Star Trek: *hits blunt* The higher, the fewerrrrrr

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > Star Trek: *hits blunt* The higher, the fewerrrrrr

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Cythereal posted:

First Contact also nailed what Nemesis ostensibly wanted to do, give Picard his own Khan

pfft ok

Anyway, Generations should have been a super team-up of as many captains as they could sign up and if it were made today it would have been

# ? Apr 7, 2018 04:47

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# ? May 14, 2024 10:23

WampaLord: Jan 14, 2010

Cythereal posted:

I thought the Ahab scene with Lily established pretty well that the Borg were Picard's Khan.

I love the part where he smashes his own display case in pure rage while screaming NOOOOOO

# ? Apr 7, 2018 11:56

Blade_of_tyshalle: Jul 12, 2009; If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

He broke his little ships

:negative:

# ? Apr 7, 2018 12:33

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

Can't say I agree with any of this.

The guy who backed away from using Hugh as a biological weapon and was willing to put the whole ship at risk to protect his emerging individuality is not the same one who guns down his own crew without remorse or sends waves after waves of his crew as fodder against the Borg.

There was nothing about Picard's character that was right in First Contact. The correct way to have written things was for Picard to immediately pull back and isolate the Borg on the ship, not risking his crew becoming more drones then trying to figure out a way to disrupt their collective.

But I guess Picard can yell and smash models.

# ? Apr 7, 2018 16:04

FabioClone: Oct 3, 2004; by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

bull3964 posted:

Can't say I agree with any of this.

The guy who backed away from using Hugh as a biological weapon and was willing to put the whole ship at risk to protect his emerging individuality is not the same one who guns down his own crew without remorse or sends waves after waves of his crew as fodder against the Borg.

There was nothing about Picard's character that was right in First Contact. The correct way to have written things was for Picard to immediately pull back and isolate the Borg on the ship, not risking his crew becoming more drones then trying to figure out a way to disrupt their collective.

But I guess Picard can yell and smash models.

He won't sacrifice the Enterprise. They've made too many compromises already, too many retreats. Borg invade their space, and they fall back. Borg assimilate entire worlds, and they fall back. Not again!

# ? Apr 7, 2018 16:39

FabioClone: Oct 3, 2004; by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

Oh, and he will make them PAY for what they've done!

# ? Apr 7, 2018 16:40

Tom Guycot: Oct 15, 2008; Chief of Governors

bull3964 posted:

Can't say I agree with any of this.

The guy who backed away from using Hugh as a biological weapon and was willing to put the whole ship at risk to protect his emerging individuality is not the same one who guns down his own crew without remorse or sends waves after waves of his crew as fodder against the Borg.

There was nothing about Picard's character that was right in First Contact. The correct way to have written things was for Picard to immediately pull back and isolate the Borg on the ship, not risking his crew becoming more drones then trying to figure out a way to disrupt their collective.

But I guess Picard can yell and smash models.

I think theres a sense of scale involved as well. Even in the Hugh episode, he didn't back down until the end and was fully prepared to annihilate them, and this was just one harmless isolated done posing no threat to anything. First Contact has the lives of his crew, his ship, and the entirety of humanity at stake, I don't think its unreasonable to think he might have a different reaction. Either way I like coming back to this territory, Picard is always so perfect as a captain, having a movie that centers around his PTSD and dealing with it was great.

Even if thats all wrong... heck I just think its a fun movie I can watch any time.

# ? Apr 7, 2018 16:49

Sash!: Mar 16, 2001

Not even just humanity, but all their allies and enemies too. The Hugh was simply a member of the bad guys, but the Borg in First Contact threatened to destroy everything, literally everything, in Picard's world.

# ? Apr 7, 2018 16:54

viral spiral: Sep 19, 2017; by R. Guyovich

bull3964 posted:

There was nothing about Picard's character that was right in First Contact.

A succinctly false statement.

# ? Apr 7, 2018 16:57

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

If they would have explored Picards guilt at failing to act on Hugh to eliminate the Borg threat when he could, then that would have been worthwhile character progression.

What makes Picard's whole revenge kick even worse is he KNOWS that the Borg don't give a gently caress about revenge. You can't revenge against a hurricane or earthquake.

There was seed of a good story with Picard dealing with PTSD, but it just devolved into a "hero vs villain" standoff that was a real yawner. Under the surface they could have really leaned into the duality of the Borg, their potential as individuals vs the force of nature they represent as a collective and how Picard is internally conflicted in how to deal with it. But instead we got die hard in space with shades of Moby-Dick and it's weaker for it.

bull3964 fucked around with this message at 17:12 on Apr 7, 2018

# ? Apr 7, 2018 17:10

Zurui: Apr 20, 2005; Even now...

"This movie replicates the themes of possibly the best-constructed story of self-destructive revenge in human history and that's why it sucks. Picard should have just philosophized his way out of an aggressive species coming to destroy everything." - A Goon

# ? Apr 7, 2018 17:42

VitalSigns: Sep 3, 2011

Because Star Trek has such a lack of paint-by-numbers rehashes of Moby Dick

# ? Apr 7, 2018 17:54

Blade_of_tyshalle: Jul 12, 2009; If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

It's a story which is easily told in movie format and audiences respond generally quite well to it.

# ? Apr 7, 2018 17:56

Nemo: Feb 24, 2001; Uh! Double up Uh! Uh!

First Contact retroactively makes Admiral Satie right in The Drumhead. Picard never fully recovered from his experience with the Borg. The movie told us he's been hearing the Collective in his head for years and he never reported it.

# ? Apr 7, 2018 18:01

tarlibone: Aug 1, 2014; Am I a... bad person?
Am I???; Fun Shoe

bull3964 posted:

There was nothing about Picard's character that was right in First Contact.

viral spiral posted:

A succinctly false statement.

Tell me, do they still sing songs about the Great Bad Post?

# ? Apr 7, 2018 18:16

Peachfart: Jan 21, 2017

bull3964 posted:

If they would have explored Picards guilt at failing to act on Hugh to eliminate the Borg threat when he could, then that would have been worthwhile character progression.

What makes Picard's whole revenge kick even worse is he KNOWS that the Borg don't give a gently caress about revenge. You can't revenge against a hurricane or earthquake.

There was seed of a good story with Picard dealing with PTSD, but it just devolved into a "hero vs villain" standoff that was a real yawner. Under the surface they could have really leaned into the duality of the Borg, their potential as individuals vs the force of nature they represent as a collective and how Picard is internally conflicted in how to deal with it. But instead we got die hard in space with shades of Moby-Dick and it's weaker for it.

I agree 100%. First Contact is a decent action movie but makes zero sense with how Picard acts and isn't a very good Star Trek movie.

# ? Apr 7, 2018 18:27

Dr. Video Games 0081: Jan 19, 2005

Zurui posted:

"This movie replicates the themes of possibly the best-constructed story of self-destructive revenge in human history and that's why it sucks. Picard should have just philosophized his way out of an aggressive species coming to destroy everything." - A Goon

High praise but I don't think Die hard is that much of a revenge narrative

# ? Apr 7, 2018 18:29

Mountaineer: Aug 29, 2008; Imagine a rod breaking on a robot face - forever

Yeah, First Contact is a decent movie on its own. Putting it in the context of the established characters is what makes it kinda bad. Still the best TNG movie (sorry Generations fans but it's awful).

# ? Apr 7, 2018 18:30

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

Zurui posted:

"This movie replicates the themes of possibly the best-constructed story of self-destructive revenge in human history and that's why it sucks. Picard should have just philosophized his way out of an aggressive species coming to destroy everything." - A Goon

Yeah, that's not what I'm saying at all and it's being a bit generous to say that First Contact "replicates the themes" of Moby-Dick when a character has to explicitly call Picard Ahab to drive the point home. Moby-Dick may be the best-constructed story of self-destructive revenge in human history, but tossing up shallow parallels to it in a script does not make the movie immune from criticism on that point.

Also, the Borg plot itself doesn't make any drat sense. Even after the defeat at earth, the Federation are no real threat to the Borg. The point of the Borg is that they seek out technological and biological innovation to assimilate so they can evolve.

So, what do they do? Let's go back in time when the most innovative species they've encountered so far has less technology and is at the lowest ebb of biological diversity since the last ice age due to nuclear war to call Borg in that century over to assimilate them. The Borg would IGNORE a planet like earth in that time frame because it offered nothing.

Here's how you save the plot of first contact.

You have the beginning battle and what the borg sends back in time is a beacon for the Borg in that century. The enterprise follows intent on destroying it. When they exit the anomaly, they realize that they are behind the beacon by decades and the borg are probably well on their way. Surprise, they are already there and infiltrated the Enterprise as soon as it comes out of anomaly.

The away team beams down to see what the Borg have done and they encounter Cochrane working on the warp ship at the point where he makes a breakthrough. The away team infers that they are about to witness first contact. However, they detect borg technology in the warp ship and make a discovery, this isn't the Cochrane that makes first contact, this is his father that died on his warp attempt. The borg tech is fixing the flaw that sets back the warp program.

The away team realizes that the Borg's intent is to accelerate humanity's journey to the stars, not to destroy humanity. This pushes human development further by decades, exposing humanity's knack for innovation to alien tech earlier, dramatically accelerating the technology advancement of the alpha quadrant. It will make it harder for the Borg to assimilate them, but doing so will push Borg evolution much further.

Meanwhile on the enterprise, the Borg are quickly evolving by assimilating the Enterprise-E's tech. Picard realizes if he can stop the Borg here and now with the weapon that was developed for Hugh, he could save all the lives that were lost at Wolf 359. He orders it to be developed for the beacon that drew the Borg here while also ordering that they hold the ship until that work is done. The crew points out that the longer the Borg here are exposed to 24th century tech, the more they learn and the higher the risk was they could bring that tech back to the rest of the borg in that century. Picard, enticed with the idea that he can undo the damage he had a hand in, pushes on and insist that they keep fighting the Borg at all cost.

Guinan confronts him about his behavior. He counters that she of all people should be for this since the Borg wiped out her homeworld. She insists that his survivor's guilt is blinding him to the risk of this plan and who was he to so dramatically change future of the galaxy. He can smash his little ships then.

On the planet, the away team struggles with the right course of action. They know they can't let First Contact happen so things are suggested like masking the warp field of the ship so it's invisible, delaying the launch so that the vulcan ship is already past. In the end though, they realize that his father's death drives Cochrane to become the person that he was which pushed humanity to the starts. It wasn't enough to stop first contact, history had to progress as it should. They remove the borg tech, dooming the flight, but ensuring the future.

After the confrontation with Guinan, Picard realizes he has to stop the borg on the ship at all costs and can't broadly rewrite history and orders the destruction of the ship.

Form there on out you can concoct whatever reason you want to allow the ship to be saved and our heroes to return to the future. There's easily place in there to insert a Data story about his humanity journey. There's potential in Data being on the away team and being confused that his decision about what to do with Cochrane changes whether or not he has his emotion chip activated or having decision paralysis with the chip activating but refusing to deactivate it since he feels he can't be an effective commander without empathy.

The movie ends with a flash forward 30 years from the perspective of the past where Cochrane jr. has his first flight and draws the Vulcans to earth.

bull3964 fucked around with this message at 18:41 on Apr 7, 2018

# ? Apr 7, 2018 18:36

Peachfart: Jan 21, 2017

bull3964 posted:

Yeah, that's not what I'm saying at all and it's being a bit generous to say that First Contact "replicates the themes" of Moby-Dick when a character has to explicitly call Picard Ahab to drive the point home. Moby-Dick may be the best-constructed story of self-destructive revenge in human history, but tossing up shallow parallels to it in a script does not make the movie immune from criticism on that point.

Also, the Borg plot itself doesn't make any drat sense. Even after the defeat at earth, the Federation are no real threat to the Borg. The point of the Borg is that they seek out technological and biological innovation to assimilate so they can evolve.

So, what do they do? Let's go back in time when the most innovative species they've encountered so far has less technology and is at the lowest ebb of biological diversity since the last ice age due to nuclear war to call Borg in that century over to assimilate them. The Borg would IGNORE a planet like earth in that time frame because it offered nothing.

Here's how you save the plot of first contact.

You have the beginning battle and what the borg sends back in time is a beacon for the Borg in that century. The enterprise follows intent on destroying it. When they exit the anomaly, they realize that they are behind the beacon by decades and the borg are probably well on their way. Surprise, they are already there and infiltrated the Enterprise as soon as it comes out of anomaly.

The away team beams down to see what the Borg have done and they encounter Cochrane working on the warp ship at the point where he makes a breakthrough. The away team infers that they are about to witness first contact. However, they detect borg technology in the warp ship and make a discovery, this isn't the Cochrane that makes first contact, this is his father that died on his warp attempt. The borg tech is fixing the flaw that sets back the warp program.

The away team realizes that the Borg's intent is to accelerate humanity's journey to the stars, not to destroy humanity. This pushes human development further by decades, exposing humanity's knack for innovation to alien tech earlier, dramatically accelerating the technology advancement of the alpha quadrant. It will make it harder for the Borg to assimilate them, but doing so will push Borg evolution much further.

Meanwhile on the enterprise, the Borg are quickly evolving by assimilating the Enterprise-E's tech. Picard realizes if he can stop the Borg here and now with the weapon that was developed for Hugh, he could save all the lives that were lost at Wolf 359. He orders it to be developed for the beacon that drew the Borg here while also ordering that they hold the ship until that work is done. The crew points out that the longer the Borg here are exposed to 24th century tech, the more they learn and the higher the risk was they could bring that tech back to the rest of the borg in that century. Picard, enticed with the idea that he can undo the damage he had a hand in, pushes on and insist that they keep fighting the Borg at all cost.

Guinan confronts him about his behavior. He counters that she of all people should be for this since the Borg wiped out her homeworld. She insists that his survivor's guilt is blinding him to the risk of this plan and who was he to so dramatically change future of the galaxy. He can smash his little ships then.

One the planet, the away team struggles with the right course of action. They know they can't let First Contact happen so things are suggested like masking the warp field of the ship so it's invisible, delaying the launch so that the vulcan ship is already past. In the end though, they realize that his father's death drives Cochrane to become the person that he was which pushed humanity to the starts. It wasn't enough to stop first contact, history had to progress as it should. They remove the borg tech, dooming the flight, but ensuring the future.

After the confrontation with Guinan, Picard realizes he has to stop the borg on the ship at all costs and can't broadly rewrite history and orders the destruction of the ship.

Form there on out you can concoct whatever reason you want to allow the ship to be saved and our heroes to return to the future. There's easily place in there to insert a Data story about his humanity journey. There's potential in Data being on the away team and being confused that his decision about what to do with Cochrane changes whether or not he has his emotion chip activated or having decision paralysis with the chip activating but refusing to deactivate it since he feels he can't be an effective commander without empathy.

The movie ends with a flash forward 30 years from the perspective of the past where Cochrane jr. has his first flight and draws the Vulcans to earth.

Umm, if the Borg can time travel, why wouldn't they travel to the future and just grab advanced tech there?

# ? Apr 7, 2018 18:39

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

Peachfart posted:

Umm, if the Borg can time travel, why wouldn't they travel to the future and just grab advanced tech there?

Paradox. Grabbing tech from the future to advance themselves runs the risk of preventing that tech from being developed. Odds of success are greater with careful manipulation of the past where all variables are already known.

# ? Apr 7, 2018 18:46

VitalSigns: Sep 3, 2011

There's no way to salvage a plot where the bad guys can time-travel at will and make it make any sense.

Why wouldn't the Borg just keep sending cubes back in time to that point in the 21st century until they overwhelm Enterprise and complete the mission. Or why wouldn't they just try again in a different era. Or send cubes to blow up the Enterprise on its first mission so it couldn't be there to interfere with their other time travel plan later. Or send a note to the cube in BoBW to change their passwords after Picard is recovered. Or

# ? Apr 7, 2018 18:58

viral spiral: Sep 19, 2017; by R. Guyovich

bull3964 posted:

What makes Picard's whole revenge kick even worse is he KNOWS that the Borg don't give a gently caress about revenge. You can't revenge against a hurricane or earthquake.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMoxpM434k8

# ? Apr 7, 2018 19:12

Astroman: Apr 8, 2001

The Cochrane father/son is a neat way to retcon the Glenn Corbett/James Cromwell issue.

# ? Apr 7, 2018 19:16

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

They can only time travel at Earth because Kirk et Al weakened the fabric of spacetime to get the whales.

# ? Apr 7, 2018 19:17

marktheando: Nov 4, 2006

It�s a shame. It would be great to see the Borg done justice on the big screen, but there�s very little Borg stuff in First Contact that couldn�t be done on tv. There�s rarely a sense of scale, I want hordes of Borg.

# ? Apr 7, 2018 19:20

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

viral spiral posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMoxpM434k8

You aren't strengthening your case by trotting out the single worst thing to happen to the borg.

# ? Apr 7, 2018 19:21

viral spiral: Sep 19, 2017; by R. Guyovich

bull3964 posted:

Yeah, that's not what I'm saying at all and it's being a bit generous to say that First Contact "replicates the themes" of Moby-Dick when a character has to explicitly call Picard Ahab to drive the point home. Moby-Dick may be the best-constructed story of self-destructive revenge in human history, but tossing up shallow parallels to it in a script does not make the movie immune from criticism on that point.

Also, the Borg plot itself doesn't make any drat sense. Even after the defeat at earth, the Federation are no real threat to the Borg. The point of the Borg is that they seek out technological and biological innovation to assimilate so they can evolve.

So, what do they do? Let's go back in time when the most innovative species they've encountered so far has less technology and is at the lowest ebb of biological diversity since the last ice age due to nuclear war to call Borg in that century over to assimilate them. The Borg would IGNORE a planet like earth in that time frame because it offered nothing.

Here's how you save the plot of first contact.

You have the beginning battle and what the borg sends back in time is a beacon for the Borg in that century. The enterprise follows intent on destroying it. When they exit the anomaly, they realize that they are behind the beacon by decades and the borg are probably well on their way. Surprise, they are already there and infiltrated the Enterprise as soon as it comes out of anomaly.

The away team beams down to see what the Borg have done and they encounter Cochrane working on the warp ship at the point where he makes a breakthrough. The away team infers that they are about to witness first contact. However, they detect borg technology in the warp ship and make a discovery, this isn't the Cochrane that makes first contact, this is his father that died on his warp attempt. The borg tech is fixing the flaw that sets back the warp program.

The away team realizes that the Borg's intent is to accelerate humanity's journey to the stars, not to destroy humanity. This pushes human development further by decades, exposing humanity's knack for innovation to alien tech earlier, dramatically accelerating the technology advancement of the alpha quadrant. It will make it harder for the Borg to assimilate them, but doing so will push Borg evolution much further.

Meanwhile on the enterprise, the Borg are quickly evolving by assimilating the Enterprise-E's tech. Picard realizes if he can stop the Borg here and now with the weapon that was developed for Hugh, he could save all the lives that were lost at Wolf 359. He orders it to be developed for the beacon that drew the Borg here while also ordering that they hold the ship until that work is done. The crew points out that the longer the Borg here are exposed to 24th century tech, the more they learn and the higher the risk was they could bring that tech back to the rest of the borg in that century. Picard, enticed with the idea that he can undo the damage he had a hand in, pushes on and insist that they keep fighting the Borg at all cost.

Guinan confronts him about his behavior. He counters that she of all people should be for this since the Borg wiped out her homeworld. She insists that his survivor's guilt is blinding him to the risk of this plan and who was he to so dramatically change future of the galaxy. He can smash his little ships then.

On the planet, the away team struggles with the right course of action. They know they can't let First Contact happen so things are suggested like masking the warp field of the ship so it's invisible, delaying the launch so that the vulcan ship is already past. In the end though, they realize that his father's death drives Cochrane to become the person that he was which pushed humanity to the starts. It wasn't enough to stop first contact, history had to progress as it should. They remove the borg tech, dooming the flight, but ensuring the future.

After the confrontation with Guinan, Picard realizes he has to stop the borg on the ship at all costs and can't broadly rewrite history and orders the destruction of the ship.

Form there on out you can concoct whatever reason you want to allow the ship to be saved and our heroes to return to the future. There's easily place in there to insert a Data story about his humanity journey. There's potential in Data being on the away team and being confused that his decision about what to do with Cochrane changes whether or not he has his emotion chip activated or having decision paralysis with the chip activating but refusing to deactivate it since he feels he can't be an effective commander without empathy.

The movie ends with a flash forward 30 years from the perspective of the past where Cochrane jr. has his first flight and draws the Vulcans to earth.

bull3964 posted:

You aren't strengthening your case by trotting out the single worst thing to happen to the borg.

# ? Apr 7, 2018 19:24

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

I'm not a big fan of First Contact but lol if anyone actually read all that.

# ? Apr 7, 2018 19:30

Cythereal: Nov 8, 2009; I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

marktheando posted:

It�s a shame. It would be great to see the Borg done justice on the big screen, but there�s very little Borg stuff in First Contact that couldn�t be done on tv. There�s rarely a sense of scale, I want hordes of Borg.

I've read a couple interviews talking about this. Doing the Borg "properly" is really goddamn expensive, First Contact spent way more on the Borg than any TV series did.

# ? Apr 7, 2018 19:34

VitalSigns: Sep 3, 2011

viral spiral posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMoxpM434k8

*Woman we've never seen before this movie walks onscreen*
"What's wrong, you don't remember me? I was here all along, viewers, you just forgot!"
"Wait didn't you die along with everyone else on that ship?"
"Uh...that question is so stupid I don't need to come up with an answer"

# ? Apr 7, 2018 20:02

Sir Lemming: Jan 27, 2009; It's a piece of JUNK!

I give First Contact a lot of credit for having a concept that comes close to justifying Action Movie Picard, and running with it. It had the greatest possible potential to be the perfect TNG movie, and they... maybe about 80% fulfilled it.

# ? Apr 7, 2018 20:10

Kibayasu: Mar 28, 2010

In the words of a terrible, disgusting Star Trek nerd, "Star Trek First Contact is the 3967th worst movie ever made." It's good enough that I can ignore what's wrong about it.

# ? Apr 7, 2018 20:16

Mooseontheloose: May 13, 2003

Some counters:

1. One of the reasons First Contact kinda works is because you can't talk your way out of the Borg (also why WoK and BoBW work). All your federation high mindedness won't help you, you have to fight.
2. I said before the Borg are loving creepy in this movie and they look creepier than they did on TV. They are spreading like a virus, the ship feels claustrophobic and working against the crew who supposedly know their ship inside and out
3. True, the time travel plot doesn't work all that well and ends up bringing up more questions but it was cool to see the actual First Contact.

In an ideal world I think it would of been two movies. Have a movie where the federation fleet is fighting the Borg Cube all the way to worth and start to assimilate the Enterprise. You get the big fleet battles, you get the same sense of what is going on the ship versus what's going on on the outside. The only issue is that Riker wouldn't have much to do. I guess the original script of FC had switched Picard and Riker's roles.

Then do a movie on First Contact and I dunno, use Romulan spies or something. Have it be a cat and mouse spy thriller or something.

# ? Apr 7, 2018 21:03

F_Shit_Fitzgerald: Feb 2, 2017

bull3964 posted:

Can't say I agree with any of this.

The guy who backed away from using Hugh as a biological weapon and was willing to put the whole ship at risk to protect his emerging individuality is not the same one who guns down his own crew without remorse or sends waves after waves of his crew as fodder against the Borg.

There was nothing about Picard's character that was right in First Contact. The correct way to have written things was for Picard to immediately pull back and isolate the Borg on the ship, not risking his crew becoming more drones then trying to figure out a way to disrupt their collective.

But I guess Picard can yell and smash models.

Nope. I know this is a common criticism of First Contact among fans, but I couldn't disagree more.

"One step forward and two steps back" is how trauma works. Picard had essentially been raped by the Borg, because they had taken away his humanity by force. Now he was watching his own ship (which captains often identify with at a very deep level. Observe Kirk's "now I know why it's called she" speech in The Naked Time) being systematically taken over by the Borg, and it retraumatized him. That's why he acted as he did, and although it's not necessarily true to who Picard was at heart, it was consistent for what we had already seen in the "Locutus arc". I'd even go so far as to say that Picard's initial willingness to go along with the genocide plan in I, Borg was further proof that he hadn't "fully recovered" from his Borg experiences.

Most fans consistently seem to misunderstand this. They watch the "blow up the drat ship" scene and think it's hilarious, but what they're missing is that the scene in question isn't really about the Enterprise-E. Or the mission at hand to protect human history. It's about Picard. It's about being able to let go of the pain and trauma of what had happened to him. That is, in my opinion, the key for understanding the movie.

This is why First Contact is such a great movie. It's not the action. It's not the story (though I think it's a pretty good story). It's the psychology of Picard's arc throughout the movie.

# ? Apr 7, 2018 21:33

Arglebargle III: Feb 21, 2006

Ship blow up the drat Picard!

# ? Apr 7, 2018 21:41

cheetah7071: Oct 20, 2010; honk honk; College Slice

I like First Contact

# ? Apr 7, 2018 21:49

Zurui: Apr 20, 2005; Even now...

Holy wow it's been a long time since we've had "here's how I'd rewrite the prequels" style fanfic in this thread.

# ? Apr 7, 2018 22:04

Itzena: Aug 2, 2006; Nothing will improve the way things currently are.; Slime TrainerS

Blade_of_tyshalle posted:

He broke his little ships

Specifically the Ent-D.

# ? Apr 7, 2018 22:10

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 14, 2024 10:23

HIJK: Nov 25, 2012; in the room where you sleep

F_Shit_Fitzgerald posted:

Nope. I know this is a common criticism of First Contact among fans, but I couldn't disagree more.

"One step forward and two steps back" is how trauma works. Picard had essentially been raped by the Borg, because they had taken away his humanity by force. Now he was watching his own ship (which captains often identify with at a very deep level. Observe Kirk's "now I know why it's called she" speech in The Naked Time) being systematically taken over by the Borg, and it retraumatized him. That's why he acted as he did, and although it's not necessarily true to who Picard was at heart, it was consistent for what we had already seen in the "Locutus arc". I'd even go so far as to say that Picard's initial willingness to go along with the genocide plan in I, Borg was further proof that he hadn't "fully recovered" from his Borg experiences.

Most fans consistently seem to misunderstand this. They watch the "blow up the drat ship" scene and think it's hilarious, but what they're missing is that the scene in question isn't really about the Enterprise-E. Or the mission at hand to protect human history. It's about Picard. It's about being able to let go of the pain and trauma of what had happened to him. That is, in my opinion, the key for understanding the movie.

This is why First Contact is such a great movie. It's not the action. It's not the story (though I think it's a pretty good story). It's the psychology of Picard's arc throughout the movie.

This man gets it. Trauma is not a one and down thing that you just get over once and it never bothers you again. It can come back and revisit you out of no where and Picard hearing the Borg again after so long, and knowing what the Federation is up against? That's exactly the kind of situation that brings the PTSD back again.

First Contact is about a lot of things but it's mostly about how you can still achieve great things even if you're a flawed human. Zefram Cochrane was a drunk living in a shanty town who wanted to bang lots of women. He also invented the warp drive and met the Vulcans. Jean-Luc Picard is a recovering POW that was raped by the Borg and is lying to himself about wanting revenge and nearly cost his crew the mission to pursue that revenge. He also let go of that desire for revenge and stopped the Borg from disrupting humanity's future.

I don't know why this is so difficult for people to understand and the "Picard should never get angry or hurt or bitter about anything ever" crowd sounds a lot like Roddenberry's "there is no conflict in the future" line.

# ? Apr 7, 2018 22:17

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > Star Trek: *hits blunt* The higher, the fewerrrrrr

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