Star Trek: First Contact was almost a 15th century tale

Star Trek: First Contact is inarguably one of the greatest Trek films.

While Star Trek: First Contact was still in the planning stages, writers Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore knew it was going to be a time travel movie. They started tossing around ideas for the upcoming film, and they both really liked where they ended up—Medieval Europe.

According to Whatculture, the movie would have been named Star Trek: Renaissance. The Borg would have traveled back in time to attempt to prevent the development of modern civilization, thereby eliminating the possibility of Starfleet ever coming to exist and standing in the way of them overtaking the world.

This Star Trek: Contact storyline didn’t have phaser fire or warp speed.

What it did have was the Borg’s main base in an ornate castle that had been half-assimiliated, swordfights, men in tights, and Data becoming Leonardo da Vinci’s apprentice in a way which is hard to fathom. The tights were immediately nixed by Patrick Stewart. He refused to wear them. Perhaps he had flashbacks to the fourth season episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation “Qpid” or to Robin Hood: Men in Tights and remembered just how uncomfortable they are.

The idea was eventually scrapped because Moore thought the movie could have taken a turn toward comically absurd, which, while fun for the actors to film it, might not have resulted in the audience’s appreciation.

“Qpid” was one of those episodes that you just couldn’t take seriously so it would have been difficult to see a two-hour movie of the Enterprise crew trying to fight the Borg in tights, especially consider the Borg would have, most likely, had all of its capabilities intact. And coming on the heels of Star Trek: Generations, it quite possibly wouldn’t have had the “oomph” needed to propel the series into a third movie.