Star Trek: First Contact (1996)

Star Trek: First Contact (1996), directed by Jonathan Frakes.

The Borg are back! The Enterprise arrives in time to destroy their mammoth ship as they attack Earth, but the villains have gone back in time -- Terminator (1984)-like -- to win the war in the past before the humans have even developed warp drive. Picard and crew are in hot pursuit, but it isn't going to be easy.

It's not without its flaws but I think this is a pretty great entry in the series, one of the best films. We have a nice balance of action/adventure, horror and comedy. Several parallel story-lines are skillfully managed.

Made when the various Trek TV series were still current, it combines the television origins with the expanded scale of a feature film. A bit more violence and emotion, but still PG-13. Kudos to Jonathan Frakes directing his first film.

When the series was running I remember we were laughing at the Next Generation characters, but we were also very fond of them, and it is great to revisit them and see them in a big adventure. Picard once again does his morally sensitive starship captain, actually changing his stance on something vital, which is rare in life. Once again we are afraid Data has gone wacky ("for 0.68 seconds" he says). Frakes is very relaxed at directing himself. Marina Sirtis: pretty!

I won't quibble over the many plot holes, but other things that bother me:

• I don't mind Zefram Cochrane having a goofy, drunken side, but I can't see James Cromwell as the engineering genius who invented warp drive.

• If we think of the Borg as a hive then it may be natural to introduce a Queen, but it is an awkward splice of the mythology when she is introduced here for the first time.

• The battle on the deflector dish is a good tense scene, maybe a little long, but the zero-g stunt should have been cut.

• Engineering has a "break glass to flood compartment with flesh-dissolving plasma coolant" fixture. And an automatic vacuum cleanup system!

• The drones all blow up when the Queen is dead? Yes, obviously that is the best way to design them.

My favorite bit is actually at the end, Picard's goodbye to Lilly: "I envy you, taking these first steps into a new frontier." What I think of as "real Star Trek" exists only in my mind, those moments in the original series when they are way out there in the black, where no man has gone before, no one to call for help, encountering the alien with a slight horror tinge. I always wanted a series set before Captain Kirk when everything was rough and improvised, during the first explorations. Enterprise was not that show; too smooth, too crowded and cosmopolitan, more like Next Generation than the original series.

Notes:

• Alice Krige as the Borg Queen. Yikes, where did she get that? Calling H.R. Giger! One of the commentaries says she got the role because of Ghost Story (1981) where she is also sexy and scary.

• Nasty upgrade on the Borg themselves.

• Earth as a Borg planet: even from orbit that is creepy.

• Neal McDonough has a good supporting role. He's a redshirt, sorry.

• Star Fleet Command does not trust Picard after he was assimilated and rescued. Not without reason, right? He still has a telepathic connection.

• Data continues his evolution. When touching the missile he feels nothing special, but when the Borg Queen gives him real skin his sense of touch becomes hyper-erotic. "She brought me closer to humanity than I ever thought possible".

• That's a real missile silo with a real missile.

• Note the happy post-apocalyptic settlement in Montana. That's the Roddenberry look.

• When I saw the Borg working in vacuum outside the ship I thought of Scanners Live in Vain, Cordwainer Smith's first published story. His Scanners don't have a hive mind but they are "adjusted" bio-mechanical humans who operate in space, a nightmare job.

Finally, the music. Jerry Goldsmith, as always, provides essential support throughout the film (assisted here by his son, Joel). His soaring main title anthem is surprisingly poignant and uplifting for an action film, those horns perhaps suggesting the optimistic hopes of First Contact.

This is one of those films where I cannot stop during the closing credits. Goldsmith conducts the orchestra and I'm there until the final note. He reprises Alexander Courage's theme for the original series and then gives a lovely, stirring suite combining the main theme and his majestic seafaring score for Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), also used for the Next Generation TV series.

Available on Blu-ray with three commentary tracks:

• Director Frakes gives some production details but mostly narrates what's on screen and shouts out whatever happy thought comes to mind.

• Screenwriters Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore give detailed notes on their story and its production. Prophetically, they predict the franchise would require a major reboot someday. From the writer's perspective the weight of decades of continuity became paralyzing. Time for a fresh start.

• Light patter between a fan and Damon Lindelof, producer of Star Trek (2009).