Star Trek: First Contact

This article is about the film. For the Next Generation episode, see First Contact (Star Trek: The Next Generation).

Star Trek: First Contact
File:Star Trek 08-poster.png Theatrical poster and home video art
Directed by	Jonathan Frakes
Written by	Story Rick Berman Brannon Braga Ronald D. Moore Screenplay Brannon Braga Ronald D. Moore
Produced by	Rick Berman Marty Hornstein Peter Lauritson
Starring	See Cast
Cinematography	Matthew F. Leonetti
Edited by	Anastasia Emmons John W. Wheeler
Music by	Jerry Goldsmith Joel Goldsmith
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date	November 22, 1996
Running time	111 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Box office	$146,027,888 (worldwide)

Star Trek: First Contact is the eighth feature film in the Star Trek science fiction franchise. It was released in late 1996 by Paramount Pictures. First Contact is the first picture in the series to exclusively feature the cast of the Star Trek: The Next Generation television series. After the mechanical Borg conquer Earth via changing the past, the crew of the USS Enterprise travel back in time to save their present and future.

After the release of Star Trek Generations, Paramount tasked writers Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore with developing a sequel. Moore and Braga wanted to feature the Borg in the story, while producer Rick Berman wanted a story involving time travel; Braga and Moore combined the two ideas, moving the time period the Borg corrupted from the European Renaissance to the mid-21st century after worries that the approach would be too campy. Cast member Jonathan Frakes was chosen to direct. The film was given a $47 million budget, the largest allotted for a Star Trek film at the time.

The script called for several new Starfleet ship designs, including a new USS Enterprise. Designer Herman Zimmerman and illustrator John Eaves created a sleeker ship than its predecessor. Many of the sets were completely new; filming began with weeks of location shooting in Arizona and California before moving to ship-based scenes. The Borg were redesigned to appear converted into machine beings from the inside-out; the new makeup sessions took four times as long as on the television series. Industrial Light & Magic rushed to complete all the effects in less than five months. The effects company manufactured the film's models, as well as using computer-generated imagery extensively for the opening space battle and other sequences.

First Contact was the highest-grossing film on its opening weekend, and would go on to surpass Generations' ticket sales. The film made $146 million worldwide—more than any other Star Trek feature save The Voyage Home, until it was surpassed in 2009, as well as the first in the series to be rated PG-13 by The MPAA. Critical reaction was mostly positive, and Michael Westmore was nominated for the Academy Award for Makeup.

Plot

Captain Jean Luc Picard awakens from a nightmare where he is reliving his assimilation by the cybernetic Borg six years earlier. He is contacted by Admiral Hayes, who informs him of a new Borg attack against Earth. Picard's orders are for his ship, the USS Enterprise-E, to patrol the Neutral Zone in case of Romulan aggression; Starfleet worries that Picard is too emotionally involved with the Borg because of his past experiences. Learning the fleet is losing the battle, the Enterprise crew disobeys orders and heads for Earth, where a single Borg Cube ship holds its own against a group of Starfleet vessels. The Enterprise saves the crew of the USS Defiant, including Worf; abruptly, Picard "hears" the voice of the Borg Collective speaking of "critical damage", and realises that there is a weakness in the Borg ship's shields. Picard directs the surviving ships to concentrate their firepower on a single seemingly unimportant point on the Cube before the Borg can finish regenerating and repairing the weakness. The Cube is destroyed but launches a smaller sphere ship at the last moment. The Enterprise pursues the sphere which approaches Earth and creates a temporal vortex, which it enters. As the sphere disappears, the Enterprise discovers Earth has been altered—it is now populated entirely by Borg. (Commander Data speculates that being caught in the "temporal wake" protected the Enterprise and its crew from the changes to the timeline.) Realizing the Borg have gone back in time and changed the past, the Enterprise follows the sphere through the vortex.

The Enterprise arrives in the year 2063, one day prior to humanity's first meeting with alien life after Zefram Cochrane's historic warp flight on April 5th; the crew realizes the Borg are trying to stop first contact from occurring. After destroying the Borg sphere, an away team transports down to Montana, the location of Cochrane's Phoenix ship. Cochrane's assistant Lily Sloane fires upon them before collapsing, and Picard has her sent back to the ship for medical attention. The Captain hears the voice of the Collective again and, believing something is wrong on the Enterprise, beams back to the ship, leaving Commander William T. Riker on Earth with an engineering team to make sure the Phoenix' flight proceeds as planned. While in the future Cochrane is seen as a hero, the real man is reluctant to assume the role the Enterprise crew tells him of.

Meanwhile, a group of Borg invade the Enterprise's lower deck and begin to assimilate its crew and modify the ship. Picard and a team attempt to reach engineering in order to disable the Borg with a corrosive gas, but are forced back; the android Data is captured in the melee. Sloane corners Picard with a weapon, but he is able to calm her down. The two escape the Borg-infested area of the ship by creating a diversion in the holodeck. Picard, Worf, and the ship's navigator, Lt. Hawk, venture outside the ship in order to stop the Borg from calling reinforcements. As the Borg continue to assimilate more decks, Worf advises destroying the ship, but Picard angrily calls him a coward and retreats to his ready room. Sloane confronts the captain and causes him to realize he is acting irrationally due to his thirst for revenge. Picard returns to the bridge and orders an activation of the ship's self-destruct while the crew heads for escape pods. The Captain decides to stay behind and rescue his friend Data.

As Cochrane, Riker, and Geordi La Forge prepare to activate the warp drive on the Phoenix, Picard discovers that the Borg Queen has been grafting human skin to Data, allowing him to experience the sensation of touch in order to obtain the android's encryption codes to the Enterprise computer. While Picard offers himself to the Borg in exchange for Data's freedom, Data refuses to leave. He deactivates the self-destruct and on the Queen's orders fires on the Phoenix. At the last moment the torpedoes miss, and the Queen realizes Data betrayed her. The android ruptures a coolant tank, and the corrosive vapor eats away the biological components of the Borg. With the Borg threat neutralized, Cochrane completes his warp flight. The next day the crew watches from a distance as an alien Vulcan ship, attracted by the Phoenix warp test, lands on Earth. Cochrane and Sloane greet the aliens. Having ensured the correction of the timeline, the Enterprise crew slips away and return to the 24th century.

Cast

File:St08-post-first-contact.png

The crew of the USS Enterprise on the bridge, as they prepare to return to their time after stopping the Borg. From left to right: Worf, Riker, Picard, LaForge, and Troi.

• Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard: The captain of the USS Enterprise-E, haunted by his time as the Borg Locutus. Picard's character was changed from the "angst-ridden character [viewers have] seen before", to more of an action hero type. Stewart noted that Picard was a lot more physical in this film.

• Jonathan Frakes as William Riker: The ship's first officer; Riker leads the away team on Earth. Frakes also directed the film. Frakes did not have much difficulty directing and acting at the same time, having done it in the TV series before.

• Brent Spiner as Data: An android and the ship's second officer, who endeavours to become human.

• LeVar Burton as Geordi La Forge: The ship's chief engineer who helps repair the Phoenix. La Forge was born blind, and for the television series and the previous film he wore a visor to see. Burton had lobbied for many years to have Geordi's visor replaced so that people could see his eyes, and in this film was granted his wish; La Forge has ocular implants.

• Michael Dorn as Worf: The first officer of the USS Defiant and Captain Picard's former chief of security. The Defiant is badly damaged in the opening battle, but survives. An earlier draft called for the Defiant to be destroyed, but Star Trek: Deep Space Nine executive producer Ira Steven Behr objected to the destruction of his show's ship and so the idea was dropped.

• Gates McFadden as Beverly Crusher: The ship's doctor.

• Marina Sirtis as Deanna Troi: The ship's counselor.

• James Cromwell as Zefram Cochrane: The pilot and creator of Earth's first warp capable vessel. The character of Zefram Cochrane had first appeared in the Original Series episode "Metamorphosis", played by Glenn Corbett. Cromwell's Cochrane is much older and has no real resemblance to Corbett's, and the actor portrayed him very differently than in the episode. The writers wanted to portray Cochrane as a character going through a major transition; he starts out as a cynical, selfish drunk who is changed by the characters he meets over the course of the film. Frakes considered Cromwell's casting a coup, as he was an Academy Award nominated actor; "He actually came in and read for the part," Frakes said. "He nailed it." Although the part was written with Cromwell in mind, Tom Hanks, a big fan of Star Trek, was approached for the role by Paramount first, but he had already committed to another project and had to reject the part. Frakes commented that it would have been a mistake to cast Hanks as Cochrane due to his being so well known.

• Alfre Woodard as Lily Sloane: Cochrane's assistant. When Frakes first moved to Los Angeles, Woodard was one of the very first people he met. During a conversation at a barbecue Woodard said she would become Frakes' godmother, as he did not have one. Through this relationship, Frakes was able to cast Woodard in the film. He considered it a coup, as she was an Academy Award nominated actress. Woodard considers Lily to be the character most like herself, out of all the roles she has played.

• Alice Krige as the Borg Queen: the controller of the cybernetic collective. Casting for the part took a long time as the actress needed to be sexy, dangerous and mysterious. Frakes cast Krige after finding that she had all of the mentioned qualities, and being impressed by her performance in Ghost Story; the director considers her the sexiest Star Trek villain of all time. Krige suffered a large amount of discomfort filming her role; the bodysuit she wore was too tight, causing blisters, and the painful silver contact lenses she wore could only be kept in for four minutes at a time.

• Neal McDonough as Sean Hawk: The doomed bridge officer on the Enterprise who aids in the defense of the ship until he is assimilated and killed.

First Contact is the first film in the Star Trek film series in which none of the Star Trek: The Original Series main characters appear. The film features minor roles for many of The Next Generation's recurring characters; Dwight Schultz reprised his role of Lieutenant Reginald Barclay, while Patti Yasutake briefly appeared as nurse Ogawa. Whoopi Goldberg was not asked to return as Guinan. Michael Horton appears as a bloodied yet stoic Starfleet defender; his character would be given the name of Lt. Daniels in the next Star Trek film.

The third draft of the script added cameos by two actors from the sister television series Star Trek: Voyager. Robert Picardo appears as the Enterprise's Emergency Medical Hologram; Picardo played the permanent EMH character the Doctor in Voyager. His line "I'm a doctor, not a door stop", is an allusion to the Original Series character Dr. Leonard McCoy. Picardo's fellow Voyager actor Ethan Phillips, who played Neelix, cameos as a nightclub Maitre d' in the Holodeck scene. Phillips recalled that the producers wanted the fans to be left guessing whether he was the person who played Neelix or not, as he did not appear in the credits; "It was just kind of a goofy thing to do." As with many Star Trek productions, the background "redshirt" characters were all new characters, with many killed off over the course of the plot.

Production

Development

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Writer Ronald D. Moore (pictured) and Brannon Braga combined separate ideas involving time travel and the Borg in developing First Contact's story.

In February 1995, two months after the release of Star Trek Generations, Paramount decided to produce another Star Trek feature for a holiday 1996 release. Paramount wanted Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore to write the screenplay. The pair had written a number of Next Generation episodes, as well as the script for the preceding film. Rick Berman told Braga and Moore that he wanted them to think about doing a story involving time travel. Braga and Moore, meanwhile, wanted to use the Borg. "Right on the spot, we said maybe we can do both, the Borg and time travel," Moore recalled. The Borg had not been seen in full force since the fourth season episode of The Next Generation, "The Best of Both Worlds", and had never been heavily featured in the series due to budget constraints and the fear that they would lose their scare factor. "The Borg were really liked by the fans, and we liked them," Moore said. "They were fearsome. They were unstoppable. Perfect foils for a feature story."

In deciding to combine the two story ideas, the writers decided that the time travel element could play out as the Borg attempt to prevent humanity from ever reaching space and becoming a threat. The question was what time period the Borg would travel to. Berman's suggestion was the Renaissance; the Borg would attempt to prevent the dawn of modern European civilization. The first story draft, titled Star Trek: Renaissance, had the crew of the Enterprise track the Borg to their hive in a castle dungeon. The film would have featured sword fights alongside phasers in 15th century Europe, while Data became Leonardo da Vinci's apprentice. Moore was afraid that it risked becoming campy and over-the-top, while Stewart refused to wear tights. Braga, meanwhile, wanted to see the "birth of Star Trek", when the Vulcans and humans first met; "that, to me, is what made the time travel story fresh", he said.

With this idea in mind, the central story became Cochrane's warp drive test and humanity's first contact. Drawing on clues from previous Star Trek episodes, Cochrane was placed in mid-21st century Montana, where humans recover from a devastating Third World War. The first script with this setting had the Borg attack Cochrane's lab, leaving the scientist comatose; Picard assumes Cochrane's place to continue the warp test and restore history. In this draft Picard has a love interest in the local photographer Ruby, while Riker leads the fight against the Borg on the Enterprise. One draft also included John de Lancie's character Q. Looking at the early scripts, the trio knew that serious work was needed. "It just didn't make sense [...] that Picard, the one guy who has a history with the Borg, never meets them," Braga recalled. Riker and Picard's roles were swapped, and the planetside story was shortened and told differently. Braga and Moore focused the new arc on Cochrane himself, making the ideal future of Star Trek borne of a flawed man. The idea of Borg fighting among period costumes coalesced into a Dixon Hill holographic novel on the holodeck. The second draft, titled Star Trek: Resurrection, was judged complete enough that the production team used it to plan expenses. The film was given a "considerably bigger" budget of $45 million; more than any previous Star Trek film; this allowed the production to plan a larger amount of action and special effects.

Having directed several episodes of the Star Trek: The Next Generation, Jonathan Frakes made his feature film directorial debut with First Contact.

Braga and Moore intended the film to be easily accessible to any moviegoer and work as a stand-alone story, yet still satisfy the devoted Star Trek fans. Since much of Picard's role made a direct reference to his time as a Borg in The Next Generation episodes "The Best of Both Worlds", the opening dream sequence was added to explain what happened to him in the show. While the writers tried to preserve the idea of the Borg as just a mindless collective in the original First Contact draft, Paramount head Jonathan Dolgen felt that the script was not dramatic enough. He suggested adding an individual Borg villain with whom the characters could interact as well, which led to the creation of the Borg Queen.

Cast member Jonathan Frakes was chosen to direct. Frakes had not been the first choice for director; Ridley Scott and John McTiernan reportedly turned the project down. Stewart met with one of the potential candidates and concluded that "they didn't know Star Trek". It was decided to "stay with someone who understood the gestalt of Star Trek", and Frakes was given the job.

Frakes had directed multiple episodes of The Next Generation as well as the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager series, but First Contact was the first film. Whereas Frakes had seven days of preparation followed by seven days of shooting for a given television episode, the director was given a ten week preparation period before twelve weeks of filming, and had to get used to shooting for a 2.35:1 anamorphic ratio instead of the television standard 1.33:1. In preparation, he watched Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 2001: A Space Odyssey and the works of James Cameron and Ridley Scott.

Throughout multiple script revisions a number of titles were considered, including Star Trek: Borg, Star Trek: Destinies, Star Trek: Future Generations and Star Trek: Generations II. The planned title of Resurrection was scrapped before the third draft of the script when Fox announced the title of the fourth Alien film; the movie was rebranded First Contact on May 3, 1996.

Design

The new Sovereign-class Enterprise-E was designed to be sleeker than its predecessor; the model was also easier for effects teams to film. The Enterprise was actually the last element added to the scene; the computer-generated nebula background was built first and the Enterprise model was composited in later.

Following the destruction of the Enterprise-D in Generations, the task for creating a new starship fell to veteran Star Trek production designer Herman Zimmerman. The script's only guide on the appearance of the vessel was the line "The new Enterprise sleekly comes out of the nebula". Together with illustrator John Eaves, the Enterprise-E was designed as "leaner, sleeker, and mean enough to answer any Borg threat you can imagine". Braga and Moore intended it to be more muscular and militaryesque. Eaves looked at the structure of the older versions of the Enterprise, and designed a more streamlined, capable war vessel than the Enterprise-D, reducing the neck area of the ship and lengthening the nacelles. Working from blueprints created by Paramount's Rick Sternbach, effects house Industrial Light and Magic's model shop fabricated a 10.5 foot miniature over a five month-period. Patterns were carved out of wood, cast and assembled over an aluminum armature. The model's panels were painted in an alternating matte and gloss scheme to add texture, and slides of the sets were added behind the laser-cut window frames to make the interior seem more dimensional when the camera tracked past the ship.

In previous films, Starfleet's range of capital ships had been predominantly represented by the Constitution class Enterprise and just five other ship classes: the Miranda class from Star Trek II (represented by the USS Reliant), the Excelsior and the Oberth class Grissom from Star Trek III, and the Galaxy and Nebula classes from The Next Generation. Industrial Light and Magic supervisor John Knoll insisted that First Contact's space battle prove the breadth of Starfleet's ship configurations. "Starfleet would probably throw everything it could at the Borg, including ships we've never seen before," he reasoned. "And since we figured a lot of the background action in the space battle would need to be done with computer-generated ships that needed to be built from scratch anyway, I realized there was no reason not to do some new designs." Alex Jaeger was appointed visual effects art director to the film and assigned the task of creating four new starships. Paramount wanted ships that would read differently from a distance, so Jaeger devised multiple hull profiles. The Akira class featured the traditional saucer section and nacelles combined with a catamaran-style double hull; the Norway class was based on the USS Voyager; the Saber class was a smaller ship with nacelles trailing of the tips of its saucer section; and the Steamrunner class featured twin nacelles trailing off the saucer and connected by an engineering section in the rear. Each design were modeled as three-dimensional digital wireframes for use in the film.

The Enterprise interior sets were mostly new designs. The bridge set had all the stations facing towards a single captain's chair. Among the new additions was a larger holographic viewscreen that would operate only when activated, leaving a plain wall when disabled. New flatscreen computer monitors were introduced, giving the bridge a cleaner look. The new monitors also allowed for video playback that could simulate interaction with the actors. A larger and less spartan ready room was created, and elements from the television series were retained. The observation lounge was most similar to the Enterprise-D designs; its windows were reused from the television show. Zimmerman added a set of golden three-dimensional Enterprise models to a glass case in the corner. Engineering was simulated with a large, three-story set, corridors, a lobby, and the largest warp core in the franchise to date. Some existing sets were used to save money; sickbay was a redress of the same location from Voyager, while the USS Defiant scenes utilized Deep Space Nine's standing set. Several scenes were designed similar to those in the Alien film series, Star Wars and 2001: A Space Odyssey. The Vulcan ship was designed to resemble a starfish, a crab and a boomerang.

A new set of Starfleet uniforms were created for the film, and would later been seen on Deep Space Nine and Voyager. The new uniforms were designed by longtime Star Trek costumer Bob Blackman. Since Blackman was also handling the costumes for the television series, non-Starfleet design chores were delegated to Deborah Everton.

The space walk scene on the Enterprise exterior was one of the hardest sets to construct in the film. Everton had to come up with space suit designed that looked practical, rather than ridiculous. Fans were built into the helmets so that the actors would not get overheated, and built neon lights into the front so that the occupant's faces could be seen. When the actors first put the helmets on, the fully enclosed design made it hard to breathe; after a minute of wearing the suit Stewart began turning green, and shooting was discontinued. The set for the ship's outer hull and deflector dish were built on gimbals at Paramount's largest sound stage, surrounded by bluescreen and rigged with wires for the zero gravity sequences.

Makeup

Makeup designer Michael Westmore and Everton wanted to upgrade the pasty white look the Borg had retained since The Next Generation's second season, born out of a need for budget-conscious television design. "I wanted it to look like they were Borgified from the inside out rather than the outside in," Everton said. Each Borg has a slightly different design and Michael Westmore designed a new one each day, in order to make it appear that there was an army of Borg; in reality, between eight to twelve actors filled all the roles as the costumes and makeup were so expensive to produce. Background Borg were simulated by half-finished mannequins. The makeup time for the Borg stretched from the single hour needed for television to five hours, in addition to another half hour necessary to get into costume and ninety minutes to remove the makeup at the end of the day. Despite the long hours, Westmore's teams began to be more creative with the prosthetics as they decreased their preparation times. "They were using two tubes, and then they were using three tubes, and then they were sticking tubes in the ears and up the nose," Westmore explained. "And we were using a very gooey caramel coloring, maybe using a little bit of it, but by the time we got to the end of the movie we had the stuff dripping down the side of their faces—it looked like they were leaking oil! So, at the very end [of the film], they're more ferocious."

The Borg queen was a unique challenge as she had to be unique among Borg but still retain human qualities; Westmore was conscious of avoiding comparisons to films like Alien. Krige recalled the first day she had her makeup applied: "I saw everyone cringing. I thought, great; they made this, and they've scared themselves!" Zimmerman, Everton and Westmore combined their efforts to design and create the borgified sections of the Enterprise to build tension, and make the audience feel that "[they are being fed] the Borg."

Filming

Principal photography took place at a more leisurely pace than The Next Generation due to a less hectic schedule; only four pages of script had to be filmed each day, as opposed to eight on the television series. First Contact saw the introduction of cinematographer Matthew F. Leonetti to the Star Trek franchise; Frakes hired the director of photography out of admiration for some of Leonetti's previous work on films such as Poltergeist and Strange Days. Leonetti was unfamiliar with the Star Trek mythos when Frakes approached him; to prepare for the assignment, he studied the previous four films in the franchise, each with a different cinematographer—The Voyage Home (Don Peterman), The Final Frontier (Andrew Lazlo), The Undiscovered Country (Hiro Narita), and Generations (John Alonzo). The cameraman also spent several days at the sets of Voyager and Deep Space Nine to observe filming.

Leonetti devised multiple lighting methods for the Enterprise interiors for ship standard operations, Red Alert status, and emergency power. He reasoned that since the ship was being taken over by a foreign entity, it required more dramatic lighting and framing. While much of the footage was shot at 50 mm to 70 mm focal lengths using anamorphic lenses, 14 mm spherical lenses were used for Borg's-eye-view shots. Leonetti preferred shooting with long lenses in order to provide a more claustrophobic feel, but made sure the length did not flatten the image. Handheld cameras were used for battle sequences so that viewers were brought into the action and the camera could follow the movements of the actors. The Borg scenes were received positively by test screening audiences, so once the rest of the film had been completed a Borg assimilation scene of the Enterprise crew was added in using some of the money left in the budget as the original scene lacked action.

Since so many new sets had to be created, the production commenced filming with location photography. Four days were spent in the Titan Missile Museum, south of Tuscon, Arizona—the disarmed nuclear missile was fitted with a fiberglass capsule shell to stand in for the Phoenix's booster and command module. The use of the old missile silo created a large set the budget would have prohibited building from scratch, but the small size created difficulties. Each camera move was planned in advance to work around areas where the lighting would be added, and gaffers and grips donned rock-climbing harnesses to move down the shaft and attach the lights. To give greater dimension to the rocket and lend the missile a futuristic appearance, Leonetti chose to offset the missile's metallic surface with complimentary colors. Using different-colored gels made the rocket appear longer than it actually was; to complete the effect, shots from the Phoenix's nose downwards and from the engines up were filmed with a 30mm lens to lengthen the missile.

After the completion of the Phoenix shots, the crew moved to two weeks of nighttime shooting in the Angeles National Forest. Zimmerman created a village of fourteen huts to stand in for Montana; the cast enjoyed the scenes as a chance to escape their uniforms and wear "normal" clothes. The last location shoot was at an art deco restaurant in Los Angeles' Union Station, which stood in for the Dixon Hill holonovel; Frakes wanted a sharp contrast with the dark, mechanical Borg scenes. While the cinematographer wanted to shoot the scene in black-and-white, Paramount executives deemed the test footage "too experimental" and the idea was dropped. The site made using high-watt lights impractical, so Leonetti opted to use dimmer master lights near the ceiling and took advantage of a large window to shine diffused lights through. In order to give the scene a black-and-white fee, Leonetti made sure to use light without any coloration. "I like creating separation with lighting as opposed to using color," he explained. "You can't always rely on color because the actor might start to melt into the background." By separating the backlights, Leonetti made sure that the principal actors popped out of the backdrop. The shoot utilized a ten-piece orchestra, 15 stuntmen, and 120 extras to fill the seats. Among the nightclub patrons were Braga and Moore, as well as the film's stunt coordinator, Ronnie Rondell.

After location shooting was completed, shooting on the new engineering set began on May 3. The set lasted less than a day in its pristine condition before it was "Borgified". Filming then proceeded to the bridge. During normal operation scenes, Leonetti chose to cast crosslighting on the principals; this required the ceiling of the set to be removed and lighting grids situated around the sides. These lights were then directed towards the actors' faces at 90 degree angles. The set was lined with window paneling backed by red lights which would blink intermittently during red alert status. These lights were supplemented by what Leonetti called "interactive light"; red-gelled lights from off stage cast flashing rims on the bridge set and heads of the crew. For the crippling of the ship due to Borg intrusion, the lighting originated only from instrument panels and red alert displays. The fill light on these scenes were reduced so that the cast would pass through dark spots on the birdge and interiors out of the limited range of these sources. Small 30- and 50-watt lights were used to throw localized shafts of light onto the sets.

Next came the action sequences and the battle for the Enterprise, a phase the filmmakers dubbed "Borg Hell". Frakes directed the Borg scenes similar to a horror film, creating as much suspense as possible. To balance these elements he added more comedic elements to the Earth scenes, intended to momentarily relieve the audience of tension before building it up again. Leonetti reconfigured the lighting to reflect the takeover of the ship interiors. "When the ship gets Borgified, everything is changed into more of a squared-off, robotic look with sharp edges but rounded images," he explained. To give the corridor walls more shape, Leonetti lit them from underneath. Since the halls were so small and the ceilings would be visible in many of the shots, special attention was paid to hiding the light fixtures.

We were on a circle, which has no geography to it. We had our three heroes [Picard, Worf and Hawk] in space suits, which look identical so you couldn't tell who was who until you got in real close. But the minute you get in close, you defeat the whole purpose of being on the outside of the ship, so you can see the cells and the stars and Earth looming in the background. It was a shooting and editing nightmare.

Jonathan Frakes on the difficulty of the space-walk scene.

For the live-action space walk scenes, visual effects supervisor Moore spent two weeks of bluescreen photography at the deflector set. Frakes considered filming the scene to be the most tedious in the film due to the amount of preparation it took to start each day's shoot. Since the rest of the Enterprise-E, as well as the backdrop of Earth, were to be added later, shooting became confusing. Moore used a laptop with digital reproductions of the set to orient the crew and help Frakes understand what the finished shot would look like. A one-armed actor portrayed the Borg whose arm Worf slices off in order to accurately portray the effect intended.

The last scene filmed was the film's very first, Picard's Borg nightmare. One shot begins inside the iris of Picard's eyeball and pulls back to reveal the captain aboard a massive Borg ship. The shot continues to pull back and reveal the exterior of a Borg ship. The scene was inspired by a New York City production of Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street in which the stage surrounded the audience, giving a sense of realism. The shot was filmed as three separate elements merged together with digital effects. The crew used a 50mm lens to make it easier for the effects team to dissolve the closeup shots with the other elements. Starting from Stewart's eye, the camera pulled back 25 feet, requiring the key light to increase in intensity up to 1000 footcandles so that there was enough depth to keep the eye sharp. The surface of the stage proved too uneven to accomplish the smooth dolly pullback required by the effects team, who needed a steady shot in order to blend a computer-generated version of Picard's eye with the pullback. The 135 foot dolly track was raised off the stage floor and layered with pieces of double-thick birch plywood, chosen for its smooth finish. The entire set for the scene was 100 feet wide and 25 feet high; gaps left by the dolly reveal were filled in later digitally. Principal photography finished on July 2, 1996, two days over schedule but still under budget.

Effects

First Contact's effects were handled by Industrial Light and Magic. Used to directing episodes for the television series, Frakes was frequently reminded by effects artist Terry Frazee to "think big, blow everything up". Most of the effects sequences were planned using low-resolution computer-generated animatics. These rough animated storyboards established length, action and composition, allowing the producers and director to ascertain how the sequences would play out before they were shot.

For the Enterprise's dramatic introduction, the effects team combined motion-control shots of the Enterprise model with a computer-generated background. Sequence supervisor Dennis Turner, who had created Generations' energy ribbon and specialized in creating natural phenomena, was charged with creating the star cluster, modeled after the Eagle Nebula. The nebular coluns and solid areas were modeled with basic wireframe geometry, with surface shaders applied to make the edges of the nebula glow. A particle render ILM devised for the earlier tornado film Twister was used to create a turbulent look within the nebula. Once the shots of the Enterprise had been captured, Turner inserted the ship into the computer-generated background and altered its position until the images matched up.

The opening beauty pass of the new Enterprise was the responsibility of visual effects cinematographer Marty Rosenberg, who also handled all the other miniatures, explosions, and some live-action bluescreen elements. Rosenberg had previously shot some of the Enterprise-D effects for Generations, but had to adjust his techniques for the new model; the cinematographer used a 50mm lens instead of the 35mm used for Generations because the smaller lens made the new Enterprise's dish appear stretched out. Effects supervisor John Knoll decided to shoot the model from above and below as much as possible; side views made the ship appear to flat and elongated.

For the Borg battle, Knoll insisted on closeup shots that were very near the alien vessel. ILM layered their 30 inch model with an additional five inches of etched brass over a glowing neon lightbox for internal illumination. To make the ship appear even larger than it was, Knoll made sure that an edge of the Borg vessel was facing the camera like the prow of a ship and that the Cube broke the edges of the frame. To give the Cube greater depth and texture, Rosenberg shot the vessel with harsher light. "I created this really odd, raking three-quarter backlight coming from the right or left side, which I balanced out with nets and a couple of little lights. I wanted it to look scary and mysterious, so it was lit like a point, and we always had the camera dutched to it; we never just had it coming straight at us," he said. Small lights attached to the Cube's surface helped to create visual interest and convey scale; the model was deliberately shot with a slow, determined pacing to contrast with the Federation ships engaged in battle with the Borg. The impact of Federation weaponry on the Borg Cube was simluated using a 60 inch model of the Cube. The model had specific areas which could be blown up multiple times without damaging the miniature. For the final explosion of the Cube, Rosenberg shot ten 30 inch Cubes with explosive-packed lightweight skins. The Cubes were suspended from pipes sixty feet above the camera on the ground. Safety glass was placed over the lens to prevent damage, while the camera was covered with plywood to protect it from bits of plastic that rained down after each explosion. The smaller Borg Sphere was a 26 inch model that was shot separately from the Cube and digitally added in postproduction. The time-travel vortex the Sphere creates was simulated with a rocket re-entry effect; bowshock forms in front of the ship, then streams backwards at high speed. Interactive lighting was played across the computer-generated Enterprise model for when the ship is caught in the time vortex.

The miniature Enterprise was again used for the spacewalk sequence. Even on the large model, it was hard to make the miniature appear realistic in extreme close-up shots. In order to make the pullback shot work, the camera had to be within one-eighth of an inch from the model. Painter Jim Smith spent several days on a tiny area of the model to add enough surface detail for the close-up, but even then the focus was barely adequate. To compensate the crew used a wider-angle lens and shot at the lowest f-stop they could. The live-action scenes of the spacewalking crew were then digitally added. Wide shots used footage of photo doubles walking across a large bluescreen draped across ILM's parking lot at night.

ILM was tasked with imagining what the immediate assimilation of an Enterprise crewmember would look like. Jaeger came up with a set of cables that sprang from the Borg's knuckles and buried themselves in the crewmember's neck. Wormlike tubes would course through the victim's body and mechanical devices break the skin. The entire transformation was created using computer-generated imagery. The wormlike geometry was animated over the actor's face, then blended in with the addition of a skin texture over the animation. The gradual change in skin tone was simulated with shaders.

File:Borgqueen.png

The lowering of the Borg Queen's head into her body took ILM five months to produce.

Frakes considered the entrance of the Borg Queen, where her head, shoulders, and steel spine are lowered by cables and attached to her body, as the "signature visual effect in the film". The scene was difficult to execute, taking ILM five months to finish. Jaeger devised a rig that would lower the actress on the set, and applied a prosthetic spine over a blue suit so that ILM could remove Krige's lower body. This strategy enabled the filmmakers to incorporate as many live-action elements without resorting to further digital effects. To make the spine appear at the proper angle, Krige extended her neck so it appeared in line with the spine. Knoll did not want it to appear as if the Queen was on a hard, mechanical rig; "we wanted her to have the appropriate 'float'", he explained. Using separate motion control passes on the set, Knoll shot the lower of the upper torso and the secondary sequence with Krige's entire body. A digital version of the Borg body suit was used for the lowering sequence, at which point the image was morphed back to the real shot of Krige's body. The animated claws of the suit were created digitally as well using a very detailed model. As reference to the animators, the shot required Krige to realistically portray "the strange pain or satisfaction of being reconnected to her body".

Music

Longtime Star Trek and film composer Jerry Goldsmith scored First Contact.

Themes

Frakes believes the main themes of First Contact, and also Star Trek as a whole, are loyalty, friendship, honesty and mutual respect. This is evident in the film as Picard chooses to rescue Data rather than evacuate the ship with rest of the crew. The film makes direct comparison between Picard's hatred of the Borg and refusal to destroy the Enterprise and that of Captain Ahab in the novel Moby-Dick. The moment marks a turning point in the film as Picard changes his mind, symbolized by his putting down his gun. A similar Moby-Dick reference was made in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and although Braga and Moore did not really want to repeat it, they decided it worked so well they could not leave it out. Several lines refer to the 21st Century dwellers being primitive, and the 24th Century people to have evolved to a more utopian society. In the end it is Lily (the 21st Century woman) who shows Picard (the 24th Century man) that his quest for revenge is the very primitive behaviour that humans had evolved to not use. There is a love theme between Lily Sloane and Picard, and the Vulcans at the end are representative of the biblical figures the Three Wise Men.

The nature of the Borg, specifically as seen in First Contact has been the subject of critical discussion. Author Joanna Zylinska notes that while other alien species are tolerated by humanity in Star Trek, the Borg are viewed differently due to their cybernetic alterations and the loss of personal freedom and autonomy. Members of the crew who are assimilated into the Collective are subsequently viewed as "polluted by technology" and less than human. Zylinska draws comparisons between the technological distinction of humanity and machine in Star Trek and the work of artists such as Stelarc. Oliver Marchart drew parallels between the Borg's combination of many into an artificial one and Thomas Hobbes's concept of the Leviathan. The nature of perilous first contact between species as represented by films such as Independence Day, Aliens and First Contact is a marriage of classic fears of national invasion and the loss of personal identity.

Reception

Release

1996 marked the 30th anniversary of the Star Trek franchise. The film premiered November 18, 1996, at Mann's Chinese Theater in Hollywood, Los Angeles on November 18, 1996. The main cast save Spiner were in attendance, as were Moore, Braga, Jerry Goldsmith, and Marty Hornstein. Other Star Trek actors included DeForest Kelley, Rene Auberjonois, Avery Brooks, Colm Meaney, Armin Shimerman, Terry Ferrell, Kate Mulgrew, Roxann Dawson, Jennifer Lien, Robert Duncan McNeill, Ethan Phillips, Tim Russ, Garrett Wang and Robert Picardo. After the screening 1500 guests crossed the street to the Hollywood Colonnade, where the interiors had been dressed to match settings from the film: the holodeck nightclub, part of the bridge, a "star room", the Borg hive and the "crash 'n' burn lounge".

It opened in the United Kingdom with a royal premiere, attended by Charles, Prince of Wales. First Contact was the first Star Trek film to receive a PG-13 rating from the Motion Picture Association of America, meaning parents were cautioned that it may be inappropriate for children under the age of 13. This was due to the film's violence: principally the firing of automatic weapons, and Data breaking a Borg's neck.

Opening in 2,812 theaters the film made $30,716,131 in its first weekend of release. It closed with a domestic gross of $92,027,888 and a total worldwide gross of $146,027,888. In the US it was at the time the second highest grossing Star Trek behind The Voyage Home, and the 12th highest grossing film based on a live-action television series. It was the 17th highest grossing film in the US in 1996, and the 22nd highest grossing worldwide.

Critical response

Critical response to First Contact was generally positive. Ryan Gilbey of The Independent considered the film wise to dispense of the old cast; "for the first time, a Star Trek movie actually looks like something more ambitious than an extended TV show," he wrote. Bob Thompson felt that First Contact conversely felt more in the spirit of the 1960s television series than any previous installment. The Globe and Mail's Elizabeth Renzeti said that First Contact succeeded in improving on the "stilted" previous entry in the series, and that it featured a renewed interest in storytelling. Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times wrote "First Contact does everything you'd want a Star Trek film to do, and it does it with cheerfulness and style." Critics such as Roger Ebert called the film one of the best Star Trek movies. Adrian Martin of The Age noted that the film was geared towards pleasing fans; "strangers to this fanciful world first delineated by Gene Roddenberry will just have to struggle to comprehend as best they can," he wrote, but "cult-followers will be in heaven". The New York Times' Janet Maslin said that the "convoluted" plot would "boggle all but hard-core devotees" of the series. While critics such as [] considered the total lack of old characters from the previous seven movies a welcome change, Maslin said that without the original stars, "the series now lacks [...] much of its earlier determination. It has morphed into something less innocent and more derivative than it used to be, something the noncultist is ever less likely to enjoy."

Roger Ebert found that First Contact was one of the best Star Trek films, and praised the special effects. He particularly noted the performance of Stewart and the evilness of the Borg. Joe Leydon gave a very positive review, concluding: "If First Contact is indicative of what the next generation of Star Trek movies will be like, the franchise is certain to live long and prosper." Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly enjoyed the film as it "displays a zippy new energy and a sleek, confident style fully independent of its predecessors". Giving it a B+ she noted "By the time Worf (Michael Dorn), knocking off a slimy attacker, growls a Schwarzeneggerish 'Assimilate this!' we've already done so, with pleasure." Although disliking the humor, James Berardinelli found First Contact to be "the most entertaining Star Trek in more than a decade," and it "has single-handedly revived the Star Trek movie series, at least from a creative point-of-view."

Although praising Woodard's performance, Emily Carlisle of the BBC disliked the film: "Focusing more on action sequences than characterisation, the breakneck pace gives an unsatisfying result." Empire's Adam Scott criticized the script for "plung[ing] right into the action" so "there's nowhere near enough time for those not familiar with the series to get to know and care about the characters," also citing the lack of screentime for Troi and Crusher.

First Contact earned an Academy Award-nomination for Best Makeup, losing out to The Nutty Professor. At the Saturn Awards the film was nominated in ten categories including Best Science Fiction Film, Best Actor for Patrick Stewart and Best Director for Jonathan Frakes. It won three: Best Costumes, Best Supporting Actor for Brent Spiner and Best Supporting Actress for Alice Krige. Jerry Goldsmith won a BMI Film Music Award for his score, and the film was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation.

Lawsuit

In 2000, Murray Leinster's heirs sued Paramount Pictures over the film, claiming that as the owners of the rights to Leinster's 1945 short story "First Contact", it infringed their trademark in the term. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia granted Paramount's motion for summary judgment and dismissed the suit. The court found that regardless of whether Leinster's story first coined the phrase, it had since become a generic and therefore unprotectable term that described the genre of science fiction in which humans first encounter alien species. Even if the title was instead "descriptive"—a category of terms higher than "generic" that may be protectable—there was no evidence that the title had the required association in the public's mind (known as "secondary meaning") such that its use would normally be understood as referring to Leinster's story. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court's dismissal without comment.

References

• Nemecek, Larry (2003). Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion (3rd ed.). Pocket Books. ISBN 0743457986.
• Thompson, Andrew O (1996). "Battling the Borg". American Cinematographer. 77 (12): 58–66. ISSN 0002-7928. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
• Magid, Ron (1996). "Where No Trek Has Gone Before". American Cinematographer. 77 (12): 68–74. ISSN 0002-7928. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)

External links

• Star Trek: First Contact Official site
• Star Trek: First Contact at IMDb
• Star Trek: First Contact at Memory Alpha