Star Trek: First Contact questions

[DavidS]

First off, Ill say that First Contact is , without a doubt, my favorite Next Gen movie.
That being said, i rewatched it last night after not seeing it for sometime.
Ive been rewatching all of the Borg related episodes of TNG and its neat to see the theme and consistencies (as well as blatant inconsistencies) of the "Borg saga" thats woven through out all of the Star Trek shows...

that being said... there are some major WTF moments in First Contact. Lets begin:

-"The Borg sphere is emiting a "whocares"-ian radiation/partical beam!" and Picard says "TIME TRAVEL!"
..........ok so.... like.... if EVERYONE in the 24th Cen. knows that a "whocares"ian Radiation/Partical beam can cause time travel, why isnt it more prevalant? why isnt EVERYONE time traveling?

-next, the borg on the sphere obviously chose the DATE they traveled back to ON PURPOSE...."To STOP First Contact!" says picard....
..........Ok, so....like.... if the Borg are these masters of Time travel.... why not travel back ......like..... THOUSANDS of years ago and just assimilate humanity when we are cave men? and NO dont say "because they wanted the earth to be MORE populated thus More people=more borg..." That theory doesnt work because just as soon as they arrived Riker starts quoting his high school history book talking about "600 MILLION Dead!" after the third world war.....

-Ok.... so then all of the drama and action of the movie itself takes place..... then at the end after the vulcans arrive, Picard says "I think its time we make a discrete exit". Then all of our heros beam back to the cleaned up Enterprise (damn they cleaned it up fast! who did that considering over half the crew was assimilated?), anyway..... so then Picard says "Data recreate the "whocares"ian radiation/partical beam like the Borg did at the begining of the movie so we can get back to the EXACT moment in time that we left!"..... Data says "No prob J.L.!" and POOF! The Enterprise is gone to, what we assume is exactly where they left off even though they never mention it again in any other movies?


The issue here is that reocurring problem in Sci Fi....That time travel always works the same! I mean there are SOOOO many things that they messed with and changed "in the past" that we are just to assume they didnt affect history? For instance: sure Zephram Cocrane piloted the firs t warp ship, but dont you think the history books also mentioned who his two co-pilots where? I mean Neil Armstrong was the first man on the moon right? but who was the second? Will Riker?

I know they're no "answers" to any of these questions other than "its just a movie" but its fun to think about......

 

[cayman shen]

I'd say a lot of your issues are problems for any time travel story. If you start picking at it, it doesn't make sense. I just watched an episode of Voyager (from season 5, Timeless?) where Janeway basically told Harry "just try not to think of it."

 

[Kerr Avon]

Answer: Bad writing.

 

[Monster Dave]

It's a moooooooooooovie.

Enjoy it - don't analyse it.

 

[phase pistol]

The real answer is: even the best of the TNG movies is still a piece of crap. :lol

If you want a Trek movie where time travel DOES screw things up, there's always Abrams Trek 09. :rolleyes

K

 

[PHArchivist]

Answer: Bad writing.

To quote a character from our beloved TV past - "Exact-a-mundo...!"
Time travel was never a sensible science fiction device.

It is a story-telling device, and a crutch, at that...


And KA-RISTE does Star Trek over do it...

ST:IV
First Contact
Yesterday's Enterprise
Generations
Trek 9

And on and on...

 

[Wes R]

To quote a character from our beloved TV past - "Exact-a-mundo...!"
Time travel was never a sensible science fiction device.

It is a story-telling device, and a crutch, at that...


And KA-RISTE does Star Trek over do it...

ST:IV
First Contact
Yesterday's Enterprise
Generations
Trek 9

And on and on...

Don't forget the DS9 episode where they went onto the original ship but replaced the model with that horrid CGI thing.

 

[SSgt Burton]

Well if you'd like nearly all of them starting with TOS...

-The Naked Time
-Tomorrow is Yesterday
-City on the Edge of Forever (a good one)
-Assignment Earth
-All Our Yesterdays

-Yesteryear (TAS)

-Star Trek: IV

-We Will Always Have Paris (TNG)
-Time Squared
-Yesterday's Enterprise (one of the better ones)
-A Matter of Time
-Cause and Effect
-Time's Arrow
-Tapestry
-Firstborn (Worf's adult son travels from the future to the present)
-All Good Things (Another good one)

-Star Trek: Generations

-Past Tense (DS9)
-Visionary
-The Visitor
-Little Green Men
-Trials and Tribble-ations
-Time's Orphan

-Star Trek First Contact

-Parallax (Voyager)
-Time and Again
-Eye of the Needle
-Future's End
-Before and After
-Year of Hell (Timeline is deliberately altered- big "reset" of events at the end)
-Timeless
-Relativity
-Shattered
-Endgame

-Star Trek '09

(I'd include the episodes from Enterprise... but why bother? :lol)


No... Time Travel as a plot device hasn't been overdone at all in Trek.

:lol


Kevin

 

[Wes R]

I have to say that Assignment Earth was a good one as I loved the Gary Seven character and let's face it Terry Garr helped alot lol

 

[SVTStingRay]

the problem with including star trek 11 (abrams) is it is not fixed at the end, the timeline change is permanent (sort of).

 

[phase pistol]

Actually, to set a few records straight:

- time travel per se is not the problem.. it's the hackneyed clichéd handling of it in many Trek stories which is disappointing.

- that said, some of Trek's finest episodes are time travel stories:

TOS' "City on the Edge of Forever," which presents Kirk with a moral choice - save the woman he loves or let her die and preserve history;

TNG's "Yesterday's Enterprise", which presents Picard with a moral choice: let the Enterprise C from the past stay in the present and help with the war against the Klingons, or encourage them to return to the past, face certain death, but have the chance to undo a horrific sequence of events and perhaps prevent a dystopian future from happening at all.

TNG's series-ender "All Good Things" is a rollicking adventure that shows us an unstuck-in-time Picard (courtesy Q) coming to terms with events that he MAY cause in the future, traveling backwards in time to prevent life on Earth from ever having happened in the first place! (this is a mindbender, and in retrospect is a bit hard to swallow, but boy is it ever high concept! TNG goes out with a bang with this episode, and then follows it months later with the lame "Star Trek Generations"... :rolleyes)

- the Enterprise seen in DS9 "Trials and Tribbleations" is not CG, but rather a half-scale (5.5 foot long) filming miniature built by Greg Jein.

k

 

[Wes R]

Wow I could have sworn that Enterprise was CG lol. It just didn't look right but it might have been how they shot it. I'm surprised they didn't just use original footage from Trouble with Tribbles instead of making a new model.

 

[micdavis]

Time travel is only a problem if you fanboy nitpick it to death. That's where the problem lies.

Go write a prefect time travel story then come back and lecture us about bad writing.

 

[phase pistol]

Well they were handed the chance so why not... :lol

 

[Kerr Avon]

Time travel is only a problem if you fanboy nitpick it to death. That's where the problem lies.

Go write a prefect time travel story then come back and lecture us about bad writing.

JMS did it right with "Babylon Squared" and "War without End" The Time Travel had already occurred, the station had already been stolen and the events unfolded as they had to, all due to a well thought out plan that was years in the making instead of a slapped together story that then left so many other problems in place that it became ridiculous and cliche.

 

[phase pistol]

Getting back to First Contact though, that mess has lots of other problems other than time travel. :lol

For one, why are all the characters acting OUT of character. This is a common problem with the TNG movies. It's as though the producers of these things said, "giving people the characters they know and love is NOT good enough! For these movies we have to give them things they HAVEN'T seen! Like, Picard with a rifle! Picard in a bow tie! Picard having a hissy fit and breaking all his "little ships"!" :rolleyes

And don't get me started on how come the Borg collective suddenly has a "queen." :unsure

k

 

[micdavis]

JMS did it right with "Babylon Squared" and "War without End" The Time Travel had already occurred, the station had already been stolen and the events unfolded as they had to, all due to a well thought out plan that was years in the making instead of a slapped together story that then left so many other problems in place that it became ridiculous and cliche.

You really have no idea what it takes to write a weekly TV show.

It's all so easy, just write a better episode. So easy to type.

I challenge anyone to write just a single Trek episode, let's all see your abilities to do what so many of you complain about.

 

[Kerr Avon]

You really have no idea what it takes to write a weekly TV show.

It's all so easy, just write a better episode. So easy to type.

I challenge anyone to write just a single Trek episode, let's all see your abilities to do what so many of you complain about.

You're right, I don't. However, JMS did and he set down some rules, followed them, and 100 or so episodes later had five seasons of a TV show and he did time travel right. So it can be done, which you challenged couldn't be. So I already proved you wrong and can move on now.

 

[micdavis]

What rules did JMS set down? Where did you find these rules?

 

[BlobVanDam]

Time travel and interdimensional travel has always seemed too easy in Trek. This isn't just a First Contact problem. They made it look every bit as easy in The Voyage Home, and they didn't even skip over it like in FC and hope you'd not think about it. And hey, at least it's not as plothole ridden as the Nexus in Generations. :lol
And they seemed to time travel in TOS quite often too without too much trouble too.

I tend to just accept the time travel method as a contrivance to tell a cool time travel story. And I do love time travel plots.