Peter Lynn
James
T. Kirk' old foe Khan escapes exile and steals the Genesis Device,
a planet-terraforming tool that handily doubles as a superweapon. The
Enterprise eventually blows up Khan' ship, but unluckily loses
warp power just as Khan, with his dying breath, triggers a thermonuclear
bomb. Spock fixes the warp drive just in time, but having stupidly not
bothered to don any protective gear beyond a pair of gloves, dies of radiation
poisoning. Kirk and a radiation-suit-wearing Scotty (ah, so that's
what happened to it) watch safely from behind a plexiglass wall. Kirk's
pretty broken up about it-not broken up enough to go in and help
him, of course, but still.
Spock
dies! For an entire movie, even! Plus, the consequences of Kirk'
legendary cocksmanship among the many fine green-skinned ladies of the
galaxy finally rear their ugly head here, with the appearance of a heretofore-unknown
son (the ensuing paternity suit should have been the plot of the sequel).
Jean-Luc
Picard, known mostly for enjoying hot cups of tea, Brahms concertos, and
avoiding fights by talking things over sensibly, turns into Bruce Willis
in First Contact. He sprays Borg drones with hot lead from a
tommy gun, courts death by calling Worf a coward and delivers a mouth-foaming
monologue about killing every Borg he can lay his hands on that culminates
in an awesome rockstar tantrum where he trashes his ready room. Later,
he snaps the Borg Queen' spine like a breadstick. Apparently, there
are any number of things you can do to Picard without making him lose
his cool. But turn him an albino cyborg and he will fuck your shit
up. Why You Shouldn't
Dr.
Crusher gets dicked out of screen time, while a juicy part given to Alfre
Woodard could have easily been adapted for her. So, if you're a
member of Gates McFadden' immediate family, watching First
Contact at the reunion and commenting on how great Woodard's performance
is might ruffle some feathers. Otherwise, it' a great movie.
Impact on the Franchise
First Contact marked the introduction of the Borg Queen (who
would reappear throughout the series Star Trek: Voyager) at the
behest of studio execs who pointed out that, without her, it would basically
be a Star Trek zombie movie. Keep in mind they said this like it was a
bad thing.
Celebrity Cameos?
Cracked's
Patron
Saint of the That Guys, James Cromwell, ably plays
warp-drive pioneer Zefram Cochrane, though it' tricky to reconcile
why he looks two decades older (and six inches taller) than the actor
who played the same character at a later stage in life in an original
series episode. There' also a non-human cameo, if you look closely:
Some joker at Industrial Light and Magic slipped the Millennium
Falcon into the initial battle with the Borg. Given Han Solo's
busy schedule, it was nice of him to lend a hand.
Star
Trek gets comedy right for a change. This one is by far the funniest
Trek film, with sparkling dialogue, physical comedy, and even
some unscripted hidden-camera scenes in which a uniformed Walter Koenig
Borats it up asking actual passersby where to find "nuclear wessels."
The Undiscovered Country has all the high-flown Shakespearean
references of The Wrath of Khan, but it' less of an action
flick and more of a smart, gripping political thriller, making it awesome
in a completely different way. Also-and this is enjoyable for the wrong
reasons-Spock coldly mind-rapes Kim Cattrall' traitorous character
by mind-melding with her against her will. Spock explains that with the
way she was dressed in that white headband, she was asking for it.
After
three seasons of the original series and five movies, Sulu finally gets
not only a ship of his own, but also a first name. Look at him drinking
a cup of tea on his own bridge there, all smug and satisfied. Too bad
he'd never show up in a movie again, as this was the last outing
for the original crew in its entirety. On the other hand, he's doing pretty
well with Heroes these days, so maybe everything worked out for
the best.
Iman and Kim Cattrall bring the heat
as sexy aliens, and watch for a small cameo from Christian Slater
as a night-duty officer who wakes up a cranky Sulu. Also, under all that
makeup, the President of the United Federation of Planets is played by
none other than Red Forman from That '70s Show. (For
extra fun, follow each of his lines with a sardonic "dumbass!"
For example: "Let us redefine progress to mean that just because
we can do a thing, it does not necessarily mean we must do that thing,
dumbass!")
The
special effects and fight choreography in the final fight scene are embarrassingly
low-budget. Shatner chews the scenery anyway, which happens to consist
of the cheap, unconvincing Styrofoam rocks often featured in the old episodes
from the '60s. (Also, you can sort of even see the bottom of the bottomless
pit.)
Robin
Curtis replaces Kirstie Alley as Saavik. As for the ruthless
Klingon foes, the casting is frankly baffling. Night Court'
John Larroquette plays the first officer, and Christopher
Lloyd is the captain. It' hard to get past that one. Every
time he demands the secret of the Genesis Device, you sort of want to
explain that it' a simple matter of channeling 1.21 jiggawatts
[sic] through the flux capacitor.
The
big selling point here is obviously the chance to watch Kirk and Picard
pal around, previously the province of Internet fan fiction. Plus, Data'
panicky utterance of "Oh, shit!" during the crash of the Enterprise-D'
saucer section is the most entertaining use of foul language in Trek
since Spock learned to cuss in The Voyage Home. Oh, and the Enterprise
gets destroyed again; it' not as shocking this time, but the special
effects are better. Oh, yeah: Kirk dies too.
Most
of the old crew don't bother to show up. James Doohan and Walter
Koenig were willing to cash paychecks, but Leonard Nimoy and DeForest
Kelley turned down roles they regarded as glorified cameos. Also, Generations
disappoints fanboys by doing little to resolve the Kirk vs. Picard debate,
as they fail to engage in ship-to-ship space battle or hand-to-hand combat.
Does the Picard Manuever trump the double ax handle? We'll never
know. Kirk' big death scene's pretty underwhelming compared to
Spock' death scene in Khan, or for that matter even his
own fake-out death at the beginning of the damn movie.
Cameron
from Ferris Bueller' Day Off plays the new captain of
the Enterprise-B. So, after he wrecks it, there' probably a deleted
scene where he freaks out about how the Admiral is going to kill
him, before getting it together and deciding he' not going to sit
on his ass as the events that affect him unfold to determine the course
of his life. He' going to take a stand. Right or wrong, he'
going to defend it, and everything' going to be okay.
Admiral
Kirk assumes command of the Enterprise to investigate an alien threat,
to the annoyance of current captain Will Decker. A probe abducts Decker'
girlfriend Ilia, replacing her with a robot double. Decker merges with
the Ilia double, and the joined duo evolve into a being of pure energy
and disappear into a higher plane of existence. Or something.
2001:
A Space Odyssey, with its at-the-time cutting edge special effects,
had just been released when they were making the first Trek,
so the heat was on to cram as many effects into this goddamn thing as
possible. Impossibly long, ass-numbingly boring stretches of time are
devoted to showing the Enterprise flying through space, which probably
looked spectacular in 1979 but make you leap for the fast forward button
three decades later. 
Picard
indulges his midlife crisis by catching some air in his sweet new dune
buggy, which is worth noting as pretty much the only appearance of anything
resembling a car in the 24th century, in which spaceships, teleporters,
and feet are the clearly favored means of travel. Also, those crazy kids
Riker and Troi finally get together and get married, if you care about
that.
Not
only did Nemesis bring in the lowest box office earnings of any
Trek film, but its main impact on the franchise was to demonstrate
the utter lack of need for any more movies with the current cast. Accordingly,
the next announced Trek film reportedly will be a prequel to
the original series, with Matt Damon the leading candidate to play the
young Kirk.
We
don't get to actually see Troi' boobs, nor much else that'
memorable either. (In retrospect, our best chance for a little Betazoids-gone-wild
action was probably the scene when Troi turned into a sloppy drunk party
girl in First Contact.) Marina Sirtis has since claimed at conventions
to have fallen asleep during the film' premiere. Even director
Jonathan Frakes has been vocal about his distaste for the weak script
of the lackluster and instantly forgettable Insurrection.
Rage
Against the Machine/Audioslave guitarist Tom Morello
has a surprising cameo as an alien warrior. (And it' not even his
first Trek role; he'd appeared previously on an episode
of Voyager.)
Uhura
performs an erotic dance to distract some guards, which would have been
sexy and awesome, had Nichelle Nichols not been 56 when this scene was
filmed. It may be worth watching for a rare shot of Doohan' missing
finger, visible here thanks to Shatner' sloppy direction. We're
basically grasping at straws here-unless you've lost a bet,
there really isn't much reason to watch this one.
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