I'm surprised no-one has commented on this - yesterday was the 10th anniversary of Star Trek: First Contact. The film which, more than anything is probably the reason most of us are here at Flare.
I was looking forward to this film sooo much. I wasn't on the internet then (few people were!) so only had brief glimpses in other media to inform me about the film - a teaser poster at our local cinema, announcing the UK date (6th December); the teaser trailer, shown in the UK before Mission: Impossible, with its recycled TNG & Voyager footage; a pic in a magazine showing the new uniforms, and phaser rifles!
What I was almost unable to find was any clue as to what the Sovereign-class Enterprise looked like. A crappy pic of the MSD became my Windows 3.11 background immediately.
How I got to see the film was a bit of a saga. I'd been out clubbing the night before, ended up stranded in Brighton until the first train at 5 the next morning, fell asleep in the chillout room of a club (but got constantly awakened by clubbers asking what fantastic drugs I was on and could they have some? My answer every time: "I've had a hard week at work, fuck off you stupid cunt." Then had a slap-up fry-up in a cavernous cafe next door while all these veggie female students berated me as a brutal carnivore, and their hapless boyfriends moped over their nut rissoles and tried to look disapproving rather than secretly envious. Then catching the train home and having to share a carriage with a nutter (sat as far away from him as possible, ignored the curious rhythmic fapping noise coming from his direction, oh I wish I was making that bit up). Then slept late, caught a train to London, met some friends and did battle to get some good seats in a packed prime-time Saturday night screening at the Empire in Leicester Square.
The next year, taking my first tentative steps into the non-porn part of the net, I found this place called Utopia Planitia, and the rest is history.
I'll end this trawl down memory lane with of course the most-analyzed sequence in Trek history (although the Wolf 359ers might beg to differ); shame UBB doesn't allow embedding of YouTube videos:-
Where were you, what were you doing, and what did you think?
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
I remember being at Schoolies Week (an-end-of-year, end-of-school piss-up on the Gold Coast - where you get all your friends together, rent out a floor of a high-rise and get pissed, go to the beach, listen to great music and just chill out (I think there is sex in there for some too) - anyway - I remember the TV being on and seeing the ad for First Contact! I still remember it as clear as a bell and the feeling of it all. Oh also there was supposed to be some space junk that was going to be hitting the Eastern Seaboard of Queensland.
As for seeing the movie? I have to think about that actually. I know I saw it 3 times. Oh - I think I had the memory - now it's gone. I think I saw it with some Trek-watching friends from school.
I remember seeing the premier of Generations. The cinema that was screening it had 8 cinemas... and all were packed out. There was people EVERYWHERE! It was great. That would have been 1994 or 1995 by the time it got to Australia.
[ November 23, 2006, 05:45 AM: Message edited by: AndrewR ]
Posted by Johnny (Member # 878) on :
Oh God I feel old, that was ten years ago already?! Okay, I must've only been 12 or 13. Anyway, I was a total nerd, not the sophisticated "geek" I am now. Naturally, I was blown away by the news that there would be a full scale battle with the Borg at the beginning of FC, and the all too brief clips of the new ships really whetted my apetite for the film. Funnily enough I can't remember actually watching it for the first time, but it was no doubt in the local cinema with my best friend. Months later I harranged him in Blockbusters until he lent me �12 to buy the video. Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
I remember that crappy MSD! I felt so excited when I found that pic before the premiere, even though it didn't really give much of a hint as to what it looked like. They really did a good job keeping the new Enterprise under wraps, didn't they?
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Pre-internet, you know? They'd never get away with keeping it secret now. I remember someone had done a very basic CGI image of what they thought it'd look like based on what descriptions existed - cross between the Ambie and the Excelsior, I seem to recall. I wonder if that version still exists anywhere on the web?
(didn't someone a while ago find the original diagrams of the FC ships, all 5 or maybe 6 classes, as created for the original UP site?)
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
I never was able to see First Contact when it first premiered in the US. Yet I did see on Pay-per-View. I remember my family talking in the kitchen or something and I was in the living room on the floor watching it while eating a slice of pizza. My jaw dropped at that battle scene. It wouldn't be until 1999 when my family finally brought a computer that I started looking for Trek sites, the first site I visited being startrek2000.com(or something like that). After a flurry of bad fan websites, I finally found ex-astris-scientia.org and well the rest is history.
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
The swedish premiere was so built-up and anticipated that the largest theater pumped up smoke and had a five minute laser show over our heads. Very nice. I had a bag of gelatinous blobs, some bacon snax and a large coke. "Penny's in the popcorn" my ass! I cheat the system all the time, no popsies for this puppy!
The always-so-boring and drawn-out Trek title sequence was cheered on by the audience, one cheer for every name (Stewart, Frakes, Spiner etc) but when they got to Burton everyone was like "Ok getting old let's just watch".
We were OF COURSE whistling, clapping, laughing and beeping after Lily did her borg-comment, as well as in the Picard-Lily sex scene (special feature for our premiere).
Afterwards we were all tired, took a moose home and slept like babies. The day after I spent a lot of time on my 133MHz PC trying to track down pictures of the various ships, when I wasn't playing "Diablo". O Gillian the Barmaid, where art thou nou?
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
I remember digging around for spoilers in a text browser on a 486 a year before the movie came out. I remember plots involving Lwaxana destroying the collective after a Borg invasion came through the Bajoran wormhole. I remember a list of names, like Generations 2, Future Generations, Resurrection, and Nemesis. I remember that one of the plots I found actually turned out to be the movie itself. But I don't remember going to see the movie!
Posted by Chris (Member # 71) on :
I seem to remember browsing around on a P1 75 at the time reading plot synopses for the movie. The actual movie itself I went alone. I think I conned my brother in to taking me there and picking me up. No snacks or anything, just straight in and out. In fact, I think I still have my ticket stub.
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
Lee: I'd love to change the world, but I don't know what to do so I'll leave it up to you.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Resurrection! I remember that idea. There was a story-line floating out in the ether about a Romulan-centric movie and that Picard had a clone. This is no bullshit - it was around the time of First Contact. I guess either they took the idea for Nemesis or it was something they were planning on doing a long time before it!
I remember UP!!
Oh and I think people clapped at the end of First Contact.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
I remember going to see it in college. Our Dorm manager (who apparently had a creepy thing for me and had thus assigned my roommates and I the room right across the hall from his) gave me a really cool teaser poster that I still have. I remember seeing the crappy trailer with recycled bits and hearing rumors that a squadron of Defiants would show up at some point and get their butts handed to them.
When I finally saw the movie (opening day, I believe) I was blown away by the battle scene, though I remember being disappointed by the first glimpse we get of the Ent-E just sitting in a nebula. Seeing the Defiant show up was amazing. I also remember a line from Worf on DS9 a couple months earlier about planning to be on Earth when Keiko was due to give birth, and thinking this was an obvious tie-in to his being in the upcoming movie.
Good times.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
Did anyone else not need to hear the bit about the creepy dorm manager?
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
I want to hear more. GRAPHIC DETAIL, please.
Heh, I remember the "leaked script" someone had put together that had Earth being attacked by THREE cubes protecting the sphere. A fleet of smaller Defiant-SIZED ships get wasted, teh Enterprise comes to the rescue, saves Worf, and the sphere does its thing. I think the fan script ended there...
Mark
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
Mmm, Champion of Dorm! Splice the main brace! Seize the frrreshmen!
I hated that early FC-trailer that just ripped off stock footage from TNG, TUC, Generations and VOY. But there was one shot in it, with Voyager pulled-up next to a cube, that I didn't get. You saw the saucer section of Voyager in frame, next to a cube, and I think there was phaser fire. What episode was that from? Anyone got the trailer?
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
From Memory Alpha:
The teaser for the film used score from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and various shots from other Trek movies and episodes. All effect shots (ships, space battles, pyro, weapons fire, etc) were recycled episode and film footage since the teaser needed to be cut prior to the completion of the film's effects to launch the publicity on schedule. This is why the Enterprise-E is not seen until the full trailer. There is only one clip in the teaser that did not feature in any TV episode or movie. That was of the USS Voyager firing multiple phaser blasts from its saucer array, at an early TNG version of a Borg Cube. The clip is seen near the end of the trailer and is backdropped against an orange nebula. The theatrical trailer utilized bits of score from the crash sequence in Star Trek Generations. The trailer also featured various shots not included in the film such as an alternate take of Picard saying, "The line must be drawn here!"
Edit: I found it! Posted by Johnny (Member # 878) on :
13 year old Johnny really liked that trailer. It was kinda fun putting the pieces of the puzzle together to figure out which bits came from which episodes, and in a way, the fact that nothing from the actual film was shown actually excited me more.
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
I was 21. I was doing off-season campaign work, working on the final dat entries & planning victory parties, as we'd gotten our guy into the state legislature back in CT.
The opening night, I went with my friends Beth & Carolyn, & Carolyn's friend Lenny to go see it. I remember thinking how lame as shit the opening credit were....until the pullback from the eye. And then I got it. And KEPT getting it as the camera kept going.
I didn't see the MSD that Lee & others have mentioned, but I DID have an idea for the general shape of the ship. E! used to have a show called "Coming Attractions," where they played 30 mintues of upcoming movie trailers, & I not only caught it on there but taped it so I could review it in detail; still have the tape, actually because I'm lame & lazy. Also it has the trailer for Escape From L.A., which I thougth was cool.
Anyway, in the trailer, there's a snip where Picard called for red alert & you can see the general shape of the ship on a readout screen behind him; it's surrounded by the swirling ovals. I traced it & was a little shocked to see how much it resembled one of my own designs; later on, I saw that it really wasn't. I, too, noticed the unnamed Intrepid there & wondered if they'd cheaped out & just made the E-E one to save on time. About 4 years later, I watched te tape again, saw that it was Voyager with the named removed (same number) & went on to build a spec model of an INT E-E for someone anyway.
I remember thinking how fucking BADASS the movei was, how we KNEW it was the Vulcans right as the ship landed, & how much I'd wished it'd been Andorians or some such. Then we went out for food, & I went home to scrape the decals off the Galaxy model I had labeled of an NCC-1701-E two years previously & relabel it as USS Gibraltar.
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
About that MSD, the MSD in the teaser trailer looks a little funny.
Nice one, Mars! I wonder what made them do that, edit together a Voyager-vs-Cube shot when they'd recycled so much other stuff anyway. Also, I could've sworn this was the trailer where you saw two BoPs descend into a solar flare and explode, stolen from that klingon episode of TNG. Perhaps it was in the trailer for "Generations".
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
Actually, it's not "VGR vs. Cube" at all. It's from BOBW 2; Voyager just takes the place of the E-D's saucer.
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
Thanks Nim. I also recall the Birds of Prey in the Generations trailer and in a commercial for the Generations micro-machines. I had that Ent-d micro-machine which had saucer separation capabilities. I also remember the theater I went to in order to see Generations had a paper mache TOS Enterprise. Ah to be young again...
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Watching that Youtube stuff - I remember when first seeing the Enterprise-E and either audibly gasping or saying 'oh wow'!
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Watch it to see a bit of the First Contact Battle scene right at the end - in the top right a Steamrunner class is wiped out by the explosion of the Borg Cube! I guess it had no more shields?
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
Ha that video was fantastic. About that Steamrunner, I also couldn't believe it was caught in the explosion and destroyed especially since some Akiras were also caught in the blast and they survived.
Those seasons were heaven, I wish there were 47!
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
Where's that shot from when a BoP decloaks and pitches to port, at 00:37? It looked so quick and flexible, it couldn't have been from Generations, the ships of that movie moved like snails.
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
It IS from GEN. It's when the Klingon Kleavage Kids pick up Droogy McStubble from the obs platform.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)