Patrick Stewart’s favourite Star Trek episode impressed TNG’s greatest film

Few Star Trek followers would argue towards the suggestion that Star Trek: First Contact, is the very best of the Star Trek motion pictures from Patrick Stewart‘s 4 TNG-era outings. The truth is, it’s among the many greatest motion pictures in the entire cinematic franchise, in a position to come toe-to-toe with the sooner motion pictures from William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy.

Launched in 1996, First Contact sees the crew of the USS Enterprise-E journey again via the Star Trek timeline and into the previous to fight a Borg plot to forestall humanity’s first assembly with the Vulcans. It stands as probably the greatest science fiction motion pictures of the last decade, taking the Star Trek The Subsequent Technology solid and reshaping them to suit an motion thriller film. In doing so, it does lose a number of the basic TNG-style appeal, but it surely’s a enjoyable and thrilling journey when all’s stated and completed.

Partly, that’s as a result of it’s impressed by Stewart’s private favourite TNG episode: Starship Mine. Nestled towards the top of season 6, Starship Mine is a Die Laborious-ish motion episode which sees Stewart’s Star Trek captain single-handedly tackle a bunch of malevolent intruders (together with Tim Russ, who would later seem in Voyager as Tuvok, a task he reprised for Star Trek Picard season 3).

Whereas it doesn’t go down as a basic ‘moral dilemma’ episode, Starship Mine is a enjoyable journey (which additionally features a sensible sub-plot about Information studying to make small speak) and Stewart loved his time filming the episode a lot that it influenced First Contact.

Talking with THR, the film’s co-writer Ronald D. Moore recalled the way it occurred. “Patrick had actually favored doing the [TNG episode] Starship Mine, the place he was alone on the Enterprise-D and working round. And I believe he overtly referenced that in a means like, ‘I would like to be the one on the ship combating the Borg, as an alternative of down on the floor’.”

Initially, the draft for the script had seen Riker keep aboard the Enterprise to combat the Borg because the extra pure ‘motion hero’ kind character. However, Stewart’s enthusiasm noticed their roles reversed and as an alternative Jonathan Frakes, who additionally directed the film, would lead the plot down on Earth’s floor by which the crew tried to make sure that Zefram Cochrane efficiently invented the Warp engine.

Regardless of the shake-ups and adjustments, First Contact was a giant success critically and commercially, proving that the TNG solid might make it on the large display screen after their earlier underwhelming try with Generations. Sadly, they might by no means attain the heights of First Contact once more, and the film sequence stuttered to an abrupt finish with Nemesis.

In 2023, all of them reunited for one ultimate time, although, in Star Trek Picard season 3. It was a correct send-off in the identical vein because the TOS-era motion pictures, and closed the TNG chapter for good.

For extra on Star Trek, try our ideas on a possible Star Trek Legacy launch date, or maintain updated with the brand new Star Trek sequence by studying our Unusual New Worlds season 2 evaluate and studying our interview with Anson Mount and Rebecca Romijn.

You may as well take a deep dive into Star Trek lore with our information to the USS Kelcie Mae, the Klingon Dak’Rah, our picks for the very best Star Trek characters, and our ideas on which Star Trek captain would survive the zombie apocalypse. Or, see our picks for the very best TV sequence of all time, what’s new on Paramount Plus this month, and all the brand new motion pictures coming in 2023.