Normally, the purpose of a Star Trek film teaser is to get the audience hyped up for what’s to come, as evidenced by the recent Section 31 trailer. Decades ago, however, this franchise released its most misleading teaser ever, one that has become a very fun (and very weird) time capsule to rediscover. The original Star Trek: First Contact teaser brought in footage and lines from The Next Generation and beyond to hide everything from the new ship design to the existence of the Borg Queen, making this look more like a teaser for a lost episode than for the blockbuster film that we all know and love.
The first weird thing you’ll notice about this Star Trek: First Contact teaser is all of the obvious shots of the Enterprise-D, the starship made famous by The Next Generation. These shots were very confusing when this teaser came out because that ship had famously been destroyed in the previous film, Generations. Presumably, the goal of this re-used footage was to obscure the design of the crew’s new ship (the Sovereign-class Enterprise-E), but the shots of the old ship ended up being more confusing than exciting.
For as weird as this Star Trek teaser is, though, it did its job of getting people excited about First Contact.
That’s because Star Trek fans already knew what the teaser went out of its way to remind us: that this film was basically a big-screen sequel to “The Best of Both Worlds,” the two-part TNG episode in which Captain Picard was assimilated by the Borg and used as a weapon against the Federation. We were all hyped to see the movie, but the teaser made many fans wonder if the final film would cheap out by constantly re-using old footage (a bit like Generations recycling the Bird of Prey explosion from The Undiscovered Country).
The re-used footage also made it seem like the Collective wouldn’t have a new bad guy, making the later emergence of the Borg Queen that much more confusing.
Even Star Trek fans who knew the teaser was simply using placeholder footage were worried because placeholders are usually meant to hint at what the final film will look like. In this case, the implication is that the movie would just be copying the plot beats and effects shots of “The Best of Both Worlds,” which begs the question … why spend money on a movie ticket when you can just catch the reruns? The re-used footage also made it seem like the Collective wouldn’t have a new bad guy, making the later emergence of the Borg Queen that much more confusing.
If you’re a really eagle-eyed Star Trek fan, you’ll notice the teaser re-using footage from more than “The Best of Both Worlds,” including the DS9 premiere episode “Emissary” and the TNG finale “All Good Things.” There’s even a brief and very inexplicable shot of Voyager, and the trailer features the music from The Undiscovered Country. In another context, you could call this a fun love letter to the franchise, but as a film teaser, these trips down memory lane do nothing to really tell us what this new story is all about.
Even Star Trek fans who knew the teaser was simply using placeholder footage were worried because placeholders are usually meant to hint at what the final film will look like.
There’s other weirdness in this Star Trek teaser, including a different line delivery for Picard’s classic quote “the line must be drawn here.” In this teaser, the final word sounds like a normal pronunciation from Patrick Stewart. But for those of us who have his film line delivery burned in our brains (the one where it sounds more like “he-YAH”), this brief bit of dialogue sounds remarkably strange.
For as weird as this Star Trek teaser is, though, it did its job of getting people excited about First Contact. And while all the re-used footage is still strange, it effectively helped director Jonathan Frakes under-promise and over-deliver with his first feature film. He remains one of Trek’s most accomplished and prolific directors, and the franchise is stronger for having his biological and cultural distinctiveness as part of the Paramount Collective.
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