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Dom Robinson reviews
Paramount
- Cert:
- Cat.no: PHE 8010
- Running time: 106 minutes
- Year: 1996
- Pressing: 2000
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 31 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
- Languages: 5 languages available
- Subtitles: 9 languages available
- Widescreen: 2.35:1 (Panavision)
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £19.99
- Extras : Scene index, Theatrical Trailer, Teaser Trailer
Director:
- Jonathan Frakes
Producer:
- Rick Berman
Screenplay:
- Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore
Music:
- Jerry Goldsmith
Cast:
- Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Patrick Stewart (Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Generations, Star Trek: Insurrection, Jeffrey, X-Men)
Commander Riker: Jonathan Frakes (Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Generations, Star Trek: Insurrection)
Data: Brent Spiner (Independence Day, Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Generations, Star Trek: Insurrection)
Geordi: Levar Burton (Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Generations, Star Trek: Insurrection)
Worf: Michael Dorn (Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Generations, Star Trek: Insurrection)
Dr. Beverly Crusher: Gates McFadden (Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Generations, Star Trek: Insurrection)
Deanna Troi: Marina Sirtis (Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Generations, Star Trek: Insurrection)
Lily: Alfre Woodard (Grand Canyon, Passion Fish)
Zefram Cochran: James Cromwell (Babe, Eraser)
Borg Queen: Alice Krige (Sleepwalkers)
Medical Officer Hologram: Robert Picardo (TV: The Adventures of Brisco County Jr., The Wonder Years)
Star Trek: First Contactis the second big screen adventure to featurethe Next Generation crew, and the first without any members of theoriginal Star Trek cast.
The film is a continuation of the story that began with the TV two-parter,The Best of Both Worlds, also available on PAL Laserdisc, in whichPicard became assimilated into the Borg collective. Six years on, and Picardstill has nightmares about it. While the Borg are about to cause hell in onepart of the universe, the crew of the Enterprise “E” are in the Neutral Zone’chasing comets’. Getting bored very quickly, Picard decides it’s time to kickBorg-butt and attempt to blow up the Borg’s cube.
As they try to destroy it, a sphere escapes and headstowards Earth creating a temporal vortex which allowed to Borg to go back intime and assimilate the entire planet. Duty bound, Picard insists they headinto the vortex so they can put things back to rights and return the ninebillion Earthlings back to human, and they are taken back to the year 2063,ten years after the Third World War.
The Borg’s plan is to colonise the Earth from April 4th, 2063, and stopZefram Cochran, inventor of the Warp Drive, from making his creation, andpreventing the events of the day after, April 5th – First Contact, whereEarthlings first made contact with the Vulcans.
What follows is the Borg’s attempt to colonise the Enterprise after teleportingonboard without being noticed, before continuing their course for Earth. Picardhas the choice of detonating the ship and making sure the crew escape, thusmaking sure the Borg go out with a bang. One crew member asks, “Do you thinkthey’ll build another one?”, to which Picard replies, “Plenty more letters inthe alphabet”. However, it can’t be quite that easy a solution, can it?
It was interesting to see if the crew of the Next Generation could carry itoff, this being the first feature film without any of the original Star Trekcast, and the answer is that yes, they managed it. Not being a follower of anyof the television series, apart from watching the occasional episode, suchas “The Best of Both Worlds”, I always enjoy watching their big-screenoutings.
In the crew’s cast, Patrick Stewart heads the cast as well as he didin the first film coming across as one of the few main stars who can actproperly, and being a trained RSC actor, he’s had other film roles includingthe gay comedy, Jeffrey.
Jonathan Frakes has as level a stance as Stewart. While not havingquite as much screen-time in the form of Riker, as Stewart, and spending mostof the film helping out invent the warp-drive, he directed the film, and madea very good job of it. Having previously directed other Next Generationepisodes, he is currently tipped to direct the ninth feature film.
The other major role goes to Brent Spiner as Data, the android whoaims to become more human as the series goes on, as he comes face to facewith the Borg queen. Spiner had a cameo role in last year’s smash hit sci-fiextravaganza, Independence Day as Area 51’s lead scientist.
However, those who get very minor roles are Geordi, who has little to doexcept potter around with Riker and Cochran, and the two ladies in the filmwho do as little as they did in the last one. Deanna Troi only seems toget drunk early on in the film, or count-down the warp-drive’s test rocket,while Beverly Crusher administers some injections early on, and that’s aboutit. I wonder though, why in the end credits their names are only referred toas “Troi” and “Beverly”, when it’s only the men whose names are abbreviated totheir surname.
There’s good support from the secondary characters in the film, namelyAlfre Woodard, who does more for Picard, as Lily, than most of the rest ofhis cast, staying by his side almost the whole time. James Cromwell,coming direct from both the sheep-pig film Babe, and Arnie’saction-packed Eraser, puts in a good turn as the warp-drive’s creatorZefram Cochran, occasionally looking confused when people tell him how greathe is for his invention – before he’s actually invented it! Finally, AliceKrige takes the stage as the Borg Queen, and makes the best entrance to afilm than most actors will ever make in their lifetime.
The only real complaint, as such, is that this Trek film has the dullestopening-credit sequences in movie history.
The picture is presented in the correct 2.35:1 widescreen ratio and isanamorphic, but it loses a point for being not quite perfect. While outdoorshots and space battles look bloody good, indoor scenes have something aboutthem that I can’t quite put my finger on but it makes flesh-tones look notquite as realistic as they should. There’s also a number of flecks on theprint that crop up but, again these only show up on indoor shots.I was unable to determine the average bitrate.
The sound is excellent whether it’s gunfire bouncing about, the Borg cubebeing destroyed, Jerry Goldsmith‘s score, or the hum of the Enterprisein the background. Dolby Digital 5.1 is available in two languages, withthe rest in surround-only.
Extras : Chapters :31 chapters for the 106-minute running time which very good. Languages/Subtitles :Dolby Digital 5.1 in English and German, with Hungarian, Czech and Polishin surround only.Subtitles are available in English (and hard of hearing), German, Bulgarian,Danish, Norwegian, Dutch, Finnish, Swedish and Turkish. And there’s more… :But it’s just a two-minute Theatrical Trailer and a 70-second TeaserTrailer. Only completists will go back to them after one viewing. Menu :A basic static and silent menu with a shot of the front cover and the usualoptions.
Overall, this is certainly one of the better Star Trek films, but again weare not provided with much in the way of extras.
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
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Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.