10 Facts about Star Trek: First Contact on its 25th anniversary

November 22nd is the 25th anniversary of Star Trek: First Contact

When Star Trek: First Contact released on November 22, 1996, no one had any way of knowing how successful the film would be. On a $45 million budget, the movie grossed $146 million, and it helped bolster the Star Trek franchise which wasn’t on as firm of a foundation as it had been when Star Trek: The Next Generation was on the air.

This month, we celebrate the 25th anniversary of the popular film, and what better way to do that than to share some little-known facts about it?

1. According to Screenrant, the first draft of the movie was originally called “Star Trek: Renaissance as the timeline was going to be set during the Renaissance period. In fact, the Borg were to have kept its collective in a castle dungeon.
2. One storyline idea had Lt. Commander Data as Leonardo da Vinci’s apprentice.
3. Spectrum HoloByte announced a video game adaptation of the film which would have been a real-time strategy game set on the Enterprise during the Borg takeover. Unfortunately, the game was never released. [Source: “In the Studio”. Next Generation. No. 24. Imagine Media. December 1996. p. 17.]
4. Prince Charles attended the royal premiere of the movie in the United Kingdom.
5. When Patrick Stewart heard that the producers were planning to do a mediaeval type of storyline, he refused to wear tights on the big screen. [Source: The Fifty-Year Mission The Next 25 Years]
6. Another incarnation of the film was titled Star Trek: Resurrection, and in it, the Borg put Zefram Cochrane in a coma, and no one know how warp travel would progress. In that script, Captain Picard remained on Earth to replace Cochrane while Commander Riker left.
7. Whoopi Goldberg wanted to appear in the movie, but she was not asked to reprise her role as Guinan. She only found out the producers’ decision through the newspapers. [IMDB]
8. The eyepieces of the Borg flash the Morse code of the names of people associated with the production. [IMDB]
9. On the day the film opened, Mark Lenard, the actor who portrayed Spock’s father, Sarek, died at the age of 72.
10. Because the teaser trailer for Star Trek: First Contact premiered with Paramount movies in early summer 1996 before most of the film had yet to be shot, footage from Star Trek Generations and episodes from Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine were used. In addition, the teaser and the theatrical trailers used footage that was solely unique to them. Even some visual effects were created specifically for the trailer. [Source: Memory-Alpha Fandom]

Were these new facts to you? Or old ones you’d forgotten? And will you be rewatching Star Trek: First Contact in honor of its 25th anniversary?