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First Contact
Producers: Rick Berman Director: Jonathan Frakes Writers: Rick Berman, Brannon Braga,
Ronald D. Moore Music: Jerry Goldsmith
The Cast:
Jean Luc Picard:
Patrick Stewart
William Riker:
Jonathan Frakes
Data: Brent Spiner
Geordi Laforge:
Levar Burton
Worf: Michael Dorn
Beverly Crusher:
Gates McFadden
Dianna Troi:
Marina Sirtis
Zefram Cochrane:
James Cromwell
Zefram Cochrane's
assistant: Alfre Woodard
The film opens with Picard's nightmarish memories of
being assimilated by the Borg and made into Locutus. He awakens in his
quarters, aboard the Enterprise-E, to an incoming hail from Starfleet
command. Picard is about to be told about a report of an incoming Borg
ship from DS12, but Picard knows. He can feel it. He still maintains a
slight connection with the Borg, a connection that frightens Starfleet
enough to send the Enterprise to patrol the neutral zone, to take part
in the massive fleet being assembled, and make sure no Romulan ship
tries to take advantage of this invasion.
Picard follows his orders
grimly, much to the dismay of his crew (Riker, Data, Beverly, Troi,
and Geordi (who is now VISOR-less). For the past 6 months, the new
Enterprise-Class cruiser has been on a shakedown cruise, testing her
new systems. At the border, Picard and company listen on Starfleet
channels as the battle wages on. One Borg ship, tetragonal in shape,
attacks and breaks through to Earth. Picard decides to hell with
orders, he sends the Enterprise to Earth, maximum warp.
At Earth, dozens of Starfleet ships, led by the Defiant under Worf's
command, try and hold the ship back, but to no avail. The Defiant is
about to be destroyed as the Enterprise arrives, opening fire on the
Borg and beaming the Defiant crew off before it explodes. Picard takes
command of the fleet and using his knowledge of the Borg, has the
entire fleet target a specific area of the ship. All weapons fire and
the Borg ship explodes. The Federation has won.
Or so they think. From the wreckage, a spherical ship shoots out,
headed straight for Earth. Enterprise follows her in as the Borg
sphere creates a temporal vortex and disappears. The Enterprise is
caught in the backwash and spared the changes in the time-line. The
fleet disappears. Earth changes into a Borg world, supporting 35
billion Borg drones. The Enterprise barely makes it into the
collapsing vortex before five Borg cube ships can destroy her.
The Enterprise arrives in the mid-21st century; March 6th, 2063 to be
exact -- the day before the first warp flight and subsequent first
contact with the Vulcans by Zephram Cochrane. The Borg sphere appears
over Resurrection, Montana and attacks. The Enterprise is barely able
to stop it with her phasers. With the Borg threat extinguished, Picard
sends down officers to make sure history wasn't entirely screwed up.
On the surface, Picard, Data, Troi, and Crusher find the launch site
of Cochrane's ship, the Phoenix. They beam up an injured woman, Lily
Sloane, who is Zephram's assistant and mustn't die. The Phoenix took
damage so Picard has Riker and Geordi beam down to repair it.
Unfortunately, to get Zephram to cooperate, they must reveal
themselves to him and they find such a revered historical figure can
act quite differently (in a negative sense) than what their history
books taught them.
Picard, Crusher, and Data return to the Enterprise with Sloane.
Aberrations in the environmental system lead to the discovery of a new
threat within the Enterprise. The Borg weren't killed in the sphere
explosion. They beamed into the Enterprise's lower decks and are
beginning the process of assimilating the Enterprise and her crew,
from the inside out.
Everything below Deck 22 is taken and power is shut down. Crusher and
Sloane are trapped behind enemy lines and are feared to be
assimilated. Crewmembers trapped there are immediately assimilated,
turned into drones who attack their former crewmates. Data is able to
encrypt the computer system to prevent access by the Borg, but they
are quickly gaining the upper hand. Picard leads an attack force
comprised of Data, Worf, and several security guards into the bowels
of the ship, which now resemble more of a Borg ship instead of the
Enterprise. A battle in engineering claims the lives of many of the
security force, Data is captured, Picard is trapped below decks. Only
Worf and the rescued Beverly escape.
Picard finds Sloane and has to work with her to get to the bridge.
Data is strapped to an assimilation table and is worked on by Borg
drones. It is here that Data comes face to face with the driving force
behind the Borg, the Borg Queen. Data, who can now turn his emotion
chip on and off, is able to fight back, but finds it difficult when
the Borg Queen beings to make his dream of becoming human a reality.
While using a Dixon Hill holodeck program to escape the Borg, Picard
and Lily get to the bridge, just as Worf and Crusher learn that
several Borg drones have left the ship and have begun to alter the
deflector dish to send a message to the Borg of this time period,
"Attack Earth". Picard leads another security force outside the
Enterprise to destroy the deflector.
When releasing the deflector emitter, each of the computer panels that Picard, Worf and Hawk use to enter the sequence, have the phrase "AE35" on them.
This is a subtle reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey, AE35 being the communications link that the onboard computer HAL9000 disables.
On Earth, overwhelmed by all that he has learned of his future life,
Zephram escapes the crew and tries to commit suicide. Only Troi is
able to talk him down using a very unorthodox method. On the
Enterprise, Worf and Picard are able to destroy the deflector after a
zero-G firefight with the Borg. But, the Borg still possess a threat.
The only solution is to evacuate the Enterprise and scuttle her.
Picard begrudgingly accepts this and with Worf and Beverly, arms the
self destruct system. The ship is evacuated, but Picard stays behind,
intent on confronting the terror that has dominated his life for so
long.
On Earth, Riker and Geordi assist Cochrane with the launch of the
Phoenix. Upon seeing the stars in Earth orbit, Cochrane realizes his
loft and greedy goals of capitalizing his warp engine are futile to
the possibilities the engine could hold for reshaping Earth, just as
Riker, Geordi, and Troi have said. Things are made a little difficult
to accomplish this as the Enterprise starts looming closer and closer.
In the engine room, Picard confronts the Borg Queen, an entity Picard
encountered before, when he was known as Locutus. We learn here that
Locutus was made to be an equal to the Queen. The Queen is the only
individual, the oldest Borg in the collective. The drones are her
inner workings, the cube ships, her grasping hands. Picard trades
himself for Data, now fully human, now able to feel true physical pain
and pleasure. But Data has submitted to the Queen. He deactivates the
self destruct, takes out the encryption lockouts on the computer, and
locks phasers on the Phoenix.
It appears all hope is lost, when Data fights back, ending the ruse.
Picard and Data blow out the coolant feeds, belching a out substance
that melts away the biological components of the Borg. Data takes the
Queen and holds her in the stream. Data loses his human flesh,
revealing his endoskeleton, but kills the Borg Queen, ending this
newest Borg menace.
The Phoenix successfully makes the warp jump. On Earth, Picard and
crew watch from a safe distance as Cochrane and Sloane make the first
contact with the Vulcans, essentially the birth of the Federation.
They return to the Enterprise and warp back to the 24th century. My
favourite Movie.