History Film / StarTrekFirstContact

* DeFaceOfTheMoon: Riker mentions that it's strange to look at the moon and not see Lake Armstrong, implying that future colonists made a lake visible from Earth.

'''Riker:''' Western hemisphere, North American continent. At a missile complex in central Montana.\\

** Picard, when he asks Lt. Hawk to describe the environmental conditions in Engineering;
---> '''Hawk:''' Atmospheric pressure was two kilopascals above normal, ninety-two percent humidity, thirty-nine point one degrees Celsius.
---> '''Picard:''' Thirty-nine point one degrees Celsius. ...Like a Borg ship.

* TrashTheSet: The ''Defiant''[='=]s bridge is shot to hell by the time the Borg Cube reaches Earth. Not surprising given the tough little ship lasted for the duration of the entire running battle. On a Meta level, this was likely due to one of the reasons why the ''Enterprise''-D was destroyed in the preceding film (because the sets had been built for a lower resolution - i.e. television, not film). The darkened lightening, smoke, and damage thus likely isn't just meant to show the beating the ''Defiant'' has taken; it's also meant to hide flaws or features that would have shown up on the big screen.

->"Borg? Sounds Swedish."
-->-- Lily

* SupermanStaysOutOfGotham: A curious example. While the ''Defiant'' participates in opening fight, none of the [=DS9=] characters other than Worf are manning it. The real-life reason, of course, is the ''Defiant'''s cameo is ultimately a plot device for bringing Worf back into the TNG corner of the 24th Century for this film (to say nothing of budgetary constraints, overcrowding the film's first Act, confusing audiences who hadn't been watching the spinoff, etc). No in-universe explanation has ever been given for Team Sisko's absence (though given Sisko's a Wolf 359 survivor, it's not unreasonable to conclude that Command probably had the same concerns about him facing the Borg again as they did with Picard).

* ExplainExplainOhCrap: Picard, when he asks Lt. Hawk to describe the environmental conditions in Engineering;
--> '''Hawk:''' Atmospheric pressure was two kilopascals above normal, ninety-two percent humidity, thirty-nine point one degrees Celsius.
--> '''Picard:''' Thirty-nine point one degrees Celsius. ...Like a Borg ship.

-->-- [[TheScrappy Lily]]

-->-- Lily

-->''"Definently not Swedish."''

* GivingSomeoneThePointerFinger: Marina Sirtis likes the bar scene the best, because seven years of playing Troi had erased her ability to be funny.

* MobySchtick: "Captain Ahab has to fight his whale!" Picard is dumbfounded by this accusation, then denies it, and then finally -- and resignedly -- agrees that she's right.

* DawnOfAnEra: Zefram Cochrane's first warp flight not only giving humanity the ability of interstellar travel, it also proves this capability to the Vulcans who come and investigate, ushering in the Federation era and the end of post-WorldWarIII misery.

* TrashTheSet: The ''Defiant''[='=]s bridge is shot to hell by the time the Borg Cube reaches Earth. Not surprising given the tough little ship lasted for the duration of the entire running battle. It was likely due to one of the reasons why the ''Enterprise''-D was destroyed in the preceding film (because the sets had been built for a lower resolution - i.e. television, not film). The darkened lightening, smoke, and damage isn't just meant to show the beating the ''Defiant'' has taken; it's also meant to hide flaws or features that would have shown up on the big screen.

* BadPresent: Borgified Earth. The atmosphere is copper brown[[note]]consisting of high concentrations of methane, carbon-monoxide and ''fluorine'', of all things[[/note]], the landscape is metallic grey, and transport links stretch like cobwebs over the oceans.

** The USS ''Defiant'' was introduced on ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space Nine]]'' as being a prototype starship specifically designed to fight the Borg. Apparently it was a running fight from where the fleet engaged the cube to when it came in orbit around Earth. This is the only time the ship got to fulfill her purpose, and despite her size, she lasted the entire running fight from initial contact all the way to Earth.

** The ''Defiant'' surviving the Battle of Sector 001. Obviously, the ship ''had'' to survive as ''Deep Space Nine'' was still on the air and needed the ship for its own narrative. Amusingly Ronald D. Moore actually forgot this in an early draft and destroyed the ship...which understandably did ''not'' please [=DS9=] showrunner Ira Steven Behr (hence the line in the final draft about the ship being adrift, but slavageable).[[note]]This is despite Moore having joined the [=DS9=] writing staff by this point, having written many episodes featuring the ''Defiant''... including one actually ''named after'' her.[[/note]]

* SupermanStaysOutOfGotham: A curious example. While the ''Defiant'' participates in opening fight, none of the [=DS9=] characters are manning it. The real-life reason, of course, is the ''Defiant'''s cameo is ultimately a plot device for bringing Worf back into the TNG corner of the 24th Century for this film (to say nothing of budgetary constraints, overcrowding the film's first Act, confusing audiences who hadn't been watching the spinoff, etc). No in-universe explanation has ever been given for Team Sisko's absence (though given Sisko's a Wolf 359 survivor, it's not unreasonable to conclude that Command probably had the same concerns about him facing the Borg again as they did with Picard).

* TheWorfEffect: Played with. On ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'', the USS ''Defiant'' was developed specifically to fight the Borg. The one time we actually see her fight the Borg, she's under [[TropeNamer Worf]]'s command and almost gets destroyed. However, what we saw of it is only at the tail end a running battle from the edge of the Solar System right up to Earth's doorstep. It ''was'' getting its ass kicked, sure, but only ''after'' taking a gajillion tons more punishment than the other ships, who were getting one-shotted here and there over the course of the long battle. That it was still intact enough to be salvageable ''and'' quickly back up and running in short order by ''[=DS9=]'', even after getting caught in the explosion of the cube, it shows how powerful the cube is, even with the new Defiant-class, but '''''The Sisko's''''' ''Defiant'', even without the man himself, was the one carrying the fleet the entire time before the ''Enterprise'' arrived.

-->'''Troi:''' TIME?! This is no ''time'' to argue about ''time''! We don't have the ''time''! (hic) What was I saying?

* ChekhovsGun: During the battle against the Borg cube, Picard hears the Collective in his head, allowing him to exploit a weakness in the cube and destroy it. Later, while he's on the surface of 21st-century Earth, he hears the voices again and realizes that the Borg are on the ''Enterprise''.

* RemovingTheCrucialTeammate: Starfleet took the one Captain with the most experience dealing with the Borg out of the fleet assembled to ''fight'' them. Granted, they were afraid Picard would take the battle extremely personally and go into a RoaringRampageOfRevenge, which he does, but they still could have relieved Picard temporarily of command instead of sending off the ''Enterprise-E''; their crowning achievement of shipbuilding to study ''comets''.

** Starfleet took the one Captain with the most experience dealing with the Borg out of the fleet assembled to ''fight'' them. Granted, they were afraid Picard would take the battle extremely personally and go into a RoaringRampageOfRevenge, which he does, but they still could have relieved Picard temporarily of command instead of sending off their crowning achievement of shipbuilding to study ''comets''.

* BadassBoast: "[[DiscussedTrope Brave words.]] I've heard them before, [[ButForMeItWasTuesday from thousands of species across thousands of worlds, since long before you were created.]] And now, they are all Borg."

** Riker calls the ''Defiant'' a "tough little ship"; ''[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS6E22SecondChances Thomas]]'' [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS6E22SecondChances Riker]] [[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS03E09Defiant had said the exact same thing to]] [[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Sisko]].

** The Borg leitmotif uses the "blaster beam", also used for V'Ger's leitmotif in ''Film/StarTrekTheMotionPicture'', which helps fuel the EpilepticTrees that the Borg was the race of machines V'Ger was said to have encountered.