A sequel that both paid tribute to longstanding Trek traditions (TNG vet Jonathan Frakes directed, proving Leonard Nimoy wasn't the only member of the Enterprise crew who could successfully pull double duty) and broke them (Paramount ended decades of parsimony by breaking out $47 million for the budget), First Contact earned the praise of critics like Time's Richard Corliss, who wrote that "it stands proud and apart, accessible even to the Trek-deficient" before decreeing that "this old Star, it seems, has a lot of life in it."I remember when First Contact came out in 1996. I was quite young and still in my intense Star Trek nerd phase. I was really excited about the movie, and wow, did First Contact deliver the goods. This was long before I became more discriminating and realized that quite a few of the movies sucked. I do still have more affection for The Final Frontier--perhaps more than I should. But to a nerdy middle-schooler, it was manna from heaven. And, unlike a lot of the other stuff I was watching during those days, it actually holds up pretty well today.
One of the things that I liked about The Next Generation was how sparingly the Borg were used...there was usually about one Borg episode per season. By Voyager every episode was a Borg episode as the franchise started to wear thin on ideas and stick with the formula, but that hadn't happened by the time First Contact came out. They were still relatively novel and awesome. And while the movie had the possibility of descending into decidedly non-awesome territory, everything was assuredly and competently handled. The best Star Trek movies are the ones that transcend the series and First Contact certainly does that, and while there is some suspension of disbelief required (as with most all films), it's a pretty exciting ride. Plus, it positively courses with energy, as opposed to its flanking films that tend to be a little less than alive.
Generally speaking, the Star Trek movies aren't great cinema. The shows tend to be better--The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine in particular both represented interesting paces forward for the franchise, and both were entertaining and had their rewards. It is interesting that Star Trek really seemed to crest in the early 1990s--between First Contact, The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine there was quite a bit of it around, and it was generally good. It's interesting how so many people who are almost exactly my age tend to be Trekkies, but the percentage goes down significantly once you get a little older or a little younger (I'd imagine it goes up if you get a lot older, but anyway). People like to point out the diferences between generations but there are, of course, intragenerational wrinkles like this too. I remember when I was tutoring freshman comp sci students and I made some sort of reference to Cheers (another time I did it with Full House) and I got blank stares. In high school I'd be able to make a roomfull of students laugh uproariously easily, though in college it was a little harder--different frames of reference, even down to the individual year, since not everybody was exactly my age. Someone a year younger than me wouldn't even remember the M.C. Hammer craze--I only barely do, as I caught the tail end of it.
So, anyway, the new Star Trek movie is good according to reviews, though it sounds like they went for more of a generic actioner. Very well. I figured they'd have to do a crowd pleaser to revive the thing, and I suspect that this movie will do some very good business, which might lead to another movie? Another show? I suppose we'll see. At least it looks like they did right by their source material instead of Lucasing it up, if you know what I mean.
