|
Over the course of its 40-year history, the crew of the Enterprise has defeated Klingons, Romulans, Borg, and other alien species whose primary feature is dots on the nose, or a giant forehead appliance. But in 2005, the United Federation of Planets was soundly and definitively beaten by what has been called "viewer fatigue." Since there has been a new Star Trek episode available every week since The Next Generation premiered in 1987, viewers have a right to be fatigued. However, getting tired of Star Trek is not the problem. Getting tired of bad Star Trek is the problem. When The Next Generation debuted, there was doubt that the new show could capture lightning in a bottle, just as the original show did starting in 1966. But not only did TNG equal its predecessor, it surpassed it. Much of the credit goes to Patrick Stewart, inarguably the finest actor ever to wear a Starfleet uniform fulltime. Stewart's gravitas was dramatic without being too fanboy. He was Shakespearean without being too pompous. I truly believe that if Patrick Stewart had not played Captain Picard, the franchise would have died with The Next Generation.
But when Deep Space Nine premiered in 1993, while TNG was still airing original episodes, the keepers of the flame made a crucial mistake. Fans didn't want more and more Star Trek. They wanted better and better Star Trek. And that can't be cranked out in assembly line fashion like Twinkies. So, as Paramount wrung their hands at the prospect of being "rich beyond the dreams of avarice" (which Star Trek character quoted that Edward Moore poem?), they were actually paving the way for the cancellation of Enterprise and the flat-lining of the franchise. When Paramount stopped treating Star Trek like a beloved member of the family and started treating it like a cash-generating commodity, all was lost.
The last great sign of life in the Star Trek universe was the release of First Contact in 1996. It's the only Trek film (with the exception of Nemesis, itself a heartbreaker) that looked like a "real" movie. It felt as big and was put together as professionally as any James Bond movie or Jack Ryan adventure. The script is tight and exciting, with light dollops of humor and a memorable villain. The effects looked big in budget and grand in scale. The story treads on dangerous ground, because it revolves around a time travel, a concept that Trek loves dabbling in, even if it risks turning off non-believers. Here, the crew of the Enterprise stumbles upon a plan by the Borg to travel back to 21st century Earth and stop humanity's first warp speed flight. The voyage, piloted by Zefram Cochrane (James Cromwell), attracted the attention of a passing Vulcan ship, which then landed on Earth, marking first contact between humans and an alien species. But the Borg seek to change all that and the Enterprise follows them back in time to insure Cochrane's flight takes off as planned.
The film also features a fine and creepy sexual undertone, certainly a first for the franchise. Although the Borg, half-organic, half-machine, are stripped of all individuality, they do have a leader. Played with conviction and lots of facial makeup by South African-born Alice Krige, the Borg Queen captures android crewmember Data (Brent Spiner), straps him to a gurney and grafts real skin onto his arm. She then blows on it, which basically turns him on. As the first PG-13 Star Trek film, director Jonathan Frakes (who doubles as First Officer Riker) squeezed all he could from the new ratings frontier.
The other good idea in First Contact is the casting of Alfre Woodard as Cochrane's partner Lili. The always-excellent Woodard gave the movie a strong ego boost, lifting it from the realm of "get a life" fanboy fun to that of a serious action-adventure, featuring real acting firepower. There is a scene late in the film that ranks as the one of the best acted in all of Star Trek. With the Borg having overrun the ship, Picard, who was once captured by the Borg, insists on fighting until the very end. The remaining crew would just as soon blow up the Enterprise and end the threat that way. But, as Dr. Crusher (Gates McFadden) says, once the captain makes up his mind, there's no changing it. Then, for about four minutes, Lili and Picard hash it out, she accusing him of Captain Ahab-like obsession and he accusing her of being in way over her head. Seeing two pros interpret a well-written scene is better than all the tiresome "shields are down to 4%" dialogue in the world.
It's a shame the film series had the uncanny knack of taking one step forward, then two steps back. The next Trek movie was the milquetoast Insurrection, which lead to a well-deserved hiatus for the series. It finally returned in 2002 with Nemesis, another Trek film with epic ambitions. Although there's great stuff in Nemesis, it was too slavishly reminiscent of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. When coupled with the unfortunate decision to release it one week before The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, the result was the series' biggest financial failure.
There are rumblings of a Star Trek XI, which would take place after the events of Enterprise, but before The Original Series. Before greenlighting it, I hope Paramount takes a hard look at the franchise to determine what's worked and what hasn't worked. Because even though the franchise is brain dead, like its pointy-eared first officer, it can be resurrected. And while any new Trek film needs an on-screen villain, what it really needs a new behind-the-scenes hero. A fresh face who loves Star Trek and knows why it works. I don't know who that person is, but if Paramount doesn't find him, Star Trek may not live any longer, nor will it prosper.
The Video: How Does The Disc Look?
Paramount's first attempt at a First Contact DVD transfer was excellent. This one is amazing. The 2.35:1 anamorphic effort features absolute rock solid blacks. Between the space battles, the darkened corridors and the nighttime exteriors on Earth, this is a dark film. And the transfer has zero pixilation and zero artifacting. And no matter how dark the scene, the lighter elements of the frame are still bright and discernable. Colors are bold and fully saturated, from the reds of the uniforms to the psychedelic blues of the laser blasts. I found no print defects, and non-film stock related grain wasn't a factor. The transfer features true flesh tones that accentuate sweaty and dirty faces. Detail is excellent: every frame in a Star Trek film is filled with little computer readouts and panels. Every such opportunity to freeze frame and read something paid dividends. If you're willing to risk being labeled a nerd, whenever you're asked to pull out a great transfer, put First Contact on the short list.
The Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?
The idea that Paramount would pull out the serious hardware to create a DTS track for a Star Trek movie is wonderful news. Since Generations, the series is getting modern enough to utilize top-notch audio technology, and Paramount did not drop the ball. All channels are engaged in this wonderful mix. The experience is immersive, from the starship fly-bys to the score to the ambient sounds of the Borg walking around the ship. Surrounds beef up the ambience, deliver dialogue and convey explosions. The dynamic range is very good. Midrange sounds best, while the bass is great, but not amazing. Dialogue is the weakest part of an excellent mix. It sounds understandable and never distorted, but it needed 10% more punch. Audio quality is digital perfect, with no pops or hisses. There is also a Dolby Digital 5.1 track, but those with DTS equipment shouldn't bother with the Dolby. The Dolby track is about a good as the DTS, but the DTS is just too full and too confident.
English Closed Captions, English, Spanish, and French subtitles, and a French 5.1 surround are also available.
Supplements: What Goodies Are There?
In all the Star Trek TV and movie DVDs that Paramount has cranked out over the years, they've never really been able to deliver quality extras. Many Trek DVDs feature a lot of extras, but quantity does not equal quality. However, on First Contact, we've got a set of extras that are comprehensive and fun to watch.
Disc One contains two audio commentaries and a text commentary. The first audio commentary is from director Jonathan Frakes. He's a comfortable and honest talker ("always good to take a story credit, get that extra paycheck."), but sometimes his comments just bugged me. Quite obviously watching the film as it rolls, he'll end a pause with ejaculations like "watch this" or "wait for it" or "yes!" It got annoying. Other than that, Frakes has a conversational tone that's easy to enjoy, even if he doesn't provide any takeaway information.
The other audio commentary is from First Contact writers Ronald D. Moore and Brannon Braga. The two were instructed by Paramount to start working on a sequel to Generations when that film opened strongly. They originally considered setting the film in medieval times, but that got nixed when Patrick Stewart refused to wear Robin Hood-style tights in a big budget movie. All told, this commentary is more entertaining then the Frakes commentary.
Trek enthusiasts will enjoy the Text Commentary by longtime Trekker Micheal Okuda. Personally, I never found any of his tidbit tracks that interesting. Here he mentions the names of the ship designers, points out changes to the Enterprise since the last film and tells us where scenes were shot. He does intimate that one of the ships in the early space battle sequence looks a lot like the Millennium Falcon. If you've seen the film numerous times, watching it with this text commentary will add some spice.
The rest of the extras are on the second disc. The main menu contains six headings, under which are numerous extras.
First is Production. Under this menu, we get Making First Contact, which is twenty minutes of stills, footage and clips praising director Jonathan Frakes. Producer Rick Berman and actors Patrick Stewart, Marina Sirtis, Alfre Woodard, and LeVar Burton all weigh in on how important it was to hire a director who understood the Trek universe (ironic considering Nemesis would be directed by Stuart Baird, a person so ignorant of Trek that he thought Data was an alien). The first half of the supplement is weighed down by praise for Frakes, attributable to him being a director who also acts. The piece winds down with the actors talking about comfortable they were on the bridge and how "raucous" it got on that set.
The Art of First Contact centers around an interview with illustrator John Eaves, who discusses how First Contact was one of the last Trek films that used miniatures, as opposed to all-CGI, which is how it's been done since. Eaves explains how the Enterprise model was built, supported by cool behind-the-scenes footage of the model builders. There is also discussion about the Defiant and the Phoenix. Plenty of blueprints and sketches show not only how beautiful these ships are, but how brilliant these illustrators and sketch artists are.
First Contact's plotline went through various permutations, as explained by The Story. Director Jonathan Frakes and writers Brannon Braga and Ron Moore are quite candid about how the previous Trek film, Generations, had too many masters to serve. First Contact only had a responsibility to be a kick-ass adventure movie. In the first draft, Captain Picard spent the film on Earth, while Riker was on the Enterprise fighting the Borg. But Patrick Stewart rejected that, leading to Picard and Riker swapping roles. The result was a tight, fun and adventurous script.
The Missile Silo is a 14-minute piece that explains how this set was brought to life. The production found an actual missile silo in Phoenix, Arizona. The complex, which is closed and now a museum, was besieged by Trek production people, who thankfully didn't break anything. Lots of stills help give us a sense of what the silo looked like before shooting and during shooting. Worth a look, but not as interesting as some of the other extras.
One of the coolest sequences in First Contact is when three Enterprise crewmembers don spacesuits, walk outside the ship and fight the Borg on the deflector dish. Hence the ten minute extra Deflector Dish. Originally, they wanted to build a full size set of that entire section of the ship. But it was later decided to just build the dish itself and do the rest optically. Like the other supplements, plenty of stills and storyboards help tell the story.
From "A" to "E" should have been a discussion of how the Enterprise is redesigned from film to film. Instead, it's an interview with producer Rick Berman and some of the actors about the general quality of all the sets. Especially interesting is the three-story Engineering Room set, which needed to be Borgified for the scenes where the half-humanoid, half-machines take over the Enterprise.
The Scene Deconstruction menu contains three pieces. Borg Queen Assembly explains the evolution of scene where the Queen's head and spine are lowered into her robotic body. Based on the preliminary sketches, the Queen was originally a very creepy character. But in the end, she was quite humanoid in shape. There are sketches of how the crewmembers were going to get actress Alice Krige to drop down from the ceiling. Finally, there is great on-set footage of how the effect was eventually shot.
Escape Pod Launch delves into how thrilled the visual effects people were to create the escape pod sequence, which had never been shown in a Trek film. Narrated by ILM Art Director Alex Jaeger, there are sketches and computer generated animatics. It ends with the final animation.
Borg Queen Demise shows actress Alice Krige laying down on a floor painted blue and screaming. This footage is then manipulated by the magicians at ILM and turned into the Borg Queen's death scene. Lots of computer-generated imagery shows the evolution of the effect.
The next menu is The Star Trek Universe. Click this and be taken to a sub-menu that includes three featurettes. The first is the most noteworthy. Star Trek has always been blessed with excellent music, from Alexander Courage's original theme up to Nemesis. Much of the success of that music can be attributed to the late Jerry Goldsmith, who earned an Oscar nomination for his score to Star Trek: The Motion Picture. In Jerry Goldmsith: A Tribute, all the major Trek players pay tribute to the great composer. In a vintage interview with Goldsmith, he talks of why he likes doing Star Trek scores. Goldsmith's contribution to the Trek universe cannot be underestimated.
The Legacy of Zefram Cochrane begins with a clip from an original series episode called Metamorphosis. In the episode, Kirk and Spock meet a stranded spaceman who claims to be Zefram Cochrane. That same Cochrane, this time portrayed by James Cromwell, would play a pivotal role in First Contact. Writer Brannon Braga admits he wanted to take a lot of liberty with the Cochran character, which upset some fans. This supplement is enjoyable because it's the only one that makes a strong connection between the old series and the new series.
The last supplement under the Star Trek Universe heading is First Contact: The Possibilities. This twenty-minute piece goes where many, many books and documentaries have gone before. It explains why people are so intrigued by the possibility of life on other planets, and what the chances are of such life existing. Researchers from SETI and the Planetary Society admit that the chances we've been visited by aliens are remote. The story of Frank Drake, a '60s scientist who pointed a couple of radio telescopes into space to see if anyone was trying to communicate, is touched upon. The mission of SETI is also discussed: they're just as interested in finding pond scum as they are aliens with ray guns. The supplement takes the problem of extraterrestrials seriously and it's peppered with clips from all the Star Trek TV show.
The menu heading The Borg Collection contains three supplements. Unimatrix One explains the origin of The Borg. According to producer Rick Berman, it was Trek creator Gene Roddenberry's idea to have a villain called The Borg and writer Maurice Hurley who first wrote the species into an episode (Q Who? ). Patrick Stewart explains Captain Picard's unusual relationship to The Borg, while Brent Spiner discusses why Data is so difficult to assimilate. Clips from TNG episodes like Q Who? And I, Borg chart the history of these unstoppable Trek baddies. The latter minutes of the piece explain the origin of the Voyager hottie 7 of 9, herself a Borg.
The Queen is an 8-minute piece centered on an interview with actress Alice Krige, who played the leader of the Borg. Krige says that the Queen did something that no other character had done for her: took on a life of its own, long after the film left theaters. Krige credits Brent Spiner and the makeup wizards for helping her nail the character.
Design Matrix explains that it took 8 hours to do one Borg for First Contact. On the TV show, the Borg were basically made of black leotard with tubing and makeup. But First Contact gave makeup genius Michael Westmore a chance to, as he explains, "reinvent The Borg." There's lots of fun test footage and clips from the Next Generation TV show. An interesting tidbit in this interesting piece is that each Borg has an electronic eye that blinks on and off. That blinking is not random. Westmore programmed the blinking in Morse Code, spelling out the names of people he liked (and even the name of his dog).
Under the Archives menu you'll find storyboards from the nightclub, hull battle and Worf vs. the Borg scenes. Photo Gallery has a few dozens snaps.
The sixth and final menu is Trailers. Under that you'll find the First Contact teaser trailer, as well as the full theatrical trailer. There is also a trailer for the Borg Invasion ride at the Las Vegas Hilton.
Exclusive DVD-ROM Features: What happens when you pop the disc into your PC?
There are no DVD-ROM features on this DVD.
Easter Eggs
There are a couple of Easter eggs floating around the menu system. The main menu contains an egg that is a list of all the titles Paramount considered before deciding on First Contact. The Star Trek Universe menu contains a 4-minute egg about a First Contact cameo by Ethan Phillips, who appears in Star Trek: Voyager. The Borg Collective menu has an egg with early storyboards of the Borg Queen's demise. There is also a series of Polaroids that depict an ILM co-worker disintegrating, as a test of what the real footage might look like.
Final Thoughts
First Contact is not only a good Star Trek film, it's a good film, period. And given how the franchise has declined since its 1996 release, it's safe to say that it's also the franchise's last unqualified creative success. The DVD features a great transfer and the best set of extras ever on a Star Trek DVD. Highly recommended.
|
