!" Hudson: “You know what I mean. There is like one female that runs the whole show.” Bishop: “Yes, the queen.” Hudson: “Yeah the momma. She is badass man, I mean big.” Vasquez: "These things ain’t ants.." Hudson: “I know that.”
This movie always made it seem clear that she doesn't "control the Borg:" she IS the Borg. She is the gestalt of the collective, and all the drones are her neurons.
The collective calculates the probabilities of all available solutions and chooses the one that has the most chance for success. That's why the Borg was awesome in their original form, dhey didn't "decide" what to do, they calculated. They didn't "disagree" because they were ONE hive mind, with no indivisuals having doubts or preferences. The needs of the many outweighted the needs of the few for them.
@@georgefrankly Movies always have one person or thing that when killed or destroyed stops the threat completely. In real life it doesn't work that way. Even in an ant colony when the queen is killed they find another queen. There have been many battles where the commander was killed yet the army fought on. But that makes for a too complex story.
#2. This one always gets me. Because it's NOT their goal: "We are the Borg. ... We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own." What is the possible benefit of going BACK to an earlier and by definition, less technologically advanced version of a society? Not a damned thing. So why do it to Earth? My only guess - a bit of fan micro-fiction - would be that the sheer lack of progress assimilating Humanity pushed the Borg to take the alternate step of just pushing us off the game board?
That was always my assumption. For whatever reason, they had a specific goal of assimilating humanity, and humanity kept winning. (Maybe that's the reason right there?) But eventually, trying time after time and failing, they decided either humanity was too much trouble...or that something about our biology was so important to us beating them that it didn't matter WHEN we were assimilated, and doing so as close to modern humanity as possible avoided any chance of evolutionary factors getting im the way.
People commenting that they could've returned to the future using the same method as in The Voyage Home are forgetting something. They destroyed the navigational deflector earlier in the film fighting the drones that were on the hull. Going to warp without a deflector would've likely destroyed the ship.
One habit all Trek has is forgetting what was used before. They'll replicate a part in one, then forget they did that the next time. Same goes for tech. It seems they don't always keep straight what they used in similar circumstances in the past. Some of that might be different writers and directors at the helm that aren't completely versed in all things Trek and what came before. I have literally yelled at the screen when they forget how they handled the same thing before and act like it's impossible now.
@@neilgodwin6531 I assume that the hatch cover would have to be held open by powered brakes, so that if the power fails, the cover would spring back into the closed position.
Star Trek has shown the Enterprise can do time travel at will going back at least as far as the TOS episode "Assignment: Earth". No need to waste screen time going over that well-worn ground
#4. True that this film made The Borg stupidly easy to beat, setting them up to go soft on Janeway. But asking why the entertainment system can generate dangerous projectiles is like asking why login credentials for a user's Steam account and bank account would be stored on the same computer.
They established in the series there's safety protocols and they can be overridden. If anyone could over them, the Captain could do it. As for why that's an option, realistic training scenarios? Worf's advance calisthenics program?
To get back to their time, there was something you forgot to factor in. Data. Data would be more than capable of calculating a proper light speed breakaway factor. My assumption, even when I first watched it, was that they used the breakaway with the sun to return to their own time. Data would be more than capable of calculating everything, and probably be even more than capable than Spock at this.
The dumbest thing about First Contact is simple. They sent 1 Borg cube once again. When in Voyager they established they will send a fleet to assimilate worlds in the Delta Quadrant. If assimilating the Federation is key to assimilating the Alpha and Beta Quadrants then why not send 15? Yes yes, I know the movie. Had they sent a fleet, then there would be no more Star Trek.
The Borg Collective is in the Delta Quadrant. They have the ships locally available. The Federation is tens of thousands of light years away, and there isn't an established transwarp tunnel, they need to basically bore one through subspace. Maybe they just don't have the capability of sending many ships, or they figure the cost of doing so is not worth it when, to their mind, one cube should be more than enough. And to be fair, without Picard, one cube would have been enough.
@@QBCPerdition yes I know they are from the Delta Quadrant, watched Q Who about 30 times and voyager. Still you think that after the first time they failed and only because Picard/Data put them to sleep you would think they would send a few ships. Heck send a Tactical Cube (or 3). And later on in Star Trek world there was that Cube they sent that the Romulans captured. I love the Borg but man, their Ai is about as dumb as Chat GPT 2.0.
The dumbest thing is that it is about Earth. The brain and backbone of the Federation is Vulcan. With time travel, you only needed one. Just send it back again a few times.
@@davidwuhrer6704 if the Borg can time travel then I wonder why they dont just do it all the time. I hate time travel in movies (except Back to the Future)
Possible? Conceivably not. Necessary? Definitely not. One cube obliterated most of Earth's defenses at Wolf 359. Starfleet destroyed it only at a cost even more extraordinary than that. Indications were that another cube would come. The trip might take years, but the cube would be more formidable than before. Same tactics won't work on Borg twice. Borg don't need hat tricks with time travel nor is it in their character. Defeating Earth is inevitable. The film just shrugged this off on ridiculous ways.
There was also an episode of the original series where Starfleet ordered Kirk to use the Enterprise to travel to the 20th century & investigate Gary Seven. They apparently went back & forth without a problem.
The one thing that annoyed me about time travel in Star Trek was Daniels in ST: ENT. There was little explanation for the viewer on how he went back and forth in time, or how he sent Archer and a couple others to Detroit in the past. Just, walk around a corner and they're in the past? What? No Iconian looking portal? No device zapping them to Detroit? Strange New Worlds had a better explanation in Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. There was a device. Behrman got lazy with the time travel in Enterprise. At least in Voyager, there was a time travel ship with Bruce McGill's character. Come to think of it, I think Behrman got lazy with the mirror universe travel in DS9, too.
While I like how the queen gets used in some later episodes, I absolutely didn't like that they gave the borg a queen. They were extremely unique before she showed up.
I disagree. Many people, especially women, would agree with Brie's criticism. Why shouldn't the Borg Queen use her (presumably) greater technical power to get what she wanted? Wouldn't that be even more of a triumph over Data?
And all of this sidesteps the point that BQ is more a caricature of beauty. Anyone tryin'a be glamorous and appealing is at a disadvantage if he/she/they has machine prosthetics that ravage the skin so badly. Are any guys SERIOUSLY that into her? 🫤
Here's one you missed: Worf was commanding the Defiant against the Borg cube, but where was the rest of the DS9 crew? I get that Sisko was probably needed back at the station to hold things down, but could they have at least had O'Brien on the Defiant with Worf?
It's more like the Defiant being part of the battle is a sound reason for Worf being there, but it's just as well the writers didn't push it. Any reason to think Sisko had left the station at that time? The Defiant plausibly would have gotten called in on special orders. It was built to battle Borg. Why expect to see any other Niners?
Based on the stardates, it can be roughly estimated that First Contact took place while Sisko was busy with Eddington in the badlands aboard a runabout looking for a Maquis base that launched cloaked missiles.
I get the real world reason Sisko wasn’t there, but the interaction of Picard and Sisko fighting Borg together on the Enterprise would have been pretty awesome. Especially the prospective conflicts between the two. They could have had Sisko stage a mutiny and have Dax, Worf and O’Brien face off against the TNG crew still on board after Picard loses his mind.
No the queen isn't an individual who controls the collective, she's an aspect of the borg that represents the hivemind. Just because Voyager used the borg queen poorly doesn't mean First Contact did the idea poorly.
Arguably the dumbest thing in the film is the female engineer who goes into the Jeffries Tubes when she hears her colleague scream, instead of hitting her comm badge and calling for security! Could've cut the assimilation short, instead they realise when they lose contact with an entire deck! You're dealing with the borg. Environmental controls have gone all screwy. Your friend and colleague goes to investigate, and you hear him scream. Call security! Surely there are regulations for this kind of thing. Instead nope! Just goes and gets herself assimilated instead of raising a potential intruder alert! Dumb!
My opinion on the two dumbest things in this movie 1) If the Borg can time-travel to the past, then why don't they send the small ship into the past BEFORE they engage the federation in battle? Send out the small ship 24h earlier, Enterprise is nowhere around to follow them, and they can assimilate earth in peace? No federation ship around to stop them, they can simply transport one human at a time to their ship, assimilate that person, and then transport the next person on their ship. Chances to success: 100%. Sending out the small ship just before the big cube is destroyed is obviously their plan B. But .... not a good strategy. 2) When the team first tries to get access to Engineering, the Borg resist and fight back. When Picard goes there at the end of the movie, the Borg just let him walk in and can walk around freely for quite some time. All he needs is take a stone (or a piece of equipment), throw that into the plasma tubes (as Data does later) and the battle is won. Data was also able to walk around freely. Why didn't he do what he did in the end earlier? Makes sense for the drama of the movie, but not if you look at it from a strategic point of view. Lots of other small things, many of them mentioned in this video. But these two things I have struggled with for the last nearly 30 years,....
The Borg Queen was a terrible idea. It put a face on what was different, scary, indifferent towards you. It gave the Borg personality, a persona. It basically just made them less scary. Even if there was some decent interaction with her during Voyager. But, they were never as big of a threat as they were during TNG. They made them weak, in a bad way.
#0 through 99. If you want to do a Trek film about a future historical figure's flaws, create a new character. Make her/him/them an unassuming visionary positioned uniquely to shape centuries to come. Fun fact: James Cromwell's character was written as an honest homage to GR. The NextGen crew somewhat reflect Star Trek fans who might expect a mythical figure, meet him, and instead discover how difficult he is to be around. So if, on the other hand, it's decided that ST8 should involve Zeframe Cochrane, do not disregard all the evidence about his background. It had to have been sleeper ships that that brought colonists to alpha centauri. Perhaps the ring-ship Enterprise was one such ark. Who knows how many generations that colony had to grow before Zeframe was born there? Did the dream of seeing Earth inspire the invention of the warp drive? Regardless; whose dream was it? How far along was technology toward that end? What revelation did Young Zeframe have that broke the lightspeed barrier ultimately? Can't delve into the dumbness of First Contact without revisiting these key questions that it steamrolled right over.
Maybe Cochrane was just the right guy at the right time, putting the things together that led to that breakthrough. Science is often a team effort, and engineering more so. Daystrom spent his life proving that he was better than everyone. He was going to show them, show them all, that his duotronics was not an accident, but a product of his unique genius, which is why he invented the multitronics, and then the M5 computer. Cochrane invented the warp drive, then was lost in space years later. Not quite unlike how the first man in space later died in a plane accident.
Cochrane's place and time was Alpha Centauri, @@davidwuhrer6704, and presumably generations after humanity had reached it. Can you find a source to the contrary that predates when this movie was green-lit?
Per available evidence, @@davidwuhrer6704, ZC's place & time is Alpha Centauri, considerably later than this movie's setting. Humanity got there without warp drive. Can you find a source to the contrary that predates when the film was greenlit?
@@davidwuhrer6704 I'm saying: If you're creating Star Trek 8 and you're going to make it about Cochrane's first flight, set it on Alpha Centauri where he was evidently born. If it's got to be about a turning point in Earth history before space flight, create a new character.
@@alm2187 That's what I'm saying. Cochrane is not the Heinlein-style driven lone genius entrepreneur übermensch character single-handedly changing the course of history the film wanted to make him. I never considered that he was supposed to be a Gene Roddenberry expy. To be honest, I don't see that, but now that you mention it, I think I can see the attempt.
It was established back in TOS that they could time travel and arrive at the proper time. Kirk and his crew did that in "Tomorrow is Yesterday", and in Star Trek IV: The Voyager Home.
About #4. You ask why Picard did not simply turn off the safety protocols. That's exactly what Picard says he did when Lily asks how holograms could kill. As for why the Dixon Hill program, it was one Picard was familiar with and knew exactly where to get a weapon from (on the second attempt). Why not just ask the computer for one, or as you suggest, multiple hologram Picards all with Thompsons, well the main computer was locked out. I headcanon it that while the computer is locked, it cannot 'sandbox' a program and only play predetermined programs where you cannot edit the parameters.
Thank You for mentioning this. When she said " why didn't Picard deactivate the safety protocols" I was thinking wait a minute didn't Picard do that? Otherwise what would be the point of going into the holdeck if he didn't have a plan other than to just hide from the Borg. I figured she must have missed that point in the movie.
I’m fine with the bullets and physical damage thing. I’ve always written it off as the Borg don’t learn through learning, they learn through assimilation. The Collective assimilates the frequency of an energy pulse or a phaser beam because they view it as noteworthy with how often they encounter the sort of thing. Bullets and bladed weapons though, not quite as often so their implants and ships are adapted for higher technology. The same with hand to hand combat, the Borg never have to fight because they’re so powerful. Therefore it’s not necessary to know how to fight, know how to deflect a bullet or build armor that can deflect blades. After all, the personal force field will absorb the phaser beam anyway, so why bother with the clunky inconvenience of armor? Basically, the reason they never adapt to bullets, blades or fisticuffs is because they view those as inferior and don’t care about that. And since the Borg don’t learn through learning they never think to create specialized sets of combat drones to go against the Klingon or specialized sets of 90s action hero drones to go against humans. Also, I know all y’all want to point out the information and obvious points I seem to have conveniently “forgotten” and conveniently “don’t know about”. So go ahead. Let me have it. Lol
The single mos stupid thing about the film was that First Contact did not take place at Alpha Centauri. It was established in the TOS episode that introduced Zephrem Corchrane, inventor of the warp drive, that Cochrane was born not on Earth, but on a colony around Alpha Centauri. It also established that he was not comfortable wirh his companion being female. Another episode established that sleeper ships had been used to colonise other star systems since at least the Eugenics Wars in the 1990s. So how come Zephrem Cochrane is suddenly less of a brilliant engineer from a planet spared the cataclysm that destroyed civilisation on Earth, and more of an entrepreneur trying to be assimilated by the Intergalactic Marketing Consortium so he can get girls? Did the writers confuse Cochrane for Deystrom, maybe?
I thought the dumbest and most annoying thing was added to the movie retrospectively by the ENT Borg episode Regeneration, which showed that at the end of First Contact the TNG crew must have happily piled aboard the ship and returned to their own time without first checking the crash site of the sphere they’d shot down earlier. At the very minimum you’d expect someone to have been scanning for any timeline disrupting wreckage and beaming it all into an orbit that’d have it fall into the sun or something. But apparently the ENT scriptwriters were so keen to get in a Borg episode and never mind continuity that they had to make the TNG crew completely incompetent as a side effect. Also I still hate Cochrane’s Star Trek line. It’s so infuriatingly cheesy and ridiculous, and such an obvious fourth wall breaking wink to the audience, that it completely breaks immersion in the movie for me. It doesn’t work in the scene and it feels wrong for the movie, and I’ve hated it for nearly 30 years. I wish they’d do an edit without it but until then I’ll skip it when I know it’s coming. It really is that teeth-gratingly bad.
Is no one going to bring up the fact that Geordi brought a Bolian engineer with him to the surface when they were supposed to be keeping the Prime Directive intact?
Agreed. Like the Daleks in Doctor Who, they should have been left until a really good story presented itself (as in 2005 "Dalek") and then rested again, but writers can't help themselves sometimes
Why not send them all in one giant cube, pop a ball out of the cube, pop a pyramid out of the ball, pop a 3d diamond out of the pyramid, etc. Borg nesting ship.
They only need one. They have time travel technology, if they need more that can just go back and assist themselves as often as needed. But as Bill and Ted have pointed out, only the winner gets to go back.
Most of these points are fine... except... the Star Trek team in TNG had already established that one could "turn off the safeties." There's an episode where the Holodeck gets messed up while running a mob program and Picard gets straight up shot by them. This is literally something that was established in TNG canon long before the movie came out. As for why the Borg "can't adapt to bullets." Why would they need to? Every race that they've ever attempted to assimilate have been advanced enough to have some form of energy weapon technology. "Well, why wouldn't they have some kind of physical protection in general?" I mean, first off, they're half robot. If you shot a robot, it wouldn't do much unless you damage crucial components. But also, when are they ever going to need it? They only beam onto other ships when they know they can get the drop on people and assimilate them quickly. "The best defense is a good offense" well, the bestest defense is literally being able to pop in next to your target and assimilate them before they can even turn around to see you're there. Beyond that, well... yeah, the window thing. As people pointed out, only some of the windows on the ship are permanently open. So, those probably have transparent aluminum windows (or possibly an even more advanced tech). The window we see in that scene opens. It's otherwise a solid wall/door. Sure, I'm behind the "why do it if it doesn't pay off" or "Chekov's Gun" as people like to call it, but not everything needs to be a "Chekov's Gun"... That's one of the things I kinda dislike about the idea, that "oh, it was mentioned, it must have a purpose!" Maybe its purpose was... that scene, that moment, etc.? Like, not everything has to be a Deux ex Machina waiting to be used... If I put a chair in the scene, and no one sits in it, then why did I put the chair there? Because a dining table with two chairs is weird if, in universe, 8 people should be able to sit at the table. Am I gonna show 8 people sit at the table? No, but it adds realism to the world.
this could have been reply bait, but whilst sure the movie does not mention it, this is the Star Trek universe time travel is not all that hard. Even if you borrow almost totally from The Voyage Home, its reasonable to assume Data could do the same kind of calculation as Spock. I also know that Earth has a sun pretty close by for added plot convenience
I think that “window” was an entry/egress hatch. We see the doors opening on it. It’s like the shuttle bay: when the doors open there’s a force field so you don’t have to depressurize the entire room.
Actually shooting the injured/assimilated crewmen makes sense given we had already seen the Enterprises sick-bay overrun. The Enterprise crew simply wouldn't have the resources or ability to remove the implants, not to mention taking the crewmen prisoner would force the Enterprise crew to guard the man, crew which would be better utilized in fighting the Borg invasion. If you want a real-world application of this concept, During the invasion of Normandy Allied troops were ordered not to take prisoners paratroopers in particular could not take prisoners because there wouldn't be anywhere to hold them and the prisoners would slow progress inland.
You're forgetting "THE SLINGSHOT EFFECT" and if a CONSTITUTION CLASS with a guessing Vulcan can do it a SOVEREIGN CLASS with a Soong-type android can do it better!
3:30 - This could be said to be a symptom of lazy writing. But let’s be honest, you’ve only got so much screen time in a movie, to illustrate Picard’s emotional conflict. In relation to his crewmates, they managed as much in Picard’s argument with Worf. But any more than that probably had to be cut from the script, or initial filming, because it didn’t express anything that wasn’t already made clear. Dr. Crusher’s line was really just meant to make that clear to Lily - all too bluntly, perhaps, but still in a way that explained a story beat without using too much time. I’m sure the rest of this video brings up ways that the Borg seemed to be softened, and suffering from Villain Degradation, but again those are things which would have likely taken too long for the writers to explain within the running time.
In a break with Star Trek film tradition, the soundtrack incorporated two licensed songs: Roy Orbison's "Ooby Dooby" and Steppenwolf's "Magic Carpet Ride". GNP Crescendo president Neil Norman explained that the decision to include the tracks was controversal, but said that "Frakes did the most amazing job of integrating those songs into the story that we had to use them".
Well, Data could probably use the Borg systems to get back to the late 24th. Would have preferred they used the 'slingshot around the sun' method as Star Trek IV though. And, in a combat situation, the Highest ranking Officer's word IS FINAL. You do NOT argue. There isn't time.
By the way, someone answer me this...when the Borg were first introduced, they could scope whole cities off a planet, leaving a crater in its wake....whatever happened to that technology and capability of terror?!
True. The power to completely obliterate a planetary settlement is insignificant next to the force required for superluminal interstellar travel. But my understanding is that they didn't destroy the colonies, they assimilated them, taking everything and everyone there with them. I mean, why be trapped at the bottom of a gravity well when you can have the entire universe open to you?
Of course, Those Old Scientists were using Time Travel commonly enough that going back in time to observe the 1960's wasn't a big deal, just a mission of the week
My theory about what ultimately damaged the story of Star Trek is that when making movies they are trying to appeal to a generic mainstream science fiction audience rather than the loyal TV watching fanbase. The Enterprise D is a good looking ship but in no way menacing because Starfleet is about exploration. The Enterprise D was destroyed in my opinion in Generations to make way for a more military looking replacement to be seen in later films, along with those grey uniforms and dull interiors. Star Trek First Contact can probably be sold easier to cinema audiences with all its nonsense because it is what is expected from science fiction, but it seems to fall short for Star Trek fans who aren't interested in most other sci-fi.
@@GalapagosPete That's what I always assumed too. Once it was pointed out it's definitely the temporal tunnel they leave through and not the usual effect of when a ship goes to warp.
#2 was addressed in the magazine. Yes, The Borg could time travel back and assimilate earth but then Voyager would never get to The Delta Quadrant and help the Borg stop Species 8472.
"Why establish something like this if you're not gonna use it as a story point?" This is known as the "Chekhov's Gun" principle ...Or, in Star Trek, "Chekov's Phaser." 😉😁
And you completely lost me with the 'window' complaint. I always thought it was a cargo hatch of some type. Why would that room need a window? Why didn't we see other windows with heavy duty power-blinds? This one is reaching so far it could have brought Voyager home.
Patrick Stewart conveyed Picards PTSD with the Borg really well I thought. The man has been damaged beyond recognition by his assimilation and it’s triggered whenever the Borg get a bit too close and personal with him.
Honestly the answer to a lot of these is: so the movie can happen. or The borg Sphere was damaged and running on low power after doing the "time warp" like The Enterprise was. Starfleet has never had a problem doing time travel, since TOS. Why make it a problem just to add a throw away line that wont matter at the end of the movie anyway. Picard has always had roguish elements to his character. It's called being multifaceted. Being borgificated is horrible. They had the time and resources to unborgificate Picard back in TNG. Here they're the only ship, under borg control, not in their own time. Killing that crewman was a mercy. There's no time to have a conference when the ship is under imminent threat. In such a scenario, the captain must be able to lead. They dont get the rank on accident. The holodeck has always been potentially lethal. Wasnt new for First Contact. Why do the dance hall simulation? So the movie can happen. I got nothin for vamping the borg queen though.
I remember when playing Star Trek Online. When I went up against the borg, I'd switch out my pair of weapons to the TR-116 Rifle (that shoots bullets), and a Sword.
I'm glad you mentioned #2. I always had the problem with the entire premise of the movie. We always heard Seven of Nine talk about efficiency. So, the most the most efficient way for the Borg to win is time travel? Okay, lets say it is. Why not time travel before you make it into Federation space? Even if it is another Wolf 359, it would not make sense (efficient) to expend all that energy fighting past Starfleet's defenses. In 206(?) there would be less than nothing to stop you from taking over Earth. But now I have another problem. The Borg want to stop the UFP from ever forming. I still think that time travel is an extreme way of doing that but, whatever. My problem is that after they come back to the 21st century, there is really nothing here for them. Technology? nope. And lets face it, humans are not that biology distinctive. If a Borg ship passed by Earth right now, they would keep going. They may grab a few humans, but after they get done downloading the entire internet, they will laugh and fly away. If they did not want the Kazon who at least had access to faster than light travel, why would they bother with us now? Same thing goes for Icheb's people. Highly advanced farmers? Next please.
One thing I've always questioned: Lily Sloan goes full 1930's mobster on Data before she passes out from radiation sickness, but Data appears completely unaffected by the barrage of bullets. Is our boy bulletproof, or did she just not hit any vital systems?
What about the holographic doctor that Beverly swore she would never use, wouldn't she use any medical tool in sick bay to assist to save someone's life?
I think no.6 shouldn’t even be brought up. FC is essentially a zombie movie in space. If Picard doesn’t kill his crewman then you will have another one of his crew joining the horde, so why not reduce their numbers however possible? If the Borg take over the ship then we know it’s the end of everything for humanity.
The Borg _are_ Cybermen. As The Doctor explained, the concept is developed independently all the time all over the universe. Although it is weird how they are _always_ bad guys. You'd think that most of the time they are just ordinary people who happen to be Cybermen.
It's my favorite Star Trek movie of all time, but I admit, I've been struggling with a lot of these plotholes before. The Tommy Gun kills them, but 24th century phasers can be deflected...ok 🙄 The Borg shooting 20th century artillery with terrible aim at the launch site of the Phoenix...and then final "Let's just open another one of these vortices and go home" is also overly convenient. But every bit of Star Trek has had its flaws, I've learned to live with it.
The biggest thing for me was, if the Borg are so vulnerable to physical projectiles, why not replicate AK-47s for everyone? Why keep trying to use phasers?
It has been canonically established that starships can travel backwards and forward in time. Kirk and crew first did it accidentally in TOS "The Naked Time" and "Tomorrow Is Yesterday", then deliberately in "Assignment Earth" and ST 4:The Voyage Home. Not to mention the various anomalies and wormholes that have been discovered (TNG "Yesterday's Enterprise" comes most readily to mind).
Hate to be a hater, but this felt like you guys wanted to put out an extra video this week and just had someone read off the Headscratchers section for First Contact on TV Tropes... who had only watched the movie once while distracted. If that.
Only issue with your list is - The Original Enterprise (TOS) was able to time travel with a change to the intermix ratio, so the tech existed 100 years before First Contact. I would add one comment. What happened to Sisko? Worf commanding the Defiant is never explained. A throwaway line of “Starfleet sidelined him because of the Trauma he experienced at Wolf 359.” Would have helped and he go on to explain why it was ok. Sisko could stay at DS9. Picard didn’t have that option.
Nothing wrong with Commander Worf. From what I can gather, it is well established by this point in DS9 Worf has gone through the rigours of command and he commanded the Defiant when Sisko was head of Starfleet security. I think First Contact happens just after the poisoning of the Marquis colonies so Sisko was probably tackling fallout from being "the villain".
The reason the Enterprise could time warp back to the 24th century was because [redacted] after [redacted] polarity [redacted] neutron flow [redacted] and a roll of duct tape.
#6 Locutus was not a standard Borg. The fact they named him should have given you a clue there. If he was assimilated like a normal drone we probably never would have got him back. They wanted a bridge between Humanity and Borg which meant Picard was not truly part of the collective, he was still very much within his own mind.
He joined voluntarily, and being the single point of contact was his idea. He chose his own name. He underestimated Riker's bloody-mindedness. In a parallel universe, the Enterprise was the last ship that had not been assimilated, it was without a safe harbour and in severe need of repair, and he still kept on fighting. Riker is second only to Janeway, who said, and I quote: "I would do anything just to hurt the Borg!"
There´s another even bigger issue with the holodeck-bullets hurting the Borg: The holodeck-bullets are not like real (f. e. replicated) bullets, but still holograms and therefore energy and should either be stopped at once by the personal Borg-shields or they should really quikly adapt to them, since this isn´t a high power energy-pulse like a phaser beam.
Geez, you ripped this movie apart. Now I'm going why did I think this was such a good movie when it had plot holes so large a Borg Cube can go through it.
The Borg are and always have been space vampires. (Notice the two incisions in the necks of their victims.) Not zombies who drink blood, but immortals who want to recruit you into their circle so you can be immortal, too, and get cool superpowers while at it. Of course there is a price; but it's not that you won't get to enter heaven, that would be silly. Who mourns for Adonis? The Magicks of Megas-Tu? The Borg make it clear from the start: As the cultural and technological distinctiveness of your entire biome will be added to the Borg, it will adapt to service the collective. Locutus goes into more detail: Improved quality of life offered by a civilisation that could wipe you out with nary a trace like an outpost along either side of the Neutral Zone. And at the end of Best Of Both Worlds, the recently reconverted Picard doesn't say a word as the officers who freed him from the collective collectively decide what to do next; and longingky looks out of the window when left alone. Unlike with Hugh, it was not his decision to leave the collective - and if you think about it, only his original body did. The Borg are The Devil In The Dark: Scary if you fear that which you don't understand; hostile when you kill its brood. But, like with vampires, there is more than one circle, with different rituals and policies. They live in the dark - of interstelar space. While the Federation, the Gorn, the Romulans, the Kilngons, the First Federation, the Ferengi, the Breen, the Cardassians, and the Dominion competed and warred over planets, the Borg have always been there in the vast space between their colonies. Until the Borg Queen was introduced. A hive mind does not mean that everyone thinks and acts the same, and the queens are not commanders. The queens are reproductive organs, and so are the drones. The workers and soldiers make individual decisions based on and affecting the actions of those around them. What makes it a hive mind is the lack of a command structure, and the individuality of the colony as an organisms. The Borg Queen as a female Locutus speaking for the hive (not to aid in accepting the inevitable, but just because) doesn't make sense, but the Borg Queen as a female Count Dracula controlling her thralls by sheer willpower seems to be copied straight from the Vampire stories that were popular in the 1990s. So it is at least consistent with the Vampire motive. Which back then was often used as an allegory for capitalism, which is ironic because the collectivism of the Borg (and their insect-like hives, echoing Robert Heinlein) is often interpreted as an allegory for communism - that despite the Federation itself being loosely modelled after the Soviet Union (and accordingly maligned in DS9). The Borg Queen is very much a CEO, not so much a reproductive organ, of a colony organism.
