The Star Trek movies have featured many notable occasions of First Contact. The mission of the Starship Enterprise is “to seek out new life and new civilizations” and “to boldly go where no one has gone before“. While the weekly TV series format was perfect for meeting new kinds of aliens and venturing into the final frontier, the Star Trek movies still managed to honor this ideal despite the different story demands of feature films.
With the exceptions of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, every Star Trek movie in the franchise has involved making First Contact with a new alien species or previously unknown lifeform. This includes all four movies starring the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation and all three movies in J.J. Abrams’ rebooted Star Trek trilogy set in the alternate Kelvin Timeline. First Contact was even the main focus of three Star Trek films: Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, and, obviously, Star Trek: First Contact. In fact, the entire optimistic future Star Trek is built upon hinges on the pivotal First Contact between humans and Vulcans as depicted in the second TNG movie.
The historic date April 5, 2063, when the human race officially made First Contact with the Vulcans was immortalized in Star Trek: First Contact. Although Vulcans, including Spock (Leonard Nimoy) and T’Pol (Jolene Blalock), had visited Earth before, April 5, 2063, is the officially recognized occasion of First Contact with the logical, pointed-eared race, which launched humanity into the stars and led to the creation of Starfleet and the United Federation of Planets. First Contact Day is recognized as a special holiday both within the Star Trek universe and also in the real world. Star Trek now has an annual celebration for First Contact Day when Trekkers can watch special panels featuring their favorite casts online and watch classic Star Trek episodes about their heroes meeting favorite alien species for the first time.
However, Star Trek: Picard also gave First Contact Day a darker edge as it was on April 5, 2385, that a group of rogue synthetics attacked Mars, which was a Romulan plot that caused the galactic ban on artificial lifeforms that lasted 14 years. But as Star Trek continues to expand, with the hit shows Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Picard, Star Trek: Lower Decks, and the upcoming Star Trek: Prodigy and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, First Contact Day has taken on a life of its own as one of the recognized wellsprings of the enduring franchise. Even as Trekkers wait for another Star Trek film to beam into theaters someday, the Star Trek movie franchise has provided the crews of the Starship Enterprise with their own memorable First Contacts.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture – V’Ger
Star Trek: The Motion Picture is the ultimate example of the Starship Enterprise making First Contact with a new kind of lifeform. A decade after Star Trek: The Original Series ended, the crew of the Enterprise reunites under the command of Admiral James T. Kirk (William Shatner). Their mission is to intercept a massive mechanical entity called V’Ger which is wreaking a path of destruction as it hurtles toward Earth searching for its “creator”. V’Ger establishes First Contact when it scans the Enterprise, kills Lt. Ilia (Persis Khambatta), and replaces her with an android replicant. After Spock mind-melds with V’Ger, Kirk and his crew discover that the lifeform was originally Voyager 6, a probe launched from Earth that vanished and was rebuilt by an unknown race of mechanical beings. When its Ilia android merged with her love, Captain Willard Decker (Stephen Collins), V’Ger then vanished into a higher, evolved form.
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home – The Whale Probe
In Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, another Probe came to Earth and caused havoc, only this Probe was searching for humpback whales, which are extinct in the 23rd century. To save the Earth, Admiral Kirk and his crew time-traveled back to 1986 San Francisco to retrieve a couple of humpback whales named George and Gracie. The mission was a success; after it made contact with the whales, the Probe was satisfied and departed, never to be seen again. In Star Trek IV, not only did humans encounter the Probe for the first time, but 23rd century Earth made First Contact with humpback whales and a 20th century whale biologist, Dr. Gillian Taylor (Catherine Hicks), who returned with Kirk to the future.
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier – “God”
Meeting God was the focus of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. Spock’s brother Sybok (Lawrence Luckinbill) hijacked the Starship Enterprise and led them through the Great Barrier at the galactic core. A misguided holy man, Sybok was hoping to find Sha Ka Ree, where he believed God himself made his home. Unsurprisingly, Sybok, Kirk, Spock, and Dr. Leonard McCoy (DeForrest Kelley) didn’t actually make First Contact with God – instead, it was a sinister alien posing as the Almighty who needed a starship to escape his imprisonment and spread his evil across the universe. Luckily, some photon torpedoes from a Klingon Bird-of-Prey put an end to “God”.
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country – Chameloid
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country was a political thriller involving a conspiracy that would prevent the Klingons from making peace with the Federation, but there was also an important but low-key First Contact made in the movie. After Kirk and McCoy are framed for the assassination of the Klingon Chancellor Gorkon (David Warner), they are sentenced to go to the prison planet Rura Penthe, where the Starfleet heroes encountered a Chameloid (Iman) – which is technically yet another First Contact for humans.
This changeling, who also took on the form of Kirk himself during the course of the movie, predated Star Trek: Deep Space Nine‘s Odo (Rene Auberjonois), although she wasn’t a member of Odo’s race, the Founders, who are the rulers of the Gamma Quadrant. There was also a coterie of never-before-seen aliens in Rura Penthe, including a massive horned alien whose genitals are in his knees, as Kirk learned when he kicked the alien in the kneecap.
Star Trek Generations – The Nexus
While not technically a lifeform, the Nexus was a mysterious energy ribbon traveling throughout space that the crews of the 23rd-century USS Enterprise-B and the 24th-century USS Enterprise-D encountered in Star Trek Generations. Captain Kirk was believed to be killed when he was swallowed up by the Nexus in 2293 but, in 2371, Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) also entered the Nexus, where he found Kirk and coaxed him to help stop Dr. Tolian Soran (Malcolm McDowell) from destroying the Veridian sun. The Nexus had previously swallowed up an El-Aurian vessel containing Soran and Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg), but it was never seen again after Star Trek Generations.
Star Trek: First Contact – Vulcans, The Borg Queen
Star Trek history records that Zephram Cochrane (James Cromwell) made First Contact with the Vulcans on April 5, 2063, after his starship, the Phoenix, achieved Mankind’s first flight at warp speed. What was purposely left out of the history books was that the crew of the USS Enterprise-E battled the Borg that day and prevented them from assimilating Earth to prevent First Contact. Further, Commander Will Riker (Jonathan Frakes), Counselor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis), and Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton) played uncredited but pivotal roles during Cochrane’s successful warp voyage in Star Trek: First Contact.
Meanwhile, a different kind of First Contact occurred aboard the Enterprise-E when Captain Picard and Lt. Commander Data (Brent Spiner) met the Borg Queen (Alice Krige). Although Starfleet had battled the Borg before, and Picard was even assimilated and turned into Locutus, this was the first time the Borg Queen revealed herself to be the ruler of the cybernetic race. The Borg Queen would later become a recurring threat to Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) on Star Trek: Voyager.
Star Trek Insurrection – The Ba’ku
Star Trek Insurrection saw Picard and the crew of the USS Enterprise-E violate Starfleet orders in order to protect the Ba’ku, an agrarian humanoid race who owe their prodigiously long lives to the radiation emanating from the Briar Patch, which was essentially a Fountain of Youth. The Ba’ku had not encountered the Federation before and their First Contact with Starfleet came when Data, who was undercover monitoring the Ba’ku, revealed himself after he malfunctioned. Starfleet Admiral Dougherty (Anthony Zerbe) was secretly working with the Son’a to relocate the Ba’ku from their world and take possession of the Briar Patch. Later, the Son’a revealed themselves to be former Ba’ku who split off and became mutated away from the Briar Patch.
Star Trek: Nemesis – The Remans
Star Trek: Nemesis was about a plot by Shinzon (Tom Hardy), a clone of Jean-Luc Picard, to destroy the Federation but it also introduced the Remans. The inhabitants of Remus, a neighboring planet of Romulus, were forced to become a slave labor caste by the Romulans. Although the Federation was aware the Remans existed, Picard and the crew of the USS Enterprise-E meeting the Reman Viceroy (Ron Perlman) can be considered First Contact after Shinzon and the Remans took control of the Romulan senate in a coup d’etat. The Remans later invaded the Enterprise-E and Commander Riker killed the Viceroy.
While much of the Romulan race survived the Romulan sun going supernova, thanks to the efforts of a Federation rescue mission led by Admiral Jean-Luc Picard, it’s unknown what happened to the Remans. Star Trek: Discovery season 3 established that the Romulans returned to Vulcan, renamed Ni’Var, to share the planet with their cousin race, but there’s been no mention of the Remans’ whereabouts since Star Trek: Nemesis.
Star Trek (2009) – Nero And Future Romulans
Star Trek (2009) began with the USS Kelvin making First Contact with a 24th-century Romulan mining ship commanded by Nero (Eric Bana) in 2233. Since the Federation wasn’t meant to meet the Romulans until Captain Kirk’s USS Enterprise encounters a cloaked Romulan ship in 2266 (in the TOS episode “Balance of Terror”), the Kelvin‘s fateful clash with Nero was not only a revised First Contact with Romulans, but the Federation starship’s destruction also created an alternate timeline.
Considering an entirely new and separate reality was birthed from Nero destroying the Kelvin, it’s the most pivotal First Contact in Star Trek since Zephram Cochrane met the Vulcans. James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) and Spock (Zachary Quinto) later boarded Nero’s ship to kill him and his cohorts, saving Earth and the Federation from the future Romulans.
Star Trek Into Darkness – The Nibirans
Star Trek Into Darkness was about Kirk’s clash with Khan Noonien Singh (Benedict Cumberbatch) and his discovery of Admiral Marcus’ (Peter Weller) plot to militarize Starfleet and start a war with the Klingons. However, Star Trek Into Darkness began with Kirk causing an inadvertent First Contact with the denizens of the planet Nibiru. The Enterprise arrived on Nibiru on a survey mission but Kirk violated the Prime Directive when he sent Spock to detonate a cold fusion device to save the planet from destruction via a volcanic eruption. Kirk further broke the Prime Directive when he exposed himself and the Enterprise to the Nibirans.
Star Trek Beyond – Jaylah, The Teenaxi
Star Trek Beyond introduced Jaylah (Sofia Boutella), a courageous survivor whose ship crash-landed on the planet Altamid. Jaylah’s race is unknown but she was pivotal in helping Kirk and his crew, who were stranded on Altamid and captured by Krall (Idris Elba). Krall and his people also appeared to be of an unknown alien race but Star Trek Beyond later revealed that Krall was a human named Captain Balthazar Edison who was mutated by energy transference technology along with his crew. At the end of Star Trek Beyond, Jaylah joined Starfleet.
Besides First Contact with Jaylah, the opening scene of Star Trek Beyond also introduced the Teenaxi, a diminutive species Kirk negotiated with on behalf of another (unseen) alien race, the Fibonan Republic. It’s just one in a long line of First Contacts as depicted across the Star Trek movie franchise.
