Star Trek: First Contact

Posted on by thecodeman92

For the four decades before 1996, various Star Trek series and movies had referenced the invention of warp drive by Zefram Cochrane and humanity’s leap to the stars. There was even an episode of The Original Series where the crew of the Enterprise met the legendary scientist on a world far from Earth. But we never saw the first warp flight itself or Earth’s first contact with beings from another world. 1996’s Star Trek: First Contact changed all that. Pitting Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the crew of the brand-new Starship Enterprise-E against their archnemesis, the Borg Collective. A lone cube makes its way to Earth with the intention of assimilating Earth of the post-WWIII 2060s in order to assimilate Earth of the 2370s. Of course, the Picard and company stop the Borg, save the world, and enable first contact with the Vulcans. This is my favorite of The Next Generation films and has lots of great action and character development. Data faces a test of his loyalty to his shipmates, Picard faces his demons with the Borg, and Worf, as usual, has some of the best lines in the script (assimilate this!). And the Borg got a long-overdue makeover, transforming them from kind of hokey-looking villains to imposing, creepy, murderous cyborgs. All around, an awesome Trek film. Too bad there hasn’t been a good one since.

Here’s the breakdown:

  1. “Engage” or “make it so” are said: 4
  2. Deanna senses something: 2
  3. Phasers are fired: 35
  4. Picard is ruthless against the Borg: 4
  5. Worf says something badass: 5
  6. Communications are down: 3
  7. Cochrane is apprehensive or skeptical about the future: 3
  8. The Borg assimilate someone: 5

Total: 61

So, with a total of 61 sips, and 23 sips per bottle, that comes out to 2.65 beers drank. As I do not waste beers, I round that up to 3. And as the runtime of Star Trek: First Contact is 111 minutes, I drank at a rate of 0.55 sips per minute.

Here’s the running list of movies, ranked by amount of beer drank:

  1. Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, 5.78 (6)
  2. You Only Live Twice, 5.48 (6)
  3. The Spy Who Loved Me, 5.39 (6)
  4. Star Wars: The Clone Wars, 5.09 (6)
  5. Iron Man 3, 4.7 (5)
  6. Batman (1966), 4.65 (5)
  7. Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, 4.48 (5)
  8. Star Trek: The Motion Picture, 4.22 (5)
  9. Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, 4 even
  10. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, 3.91 (4)
  11. The World Is Not Enough, 3.91 (4)
  12. X2: X-Men United, 3.52 (4)
  13. Tomorrow Never Dies, 3.48 (4)
  14. Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, 3.48 (4)
  15. Blade, 3.35 (4)
  16. Die Another Day, 3.09 (4)
  17. The Living Daylights, 3.04 (4)
  18. Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, 3.04 (4)
  19. Skyfall, 2.96 (3)
  20. The Patriot (2000), 2.83 (3)
  21. Highlander, 2.7 (3)
  22. Star Trek: First Contact, 2.65 (3)
  23. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, 2.65 (3)
  24. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, 2.57 (3)
  25. Alien 3, 2.52 (3)
  26. For Your Eyes Only, 2.48 (3)
  27. Creed, 2.48 (3)
  28. Fatal Attraction, 2.43 (3)
  29. Spectre, 2.43 (3)
  30. Alien, 2.22 (3)
  31. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, 2.22 (3)
  32. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, 2 even
  33. Batman Begins, 1.91 (2)
  34. Rambo III, 1.78 (2)
  35. Rocky IV, 1.74 (2)
  36. The Man with the Golden Gun, 1.39 (2)

And here’s the running list of movies, ranked by how fast they got me drunk:

  1. Star Wars: The Clone Wars, 1.19
  2. You Only Live Twice, 1.08
  3. Batman (1966), 1.03
  4. Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, 1
  5. The Spy Who Loved Me, 0.99
  6. Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, 0.85
  7. Iron Man 3, 0.83
  8. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, 0.8
  9. Star Trek: The Motion Picture, 0.73
  10. Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, 0.7
  11. The World Is Not Enough, 0.7
  12. Tomorrow Never Dies, 0.67
  13. Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, 0.65
  14. Blade, 0.64
  15. X2: X-Men United, 0.61
  16. Star Trek: First Contact, 0.55
  17. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, 0.54
  18. Die Another Day, 0.53
  19. The Living Daylights, 0.53
  20. Highlander, 0.53
  21. Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, 0.51
  22. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, 0.5
  23. Skyfall, 0.48
  24. Fatal Attraction, 0.47
  25. For Your Eyes Only, 0.45
  26. Alien, 0.44
  27. Rocky IV, 0.44
  28. Creed, 0.43
  29. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, 0.43
  30. Rambo III, 0.41
  31. Alien 3, 0.4
  32. Spectre, 0.38
  33. The Patriot (2000), 0.37
  34. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, 0.36
  35. Batman Begins, 0.31
  36. The Man with the Golden Gun, 0.26

Next up, we go from the best of the Next Gen movies to the worst, 2002’s Star Trek: Nemesis. An unrecognizable Ron Perlman, a pre-Bane Tom Hardy, and a fat Riker. Joy oh joy.

Leave a comment