Hacker Cinema
Poster for Star Trek: First Contact

Star Trek: First Contact

1996 · Film · 111 min

Part of Star Trek: The Next Generation Collection

Directed by Jonathan Frakes

Science FictionActionAdventureThriller

The Borg, a relentless race of cyborgs, are on a direct course for Earth. Violating orders to stay away from the battle, Captain Picard and the crew of the newly-commissioned USS Enterprise E pursue the Borg back in time to prevent the invaders from changing Federation history and assimilating the galaxy.

4 positive8 neutralfrom 12 commenters

IMDbTMDB

Where to watch

No streaming data for this title.

12 comments on Hacker News

  1. Positivehypercube33May 15, 2025

    Speaking of laser disc it's wild how vivid colors are on that platform. My main example movie is Star Trek First contact and everything is very colorful. DVD is muddy. Even a Blu-ray copy kinda looks like crap. A total side note is the surround sound for that movie is absolutely awesome especially the cube battle scene.

  2. Neutralcrooked-vFeb 28, 2024

    I think that last part about FTL is taken more into account in the stories than you've considered. 'A Borg ship moving super fast suddenly showed up Federation core territory' is the driving conceit behind "Best of Both Worlds" and Star Trek: First Contact, FTL travel is the main technobabble allowing for surprise appearances of Romulan/Klingon/Ferengi ships in unexpected places in a number of episodes, and there are whole arcs in DS9 about the impact of the Gamma Quadrant wormhole and how it's abruptly connected two politically opposed parts of the galaxy.

  3. NeutralsargstuffSep 25, 2023

    Ah, sounds like the inspirational spark of star trek "resistance is futile", from a systems administrator point of view. [0][0][1]

    [0] : http://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Regeneration_(episode)

    [1] : http://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Star_Trek:_First_Contact_-_The_Borg

  4. PositiveseanhunterJan 26, 2023

    Yes. If I recall correctly, this is a major plot element of "Star Trek: First Contact" for example.[1]

    [1] I'm not a huge trek person but it's pretty decent as these things go https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117731/?ref_=fn_al_tt_20

  5. NeutralKerrAvonApr 12, 2022

    If it's gatekeeping, it's not doing a very good job. Star Trek: First Contact had a 96% rotten tomatoes rating a few years ago. It's gradually dropped a bit since, but seems a bit high for that movie, compared with all other movies ever made.

  6. NeutralabhorrenceFeb 12, 2020

    Someone's "Bacon" number is how many films you have to go through in order to go from that person to Kevin Bacon. For example Patrick Stewart's Bacon number is 2. Star Trek: First Contact -[James Cromwell]-> Beyond All Boundaries -> Kevin Bacon.

    Someone's Erdős number is the same concept, but applied to coauthorship on research papers.

    Someone's Erdős-Bacon number is the sum of those two numbers.

  7. PositiveYeGoblynQueenneMay 24, 2019

    But those are not science fiction. If you tell a story that is within the limits of what we know to be possible with the knowledge that we have right now, you will end up with a very boring story. If you start speculating about what _might_ be possible- you'll end up with time travel through black holes, like in Interstellar, which makes for a nice story, but not a very realistic one.

    There is a trade-off between speculation and realism, that leaves a very, very narrow space for an interesting story.

    Part of it is due to the fact that most of modern science has been mined mercilessly for "hard" sci-fi subjects, that have now become tropes that can't form the basis for an interesting new story anymore. For example, try to write a story where the entire premise is that someone manages to construct an Alcubierre drive. You'd get ...Star Trek: First Contact. Nice movie, hey. But nothing new, there.

  8. NeutralCheyanaMar 18, 2016

    "There will have to be habit changes: those who want to compete will likely have to embrace autodidactism-for-life / training-for-life (free college / cheap online learning makes this one much more palatable.)"

    Your comment reminded me of Star Trek: First Contact when Lily asks Picard about the lack of money and he said we work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity. Ever since that movie I was always fascinated with that unseen part of Star Trek canon where somehow the world figured out how to finally stop warring and competing and made human progress a first priority. I'm thinking we'll be in a few more wars (over resources) before we get there. Especially if our man-made climate change screws everything up.

  9. Neutralr00fusMar 20, 2015

    Amusingly, this is the population posed for 24th century earth in the movie "Star Trek: First Contact". Nice to know they didn't pull the numbers from thin air.

  10. NeutraljonnathansonJul 23, 2014

    Thankfully, the writers of Enterprise never panicked and pushed the Q button the way Voyager's did. The Borg make a questionable and continuity-challenging [1] appearance on Enterprise, but Q never does.

    I watched all of Enterprise. It...gets better in Seasons 3 and 4. That's about all I can say. The first season is pretty bad. Season 2 has a few good episodes. In Season 3, things start to pick up a bit, and Season 4 is legitimately interesting. The show never quite reaches the heights of TNG, DS9, or TOS. But it gets pretty good. I'd only recommend watching it all the way through if you're ready to wade past the early crap, though.

    [1] This is kind of a mixed bag. The explanation for their appearance stems from the events of Star Trek: First Contact, in which a small detachment of Borg drones are left behind on Earth in the 20th Century. So the timeline has been altered a bit, and hence, those remnant Borg show up in Enterprise. On the flip side, you'd think that an early encounter with the Borg would have stuck in everyone's memory a little bit, and that Picard wouldn't have been shocked upon first encountering them. The episode acknowledges the issue, at least, and attempts to arrive at a workaround. The fix is clever, if not entirely satisfactory.

  11. NeutralaseembehlMar 19, 2012

    Captain Jean-Luc Picard states in the film Star Trek: First Contact that "The economics of the future is somewhat different. You see, money doesn't exist in the 24th century. The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity."

    Disclaimer: Copied from the comments on the original article.

  12. PositivejdavidJan 27, 2009

    still a few more (some are in the works)

    * Stargate

    * "startup.com" - about the formation of 'govworks.com' i wonder what these guys think about Obama.

    * Takedown - 'Kevin Mitnick's story'

    * Serenity

    * Star Trek: the Voyage Home

    * The Last Starfighter

    * Johnny Mnemonic

    * Short Circuit 1 & 2

    * Crest of the Stars (anime)

    * Fahrenheit 451

    * Equilibrium

    * Batman (begins, dark night, the tim burten one)

    * Edward Scissor Hands

    * Space Balls

    * Avalon ( http://www.cyberpunkreview.com/movie/decade/2000-current/avalon/#comments)

    * LAIN: The Serial Experiments (anime)

    * Cherry 2000

    * Dune

    * Ender's Shadow (in the works)

    * Ender's Game (in the works)

    * Diamond Age (in the works for sci-fi, 'a young girls illustrated primer')

    * The Arrival

    * The Terminator 1,2,3

    * The Sarah Conner Chronicles

    * D.A.R.Y.L

    * Flight of the Navigator

    * Explorers

    * AI

    * Batteries Not Included

    * Blade Runner

    * IRobot

    * Appleseed (anime)

    * Bubble Gum Crisis (anime)

    * Ergo Proxy (anime)

    * Virtuosity

    * Metropolis (all of them are good)

    * The Last Exile (anime)

    * Cherry 2000

    * Robocop (this so hold up)

    * Primmer

    * Probe ( the TV series, it took me 3 months to find the copies of this Issac Asimov based TV series on ABC ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probe_(TV_series)

    * Infest Wisely

    * Logan's Run

    * Planet of the Apes

    * Star Trek: First Contact

    * CQ ( if you get it, you'll get why this is a hacker movie , 'la resistance')

    * Amelie

    * 2046

    * Trigun (anime)

    * Escaflone (anime)

    * Tank Girl

    * Twelve Monkeys

    * THX 1138

    * Bicentennial Man

    * The Philadelphia Experiment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Philadelphia_Experiment_(film)

    * Seaquest ( some episodes )

    * Strange Days ( new yeas hacker style )

    * Freejack