Phasers Set To Stun: Star Trek First Contact

0:01 Space the Final Frontier. Join us for a bold conversation our prime directive to recap our favorite Star Trek shows, both new and old, to engage in debate about all things Trek. Prepare to energize with Phasers Set to Stunt. Hello everyone, Welcome back to Phasers Set to stud where we continue to show our love for everything Star Trek in this ongoing series from a film by podcast which focuses on every quadrant of the expanding universe of Trek by colverting television, animation, movies, directors.

0:55 And much more. Plotting the course, as always is your Core Trek crew. I'm Scott Hoffmann, Data Burns and I'm Wayne Whitey. And this week we're also happy to have a special guest joining our crew. Welcome Chuck Bryan. Hey, thanks for having me on. I'm really looking forward to talking to you all of you on Phaser Set to Stun for Star Trek First Contact. Fantastic. Yeah, thanks for being here. We wanted to have you on the show because we heard the great job that you did on Surely you can't be serious when they were talking about Star Trek the Motion picture, Well, can you tell us about how that came about? Oh yeah, absolutely, so. I think it was Dean Jason. We're talking about what's coming up, and it was in one of their What Went Wrong series and they were going to prepare the motion picture with the Phantom Menace, and I had just gone through going through rewatching the director's cut of Star Trek Commotion Picture, and I'm saying, WHOA, I think it's not worth the hate on that one.

2:00 So reached out to them. They said, we got to have you on the show. And we recorded that show earlier this summer and it came out and it was pretty well received. Very good episode. It is a good episode Star Trek. The Motion Pictures one of my top three Star Trek films, so I really enjoyed it. Oh great, We're happy to have you on the crew in this episode. We're continuing to follow the next Generation on the silver screen with their first solo Trek with Star Trek First Contact, released in nineteen ninety six in November. Released in November nineteen ninety six, written by Brandon Braga and Ronald D. Moore, with Rick Berman as producer and one of our favorites in the director's chair, Jonathan Frakes, for a first Next Generation film. I was ecstatic to see Jonathan Fras in the chair.

2:46 Oh yeah, absolutely, yeah. You know he wasn't the first choice for director. Yeah, no, they asked Ridley Scott first. And I'm glad that did happened. Yeah, I agree, I am too. I mean it us have kind of interesting parallels with Alien since it had a kind of a space horror kind of been to it. Yeah, but I. Absolutely think that Franks is the better choice there. I think it would have gone in some directions. It probably shouldn't have with Ridley. But I think I think Franke's even said that he went and watched like Close Encounters of the Third Kind Alien to kind of get his mindset for this film when he was directing it. And you can kind of see a little bit in this movie, you can.

3:28 Yeah, but absolutely soon to reach a broader audience. Yeah, with that kind of approach. And John McTernan was another director that they were considering. That's right, and that could have been a slightly different movie altogether. Yes it would, But I'm being die hard, you know exactly. Which makes me want to see like the Alternate Universe video store where we could actually pick that up off the shelf. I mean, we still have the choice of having this one, but at least we could see what would have happened with it. I mean, we would have record when kaye mother. Oh god, we'd have data saying that, yeah, oh, that would work.

4:11 Yeah, I know. I was excited to see this for the first For the first time I saw the trailer drop, I knew I absolutely wanted to see this. You have the full Next Generation crew facing off with the Borg and a follow up to one of the biggest two partners in Trek history, best of both worlds. Even though that's not the last place we see the Borg, it's it seems like almost a pick up from that in that we're following kind of the repercussions for Picard and where he stands with the fleet. So before we get too much further into it, obviously, let's talk about a red alert, because, unlike when we discussed the series, this episode is full of spoilers because we can't really say anything if you don't be a short episode. So if you haven't seen it, please go and do so and come back to join us.

4:58 We'll be waiting here for you. All right, Well, let's break it down a little bit, Dave, why don't you give us a summary of what this movie is all about? Absolutely? The Card and crew now find themselves on a new Enterprise out guarding the neutral zone. When Starfleet Command reaches out to advise the enemy that no one wanted to return has done just that. The Borg have reappeared and set on reaching Earth once and for all, no matter who gets in its way. Quickly, the Card disobeys orders and sends the Enterprise to Earth to join the fight. In a devastating battle, the Enterprise in Starfleet seem to have stopped them, however, and getting their ship destroyed. The Board have other plans, and that involves going into the past, where the Enterprise and its crew must quickly follow to save Earth and one of its historical figures from total annihilation. Yeah.

5:43 I mean, as you just described, it's a pace that does not it's unrelenting. It is, it doesn't slow down from the first moment it starts to pick up. Yeah. So, Scott, you were talking about how when you first saw the trailer, just how excited you were about it. I don't know if you remember the teaser trailer, and the teaser trailer started off with, uh, you know, the mister movie voice kind of giving the you know this thing is going to happen, and you know these enemies whatever, and you see this borgified kind of structure in space, and then it slowly rotates and you see the delta, the Federation delta, and then a board qube comes flying by.

6:25 Remember that, and then immediately after that, if you it had shots of the Enterprise d in it. So at this point I started thinking, Oh, they're going to do like a you know, a constitution a you know, like with with the Enterprise A you know, they're just going to get another Galaxy class starship. Uh so uh. It was much later before I even realized that they were going to do a whole new Enterprise for this, So that trailer just really did its job and getting ready for this to uh to land. They didn't absolutely I forgot about that teaser until you just mentioned it. It was good. Yeah, that was very well done. You know. I know we're gonna get to a round too to talk a little bit later, because I know Wayne's gonna have some treats for this. But as soon as the first beat starts, when the paramount symbol comes up and we're hearing Jerry Goldsmith score. You know you're in for a treat in this movie because his music in this film is phenomenal and is one of my favorite scores of all the Star Trek films.

7:27 Yep, absolutely agree. I mean, I'm probably the world's biggest Goldsmith fan and it is one of my favorites. It's top form Goldsmith, Wayne, I'm gonna I'm gonna be right there next to you as the second Goldsmith fan. So yeah, I I to me, I still like the music from Motion Picture, but this one is a extremely close second, and I can pick up either one and put it on and I'm enjoying it. Yes, Yeah, It's one that seems to have to kind of straddle a lot of different almost subgenres, right because we do have kind of the little bit more of the horrific moments, the action and adventure, but also the comedy on the surface, and I think it does so seamlessly.

8:17 Oh yeah, Oh, he's he's perfect for that. He's done all those genres. I mean, no one else could could do a score better for Star Trek than Jerry Goldsmith. With some help from Roy Orbison doing Booby doo Be Booby doo Bee that's a tough hair worm to get out of your head. The only song on that juke box. Clearly, right, that's true. It's just a bunch of records that I'll play that one play and a little bit of bareleios. Right. Yeah. That scene where Piccard is kind of contemplating the upcoming well actually he's not contemplating the battle at all. He's kind of dealing with his frustrations of not being able to be in there because Starfleet said stay away, that's too much of a risk.

9:04 And what a what a. That was a great shot too, just a fabulous how Jonathan Frakes just kind of he made it man, kind of like Michael Myers, Yes, he did justice. The music kind of swells up right and it's shaking all of the all the contents of his desk. Yeah. It was just very well, very well done. All right. So from the beginning, I feel like we should probably talk about the cast a little bit, because obviously we have most of the next generation cast, aside from Whoopi Goldberg as Guynan, which was a little bit of a surprising, I guess omission in this one. But I think given the nature of the story, it may is it may be better the Guyan wasn't there because it didn't seem like it needed a lot of soul searching on this one.

9:55 Well, yeah, but it is surprised that she didn't appear because of the Borg. I mean, with her and the history she has to be at the Borg, it was a bit of surprise, but it kind of would have crammed too much into the story. I think I think she was even surprised she wasn't asked back. Yeah, right, considering it was a boring story. Yeah, but I mean it does make sense, I think. I mean, I do miss her because she is part of the crew, but I feel like you're right. It would have crammed too much into this story and it really would have taken away from the flow of it. I feel yeah, And it. Probably wouldn't have been any more than maybe a cameo appearance like some of the other Next Generation cast made. I don't really see it being worth anything having her appear in the film. Yeah, I think the pacing of this film was perfect, So yeah.

10:37 She definitely. I think Alfre would have kind of played the part that Gynon would have really played reflection Supercard and what he was going through in this film, and she was phenomenal in Oh. Yes, yeah, And I mean I would say, you know, we had some modern day star power as they were rising. Think Alfred Wound, James Cromwell, just to name a few. Yeah, he's been on the crew. He'd been on Star Trek a couple of times before on Next Generation du Space nine and uh wasn't it the year before that he was nominated for an Academy Award for a Babe for Babes or ninety five, So I mean he's fresh off of that. That's a pretty pretty big star power for nineteen ninety six.

11:24 Yep, yeah, yeah, I remember him and uh, you know, of course Babe and then the Green Mile l A Confidential. I don't know if you remember the I Robot movie. Uh oh yes, yeah. He actually played one of the doctors who was the head of the company that that made the robots. So he's no stranger to uh two good movies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think he was the perfect choice. I know we're going to get into lifts a little bit later. I think he's precisely the right choice, especially when you think about the fact that he acknowledges this movie as one that's the closest to kind of playing himself. Great, which is kind of scary, isn't it.

12:06 Inventing warp drive technology, or that he's a big fan of and maybe he likes tequila. You know, he's a big Orbison fan. He likes to hit on counselors, you know, things like that. A few other additions to the cast. I think, uh Neil McDonough as Lieutenant Hawk did a superb job, and honestly, Uh kind of threw me. Uh threw me off as far as you know, the whole red Shirt theory and you know who you think might be eliminated. He was doing so well. I was very surprised when he didn't make it. It seemed like it could have been another addition to the cast.

12:50 I agree, I think there was. Is it Michael Horton who played Lieutenant Daniels. I think you're right, And he was the officer I believe who they when the car was going crazy thing we got to hold him off, no matter what. It all coughed. Yeah, and you know he looked the wharf and the whole thing. I know, we'll get to that a little bit later, but I thought Horton did a really good job in that role right there. Yeah. Yeah, And obviously we've got to mention another star that's very prominent, very important to this Alice Creeg as the Queen. Yes, oh my god, Greedy fantastic in here. She she's fantastic and everything she does, but the Board Queen, what an incredible character she created.

13:33 Yeah. Absolutely, And she's a wonderful actress. You know, she's done a lot of stuff. She was in Charots of Fire and ghost Story and the second four. She's had a lot of television and I'm going to do a shout out here too that she's actually crossed over into Doctor Who and done some of the audios. So I love hearing her. I love seeing her. And of course, you know, she came back a couple of times later. I'm not going to mention the second one, but she came back in the Voyager finale. Yeah, oh yeah. She was really good and against Mickey vork in a show called Barfly that was a really good movie. I remember that. Yeah. Yeah. It was a very interesting choice to have her as a voice for the Borg, even though it's not the voice for it, and it gives another interesting kind of dive into the structure of the boorg, making it seem a little bit more And there's another parallel to aliens for an antive right or a beehive having some kind of hierarchic, hierarchical structure with a with a queen kind of at the top. Surprising term but very effective.

14:43 I like in some of her dialogue it comes out like I have always been there. When she was talking to a card, you know there towards the end of the film, you know that her voice has always been there because he kind of recognizes her at first but doesn't but then does you know, it goes back and forth. I like that that addition that she has always been there and we just didn't realize it until now. Yeah, I do too, And we got something new with her coming in being the queen, you know, not having that organizational structure before. It's really great to go and see a Star Trek movie and they tell you something that it's new, but it it feels like it just fits as opposed to being something out of left field that you're trying to wrap your head around. It's very natural that they would have a high organization. In addition to that, that whole collective Yeah.

15:31 I think they've always done a great job with the borer species to kind of peel little bits of wallpaper away, just so that you see a little bit of a hint that was under the surface and makes you want to kind of peel it a little bit more. Right, So we're never necessarily served up with everything we need to know about it. And this was just one more taste. But I think it was very very well explored in future episodes. Here's something I want to explore in Theion, you know, go with me here, Guys, when they're on the Enterprise here towards the beginning and they're out of the neutral drone and doing their kind of thing, they're all obviously bored, and you know they kind of talk about, you know, they're just working the bugs out of the ship. But they've been done. But Jeordie makes a comment, He says, we've been out here a year. We're ready, We're ready.

16:16 So where is this year of stories? We've actually had a shakedown cruise. I would love to find out what stories we are missing in that one year with Enterprise E. I wonder if they've ever explored that. I mean, I don't know too much about the novels at the time, or when I do know the comics, I don't remember them ever doing anything there. But you bring that up that I never thought about that. Yeah, year of stories and adventures with this crew, though we've never. Seen, it's intriguing to think about. I wonder if within that year of stories we might get a little bit more of wondering about Jordie's transition from the Visor to the implants. Yeah. Right, So it's entirely possible that even though you know, medicine has advanced a lot, it's possible that he wouldn't necessarily need time for recovery. But with it, with a major change like that, it's entirely possible that we might at least have kind of an engineering hiatus where he has to at least step aside to a certain degree while he well, he works through that, while he continues to live lived with that. I was glad to see that that was one of the changes they had made here.

17:24 I finally gave LeVar the opportunity to lose the visor. Yeah. Yeah, even though it was like, oh but I started to work contact. Damn it, it's just like my eyes come on. I was going to ask about all the cameos that happened if y'all had caught a lot of those, So. There was one interesting one that I didn't even know existed, but Adam Scott yes as a con officer on the Defiant Very Quick Yeah, which. Parks Parks and Recreation. My favorite episode with him in it was the treat S traiw Salp where he got the Batman outfit It's good you like it wearing out the store. Another one that I really liked it was it was actually uncredited, was Ethan Phillips as the major when they went into the into the bar, and of course we had we had Robert Riccardo making the scene as the holographic doctor.

18:29 I love his scene. It's it's so funny. Yes, I am a doctor, not a doorstop. And then the last character was It wasn't really a cameo, but it it took me a second. Actually had to go and look this one up because I kept looking at him thinking I know him from somewhere. But Nicky the Knows was played by Don Stark, and that name would not have meant anything to me, but when I went and looked it up. He played Bob on that seventies show the guy the next door neighbor with the on there and then did you know that? And you go back and you watch, going, oh my gosh, it is totally bopped. You can't unsee it. Yeah, you cannot. That scene with Robert Ricardo. One of the things that I loved about that was Beverly's reluctance to use the EMA where I'd never use one of these things. But fine, I could see her saying that you do it.

19:19 Yeah, I got twenty board knocking outside the door, right. And then, of course we don't want to forget to Dwight Schultz's brief appearance playing Markley on there, and and then I also want to mention to Patty Esa takes appearance as near Sogawa. She recently, in the last week or two passed away, and I think, I think this is her final appearance, and it's just nice to see these familiar faces from the Enterprise in this film. It was I picked her first name. I picked up that her first name was Alisa. Yes, I got one on there. I have not ever heard that before. So yeah, well, I'll tell you what.

20:00 I think. It's staff for us to take a quick break when we come back we'll dive a little bit deeper into the movie and get into some of our favorite parts. Okay, we're back. So we were just diving into the meat of the story and kind of some of our favorite parts. We talked a little bit about Jordy transitioning from the visor to having bionic implants, and it made me think that I wanted to discuss the opening of this movie, which seems like it has kind of a thematic deep dive into Picard's psyche to show how deeply ingrained the boards still are. I know that's something that comes back in Picard Season three, but it was a very clever choice to have all the names out of focus, kind of sharply coming in and as you pull out, you see that you're kind of coming out of Picard's head almost, and see how vast the board ship was and how much he found himself kind of swallowed up in it.

21:00 All the way up until the end of that sequence when you see a was it a drill or some kind of probe or something like that. I actually and it's just like, wow. Please stop, please stop, please stop. It's going from that moment, you know what kind of movie this is gonna be okay a little bit about it horror and then quickly goes to you know, you think that it's you know, real life, but you're still in the dream sequence until he looks at the side of his cheek and s he's a bored implant burst out. Uh. Things like that were brave decisions. I think there were there were bold decisions to make, but for showing kind of the horror of the boorg, I think it was a good a good call.

21:41 Yeah, it set the tone. I think getting to explore more with the card in this because I mean, what he had to deal with at the end of with best of both worlds, that's a lot. You know. We we talked about the family episode that we all love, you know, where he deals with some of that, but in this movie we get to explore more that you depth with him. And I think one of my favorite scenes of this entire movie is when Lily and him. You know, he's basically giving up on the crew. He's going to stop the board at all costs, no matter what the cost is, and Lily goes off with him. You try to talk him out of it, and you get that whole Mobe Dick talk with Captain Ahab and all of that. That's one of my favorite scenes of this whole movie is what Lily does right there and pulls him out of it, because he makes him realize what he's doing here, and that's exploring the whole thing with him. You know, he's at that point that he's got to realize, what am I doing? You know, they've controlled me for this long and again to control of him here because he's hearing them.

22:39 He's got to do something about it, and it just takes Lily to pull him out of that. I just love that. Yeah. Well, it's it's coming on the heels of a moment that we never expected to see where he's challenging 's bravery. Oh yeah, it's a moment where it feels like he's in that moment losing a grip on his curve, like he's becoming somebody that they're not going to trust, that they're not going to follow. He had become Captain Ahab at this point. He had, Yeah, he had totally lost sight of the objective and the right thing to do at that point. Yeah, And I think it's appropriate that Lily was the one that shook him out because I don't know that anyone on the crew would have right, Yeah, that.

23:21 Whole line from Dwarf And you know, if you or any other man, I would kill you where you stand. It's just like whoa, you know. Yeah, although I think his apology could have been a little stronger. Oh, and he says, I am sorry about some of the things that I said, and I was I'd be like, bring that a little further. You were in from death, bring a little further. Yep. Absolutely, let's get the pain sticks out. We're going. I would want to go back a little bit. I want to go back a little bit towards the beginning of the film where they're listening to the audio of the other ships who are getting attacked or in attacking the and they're all like the cameras just moving around to the different crew members as are listening to this, and the pic card stands up and walks over and basically shuts off the audio because you know, it's devastating to listen to obviously of what's going on. And that's when he's making the decision, you know, and he turns to his crew and tells them, you know, I'm about ready to disobey some orders. You know, if you disagree with that, you know, go ahead and tell me. I'm going to notate it. But and then when Data makes this comment too that you know, I believe I speak for everybody we're with you, you know that kind of thing, so I help with their order.

24:34 Yeah, that scene too, is very reminiscent of when the Enterprise was listening to the Battle at Wolf three five nine. Yes, it really revokes that that scene. And let me point out too, in this part of the type of the film to go up to something I've mentioned back in Generations to we finally have new uniforms for the crew. Yeah, you know, they tried it last last movie. It didn't work out, and now we have them and they were created by Robert Blackman. And then these look, these look sharp. These these are great film you know, great costumes. They made them in mass production so that they could use them on Deep Space nine, and they actually switched over just right after this film and the Rapture, so you know, after the little mistake they made with Generations, we finally got them and they looked great.

25:21 Yeah, I think I know. One of our complaints when that we talked about in Generations was the lighting of the bridge. Yes, I think though this one was perfect. Well. The lighting works better for this new design, the new bridge and then the new sets and stuff. You know, it's more of a gray. I kind of missed that nice colorful look though, but it works better. The lighting and the sets and all mixed. It didn't it didn't quite mix properly with the Enterprise d R. Yeah, it seems like they almost had kind of a darker tone, which helps to kind of transition when you see parts of it that have been assimilated. And I'm sure that when they built the sets too, they also had that in mind. The Enterprise d sets weren't were thought of, you know, when they those they had the brighter television lights. I'm sure that was considered.

26:04 I mean this, this literally is the Wrath of Khan for the next generation crew. You know, you get that darker story, that darker tone, the darker everything, the look of it. So I think that's why they went with all of that, and it worked perfectly. We also get a bit of comedy on the surface. I know we kind of touched that, touched on that briefly, but can we take a minute to talk about drunk Deanna. Oh that's the one of the funniest parts of the film. Yeah, for sure, she handles that, she takes that in stride so well, but also seeing Riker kind of interact with her and trying to kind of shake her out of it. We don't have timeline, I don't know the whole really.

26:47 We don't have that time. Exactly. Yeah, you're blended. Yeah, all right. So so back at the battle scene. One of the things that I thought was was really cool. And we'll get into this with with the music, but you know, we we get the Klingon theme again in this particular point, and we see the Defiant come out. The ship that was meant to battle the Borg is finally battling the board. Yes, but but it's it's not it's not faring too well. Uh, and so it gets disabled, and of course the crew the survivors are beamed over and uh, there was a great line from Riker. He looks over at wharf and he says, nice little ship and what looks at him a little you know, And uh, there was actually a that was a throwback I think from a show called DS nine episode called Second Chances, where Transporter duplicate Thomas Reiker called it little ship, So I don't know what those are related, but both that calls them in two different ways, a good call, and he even he even continued with that, you do know how to remember to fire feathers, right.

28:04 Yeah, i'd seen some where there was a follow up line they thought about going with where Warf responds with it's the green button, right, but that they didn't want to give him too many comedy chops too early. Don't get me there yet. The registry number of the Defiant is what seventy four to two five, which is the birthday at Gene Roddenberry's son. Oh yeah, oh wow, that's right. Okay, I think then they were going to destroy the Defiant there, and then they're like no, no, no, no, no, no, yeah no. We still need on this other show that we haven't quite finished up. We really really really needed for this little dividion. We just got a spaceship on DS nine take it away from us, right exactly. But that was a great way though, of getting Wharf, who is now fully engaged with Deep Space nine, back into the movie.

28:57 Yes, it was genius, It really was. Yeah. One last thing on that battle so Ilm did the effects for this and in ninety six, ILM was also working on another movie. It wasn't a new movie. It was a re release of a film with updated special effects, and they had completed work on the CGI Millennium Falcon. And there is a scene at the very start of that cut where some lasers hit the phasers hit the side and you see the Millennium Falcon goes streaking by in the background. Yep. Interesting, is it part of the battle?

29:38 Is part of the battle, but it's a small ship. It's in the background. Interesting. Yeah. I was just wondering if they just, you know, Hant and Chewie happened to pull by it and they're like, nope, nope, keep going. I don't know, I'm counting it as cannon exactly. Yeah. That was a great battle, It really was. All right, let's talk a little bit about behind the scenes. So I had seen that this one held the record as the highest grossing Star Trek film to date, making over one hundred and fifty million ye and highest first weekend gross of over thirty million.

30:18 Yeah. So that's a record that it held until the two thousand and nine Star Trek movie. Is that right, That's right, that's right. Yeah, so clearly right out of the gate, Next Generation is doing a good job bringing people in with a movie that people are still happy about, very talking about a lot. Maybe not so much with Insurrection and Nemesis, but we'll talk about that some other time. Its budget was forty five million, but it brought in one hundred and forty six million, so they did pretty good. Yeah. What I like to is the fact they wanted to do more with the Board's costumes in the show, but they didn't have the budget to do it. This time, they had the budget to do it, and the board looked incredible in this movie.

31:05 There's so many variations. There's only there's only like I think eight actors, eight or so actors that were listed in the credits for this, but they had made different combinations of the costumes and they look great. And going back, it's just in kind of reading about the costumes, it's like I didn't really realize at the time in my memory how the costumes for the board looked in the television show. But they said they would put parts like a little battleship on one of the shoulders that if you were to expand that up on a movie screen, it just wouldn't hold up, but on a TV screen looks fine. So the board got an incredible upgrade that I think they were able to use these costumes, you know, just like the new uniforms. They were able to use these costumes in future TV shows. And we'll talk about this later in the music. But the board got a theme, so good stuff.

32:02 Well we also get some I guess Federation adjacent species that are assimilated, some Bullion and Klingon. Species. I had kind of noticed there, so makes me kind of wonder there's got to be the precursor to this, if they had encountered any Lingons on the way that they assimilated on their way to Earth, or if that had happened earlier, any thoughts on that. I think I think they're from they were assimilated earlier. I think they weren't. They didn't they beam over from the Spear. I don't remember. Yeah, they had to have been, because we didn't necessarily get a lot of shots inside the cube.

32:47 The only reason I say that is because I think one of them was also a card Assian, and we know there wasn't a card Assian on the Enterprise. Yeah, so I don't know when we think about you know what led up to this movie. It might be interesting to see little bit of that story as well. Yeah, I mean that that what made this movie take a darker tone too, is how the crew members were just getting taken and quickly obviously being turned into Borg and then turn around just having to fight the crew members again. It just that was creepy. You know. Even Picarden makes that mention when he's breaking up the crew and sending them down to the lower decks to fight them. And then obviously we know what he has to do in the hollow deck when he just blows off that he's just killed one of his crew members even though they were the Borg. Yeah, that's just that's dark.

33:31 Yeah, when you can see that uniform underneath the Borg outfit, that's wow. That was a really powerful scene. Yep. Yeah. Well, and then there's uh, I think before then when Picard has the moment when a crew member kind of pleads to him for help. M and you see that momentary hesitation because he's kind of be coming from a place where he's like I was assimilated. But I was saved. But in this moment, I know that probably not possible with a lot of the crew, so he has to to shoot him, and that's that's a very difficult decision. I believe this is the movie too that Jonathan Frake's got his nickname to take freaks. Yeah, thank to thank you.

34:13 He's Jonathan Frakes is really good at what he does, and I can see the way that he kept coming back for Star Trek still is doing Star Trek. Every time you see directed by Jonathan Frank's on any Star Trek episodes, you're just like, I'm I'm all in for this. Yeah, we we know that. We recently discovered that on Discovery when his name peered up, we knew we ran for a good episode. And sure enough, well. You know that he you know that he comes to the production of the vision, he knows what he wants, and that seems like he has a really a real talent for being able to bring the cast and the crew together to help them kind of share in that vision and then make. It so. Nice. I think I think what it is is his passion for Star Trek is still there, and it's it's he got that when he worked on the Nick Generation TV series and he just kept that and it shows, you know, he knows how to direct a film. He knows how to work with actors because he is an actor, and it just everything just comes to fruition with him and with working with all these people cast crew, and he knows how to handle that. In his vision is spot on because he comes from Star Trek. He has it in his blood, right, so you know, and he knows that, and that's why they need to continue to use him in other stuff and keep doing it, keep doing it.

35:34 Definitely, I hope we see him come back and strange New worlds at least at least once or twice. That we do. In an interview with Jerry Goldsmith, Jerry was talking about how weird it was to sit next to the director while they're watching them lay the music down, but then also seeing the director as an act on the screen, you know, and this is ninety six. He's like, well, this is not all that, Tom, and that rite that and he was very complimentary of the job that that Franks did all around. It was Yeah, I think originally wasn't the card supposed to be on the planet and Franks was supposed to be on the enterprise.

36:14 Yeah, that's right, And. I knew they made the switch obviously they needed to make the switch because Franks need to be off camera quite a lot more because since he's directing the film. But I think that was a smart move too, because they was having a big card on the ship made more sense. Yeah, And I mean I was gonna mention this in the watt IFFs, but Picard never made contact with the Borg and that that draft and that just didn't make any sense to anyone, you know, of of of all the characters who had history with the Borg, it's a card, you know, why would he not have anything to do with the Borg in this film? But they just did. They're doing to work for him. No any any other production notes. We want to mention the site of of where the Phoenix was was a decommissioned titaned to nuclear missile and it was a demilitarized so that had no fuel or payload.

37:01 And what's really interesting is that that particular filming location is under the auspices of and these are some old treaties, the Salt the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties and SMART the Strategic Missile Arms Reduction Treaty. Now these were signed some time ago, but one of the stipulations for that is that one of the two silo doors must remain unblocked at all time so that Russian satellites can go over to verify that that thing is still there. Ah wow, yeah, I did not know that. That's interesting. That's a pretty intimidating thing. Yeah. Yeah, So they actually had to get permission to put the fiberglass cone of the phoenix up on top to replace the cone that was really there.

37:48 And yeah, and. So of course that was in That was filmed in Arizona, and then the encampment out on the outside was filmed in California's Angelo's National Forest, so it was some distance away. But through the the magic of movies, you know, we put those two areas together in the same place, and with a little composition for I l M, we see the phoenix going out, launching from the from behind the bar there. That's wow. That's a pretty significant stipulation for issoot no pressure. No pressure, no pressure. It added a lot of production quality to the film.

38:30 I mean, they couldn't have have they wouldn't have the budget to build anything like that on set. Yeah. Yeah. So when data jumps down that that's actually a real missile sidelo place. I heard there was some some drama with that stunt was really well the I think I've heard Brent Spinner talking about then kind of telling him what the stunt would be and kind of writing that all the way down the the missile and being a bit nervous about that. I don't know how much truth there is to that, but I'll trust Brent with the story. Yeah, and there was a I thought it was kind of a great little bit of foreshadowing for later on where Picard goes up to the to the phoenix and he's touching it and Data says, well, does touching it make it any more real to you? And he says something about being human when you can touch and feel something, it makes it more real to you, you know, you connect with it. And of course Data puts his hand on it, and all he can tell is just the mechanical aspects of it, just a very clinical description of what he's feeling, kind of foreshadowing this organic flesh that's going to be grafted onto.

39:45 Him later on. That's a very interesting take on that. I hadn't even made that connection, but yeah, that's brilliant foreshadowing. Well, guys, I think we have a lot more to talk about, but let's stop here and continue talking next week about Star Trek. First Contact. As always, thanks to our listeners for joining us. Healing frequencies are always open for you to share your thoughts and questions on Facebook, Instagram, and your favorite social channels. Email us at a Film by Podcast at gmail dot com, find us online at a film by podcast dot com, and if you're looking for more exclusive content and swag, send some Latinum our way through Patreon. See you next time for another episode of Phasers.

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