Star Trek: First Contact Is The Best Star Trek Film
Fight me
Tristan Young @talltristan
In such bitterly partisan times, where even along the more causally benign fault lines of pop culture viscous dissent befalls us, it’s a rare bit of respite when we can all find something to agree on. Sure we may endlessly and aggressively debate the merits or demerits of just about every film or show since the golden era of either, but a general consensus has at least coalesced around one thing, that Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Kahn, is the best of all Star Trek films, classic or otherwise. This opinion has been ingrained within science fiction zeitgeist for so long that it has resulted in an ossified barrier around the film and the question, sealing it off from other forms of inquiry. The matter is considered settled to most. It’s easy to understand why it would be given such an honour. Kahn was as rousing an antagonist as there ever was at the time. The Hunt For Red October in space theatrics between the Enterprise and the commandeered Reliant were a spectacle. Kirk’s absolutely heart wrenching speech towards the end stunned audiences with the notion that William Shatner could actually, you know, act. It’s too bad that despite all of that, the consensus is wrong. Wrath of Khan is a terrific film. Star Trek: First Contact is the best Star Trek film. I have notes to back this up.
Before one dismisses such a claim as wholly spurious, my argument is not derived from the eternal struggle of Kirk vs. Picard. At least, not entirely. Yes, I am adamant that Picard is a fundamentally better character, captain, and person than Kirk. I’ve noticed that most points and counterpoints depicting Kirk as superior tend to revolve around him being more fun and that he punches people more. This is fair, however I find it to be a shallow reading of what makes Star Trek great in general. Also, Kirk never fought several Nausicans at once; never mind that Picard got stabbed in the heart while doing so. Instead my belief- and it is a core belief- that First Contact is the best of the bunch derives from its radical and intrinsically genius development of Star Trek cannon and that it’s chief villain fulfills the cardinal role of an antagonist to truly profound results. That is, not just to defeat the hero, but to neutralize their defining attributes.
First, as always, a recap. 6 years after the seminal Next Generation episode The Best of Both Worlds (it was a two parter for those keeping count), in which Picard is captured and assimilated by the cybernetic and existentially threating super race The Borg, our captain is still reeling from them internal turmoil and post traumatic stress the experience thrust upon him. As Picard ominously states early on in the film, “the moment I have dreaded for the past 6 years has finally come. The Borg have begun their invasion of the Federation”. In First Contact, The Borg correctly assessing The Federation, in no small part defended by Picard and the mollifying cool Enterprise E, as the main bulwark against galactic conquest determine they would have a much easier time were it to simply not exist. Such a feat may seem merely aspirational to your average Klingon bruiser or disposed neo human warlord, but for The Borg, there is always time travel. The Borg, with the Enterprise hot on their trail, travel back in time to a specific point in Earth history to stop an event called First Contact, convinced that doing so will prevent the Federation from ever forming to begin with, leaving the entire galaxy as an easy target for assimilation in the present. The explicit urgency among Picard and his crew when they clue into what’s happening indicates that The Borg’s plan, should it come to fruition, absolutely will work. First Contact is such a monumental event that its absence will irrevocably change the galaxy- for the worse.
Riker and Geordi’s look here is everything
So what the hell is First Contact then? Herein lies the initial genius of the film. The term is peppered throughout the runtime, referred to ad nausem with a casual application so as to indicate that the event is such a foundational part of galactic history that the mere mention is enough for everyone in the scene to know exactly what is being referred to. It’s the same way we discuss historical events like D-Day or 9/11. All it takes is the mention of the short hand terminology and everyone is intimately familiar with the event at hand and how it changed the world; there is no need for further insight or detail amongst anyone, that is of course except for us, the viewer. We spend much of the film not knowing exactly what First Contact entails, other than something important enough that The Borg were willing to travel through time and space, and cross The Enterprise E in the process, in order to prevent it.
As the film progresses we get expository dumps that begin to shed some light on the event. Some 10 years after World War III decimated much of the population and broke modern civilization in a nuclear hellfire, humanity was at its most vulnerable. However it is also when an intrepid, if womanizing and mostly drunk, engineer named Zepheram Cochrane discovered warp drive, the means to travel faster than light. In testing out humanity’s first warp vessel he inadvertently gets the attention of a near by alien race, passing through our system with nary a care for the seemingly too primitive species on Earth. That warp signature convinces them other wise, and they decide that humanity may be worth meeting after all. It is this encounter that brings humanity into the larger galactic community and transforms society for the better. Furthermore in introducing humans, notably the most ambitious of all the space fairing races in Star Trek, the ground work is laid for the creation of a United Federation of Worlds.
The film dangles this moment of future history over the viewer for the majority of the proceedings, teasing the notion of meeting a brand new alien race. Their names are never mentioned throughout the film, implying the introduction of a new element into Star Trek cannon. Two hours, some great monologuing and a whole lot of tequila shots (thanks Troi) later, The Borg have been defeated (just barely- fucking close one) and First Contact can happen. After a whole film of anticipation of seeing what new creature we are going to lay our eyes on, humanity has its very first encounter with an extra-terrestrial race- the beginnings of the universe that would be Star Trek. And it’s the Vulcans. Of course it is.
It’s hard to over state how emphatically revelatory this moment was when audiences saw it for the first time in 1996, nor how immensely satisfying it was. Rather than rewrite history by inserting a brand new species, they filled in the canonical time line in the best way possible. The Vulcans weren’t just the first alien species we encounter way back in the original series, they were the first species humans had encountered ever. They were the paternal, at times overbearing, at others genuinely caring, factor that helped guide humanity into a larger world. That one moment fundamentally defined the paradigm relationship between humans and Vulcans as the central pillar of galactic civilisation in Star Trek. It did it so well that subsequent series spent much of their time casting further light upon the century of growing pains in the relationship between the two races that they endured together. It’s always risky to do the timey-wimey shit and start to rewrite things. It’s often just an indication that you have cynically run out of ways to move things forward. That First Contact, 30 years after the inception of the whole series found a way to define the monolithic centerpiece of the show’s history without negating anything that came before, and opening a world of new ideas to explore after is a remarkable feat.
That The Borg tried to prevent such an occasion is however not the most grievous injury they inflict in First Contact. That brings us to our second point- the way The Borg, like no other character or entity in all of Star Trek, were able to fundamentally change Picard. First, it is instructive to understand the nature of Picard’s character, what makes an effective villain, and how those two concepts are intertwined. Like no other character in Star Trek, really science fiction as a whole, Picard was defined by his fundamental morality. No matter how ambiguous the circumstances or hazardous the fallout, he was unwavering in his understanding of and commitment towards the right thing to do. This is has been put on dramatic and often rousing display time and time again throughout Next Generation: his ardent defense that Data was a living person and deserving of all rights that come with it, his defiance of a superior officer’s attempts to manipulate a refugee crises for political gain, his commanding dressing down of an admiral who had let bias and prejudice cloud her judgment, his especially harsh but necessary guidance given to Riker in navigating the ghosts of his past. This is all very good stuff.
Don’t ask her to explain the organizational structure of The Borg. She is The Borg
The Borg are an advanced race of beings (well really only one being) that could in any innumerable ways defeat Picard. Blow up his ship, capture him, kill him, and thwart his aims to keeping the time line intact. Any of these would be plenty disheartening, but would do little to elevate The Borg to their place as arch nemesis that they were uniquely capable of ascending to. What The Borg achieves, what no other villain before or after ever could, was pushing Picard to abandon that profound sense of morality. As the circumstances grow more dire, as The Borg capture more and more of the ship, Picard’s mental and emotional state begins to change; to regress.
New comer Lilly, a lost earth bounder who ends up mixed in with the whole mess with only Picard to guide her initially, notices it first. The savage howl Picard lets loose as he mows down a Borg in a hail of only seemingly holographic bullets. “You were almost enjoying it”, she recalls later in the film. As the options dwindle and Picard is left with only one final recourse, to abandon and the detonate the Enterprise, along with all the insurgent Borg, his mental state is out on a ledge. He refuses, to the confusion and dismay of his crew and we reach the film’s emotional centerpiece. Picard’s rational is seemingly centered along the shaky lines of holding one’s ground as he conveys in an, admittedly spectacular, speech, “They invade our space and we fall back. They assimilate entire worlds and we fall back. The line must be drawn here, this far no farther”. Lilly sees through all of this. She cut’s the bullshit: “They hurt you and you want to hurt them back”. She confronts him with the realization that he’s not the first person to succumb to revenge and bloodlust. But Picard is no mere person, he’s supposed to be better than that. He always has been. With the pretences drained away, his out bursts growing violent and physical he ejects all notions of doing the right thing. “I will make them pay for what they’ve done”, he spits with caustic vitriol. No sooner do the words slip from his mouth does he realize what is becoming of him. Right then and there, despite not being engaged in any kind of real time confrontation with them, The Borg had beat him. They had pushed him so far from his moral center in a way nothing else ever could. Its only when he realizes that he is able to come down from this ledge and find his old self. Of course its thematically fitting that in doing so, in reengaging with his sense of morality and comradery, he inspires Data to do the same, thus saving the day, err all of history.
The evidence mounts elsewhere, namely in the fraying of endearing and fraternal relationships between Picard and his crew brought about by the machinations of The Borg. As Worf fails to see the utility of staying on the ship and continuing a losing fight, Picard point blank accuses him of cowardice. The Next Generation went to endless and often redundant lengths to establish Worf as pretty much the bravest character ever, and yet here is telling a Picard, the person he respects most in life, “if you were any other man I would kill you where you stand”.
The ostensible estrangement between Picard and Data in the third act is even more demoralizing, to Picard and to the viewer. Having spent much of the film in the custody of The Borg Queen, Data slowly succumbs to her seductions. After a life time of trying to learn what it means to be alive, and striving to further attain that tangible feeling of humanity- a journey added in no small part by Picard- The Borg Queen offers him the biggest leap forward yet. A true synthesis of organic and metal, it would be bring Data closer to epiphany than he ever thought possible, so long as he renounced his friend Picard. The thematic layering here is especially rich; Picard went to great lengths in aiding Data’s evolution and asserting his sentience, but it is his arch nemesis that could take Data past the final step. It seems like a particularly brutal betrayal, one that only The Borg had the means to orchestrate. That Data only truly considered The Queen’s offer for a fraction of a second doesn’t make it any less wrenching to see him turn on Picard like that.
Most chapters in the cinematic Star Trek continuity feel like just that- chapters. First Contact feels more foundational, the bedrock upon not just what came after but even before could be built upon. Most films effectively show off the defining traits that make us love these characters. The unflinching bravado of Kirk, the warm hearted grimaces of McCoy, the myriad Rikerisms of Riker. First Contact however challenges us to truly ponder the value of traits like these and the gaping maw that their absence can leave in these characters as we know them. You’ll never appreciate the inexorable goodness of Captain Picard quite as much until you understand what can happen should he loose it. And you’ll never fear a villain quite as much as the one that can actually make that happen. First Contact is the best.
Star Trek 6: The Undiscovered Country is also awesome. But that’s a too long don’t read for another day.