Star Trek First Contact on DVD
Screenplay by Brannon Braga and Ronald d. Moore
Story by Rick Berman, Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore
Directed by Jonathan Frakes
Cast: Captain Jean Luc Picard-Patrick Stewart, Cmdr. William Riker-Jonathan Frakes, Lt. Cmdr. Data-Brent Spiner, Lt. Cmdr. Geordi La Forge-Levar Burton, Lt. Cmdr. Worf-Michael Dorn, Dr. Beverly Crusher-Gates McFadden, Counselor Deanna Troi-Marina Sirtis, Zephram Cochrane-James Cromwell, Alfre Woodard, Borg Queen-Alice Krige, Computer Voice-Majel Barrett
Stardate
Released November 22, 1996
Captain Jean-Luc
Picard awakens from a nightmare about his Borg assimilation experience to an
incoming message from Admiral Hayes. Hayes informs Picard that Deep Space Five
reported that a colony has been destroyed. Completing the Admiral's sentence,
Picard realizes who destroyed the colony—the Borg.
Picard calls a meeting and informs his senior
officers that their ship has been instructed to patrol the Neutral Zone. Their
orders are to protect the area from any possible Romulan uprising during a Borg
attack. Despite protests from his officers, Picard remains faithful to his
orders and the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC 1701-E begins to patrol the area. Later,
Picard regretfully tells Riker that it is his own fault they are stuck in the
Neutral Zone. Starfleet believes Picard to be too emotionally involved with the
Borg because of his previous assimilation to tactically complete a mission
against them.
The men return to the bridge to learn that Starfleet
has engaged in combat with the Borg. Intercepting messages between the starships,
the crew learns that the Federation is losing. Picard, with his Borg
experience, knows he can help the fleet. He informs his staff that he will make
a decision directly in opposition to Starfleet commands. With no objections
from his crew, Captain Picard gives the order and the starship Enterprise sets
a course for Earth and the attacking Borg cube.
A massive battle ensues and it appears that the
Federation will lose the fight. Despite serious structural damage to the Borg
cube, their strength does not weaken. Even the U.S.S. Defiant, commanded by
Worf, does not appear to be able to turn the tides of the battle. As the
starship Defiant is about to ram the Borg ship on a suicide run, the U.S.S.
Enterprise beams aboard its crew, including Worf. Picard, having an inside
perspective of the Borg and their vessel, focuses the firepower of the fleet on
coordinates he knows to be critical. Just as the main ship is destroyed, a
spherical escape pod flies out. The sphere creates a temporal vortex, catching
the starship Enterprise in its wake. Immune to the paradoxes created by the
time travel, the starship's crew learns that Earth at the present time appears
to be inhabited entirely by the Borg. The commanding officers realize that the
Borg have gone into the past and assimilated Earth, so they follow them back in
time to repair the damage the Borg have done.
On Earth, over three centuries earlier, a somber
Lily Sloane accompanies a stumbling, drunk Zefram Cochrane out of a bar after a
night of revelry. Then, Lily notices a fast moving light. She hardly has time
to ask what the object is, when the Borg vessel attacks. Back aboard the U.S.S.
Enterprise, Picard demands that Data tell him the exact date and location the
Borg ship is attacking. The location: central Montana. The date: April 4,
2063—the day before First Contact. Realizing that the Borg have come to prevent
first contact between alien life forms and humans, the crew knows they must
stop the Borg and facilitate this exchange. They destroy the Borg sphere, and
Dr. Crusher, Captain Picard, Commander Data, Commander Riker, Counselor Troi
and other U.S.S. Enterprise crew transport down to Earth to survey the damage.
At the Borg attack site in Montana, the crew finds
destruction and chaos. They split into groups to search for Cochrane. Data and
Picard hunt for Cochrane's warp ship, the Phoenix. There they encounter a very
angry and confused Lily, who believes Data and Picard to be members of a
coalition that broke the cease-fire after World War III. She shoots at them in
a rage, but impervious to bullets, Data approaches Lily. Overcome by fear and
radiation, she falls to the ground. Dr. Crusher diagnoses Lily with radiation
sickness caused by the damaged Phoenix, and inoculates the entire crew. Against
Picard's better judgment, Crusher takes Lily to sickbay. Geordi is called to
help repair the warp vessel and Picard becomes intrigued by its historical
significance. In this vessel began the future as the world would know it, and
the past as Picard remembers it. He reaches out to touch the ship. Data,
curious about the human need for tactile reinforcement, attempts to create the
same feelings he observes in Picard, but is unsuccessful in duplicating this
aspect of humanity.
Aboard the ship, two crewmembers are sent to examine
unexplained maintenance problems, and both disappear. Picard is called to the
ship and discovers that the survivors from the Borg sphere have transported
onto the ship and are taking over Deck 16. While Picard arranges teams to fight
them, the Borg manipulate the climate of the deck to suit their needs and begin
to spread throughout the ship. When the Borg attack sickbay, Crusher, her
staff, and Lily escape through a Jeffries tube, thanks to a distraction by the
ship's Emergency Medical Hologram. While Crusher leads the group down the
passageway, Lily steals away in a different direction.
On Earth, Riker finds Troi and Cochrane drunk in a
bar. Troi justifies that the only way she could get Cochrane to talk to her was
by shooting Tequila with him. Denying her drunken state, Troi offers her
professional opinion on Cochrane. She explains, "He's nuts."
Picard and his team are tracking the Borg through
the starship. As Crusher and her staff find Worf's team, Picard's team
encounters the Borg, who have begun to assimilate U.S.S. Enterprise
crewmembers. Worf's team engages the Borg in combat, but the enemies adapt to
the crew's weapons too quickly to make any difference. The teams are ordered to
regroup on Deck 15, but Data is captured. Picard cannot save him, so he quickly
crawls into a Jeffries tube to escape. Face to face with Picard, Lily steals
his phaser and demands an explanation and escape route. Picard agrees.
Geordi shows Cochrane the starship Enterprise
through a large telescope on Earth and tries to convince him to launch his
vessel the next morning. Geordi glorifies Cochrane by explaining that his ship
will make first contact with alien life forms. Humanity will be saved if
Cochrane launches his ship. Still drunk, Cochrane agrees.
Aboard the ship, The Borg Queen introduces herself
to a bound Data, claiming that she is the Collective. Reactivating Data's
emotion chip, the Borg begin to graph organic, human skin onto the android's
arm. As Data is overcome by this new human sensation of touch, something he
never thought possible, the Borg continue their work.
Lily and Picard wander through the service deck as
the captain attempts to explain what has happened between Lily's time and his
own. She begins to calm down until they suddenly run into a Borg-infested area.
Quickly escaping in the Holodeck, Picard activates a Dixon Hill program. At a
dance, he and Lily try to blend in without being noticed by the Borg. Following
the Holodeck's story, Picard searches for Nicky the Nose and takes his machine gun.
Killing the Borg with the gun, Picard retrieves the memory chip that contains
all of the information the Borg has received. Lily then notices that the two
dead Borg were once crewmembers of the U.S.S. Enterprise.
Back on Earth, Cochrane keeps hearing what an
amazing historical figure he is and begins to question whether or not he wants
to go through with the launch. He doubts his own nobility and flees the launch
site. Geordi and Riker attempt to catch up with Cochrane in the woods and are
forced to stun him with a phaser to return him to the Phoenix.
Lily and Picard join the rest of the surviving crew
and discover that the Borg are outside of the ship. The retrieved memory chip
reveals that they are reconfiguring the main deflector in order to contact the
Borg of this century, calling them to Earth to assimilate the planet. Picard,
Worf and Lieutenant Hawk put on space suits and venture onto the surface of the
starship to stop the Borg.
Aware of Data's desire to become human, the Borg
Queen offers him the chance to be entirely covered in human flesh and join the
Borg, in an attempt to get the encryption codes from Data so she can obtain
total control over the U.S.S. Enterprise. Outside the Enterprise, Hawk, Worf
and Picard attempt to unlock the deflector dish. Attacked by a Borg, Worf's
suit begins to depressurize. Two Borg are killed and Hawk is attacked. As the
dish is released, a now-assimilated Hawk attempts to kill Picard. Worf saves
the captain, but Hawk is killed. Picard and Worf then destroy the free-floating
deflector dish.
On Earth, Cochrane explains to Riker that his only
motivation for inventing warp travel was money. He never expected to save
mankind, become a hero, or be instrumental in the founding of a new
civilization. He simply wanted to retire in peace.
An argument ensues aboard the Enterprise as the
majority of the senior officers believe that they should evacuate the ship,
destroying it and the Borg. Picard won't give up, and insists they stay.
Challenged by Worf, Picard orders him off the Bridge. Lily follows Picard into
his ready room and demands that he explain his obsession with fighting the
Borg. Picard declares he won't sacrifice the starship, and swears to finally
make the Borg pay for all they've done. Lily quietly and calmly compares Picard
to Captain Ahab, forever fighting his white wale—the Borg. Realizing that this
fight could only destroy himself and his crew, Picard decides to evacuate the
ship. Worf, Picard and Crusher activate the ship's self-destruct sequence. The
countdown begins, and the crew leaves in escape pods. Picard surveys his ship
and prepares to leave when he hears Data calling him.
Meanwhile , the earth-bound crew and Cochrane begin
takeoff. Cochrane, Geordi and Riker take off in the Phoenix, and with music
blaring, the three men launch successfully into orbit.
On the ship, Lily and Picard say good-bye and the
captain goes to save Data. Entering Engineering, Picard confronts the Borg
Queen, whom he knows from his experience with the Borg. The queen reminds
Picard that it was not enough that he was assimilated, but that he needed to
give himself freely to the Borg—she wished him to stand by her side as an equal
to further the power of the Collective. Picard offers himself in exchange for
Data, but the android does not comply. He refuses to leave, and at the queen's
command, disarms the self-destruct sequence. He quickly enters the encryption
codes, offering full control of the Enterprise to the Borg.
As Cochrane's ship nears warp, Data arms the U.S.S
Enterprise's weapons and aims them at the defenseless Phoenix. At the Borg
Queen's order, Data fires, but the missiles fail to hit the Phoenix. His
deception of the Borg complete, Data smashes a conduit, releasing a gas that
floods engineering, killing all organic material. As the Borg are destroyed,
Picard climbs to safety and the Borg Queen falls into the deadly gas. With the
Borg threat gone, Cochrane safely completes humanity's first warp flight.
Celebrating the flight back on Earth that night,
Cochrane and the Enterprise crew see an alien ship land nearby. The doors open,
and Zefram Cochrane makes Earth's first contact with an alien race—the Vulcans.
Picard and his crew beam out, having witnessed this historic event, and the
U.S.S Enterprise NCC 1701-E returns to the 24th century.
Star Trek The Motion Picture | Star Trek II The Wrath Of Khan | Star Trek III The Search For Spock
Star Trek IV The Voyage Home | Star Trek V The Final Frontier | Star Trek VI The Undiscovered Country
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