Star Trek VIII: First Contact
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Actor: Brent Spiner, Patrick StewartBrand: Paramount
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Portuguese (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language); French (Dubbed); Portuguese (Dubbed); Spanish (Dubbed)
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Original recording remastered, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 110 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2009-09-22
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Paramount
DVD Reviews of Star Trek VIII: First Contact
DVD Review: Easily the best Next Gen film, and one of the franchise's best.
Summary: 5 Stars
"Star Trek: The Next Generation", the first and most famous sequel series to the classic 1960s TV series "Star Trek", ran on TV from 1987 to 1994, accumulating a large fanbase and tremendous critical acclaim, particularly for years 3 through 6. Following the end of the program, it moved to take the place of the TOS film series, which had wrapped up with "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country" in 1991. 1994's "Generations", a passing-of-the-torch film, was a middling endeavour. "First Contact", released in 1996, represented the highpoint of the new film series (and, of the run of the original ten films, is at least in the top two, in contention for first). With series co-star Jonathan Frakes, the TV show's best actor-turned-director, at the helm, the production crew delivers a great sci-fi action film, one that simultaneously manages to do quite a bit with the main characters. It has rereleased on DVD and Blu-ray following the success of Star Trek XI (or just plain "Star Trek"), and now in much more convenient packaging (and also, I note, with the numeral "VIII" added in, something that they pointedly avoided using on initial release). Spoilers follow.
"Generations" ended with the Enterprise-D being destroyed in battle, allowing the filmmakers to introduce a new and more film-friendly ship and sets, the Enterprise-E, which is indeed a lovely looking piece of work. There are a number of other updates here, significantly a new wardrobe for the cast that is probably the highpoint of 24th century fashion (later adopted by "DS9" for the rest of that series). Similar to "The Wrath of Khan", "First Contact" is a sequel of sorts to an episode of the TV series, in this case "The Best of Both Worlds", the season three/four two-parter that really pushed the show to superstar status. Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Sir Patrick Stewart) has recovered from being assimilated by the cybernetic Borg, but he is still on some level traumatized by the experience, and when a new Borg invasion begins, he defies orders to take the Enterprise to the front lines - said front line being Earth, as the new Borg cube has cut through Starfleet with ease. Picking up Worf (Michael Dorn) from the wrecked USS Defiant, they soon find themselves in the 21st century, where the Borg plan to abort first contact between Humans and alien life. While Commander Riker (Frakes) leads a team planetside to get the spaceship ready for its rendezvous with destiny, Picard and his allies on the ship confront the Borg, who have taken root within.
The Borg are arguably Star Trek's greatest villain race (at least, they were at this point; "Voyager" would, as with many other things, drive them into the ground through overuse and villain decay), and they were probably never more effectively used than here. Much like Starfleet, they've been redesigned to look more more sinister, with a tremendously scary new method of assimilating enemies. The Borg Queen (Alice Krige) was a controversial element to introduce, but I think she makes sense as the synthesis of the Collective's consciousness ("Voyager", of course, would overuse her too), and the dynamics between her, Picard, and Data (Brent Spiner) are great. Data, whose quest for emotions was played for laughs in "Generations", is treated properly here, and his scenes here really progress his character (unfortunately, the later films would abandon this without explanation, one of their bigger problems). The epicentre of the drama is Picard, of course, and Stewart does perhaps his best work here, with Picard's quest for revenge gradually overtaking Picard's normally level-headed disposition. Krige makes a great villain, and the two major civilian characters, Zefram Cochrane (James Cromwell) and Lily Sloane (Alfre Woodard) are well-handled; Cochrane is an especially interesting and funny take on the reality behind supposedly great men.
Highly recommended.
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