Star Trek 8: First Contact
I had a faux pas at work the other day. I’m not sure exactly what happened, since I’m trying to live a longer, happier life by forgetting the whole thing, but someone was eavesdropping on some conversation I was having, and soon butted in. I said, “You heard that? Damn your Vulcan ears!” I then covered my mouth in shock and ran, fearing ridicule. I heard them talking as I vacated, “Did he say Vulcan? Isn’t that Star Trek?” They all know I’m a Star Wars geek, and I knew I’d never live this outburst down. After regaining some composure I explained this little project to them; they didn’t seem to care.
Sometimes I think no one really cares. Meh.
Anyway, reading the synopsis of this next film, I got rather excited; it sounded like a good movie. If this wasn’t a Star Trek movie and it was coming to a theater near me, I’d wanna go see it. Hopefully it will be good. It IS an even-numbered film, and while I have abandoned that system of ratings, I hope it’ll hold true in this one case. I know there really is no Shatner this time, as Kirk is officially dead, yet still, I hope.
When it stared, Picard-X is having day-terrors. He dreams of being part of a planet-sized machine (*cough* Death Star *cough*), then he’s set loose to do the planet’s bidding or something. My guess is he dreamed he had been assimilated by the Borg. This was a term I’d heard of long ago, and now realize that, oh, it’s a Star Trek thing. He snaps out of it and, like all good captains, had no idea was the hell that was all about, since I don’t think the Borg have been discovered yet.
Just then he gets an urgent call telling him that the Borg are invading Earth, but not to worry because he doesn’t have to do anything about it. This struck me as odd; if they already knew of the Borg, then what’s all this “First Contact” stuff? Starfleet instead wants to send their ‘most advanced’ starship to protect a quiet peace of space called the Neutral Zone. Perhaps you’ve heard of it? Whether or not the new Ford Enterprise is advanced or not is highly questionable, but I gotta give Starfleet credit for knowing better than to send the always-malfunctioning-in-some-way ship out to battle.
The rest of the crew are upset that they’re not going to finally see some action. LaForge is especially enraged; he even took off his visor!
As it turns out, Picard-X wasn’t daydreaming; he was remembering. Not too long ago he was captured by the Borg, and was assimilated. Now, I had assumed that being assimilated was a one-way thing, like being a vampire or a zombie. You know, after brains for a snack, there’s no turning back, or something. Is that shit reversible? Whatever being assimilated actually means, the man seems fine now, but Starfleet knows he’s got issues with the Borg and doesn’t want to risk it.
So they all sit around with their thumbs up their collective asses until they get word that Earth is under attack. They listen in on the space radio as the Earth gets its ass handed to it, and then decide to go to help anyway. While I commend all the captains for disobeying direct, shitty, orders, it makes me wonder how some of them ever got to be captains in the first place, seeing as how they never seem to do what they’re told. When they get to Earth, Picard-X takes over the defense, and they destroy the cube-shaped Borg ship. But just before it explodes in a green mist, the cube craps a little escape pod or something. The new Ford Enterprise goes after it.
Then, dreadfully, it seems that the little pod goes back in time, conquers Earth, then came back, and…or maybe it’s that they got frozen in time when they were following the pod, and while they were stuck there not defending the Earth, they lost the battle, and Earth had been assimilated. Then the pod goes back in time to actually do this, and they go too…look, the entire thing doesn’t make any sense, but that’s the way it is with time travel. They see the Earth, conquered by the Borg, and then they go back in time to the day this happened, but before it happened. Does that make sense? Time travel usually doesn’t.
So they go back three hundred years – which naturally causes parts of the ship to malfunction – and arrive the day before ‘first contact,’ which now takes on new meaning, although we haven’t yet been told why. The pod attacks the Earth, so Picard-X and the crew attack the pod. Luckily the Borg on the pod were able to beam over to the new Ford Enterprise without being blown up or even detected, and slowly start to take over the ship.
When the pod shot a couple missiles at the Earth, they managed to strike a spot that was critical to the ‘first contact’ thing, so Picard-X and some of the crew beams down to scope out the damage. In the wreckage they find a woman and beam her back to the ship for medical attention. Picard-X, with his extra-sensory Borg perception, senses that his ship being invaded by the Borg, and beams back to help. The rest of the search party continue searching for Cochrane (played by the always awesome James Cromwell), who was the man directly responsible for ‘first contact.’
Back on the new Ford Enterprise, the wounded woman, Lily, gets healed, and then awakes, screams, and runs off. Meanwhile, Picard-X gets his crew assembled to go Borg hunting. But while on the prowl, he gets separated and then taken hostage by Lily, who has no idea what’s going on. Picard-X manages to calm her down and regain control. He gives her a tour of the ship, and at one point tells her it has twenty-four decks (NOT the eighty-seven previously mentioned in Star Trek 5: The Final Frontier). He fills her in on what’s going on, and then gets filled in on what’s going on; the Borg are trying to build a device to contact the rest of their kind to come attack the Earth.
Down on Earth, the remaining crew manages to find Cochrane, drunk out of his skull. In what is apparently a big no-no, they tell him that they’re from the future, and that he’s responsible for ‘first contact,’ which we finally learn is the day when mankind makes contact with an alien race for the first time. They learn that they’re not alone in the universe, which unites humanity, putting an end to war and stuff. The man is essentially a legend. They need his help to fix everything that was damaged in the assault by the Borg, so that first contact can happen, or else their future won’t exist.
Oh yeah, and all this time, the Borg, who recently captured Data, are using him to try to gain access to more information on the new Ford Enterprise, or something. Why they don’t just assimilate him I don’t know, unless they can’t because he’s an android. They try to convince him to join them using a variety of techniques, including sex. Yes, he’s a fully functional sex bot. Who knew? But for some reason he can’t be assimilated? He can put his junk anywhere but in the Borg? Wait, he DOES stick it in the Borg. You know, I’d rather not think about this.
Anyway, Picard-X, Worf, and some new guy, Hawk, take a space walk outside the ship and put an end to the Borg transmitter. But that’s not the end of it; they keep coming, attacking, and conquering the ship. Everyone thinks that they should self-destruct the new Ford Enterprise, taking out all the Borg with it, but Picard-X objects. He calls them all cowards, then stomps back to his room to sulk and play with his toys. He was assimilated once and he wants revenge. But in the end of course he gets some sense talked into him, and they decided to commit Starship suicide.
Planetside, things are going a little better. Cochrane does try to flee once, stating that he doesn’t want to be this hero they all make him out to be. Apparently he did it all for the money and women anyway. But they beat him down, put a chain on him, and probably sexually assaulted him too (they’d been separated from Data too long), so he relents and goes ahead with his plan. They launch into space, make the Kessel run in just over twelve parsecs, and return to Earth. What a rush!
As the new Ford Enterprise loses a lot of tonnage in escape pods, Picard-X remains behind to rescue Data, who as it turns out, got assimilated after all. I guess shagging a Borg will do that to you. They set a trap for the captain, then turn off the self-destruct sequence, and then Data gives up his passcodes, allowing the Borg total control of the ship. But of course, it was a double cross. At the last second, Data sabotages some equipment, spilling green, skin-eating mist everywhere. Picard-X escapes, and the Borg are somehow destroyed. I mean, just because that mist get emptied into one room, the entire ship full of them goes down? And only because they lost all their skin? That kills them? The machine sides still work fine – the Borg Queen survived until Picard-X ripped her spine out. Even her sex toy, Data, survived. So, what the hell?
Moving on, ‘first contact’ was a success; aliens saw Cochrane’s little space ship and came to Earth – Vulcans, wouldn’t you know it. The crew make a silent departure from the scene while in front of everyone. They make some quick calculations and figure out how to get back to their own time, proving once again that time travel is easy as pie. The End.
Well I guess this movie wasn’t that bad after all, aside from the utter bullshit and illogical time travel. And hey, at least there were Vulcans in it. Although they were in the past, so, seriously, are they extinct in the twenty-fourth century or what?
Anyway, while this film wasn’t as good as I was hoping for, it was passable. I don’t like that no one ever explains exactly what the Borg are, although Lily called them ‘bionic zombies’ at one point. Also, no one bothered to explain how Picard-X escaped his original assimilation. And LaForge never put his visor back on; guess he must have lost it. You’d think he would keep a couple extra pairs around. Hell, with it being hundreds of years in the future, you think that glasses would be a thing of the past, like racism, whales, or captain Kirk. Then again, they apparently STILL haven’t found a cure for baldness.
I did, by the way, love the Borg cube ship. The other ship, that Enterprise thing, held up surprisingly well. Of course, it was under Borg control for half the movie, so that might have had something to do with it. Although it seems like it doesn’t take much to put down a Borg. Not more than a phaser shot, at least. The entire infestation of them on the new Ford Enterprise were taken out when their skin melted off. So much for not being as fragile as humans. Frankly, I was a little disappointed with them.
But then, this IS Star Trek. What should I have expected?
The Chris Effect 
Leave a comment