Let's face it: Picard's generation aren't made for the action-smash movie set. They don't fit with it. Kirk and company were made for brash brawling and gunning down Khan and the Klingons, which made for great movies that were true to the original series; Picard's series dwelt on the more cerebral affairs of diplomacy, temporal paradoxes and altered realities. The higher-concept stuff of Star Trek: The Next Generation doesn't feel right squished into a movie setting, where flashy explosions and high energy levels are expected. "First Contact" is a good action/sci-fi flick - but it takes one of TNG's better sci-fi concepts and trashes it in the name of marketability.
Yes, "First Contact" has great action sequences - the zero-g fight, the weird radioactive gas thing in the end, even the delightfully kitchy holodek mobster fight. The plot on earth works wonders simply because of James Cromwell's portrayal of Zephram Cochrane - his character and his story are compelling. And Picard's "Ahab Syndrome" was pretty sweet too.
The problem in this movie is the Borg - and more specifically, with the introduction of a "Borg Queen." The reason why the Borg are so frightening in the Next Generation TV series was not merely because they were powerful, but because they were so incredibly alien: they were a race in which no individuals exist. The Borg are not a "hive of drones" who are ruled by a "queen"; they are a single mind spread throughout billions upon billions of bodies. A single Borg is not akin to a drone in a hive, which has an individual nature but which is oppressed in a rigid hierarchy; rather, it is akin to a cell in an organism - it has no free, meaningful, or distinct existence beyond the larger body. There is no head or "ruler" of the Borg, any more than there is a single cell in your body that governs what you do. What makes the Borg's outlook on the rest of the universe so disturbing is that they cannot comprehend individuality, and thus individual lives are utterly insignificant to them... they take life without compunction because to the Borg, they aren't really taking lives - killing a human is like scraping a cell off someone's skin, an inconsequential act. The Borg are a truly alien species with a completely alien mindset - a rare gem in mainstream sci-fi.
But "First Contact" gives them a Queen who struts around and acts for all the world like a nasty human in some expensive makeup. She exchanges quips with Picard. She drips sexual innuendo over Data. She acts more like a James Bond temptress than a member of an alien cybernetic overmind. It completely demystifies them, makes them more human, when what made them so compelling is that they are so completely inhuman.
Without the Borg Queen, this movie would have perhaps been less approachable to casual moviegoers - after all, most expect their villains to have a face they can react to, and the Borg are nothing if not faceless - but it would have kept the Borg at their chilling and pure best. Instead, "First Contact" waters down Next Generation's brilliance and replaces it with some smirking one-liners and a lot of stuff that gets blown up.
6/10
Yes, "First Contact" has great action sequences - the zero-g fight, the weird radioactive gas thing in the end, even the delightfully kitchy holodek mobster fight. The plot on earth works wonders simply because of James Cromwell's portrayal of Zephram Cochrane - his character and his story are compelling. And Picard's "Ahab Syndrome" was pretty sweet too.
The problem in this movie is the Borg - and more specifically, with the introduction of a "Borg Queen." The reason why the Borg are so frightening in the Next Generation TV series was not merely because they were powerful, but because they were so incredibly alien: they were a race in which no individuals exist. The Borg are not a "hive of drones" who are ruled by a "queen"; they are a single mind spread throughout billions upon billions of bodies. A single Borg is not akin to a drone in a hive, which has an individual nature but which is oppressed in a rigid hierarchy; rather, it is akin to a cell in an organism - it has no free, meaningful, or distinct existence beyond the larger body. There is no head or "ruler" of the Borg, any more than there is a single cell in your body that governs what you do. What makes the Borg's outlook on the rest of the universe so disturbing is that they cannot comprehend individuality, and thus individual lives are utterly insignificant to them... they take life without compunction because to the Borg, they aren't really taking lives - killing a human is like scraping a cell off someone's skin, an inconsequential act. The Borg are a truly alien species with a completely alien mindset - a rare gem in mainstream sci-fi.
But "First Contact" gives them a Queen who struts around and acts for all the world like a nasty human in some expensive makeup. She exchanges quips with Picard. She drips sexual innuendo over Data. She acts more like a James Bond temptress than a member of an alien cybernetic overmind. It completely demystifies them, makes them more human, when what made them so compelling is that they are so completely inhuman.
Without the Borg Queen, this movie would have perhaps been less approachable to casual moviegoers - after all, most expect their villains to have a face they can react to, and the Borg are nothing if not faceless - but it would have kept the Borg at their chilling and pure best. Instead, "First Contact" waters down Next Generation's brilliance and replaces it with some smirking one-liners and a lot of stuff that gets blown up.
6/10