It is clear that in this article I am going to convince you that Star Trek : First Contact is the best movie in the Star Trek series. But first a little venting is in order because I just finished watching Star Trek : Into The Darkness.
For most of the movie, things were happening at such breakneck speed that I could not figure out who was fighting with whom and after a while, I stopped bothering. My problem with this movie is the same one that I have with the modern Sherlock Holmes. All these movies are losing their original identities and becoming generic movies with way too much CGI packed action scenes and very little plot. If I want to see lead actors engaging in hand-to-hand combat for half an hour, I have my James Bond or Jack Reacher. Why is Spock – who is known for his mental abilities – jumping from top of the buildings, chasing the villain while the camera goes into overdrive and shows the action from all 360 degrees. I was glad when James T Kirk was about to die. At last the ordeal was over. Or so I thought. No, they had to add another twenty minutes rehashing the old plot of Wrath of Khan. When Kirk is saved by using Khan’s blood, all it reminded me of was Jerry Seinfeld getting blood from Kramer and Newman.(“I can feel his blood inside of me, borrowing things from my blood.”) A great example why Seinfeld remains a classic. It keeps getting referenced in most diverse situations.
The mission of Star Trek is exploration : “to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilisations, and to boldly go where no one has gone before.” We now live in an era where we get to see breathtaking images of galaxies, nebulae and star clusters every day. We even have an image of a black hole. Current science is replete with mysteries, from dark matter and dark energy to Fast Radio Burst (FRB). Why is the Star Trek series not exploring these topics instead of the same old hackneyed action filled plots?
The essence of exploratory nature of Star Trek is best seen in the character of Captain Jean-Luc Picard played by Sir Patrick Stewart. Picard, unlike the new Captain Kirk, is calm. (He listens to Berlioz when he wants to relax.) This single fact brings the whole tempo down a notch. He thinks, he reflects and then he takes decisions, just like a Starship Enterprise Captain is supposed to do.
More often than not, great movies are based on great literature characters. Star Trek : First Contact is no exception. Picard was assimilated by the Borgs six years back so when the time comes for another confrontation, he is like Captain Ahab chasing the white whale from the 1851 novel by Herman Melville, Moby Dick. And this fact is brought to his attention by Lily Sloane (Alfre Woodward), a simple woman from 20th century Earth.
One of the great scenes in the movie is when Picard and Sloan are chased by two Borgs. They make their escape by entering holographic depiction of a novel The Big Goodbye. A twentieth century club scene with mobsters and bimbos, in the middle of which, land two humans from future chased by cybernetic organisms.
While watching the action scenes in space in any movie, have you ever wondered why the characters are not weightless? Star Trek : First Contact is the rare movie where you can see action scenes with weightlessness. Picard, Worf (Michael Dorn) and Lieutenant Hawk (Neal McDonough) travel outside the spaceship wearing space suits, to stop the Borgs from using the ship’s deflector dish. They have magnetic shoes so that they can walk on the surface of the ship. Picard uses best scientific tricks to fight the Borgs, like shooing at the magnetic shoes of a Borg so that he is detached and lost in space. Or using the momentum generated by kicking the space ship to go across. It is one of the most realistic action scenes in space. Slow, because you cannot move fast in space and yet, tense and thrilling. Such an improvement over the run-of-the-mill action scenes that you see in every other movie.
An interesting character is the scientist on Earth Zefram Cochrane (James Cromwell). He is credited with the invention of warp drive and is a legend whose statues adorn the future Earth. When the Star Trek crew goes back in time and tells him how famous he is going to be, he gets irritated. He says that they have got the wrong idea. He did not do it for humanity. He just wanted to make money so that he can go to an island full of women and party.
Star Trek : First Contact starts with a dream within a dream within a dream, 14 years before Inception. It anticipates the assimilation of human brain with machines, something that we are just beginning to explore. It happens in a world where money has no value. As Picard says, “Economics of the future is somewhat different. You see, money doesn’t exist in the twenty-fourth century…the acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves, and the rest of humanity.” We have a long way to go before we reach that point but Universal Basic Income (UBI) may be the first step, provided, of course, that we don’t destroy the planet first.
Good science fiction often gives you a glimpse of the future and engages you while doing so.
