Star Trek: First Contact is the 1996 American science fiction film directed by Jonathan Frakes in his directing debut, and based on a franchise of the same name made by Gene Roddenberry. This is the eighth movie in the Star Trek movie series, and the second to star in the Star Trek series: The Next Generation. In this film, the crew from the USS Enterprise -E returns to the past from the 24th century until the middle of the 21st century to stop Borg sibnnetic from conquering the Earth by changing their past.
After releasing the seventh film, Star Trek Generations (1994), Paramount Pictures commissioned authors Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore by developing the next film in the series. Braga and Moore want to show Borg on the plot, while producer Rick Berman wants a story that involves time travel. The authors combine the two ideas; they originally set the film during the European Renaissance, but changed Borg's time period broken into the mid-21st century, after fearing the Renaissance idea would be "too kitsch". After two more renowned directors turned down the job, cast member Jonathan Frakes was chosen to direct to make sure the assignment falls on someone who understands Star Trek. The script of this film requires the creation of a new spaceship design, including the new USS Enterprise . Production designer Herman Zimmerman and illustrator John Eaves collaborated to make the ship leaner than its predecessor. The main photography begins with a week's location shoot in Arizona and California, before production moves to a new set of ship-based scenes. Borg was redesigned to appear as though they had been transformed into an inside-out machine creature; New dressing sessions take four times during their appearance on the television series. Securities companies Industrial Light & amp; Magic rushed to complete the movie's special effects in less than five months. Traditional optical effects techniques are equipped with computer-generated imagery. Jerry Goldsmith and his son Joel Goldsmith collaborated to produce a movie score.
First Contact was the best-selling film on its opening weekend, generating $ 92 million in the United States and Canada with an additional $ 54 million in other regions, combining a total of $ 146 million worldwide. Critical reception is mostly positive; critics including Roger Ebert think of him as one of the best Star Trek movies. Borg and special effects are praised, while characterization is less acceptable evenly. The scientific analysis of the film focuses on the parallel of Captain Jean-Luc Picard with Ahab from Herman Melville and the nature of Borg. First Contact was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Make Up and won three Saturn Awards.
Video Star Trek: First Contact
Plot
This is the 24th century. Captain Jean Luc Picard awoke from a nightmare in which he revived his assimilation by Borg cybernetic six years earlier. He was contacted by Admiral Hayes, who informed him of Borg's new threats against Earth. The Picard command is for its ship, USS Enterprise -E, to patrol in the Neutral Zone in case of Romulan aggression; Starfleet was worried that Picard was too emotionally involved with Borg to join the fight. Studying the fleet lost fighting, crew Enterprise disobeyed orders and headed for Earth, where a single Borg Cube ship refrained against a group of Starfleet ships. Enterprise arrived on time to assist the crew of the USS Rebels and his captain, Klingon Worf. Picard controlled the fleet and directed the surviving vessels to concentrate their weapons at a point that seemed unimportant on Borg's ship. The cube was destroyed after launching a small scope ship towards the planet. The Enterprise chases the ball into a whirlpool. When the ball disappears, Enterprise finds Earth altered - now entirely populated by Borg. Realizing that Borg has used time travel to change the past, Enterprise follows the ball through the vortex.
Enterprise arrived hundreds of years in its past on April 4, 2063, the day before the first encounter of mankind with alien life after the historic Warp Zefram Cochrane flight drive; the crew realized Borg was trying to prevent the first contact. After destroying Borg's balls, a team went to the Cochrane ship, Phoenix , in Montana. Picard has a Cochrane assistant, Lily Sloane, sent back to Enterprise for medical treatment. The captain returns to the ship and leaves Commander William T. Riker on Earth to make sure the Phoenix flight is done according to plan. While in the future Cochrane is seen as a hero, real men are reluctant to take on the role described by the crew Enterprise .
A group of Borg attacked the under deck of Enterprise ' and began assimilating the crew and modifying the ship. Picard and the team sought to achieve engineering to disable Borg with corrosive gas, but were forced back; Android data is taken at close range. Picard Sloane is frightened by guns, but he earns his trust. Both escaped from Borg's brimming area on the ship by creating a diversion on the holodeck. Picard, Worf, and the ship's navigator, Lieutenant Hawk, traveled out of the ship in outer space to stop Borg calling for reinforcements using a deflector plate. As Borg continues to assimilate more decks, Worf advises against destroying the ship, but Picard angrily calls him a coward. Sloane faces the captain and makes him realize that he's acting irrationally. Picard ordered the activation of self-destruction of the ship when the crew headed for the runaway pod. The captain decided to stay and rescue his friend's data.
As Cochrane, Riker, and engineer Geordi La Forge prepares to activate the warp drive in Phoenix, Picard discovers that Borg Queen has grafted human skin into Data, giving him the touch sensation he has long desired. to get the android encryption code to the Company computer. Although Picard offered himself to Borg instead of Data freedom, Data refused to leave. He disables self-destruction and fires torpedoes into Phoenix . At the last moment the torpedo loses, and the Queen realizes Data betrayed him. Android breaks down the cooling tank, and corrosive vapor undermines Borg's biological components. With the threat of Borg neutralized, Cochrane completed his warp flight. The next day, the crew saw from a distance as a foreign Vulcan ship, attracted by the Phoenix warp test, landed on Earth. Cochrane and Sloane greet aliens. After ensuring timeline correction, the Enterprise crew slipped away and returned to the 24th century.
Maps Star Trek: First Contact
Cast
First Contact is the first film in the Star Trek movie series that no Star Trek actor: The Original Series appears; instead, Star Trek's main actor: The Next Generation fills the lead role. Patrick Stewart serves as Jean-Luc Picard, captain of the USS Enterprise -E which is haunted by his time as a member of Borg Collective. Stewart is one of the few actors who have an important role in developing scripts, offering suggestions and comments. Picard characters have been changed from "angry characters that previous viewers have seen", into action-type heroes. Stewart notes that Picard is more physically active in movies than with his usual depictions.
Other crew members of Enterprise include the first officer of the ship William Riker, played by director Jonathan Frakes. Frakes says she has not had much trouble directing and acting at the same time, having done so in the television series. Brent Spiner displays Data android; Rumors before the release of the film suggest that because the Data skin has largely been removed at the end of the story, it will allow other actors to play a role. LeVar Burton plays Geordi La Forge, chief ship engineer. La Forge is a blind character, and for previous television and movie series has been subjected to a special visor for viewing. Burton lobbied for years so that his protective character was replaced so that people could see his eyes, because the "air filter" he wore prevented the audience from seeing his eyes and limiting his acting skills. Moore eventually agreed, giving an ocular implant of characters that was never described in the film, beyond their artificial shows. Gates McFadden plays Beverly Crusher, a ship doctor. McFadden assumed the female Star Trek was finally equivalent to the man: "We have been on a long journey since Majel Barrett was trapped in a sick bay as a nursing chapel in the 1960s and made to dye his hair, blonde." Crusher was instrumental in helping Picard set the order of automatic destruction, to prevent Borg from fully assimilating Enterprise and Earth. The ship's adviser Deanna Troi is played by Marina Sirtis. The actress is not working on television shows, and is very aware that expectations and bets for First Contact are high: "we're afraid people think we can not cut it without the original player", he said. Other Starfleet members include the former security chief of Enterprise, and the commander of USS
James Cromwell acts as Zefram Cochrane, the pilot and creator of Earth's first warp-powered ship. The Cochrane Zefram character first appeared in the episode of Original Series "Metamorphosis", played by Glenn Corbett. Cromwell's Cochrane is much older and has no real resemblance to Corbett, which does not bother writers. They wanted to portray Cochrane as a character through a great transition; he started out as a cynical, selfish drunkard who was transformed by the characters he encountered during the movie. Though the characters were written with Cromwell in mind, Tom Hanks, a Star Trek fan, was approached for the role by the first Paramount, but he's already committed to the movie That Thing You Do! and should reject that part. Frakes commented that it would be a mistake to dispose of Hanks as Cochrane because he's so famous. Cromwell had previous associations with Star Trek after playing the characters in The Hunting and Birthright's The Next Generation episodes and the role of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine . "[Cromwell] actually came and read for the part", says Frakes. "She nailed him." Cromwell describes his method of portraying Cochrane as always playing alone. Part of the actor's interest in the film is his involvement at the Steven M. Greer Center for Intelligence Intelligence Studies, which offers training for first contact scenarios. In the film, Cromwell's Cochrane became the first character to use the phrase "star trek" in franchise history ("You are all astronauts, on some types of star travel.")
Alfre Woodard plays Lily Sloane, Cochrane's assistant. When Frakes first moved to Los Angeles, Woodard was one of the first people he met. During a barbecue conversation, Woodard said he would be Frakes' godmother, because he did not have one. Through this connection, Frakes was able to cast Woodard in the film; he considers it a coup to get an Academy Award nomination actress. Woodard regards Lily as the most like her character from all the roles she plays.
The Borg Queen is described by Alice Krige. Casting for this part takes time, because the actress must be sexy, dangerous, and mysterious. Frakes throws Krige after discovering that he has all the qualities mentioned, and is impressed by his appearance at Ghost Story; the director considers him the most sexy criminal of all time. Krige suffered a great deal of inconvenience in filming his role; the costumes are too tight, cause blisters, and the painful silver contact lenses she wears can only be stored for four minutes at a time. Krige will then re-portray his role as Borg Queen in the final series "Endgame" Star Trek: Voyager .
The terrible sound of Borg who delivered the current-iconic film line, "The match was useless", was done by Jeff Coopwood.
The film also features a small role for many repetitive characters Next Generation '; Dwight Schultz took on his role as Lieutenant Reginald Barclay, while Patti Yasutake briefly appeared as Alyssa Ogawa Nurse. Whoopi Goldberg was not asked to return as Guinan, a wise bartender whose homeworld was destroyed by Borg. Goldberg only learns about decisions through newspapers. "What can I say? I want to do it because I do not think you can do anything about Borg without [my character]," he said, "but it turns out you can, so they do not need me." Michael Horton appeared as a bloody and steadfast Starfleet defender; his character will be named Daniels in the next Star Trek movie.
The third script adds a brilliant acting by two actors from the television series of Star Trek s sister: Voyager. Robert Picardo appears as Emergency Medical Hologram Enterprise '; Picardo plays a holographic Doctor on Voyager . The phrase, "I'm a doctor, not a stop-door", is an allusion to the original Star Trek series. Leonard McCoy. Picardo Voyager actor Ethan Phillips, who plays Neelix, a brilliant acting as a Maitre d 'nightclub in the holodeck scene. Phillips recalls that producers wanted fans to be left wondering if he was the person who played Neelix or not, because he did not appear on credit; "It's just a silly thing to do." During production there is the false rumor that Avery Brooks will repeat her role as Star Trek: Deep Space Nine captain Benjamin Sisko. Like many Star Trek production, new and disposable redshirt characters are killed during the storyline.
Production
Development
In February 1995, two months after the release of Star Trek Generations, Paramount decided to produce other Star Trek features for the winter holidays of 1996. Paramount wanted writers Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore, who has written the Generation script and a number of episodes Next Generation , to write scenarios. Producer Rick Berman tells Braga and Moore that he wants them to think about doing a story that involves time travel. Braga and Moore, meanwhile, wanted to use Borg. "Right on the spot, we said maybe we can do both, Borg and time travel," Moore recalls. Borg was not seen with full force since the fourth episode of The Next Generation season, "The Best of Both Worlds", and was never featured in the series due to budget constraints and feared that they would lose their fear factor. "Borg is well liked by the fans, and we like them," Moore said. "They are frightening, they are unstoppable." The foil is perfect for feature stories. "
In deciding to combine two story ideas, the authors decided that time travel elements could serve as Borg's efforts to prevent people from reaching space and become threats. "Our goal at the time was to create beautiful stories and scripts that [...] can be produced within the budget budget of Star Trek ", Berman said. One key question is to identify the time period into which the Borg will travel. Berman's suggestion is Renaissance; Borg will try to prevent the dawning of modern European civilization. The first draft of the story, titled Star Trek: Renaissance, told Crew Enterprise to track Borg to their nest in the castle grounds. The film will feature a sword fight next to a phaser in 15th century Europe, while Data becomes a disciple of Leonardo da Vinci. Moore was afraid that it was risky to be campy and over-the-top, while Stewart refused to wear tights. Braga, meanwhile, wanted to see the "birth of Star Trek ", when Vulcan and humans first met; "That, for me, is what makes the time travel story fresh", he said.
With the idea of ​​ Star Trek ' in the genesis in mind, the central story becomes the Cochrane warp driving test and the first contact of mankind. Drawing on the clues from the previous Star Trek episode, Cochrane is placed in mid-21 Montana Montana, where people recover from a devastating world war. In the first script with this arrangement, Borg attacked the Cochrane laboratory, leaving coma scientists; Picard assumes Cochrane's place to continue the convolution test and restore history. In this draft Picard has an interest in local Ruby photographers, while Riker leads a battle against Borg at Enterprise . Other designs include the omnipotent character John de Lancie Q. Looking at the initial script, the trio know that serious work is needed. "It does not make sense [...] that Picard, the man who has history with Borg, never met them," recalls Braga. The role of Riker and Picard is exchanged, and the planetide story is shortened and told differently. Braga and Moore focus the new arc on Cochrane itself, making the ideal future of Star Trek come from a disabled man. The idea of ​​battle of Borg between the costumes period coalesced into the sequence of the holographic novel "Dixon Hill" on the holodeck. The second draft, titled Star Trek: Resurrection , is considered quite complete so the production team uses it to plan outgoings. The film was given a budget of $ 45 million, "far more" than the $ 35 million price tag Generations '; this allows production to plan for a greater number of actions and special effects.
Braga and Moore intend that the film is easily accessible to any movie viewers and work as a stand-alone story, yet still satisfy the loyal fans of Star Trek. Since most of Picard's role made a direct reference to his time as the Borg episode on The Best Generation The Best of Both Worlds, the opening dream sequence was added to explain what happened to him in the show. The couple discarded the opening that will determine what the main character has done since the last movie that supports the story-making quickly. While the authors try to defend Borg's idea as an unwarranted collective in the original script, Paramount head Jonathan Dolgen feels that his script is not dramatic enough. He suggests adding individual Borg villains with whom the characters can interact, leading to the creation of the Borg Queen.
Frake Cast member was chosen to direct. Frakes is not the first choice for a director; Ridley Scott and John McTiernan reportedly rejected the project. Stewart meets potential candidates and concludes that "they do not know Star Trek ". It was decided to stay with someone who understands the "gestalt of Star Trek ", and Frakes is given a job. Frakes are reportedly working every day at 6:30 am. The main concern during production is security - scripts for Generations have been leaked online, and stronger actions are taken to prevent similar events. Some manuscript pages are distributed on red paper to thwart photocopying or fax attempts; "We really have trouble reading it," Frakes said.
Frake has directed several episodes of Next Generation , Deep Space Nine and Voyager , but First Contact is the first movie. While Frakes has seven days of preparation followed by seven days of shooting for a particular television episode, the director is given ten weeks' preparation time before twelve weeks of filming, and should be familiar with shooting for anamorphic ratios of 2.35: 1 instead. of the 1.33 television standard: 1. In preparation, he witnessed Jaws , Close Encounters of the Third Kind , 2001: A Space Odyssey by James Cameron and Ridley Scott.
Throughout several revisions of the script a number of titles are considered, including Star Trek: Borg, Star Trek: Destinies, Star Trek: Upcoming Generation and Star Tracks: Generation II . The planned title of Awakening was removed when Fox announced the fourth movie title Alien ; the film was renamed First Contact on May 3, 1996.
Design
First Contact was the first Star Trek film that made significant use of the computer-generated ship model, even though the physical miniature was still used for the most important vessels. With Enterprise -D destroyed during the Generation event, the task of creating a new spaceship crashed into Herman Zimmerman's veteran designer Star Trek. The only script guide on the appearance of the ship is the new "new Enterprise line leaning out of the nebula". Working with the illustrator John Eaves, the designers fabricated the new Sovereign Enterprise Class E as being slimmer, slimmer and meaningful enough to answer any Borg threat you can imagine. Braga and Moore are meant to be more muscular and military. Roof sees the structure of previous Enterprise iterations, and designs warships that are leaner and more capable than Enterprise -D, reduces neck space and extends nacelles. Eaves produced 30 to 40 sketches before he found the final design he liked and started making small changes. Working from a blueprint created by Paramount Rick Sternbach, model shop at home effects Industrial Light & amp; Magic (ILM) makes a miniature of 10.5 feet (3.2 m) over a five-month period. The hull patterns are carved out of wood, then thrown and assembled on an aluminum armature. Model panels are painted with matte schemes and alternate gloss to add texture. The crew had many difficulties in preparing miniature for the filming; while the model store initially wanted to save time by installing windows using clear fiberglass, the material came out tacky. ILM instead cuts windows using lasers. Slide sets are added behind the window frame to make the interior look more dimensional when the camera is tracked past the ship.
In previous films, Starfleet's flagship vessels have been dominated by the Enterprise Constitution class and only five classes of other vessels: the Miranda class of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (represented by USS Reliant ), the Excelsior and the Oberth Grissom > class of Star Trek III: Search for Spock , and Galaxy and Nebula classes from Next Generation . ILM counsel John Knoll insists that the First Contact spacewalk ' proves the breadth of the Starfleet ship configuration. "Starfleet will probably throw everything to Borg, including ships we've never seen before", he reasoned. "And since we anticipate that a lot of background action in space battles needs to be done with computer-generated ships that need to be built from scratch anyway, I realize there's no reason not to do some new designs." Alex Jaeger was appointed as the director of visual effects art for the film and commissioned the task of creating four new spacecraft. Paramount wanted a ship that would look different from a distance, so the director designed some gastric profiles. Knoll and Jaeger have decided that ships must adhere to certain Star Trek vessel precedents, with main hulls such as dishes and warp necelles extending in pairs. The Akira class displays traditional plate parts and nacelles combined with catamaran-style double hulls; Norwegian class is based on USS Voyager ; class Saber is a smaller vessel with nacelles left behind from the tip of the saucer; and the Steamrunner class displays the twin nacelles left behind from the saucer and attached to the technical section behind. Each design is modeled as a three-dimensional digital wire-frame model for use in films.
The film also requires a number of smaller non-Starfleet designs. The warp ship Phoenix is conceived as fitting inside an old nuclear missile, which means that the ship nacelles must be folded into a space of less than 10 feet (3.0 m). The roof ensures to emphasize the mechanical aspect of the ship, to suggest it is a highly experimental and untested technology. The Phoenix ' s cockpit labels are from the McDonnell-Douglas manual shuttle. The roof considers the ship Vulcan "fun" the ship to design. Only two large Vulcan ships that had previously been seen on Star Trek included a courier from The Motion Picture . Since the two-engined ship format has been frequently seen, artists decided to move away from traditional ship layouts, creating a more artistic rather than functional design. The ship incorporates elements of starfish and crabs. Due to budget constraints, full vessels are manifested as computer-generated designs. Only a boomerang-shaped landing platform is made for the actors to interact.
Set Enterprise mostly new designs. The bridge was designed to look comfortable, with warm colors. Among the new additions is a larger holographic view screen that will operate only when activated, leaving the plain wall when disabled. New flatscreen computer monitors are used to display, use less space and give a clean look to the bridge. The new monitor also allows video playback that can simulate interactions with actors. Designers create larger and simpler spaces, retaining elements of the television series; Zimmerman added a set of three-dimensional model Enterprise to the glass box in the corner. The observation room is similar to the design in Enterprise -D; the set itself is reused from the television show, the only device that was not attacked after the filming of Generation , even though it was expanded and changed color. Techniques are simulated with the largest set, three floors, corridors, lobbies, and the largest warp cores in the franchise to date. For the Borg-damaged state, the engineering section comes with a Borg Borgone niche, a channel and a "data assimilation table" where he is interrogated by the Queen. Some existing devices are used to save money; sickbay is a compensation from the same location of Voyager , while the USS Defiant scene uses Deep Space Nine ' s standing erect. Several sets of designs took inspiration from the film series Alien , Star Wars and 2001: A Space Odyssey .
The spacewalk scene on the exterior Enterprise is one of the most challenging sets to imagine and build for the film. Production must design a space suit that looks practical rather than exaggerated. Fans are built on helmets so the actors will not overheat, and neon lights are built forward so that the inhabitants face can be seen. When the actors first wore helmets, a completely closed design made it difficult to breathe; after a minute of wearing the clothes, Stewart got sick, and the shooting was stopped. Sets for the gastric disc and an offshore deflector built in dreadlocks on the largest Paramount sound stage, surrounded by a bluescreen and equipped with a cable for zero gravity sequences. The stage was not big enough to hold a full-size replica of the Enterprise , so Zimmerman had to lower the plan by 15 percent.
Costume and makeup
The Starfleet uniform was redesigned for the film by Bob Bob long for Starcoin, to give it a more militaristic feel, with gray shoulders and colored tops. Since Blackman also handles costumes for the television series, the non-Starfleet design outfit is delegated to Deborah Everton, a newcomer to Star Trek who is responsible for over 800 costumes during production. Everton was tasked with updating the Borg costume for something new, but reminiscent of the television series. Large settings made more slim and equipped with fiber optic lights. The time travel aspect of the story also requires period costumes for the mid-21st and 1940s "Dixon Hill" nightclubs of holodeck recreation. Everton likes to design Woodard costumes because his character has undergone many changes during the movie, switching from the utilitarian vest and pants in many shots to the glamorous dress during the holodeck scene.
Everton and designer makeup Michael Westmore, Scott Wheeler, and Jake Garber want to enhance the pale white look that Borg has defended since the second season, born out of the need for conscious television design budget. "I want to look like they [assimilate or" Borgified "] from the inside out rather than outside," Everton said. Each Borg has a slightly different design, and Westmore designed a new one every day to make it seem that there was a troop of Borg; in fact, between eight and twelve actors fill all the roles because costumes and makeup are so expensive to produce. Background Borg is simulated by a semi-finished mannequin. Westmore reasoned that since Borg had explored galaxies, they would assimilate races other than humans. In the television series, most of Borg's faces have been covered by a helmet, but for First Makeup artists remove the head cover and design a familiar version of the Star Trek aliens. such as Klingons, Bolians, Romulan, Bajorans, and Cardassians. Every unmanned aircraft receives electronic eyepiece. The flashing lights in each eye were programmed by Westmore's son to repeat the names of the production members in Morse code.
The dressing time for Borg is extended from an hour required for television to five hours, in addition to the 30 minutes it takes to get into costume and 90 minutes to remove makeup at the end of the day. While Westmore estimates that full staff production will have about 50 makeup artists, First Contact should be done with fewer than ten people involved in the preparation, and at most 20 artists per day. Despite the long hours, the Westmore team began to be more creative with prosthetics even when they reduced their preparation time. "They use two tubes, and then they use three tubes, and then they stick a tube in the ear and up into the nose," Westmore explained. "And we use a very sticky caramel dye, maybe use a little bit, but by the time we get to the end of the movie, we have stuff dripping down the side of [Borg's face] - it looks like they're leaking oil! end [of the movie], they are more violent. "
The Borg Queen is a challenge because he must be unique among Borg but still maintain the quality of man; Westmore consciously avoided comparison with films like Alien . The final appearance involves a pale gray skin and an oval, oval head, with a wire roll rather than a hair. Krige recalled the first day she put on her makeup: "I see everyone wincing, I think, great, they make this, and they scare themselves!" Frakes notes that the Queen has finally lured in an annoying way, despite her evil behavior and appearance. Zimmerman, Everton and Westmore combined their efforts to design and create controlled parts of the Enterprise to build tension and make the audience feel that "[they're being fed] Borg".
Filming
The main photography takes a more relaxed step than The Next Generation due to a less crowded schedule; only four pages of scripts should be filmed daily, compared to eight in the television series. First Contact saw the introduction of cinematographer Matthew F. Leonetti to the Star Trek franchise; Frakes hired him for admiration for some of his previous work on films like Poltergeist and Strange Days. Leonetti was unfamiliar with mythos' Star Trek when Frakes approached him; to prepare for the task, he studied the four previous films in the franchise, each with a different cinematographer - The Voyage Home (Donald Peterman), The Final Frontier (Andrew Laszlo) Undiscovered Country (Hiro Narita), and Generation (John Alonzo). Cameramen also spent a few days in the set of Voyager and Deep Space Nine to observe the filming.
Leonetti designed some lighting methods for the interior Enterprise for standard ship operations, "Red warning" status, and emergency power. He reasoned that since the ship was taken over by a foreign entity, it required more dramatic lighting and framing. While many of the recordings were shot at 50-70 mm focal lengths using anamorphic lenses, the 14 mm balls lenses were used for Borg's-eye-view shots. Leonetti prefers to take pictures with long lenses to give a more claustrophobic feel, but ensures the length does not flatten the image. Handheld cameras are used for battle sequences so viewers are taken into action and cameras can follow actors' movements. The Borg scene was received positively by the screening test audience, so that after the rest of the film has finished, Borg's assimilation scene of the Enterprise crew is added in using some of the remaining money in the budget to add action.
Because so many new sets have to be made, production begins with filming with location photography. Four days were spent at the Titan Missile Museum, south of Tucson, Arizona - disarmed nuclear missiles equipped with fiberglass capsule capsules to stand on Phoenix ' s reinforcing modules and commands. The old missile missile provides a large set whose budgets would be banned from building from scratch, but small size creates difficulties. Each camera movement is planned in advance to work around the area where lighting will be added, and electricity and grips use rock climbing harness to move down the shaft and plug the lights. To provide a larger dimension to the rocket and lend the missile to its futuristic appearance, Leonetti chose to compensate the surface of the missile metal with complementary colors. Using a different gel color makes the rocket appear longer than it actually is; to complete the effect, the shots from Phoenix ' s down and from the machine upwards were filmed with a 30 mm lens to extend the missile.
After the completion of the Phoenix shot, the crew moved into two weeks of night shooting in Los Angeles National Forest. Zimmerman created a village with fourteen huts to stand in Montana; the players enjoy the scene as an opportunity to escape from their uniforms and wear "normal" clothes. The last shooting location is in an art deco restaurant at Los Angeles Union Station, which stands on a holdon made from Dixon Hill; Frakes want a sharp contrast with Borg's dark and mechanical scene. While the cinematographer wants to photograph the scene in black and white, Paramount executives consider the test record "too experimental" and the idea was canceled. The site was built using impractical high-energy lights, so Leonetti chose to use master dimmer lights near the ceiling and took advantage of the large windows to illuminate the scattered lights. To provide a black-and-white atmosphere, Leonetti made sure to use any colorless light. "I like to create separation with lighting as opposed to using color," he explained. "You can not always depend on the colors because the actor might start melting into the background." By separating the backlight, Leonetti ensured that the principal actors stood outside the background. The photo shoot uses ten-piece orchestra, 15 stuntmen, and 120 extras to fill the seat. Among the nightclub visitors are Braga, Moore, and movie action coordinator, Ronnie Rondell.
After the location shoot is complete, filming in the new Technic set starts May 3rd. The set lasted less than a day in pristine condition before it was "Borgified". Film making then proceed to the bridge. During a normal operation scene, Leonetti chose to cast cast crosslighting on the perpetrators; this requires the ceiling set to be removed and the lattice light is placed around its side. These lights are then directed to the faces of the actors at a 90 degree angle. The set is lined with a window pane supported by a red light, which blinks intermittently during the red standby state. These lights are complemented by what Leonetti calls "interactive light"; these are off-stage, red-gelled lights that reflect the rim on the bridge and the head of the crew. For Borg intrusions, lighting comes only from the instrument panel and red-warning view. The filler light in this scene is reduced so that players will pass through dark spots on bridges and interiors beyond the limited reach of these sources. Small lights 30- and 50 watts are used to cast local light onto the set.
Next comes the sequence of actions and battles for Enterprise , a phase called filmmaker "Borg Hell". Frakes directs Borg's scene similar to a horror movie, creating as much tension as possible. To balance these elements he added more comedic elements to the Earth scene, intended to momentarily ease the tension of the audience before rebuilding it. Leonetti reset the lighting to reflect the takeover of the interior of the ship. "When the ship gets Borgified, everything is converted into more than a robot view, square with sharp edges but rounded images," he explained. To give the corridor walls more shape, Leonetti lit it from below. Since the spaces are very small and the ceiling will be visible in many shots, special attention is given to hiding the lights.
For the live-action spacewalk scene, visual effects watchdog Ronald B. Moore spent two weeks of bluescreen photography on the set of deflectors. Frake considers filming the scene to be the most boring in the movie due to the amount of preparation required for filming each day. Due to the rest of the Enterprise -E, as well as the background of the Earth, added later in post-production, it becomes confusing to coordinate shots. Moore uses a laptop with digital reproduction from sets to direct the crew and helps Frakes understand what the image will look like. A one-armed actor depicts Borg whose arm Worf cuts to accurately depict the intended effect, and the actor's shoe is equipped with lead weight to remind the actors that they should move slowly as if actually wearing gravity boots. McDonough recalls that he joined Stewart and Dorn to ask if they could shoot 10 to 15 pounds (4.5 to 6.8 kg), because "they hired us because we were actors," but production insisted on using them.
The last scene filmed was the first movie, Picard's Borg's nightmare. One shot of the camera begins inside Picard's eyeball and pulls back to reveal the captain on a huge Borg ship. The shot continues to pull back and reveal the outside of a Borg ship. The scene is inspired by the production of New York City Sweeney Todd, Demon Barber of Fleet Street where the stage surrounds the audience, giving a sense of realism. The shots were filmed when three separate elements joined the digital effects. The crew uses a 50 mm lens to ease the effects team to dissolve closeup shots with other elements. Starting from Stewart's eyes, the camera is pulled back 25 feet (7.6 m), requiring a key light to increase the intensity up to 1000 feet so that it has sufficient depth to keep the eye sharp. The stage surfaces proved too uneven to achieve the smooth dolly setback required by the securities team, which required stable shots to integrate computer-generated Picard versions with setbacks. The 135-foot dolly (41 m) dolly track is raised from the stage floor and lined with double-thick birch plywood pieces, selected for the smooth finish. The entire set for the scene is 100 feet (30 m) wide and 25 feet (7.6 m) tall; the gap left by the dolly revealed then digital filled. The main photography finished on July 2, 1996, two days ahead of schedule but still under budget. The taking took a total of sixty days.
Effects
Most of the First Contact Effects ' are handled by Industrial Light and Magic under the direction of John Knoll. Sequences of smaller effects, such as phaser fire, computer graphics, and transporter effects, are delegated to teams led by visual effects watchdog David Takemura. Accustomed to directing episodes for the television series, Frakes is often reminded by the effects artist Terry Frazee to "think big, blow everything up". Most effects sequences are planned to use low-resolution, computer-generated animatics. This rugged animated storyboard specifies length, action, and composition, allowing producers and directors to ascertain how the sequence will be played before they are shot.
First Contact is the last movie showing the physical model of Enterprise . For a dramatic introduction to ships, the effects team combines motion control shots of the Enterprise model with a computer-generated background. Watchdog order Dennis Turner, who has created the energy band Generation ' and specialized in creating natural phenomena, is accused of creating a star cluster, which is modeled after the Eagle Nebula. Nebula columns and dense areas are modeled with basic wireframe geometry, with surface shaders applied to create the edges of nebular light. A particle making ILM has been designed for previous tornado films Twister is used to create a turbulent look inside the nebula. After the Enterprise photos are taken, Turner enters the ship into a computer-generated background and changes its position until the image matches.
The newly graduated beauty pass from Enterprise is the responsibility of the visual effects of cinematographer Marty Rosenberg, who handles all other miniatures, explosions, and some live-action bluescreen elements. Rosenberg had previously fired several Enterprise -D effects for Generations , but had to adjust the technique for the new model; the cinematographer uses a 50 mm instead of 35 mm lens that is used for Generation because smaller lenses make the new Enterprise ' disk appear stretched out.. Knoll decides to shoot models from top and bottom as much as possible; side view makes the ship look too flat and elongated. Rosenberg prefers ship control movements rather than computer-generated versions, since it's much easier to capture high levels of detail with a physical model than to try to recreate it with computer graphics.
For the battle of Borg, Knoll insists on a closeup shot near a foreign ship, which requires a physical model. ILM installed a 30 inch (76 cm) model with an additional five inches of brass engraved on the neon lightbox illuminated for internal lighting. To make Borg's ship look bigger than ever, Knoll made sure that the end faced the camera like the bow of the ship and that the Cube broke the fringes of the frame. To give Cube greater depth and texture, Rosenberg shoots the ship with a louder light. "I made this really weird, sweeping three-quarters of the backlight coming from the right or left side, which I balanced with the net and some small lights.I want it to look scary and mysterious, so it lights like a dot, and we always have a camera which was near him, we never came directly to us, "he said. The small lights attached to the surface of the Cube help create a visual interest and introductory scale; the model was deliberately shot slowly, pacing determined to contrast with the ships the Federation was engaged in battle with Borg. The impact of the Federation's armaments on the Borg Cube was simulated using a 60-inch (150 cm) cube model. This model has a specific area that can be folded multiple times without damaging the miniature. For the final blast of the Cube, Rosenberg shot a miniature 30-inch (76 cm) cube with light-skin full of explosions. The Cubes were suspended from a sixty foot pipeline above the camera on the ground. The safety glass is placed over the lens to prevent damage, while the camera is covered with plywood to protect it from the plastic pieces that are showered after each explosion. The smaller Borg Sphere is a 12 inch (30 cm) model that was shot separately from the Cube and added digitally to post-production. The time travel vortex created by Sphere is simulated with the re-entry effect of a rocket; shape bowshock in front of the ship, then flow backwards at high speed. The interactive illumination is played across the computer-generated model Enterprise when the vessel is caught in a time of vortex.
Miniature Enterprise again used for spacewalk sequence. Even on large models, it's hard to make the miniature look realistic in the extreme close-up shots. To make a withdrawal job, the camera must be within an eighth inch of the model. Painter Kim Smith spent several days in a small area of ​​the model to add enough surface detail to close-ups, but even then the focus was barely adequate. To compensate, the crew used a wide-angle lens and fired at the highest f-stop they could. The direct action scene from the space crew was then added digitally. Wide images using double photo footage that runs across a large screen draped in the ILM parking lot at night.
ILM is tasked with imagining what an immediate assimilation of an Enterprise crewmember is. Jaeger came up with a set of wires that emerged from Borg's books and buried himself in the crew's neck. Tube like a worm of course through the victim's body and mechanical tools destroy the skin. All transformations are created using computer-generated imagery. The geometry of the worm is animated over the actor's face, then mixed with the addition of a leather texture over the animation. Gradual shades of skin color are simulated with shaders.
Frake considers the entrance of the Borg Queen - where the head, shoulders, and spine of steel are lowered by wires and attached to their bodies - as "the visual effects of signature in the film". The scene was difficult to implement, took the five-month ILM to complete it. Jaeger designed a rig that would lower the actress on set, and installed a prosthetic spine above the blue suit so that the ILM could remove Krige's lower body. This strategy allows filmmakers to incorporate as many direct action elements without the use of further digital effects. To make the prosthetic appear at the right angle when the lower part of her body is removed, Krige extends her neck forward so that it appears parallel to the spine. Knoll did not want to see that she was on a hard and mechanical rig; "We want him to have the appropriate 'buoy'," he explained. Using a separate motion control through the set, Knoll shoots the lower part of the upper body and a secondary sequence with Krige's entire body. A digital version of Borg's body suit is used for the descending sequence, at which point the image changes back to the original photo of Krige's body. Animated claws of the shirt were made digitally also using a detailed model. As a reference to the animators, the shots Krige required to portray realistically the "strange pain or satisfaction that is connected to his body".
Music
Movie composer Jerry Goldsmith prints First First Contact , his Star Trek feature. Goldsmith wrote the main headline beginning with the classic Alexander Courage Star Trek. Rather than devising a threatening theme to underline Borg, Goldsmith wrote a pastoral theme related to the first contact of human hope. This theme uses the four-tone motif used in the Star Trek V Goldsmith score: The Final Frontier , used in First Contact as a theme of friendships and general thematic links. The march is threatening with a touch of synthesizer used to represent Borg. In addition to making new music, Goldsmith uses music from previous Star Trek scores, including themes from The Motion Picture . The Klingon theme of the same film is used to represent Worf.
Due to delays with Paramount's The Ghost and the Darkness , the short four-week production schedule is cut to just three weeks. While Berman was worried about the move, Goldsmith hired his son, Joel, to help. The young composer provided additional music for the film, writing three gestures based on his father's motives and a total of 22 minutes of music. Joel uses a variety of his father's Borg music and Klingon's theme when Worf fights hand-to-hand (Joel says that he and his father decided to use the theme for Worf separately). When Borg attacked the hospital and the medical holograms distracted them, Joel wrote what Jeff critician called the "almost Coplandesque" string tuning and clarinet material, but the gesture was not used. While Joel composed many movie action cues, his father contributed to space travel and Phoenix . During the battle on the deflector plates, Goldsmith uses a low electronic register punctuated by a stabbing thump, a dissonant string.
In the break with Star Trek movie tradition, the soundtrack includes two licensed songs: Roy Orbison's "Ooby Dooby" and Steppenwolf's "Magic Carpet Ride". GNP President Crescendo Neil Norman explained that the decision to include the song was controversial, but said that "Frakes did the most amazing job of integrating the songs into the stories we should use".
GNP released the soundtrack of First Contact on December 2, 1996. The album contained 51 minutes of music, with 35 minutes of Jerry Goldsmith score, 10 minutes of additional music by Joel Goldsmith, "Ooby Dooby" and "Magic Carpet Ride". Compact discs sent with the CD-ROM feature can only be accessed when played on a personal computer, including interviews with Berman, Frakes, and Goldsmith.
On April 2, 2012, GNP Crescendo Records announced a limited edition collector CD featuring a complete score by Jerry Goldsmith (with additional music by Joel Goldsmith), newly rejuvenated by recording engineer Bruce Botnick, with a 16-page booklet accompanied by an informative note by Jeff Bond and John Takis. The expanded album [GNPD 8079] runs 79 minutes and includes three alternative tracks.
Themes
Frakes believes that the main theme of First Contact - and Star Trek as a whole - is loyalty, friendship, honesty and mutual respect. This is evident in the film when Picard chose to save Data rather than evacuate the ship with the rest of the crew. The film makes a direct comparison between Picard's hatred against Borg and the refusal to destroy Enterprise and Captain Ahab in the Herman Melville Moby Dick novel. The moment marked a turning point in the film when Picard changed his mind, symbolized by putting down his gun. Similar Moby-Dick Reference is made in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and although Braga and Moore do not want to repeat it, they decide it works well. they can not leave it.
In First Contact , Borg is individually and faceless fulfilling the same whale role that can not be read in Melville's work. Picard, like Ahab, has been hurt by his arch-rivals, and writer Elizabeth Hinds says it is plausible that Picard must "choose the evil alternative of the rest of the ship to fight" Borg rather than taking the only plausible option left to destroy the ship. Several lines in the film refer to the primitive 21st-century settlers, with people from the 24th century having evolved into more utopian societies. In the end it is Lily (the 21st century woman) who shows Picard (the 24th century man) that his quest for revenge is a primitive behavior that humans have evolved not to use. Lily's words caused Picard to reconsider, and he quoted the words of Ahab's vengeance, recognizing the wish of death embedded in it.
The nature of Borg, especially as seen in First Contact , has been the subject of critical discussion. Writer Joanna Zylinska notes that while other alien species are tolerated by humans in Star Trek, Borg is seen as different due to their cybernetic changes and the loss of personal freedom and autonomy. Crew members assimilated into the Collective were then seen as "polluted by technology" and less than human. Zylinska draws a comparison between the differences in humanitarian technology and machines in Star Trek and the work of artists such as Stelarc. Oliver Marchart draws parallels between Borg's combinations with many people into the One and Thomas Hobbes concepts of Leviathan. The dangerous nature of the first contact between species, such as those represented by films such as Independence Day , Alien and First Contact, is a marriage of classic fears. national invasion and loss of personal identity.
Release
The year 1996 marks the 30th anniversary of the Star Trek franchise. First Contact is highly marketable, until not seen since the release of Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979. Some novelisations of the film are written for different age groups. Playmates Toys produces six and nine inch action figures in addition to ship models and phasers. Two special television "making" airs on HBO and Sci-Fi Channel, and promoted during the 30th anniversary television show at UPN. The theater trailer for this film is included in the music compilation Best of Star Trek , released at the same time as the soundtrack of First Contact . Simon & amp; Schuster Interactive developed Borg-themed video games for Macintosh and Windows personal computers. The game, Star Trek: Borg , serves as an interactive movie with scenes that were filmed at the same time as First Contact Production . The video game adaptation of the film was also announced by Spectrum Holobyte, and will take the form of a real-time strategy game set entirely on the Enterprise during the Borg takeover, though never released. Paramount is heavily marketing movies on the internet via the First Contact website, which averages 4.4 million clicks a week during the opening of the movie, the largest number of traffic ever on the motion picture site.
The film premiered on November 18, 1996, at Mann's Chinese Theater in Hollywood, Los Angeles. The lead role rescues Spiner who is present, such as Moore, Braga, Jerry Goldsmith, and producer Marty Hornstein. Other Star Trek actors present include DeForest Kelley, RenÃÆ'Â © Auberjonois, Avery Brooks, Colm Meaney, Armin Shimerman, Terry Farrell, Kate Mulgrew, Roxann Dawson, Jennifer Lien, Robert Duncan McNeill, Ethan Phillips, Tim Russ, Garrett Wang and Robert Picardo. After the screening, 1,500 guests crossed the street to the Hollywood Colonnade, where the interior was dressed to match the settings of the film: holodeck nightclub, part of bridge, "star space", Borg's place and "accident" n 'combustion chamber. The film received premier royal broadcasting in the UK, with the first screening attended by Charles, Prince of Wales.
box office
First Contact opened in 2,812 theaters from November 22, grossed $ 30.7 million the first week and made it the top spot in the US box office. The film was thrown from the top spot the following week with 101 Dalmatians, earning $ 25.5 million. The film grossed $ 77 million in the first four weeks, remaining in the top ten box office during that time. It closes with AS & amp; Gross Canada is $ 92,027,888 and gross international $ 54 million for a total of $ 146 million worldwide. The film is the best-performing Star Trek film on the international market until the 2009 Star Trek movie, and Paramount's best show on the market such as New Zealand, earns $ 315,491 from 28 sites by year-end.
Critical response
First Contact got a positive review of the release. Ryan Gilbey from The Independent thinks the film is wise to get rid of the cast of The Original Series: "For the first time, the movie Star Trek actually looks like something which is more ambitious than an extended TV show, "he wrote. In contrast, critic Bob Thompson felt that First Contact was more in the spirit of the 1960s television series than any previous installments. Elizabeth Renzeti said that First Contact managed to fix the previous "stiff" entry in the series, and that showed a new interest in tell stories. Kenneth Turan from Los Angeles Times wrote, " First Contact did everything you wanted the movie Star Trek done, and it did so with cheerfulness and style. Adrian Martin of The Age notes that the film is aimed at fun fans: "The stranger in this fantastic world first described by Gene Roddenberry just has to fight to understand as best he can," he wrote, but " followers of the cult will be in heaven ". The New York Times ' Janet Maslin says that "curious movie plots will surprise all hard-core fans" of the series, while Variety Joe Leydon writes that the film requires no deep knowledge about the series and that fans and non-fans alike will enjoy the movie. While Renzetti considers the lack of old characters from the previous seven films as a welcome change, Maslin says that without the original stars, "The series lacks [...] much resolve beforehand.This has turned into something less innocent and more derivative from a long time ago, something one tends not to be enjoyed by non-skinned people. "In contrast, Roger Ebert calls the first First Contact one of the best Star Trek movies, and James Berardinelli finds the most entertaining movie Star Trek in a decade; "It has revived the Star Trek movie series, at least from a creative standpoint," he wrote.
The acting of this film was greeted with mixed receipts. Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly appreciated that guest guests Woodard and Cromwell were used in "contrast discovery" for their more famous images, as "serious dramatic actresses" and "farmers dancing in Babe i> ", respectively. Lloyd Rose of The Washington Post felt that while Woodard and Cromwell succeeded in "taking care of themselves", Frakes' lead from other actors was not inspired; Steve Persall from St. The St. Petersburg Times believes that only Cromwell accepted the role of choice in the film, "so he stole the show by default". Some reviews note that Data interaction with Borg Queen is the most interesting part of the film; critic John Griffin praised Spiner's work as providing "ambivalent frisson" for the feature. Adam Empire magazine writes that some characters, especially Troi and Crusher, are lost or ignored, and that the pace of the film does not leave time for those unfamiliar with the series to know or care about the characters. Likewise, Emily Carlisle of the BBC praised Woodard, Spiner's and Stewart's performances, but felt the film was more focused on action than characterization. Stewart, whose Thompson and Renzetti are supposedly overshadowed by William Shatner in the previous film, received a compliment from Richard Corliss of Time: "When Patrick Stewart gave [a] a line with the great glory of the Royal Shakespeare Company alumnus, gape audiences are amazed at the more impressive special effects than any other ILM digital doodle.This is real acting! In the movie Star Trek ! "
Special effects are generally praised. Jay Carr of The Boston Globe says that First Contact has successfully updated Star Trek's Gene Roddenberry concept creator with more complicated effects and actions. Thompson's assessment reflects Carr; he agreed that the movie
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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