I am a huge Star Trek fan. I've seen nearly all the movies, and have had to deal with some good ones (Movie II, IV, VI) and some bad ones (Movie V, X). Of all the ones I've seen, generally the Next Gen films don't do very well; and you'll never guess what, First Contact is no exception.
STORYTELLING: I actually like most of the Borg scenes. They play very well with the established collective character of the Borg, and tell a good story for Picard. Where it falls apart is the subplot. The time travel story was completely unnecessary and was just thrown in because "the best of Trek involved Time Travel." There were plenty of good non-time-travel episodes, so this is guilty of the Correlation Equals Causation fallacy. The look back in time is just filler. It could've been dropped with no change. Storytelling gets a 3/5.
CHARACTERS: Well, everyone's the same as they've always been, even Data, who spends more time in the movie with his emotion chip turned off. Good idea. Where it falls apart are the new characters. The Borg Queen is a frivolous addition to the collective, created because the audience "needed an object for their hatred". Except there's a better solution than that; it's called an avatar. And don't give me that she represented an avatar, she explicitly said she WAS the collective. That, combined with the fact that her death takes down the entire collective makes her useless.
But we've gotten to the part I really hate, and that's Cochrane. Cochrane already appeared in the show, in the episode "Metamorphosis, and in that episode, he was an adventurer, an explorer. THIS Cochrane is content to sit on his hands and drink. He just wants to get rich and meet women. Apparently Cochrane was brought in to show "the Federation was the result of an ordinary human," which means, according to you, Berraga and Berman, that humans are horrible, awful creatures...except you. 2/5 for characters.
VISUALS: Well, can't say much bad about this part. The use of physical models looks more organic, which really helps. 5/5
AUDIO: No problems here either, with Jerry Goldsmith returning to score the film in his own way. 5/5
OVERALL: 2/5. It had promise, but the treatment of humanity just shows that this is where Star Trek started to jump over shark-infested waters. It really needed the reboot. Badly.
The Sign of the Shark
I am a huge Star Trek fan. I've seen nearly all the movies, and have had to deal with some good ones (Movie II, IV, VI) and some bad ones (Movie V, X). Of all the ones I've seen, generally the Next Gen films don't do very well; and you'll never guess what, First Contact is no exception.
STORYTELLING: I actually like most of the Borg scenes. They play very well with the established collective character of the Borg, and tell a good story for Picard. Where it falls apart is the subplot. The time travel story was completely unnecessary and was just thrown in because "the best of Trek involved Time Travel." There were plenty of good non-time-travel episodes, so this is guilty of the Correlation Equals Causation fallacy. The look back in time is just filler. It could've been dropped with no change. Storytelling gets a 3/5.
CHARACTERS: Well, everyone's the same as they've always been, even Data, who spends more time in the movie with his emotion chip turned off. Good idea. Where it falls apart are the new characters. The Borg Queen is a frivolous addition to the collective, created because the audience "needed an object for their hatred". Except there's a better solution than that; it's called an avatar. And don't give me that she represented an avatar, she explicitly said she WAS the collective. That, combined with the fact that her death takes down the entire collective makes her useless.
But we've gotten to the part I really hate, and that's Cochrane. Cochrane already appeared in the show, in the episode "Metamorphosis, and in that episode, he was an adventurer, an explorer. THIS Cochrane is content to sit on his hands and drink. He just wants to get rich and meet women. Apparently Cochrane was brought in to show "the Federation was the result of an ordinary human," which means, according to you, Berraga and Berman, that humans are horrible, awful creatures...except you. 2/5 for characters.
VISUALS: Well, can't say much bad about this part. The use of physical models looks more organic, which really helps. 5/5
AUDIO: No problems here either, with Jerry Goldsmith returning to score the film in his own way. 5/5
OVERALL: 2/5. It had promise, but the treatment of humanity just shows that this is where Star Trek started to jump over shark-infested waters. It really needed the reboot. Badly.