First Contact nitpicks upon rewatch...

Ed (see above) mocked my preference for the space battle in the novel "Vendetta" as "fanboy wank"

I just want to go on record as being very much in favor of Jeri Ryan's ass.

As opposed to the geo-centric, lets-cross-half-the-galaxy-with-just-a-single-ship-that-takes-most-of-the-fleet-until-our-heroes-arrive? Did they accidentally assimilate The Proclaimers and then warped 500 light years, then 500 light years more?

You need a good reason for the Borg to be there, a good reason why they're not in force, and a good antagonist for the crew. We got the Borg Queen.

Moreover you need a single point of failure, a crack in the Borgs armour to defeat them. In BoBW we had Picard sending them to sleep, there was no military force capable of defeating them, they had to go the Trojan route. You either keep adding chinks in their armour to the point they're so watered down you may as rename them The Homeopathic, or you come up with some other way to have them, but excuse the obvious questions.

Don't get me wrong, I like FC, it's just horribly flawed. The Borg have constantly have to be given some reason why they don't show up with overwhelming force and flatten everything, and in FC they really ought to have provided some reason for it.

Hell, keep the Borg Queen but make her the Borg's way of dealing with the fallout from 'I, Borg' and 'Descent' - to tackle self-awareness they made a drone that was the focal point of the trillions of Drones need for self-expression, you'd have one hell of an intergalactic basket case, with a simmering hatred for Picard and Co for making it's existence necessary to the Collective. Kill her, and the Collective just generates another one lest Drones start going all flaky again, and send it off packing with a new cube of minions to cause disarray and mayhem.

Or have someone do a Lore on a selection on the Collective, sear a few planets to the bedrock and then cordially invite Picard to a showdown. What better way to attack Picard than to use the one enemy that represents his greatest nightmare?

So no I don't think it's fannish to use the Borg in that way, better than effectively painting them vagina pink in order to work around the fact they ought to be able to flatten the entire Federation before breakfast.

And that was your comeback?

Maybe not, but it was fun watching them try.

It is a fanboy wank space battle.

How? And have you even read the book?

Yep... it really bad.

You didn't answer the question about how the climatic battle was "fanboy wank" or even what "fanboy wank" is.

By the way, "The Doomsday Machine" is often ranked as one of the best OS episodes ever (as high as 2nd by Sci-Fi Universe) and "The Best of Both Worlds" is considered the best of TNG. Combining the two seems quite natural.

Yes I did, a fanboy wank scene is where the "kewl factor" is there more than anything else. But since you have difficulty understanding pretty much anything. It's a scene where you have a ridiculous plot or element driving the scene without giving any real plausible solution.

They are good episodes, but having two stories/elements in which each one can be excellent on its own doesn't mean combining the two would be greater. So by taking the two in this case, and combining makes them a fanboy wank scene catering to the low brow, easily entertained audience.

I think Peter David once said something like "People have criticized my books for being fannish, which makes sense because I write them for myself and I am a fan." The tying together of different plot threads from different points in the mythology, if done well, can be pretty fun.

You never answered as how does that not describe the space battle scenes in the much loved (here at least) Abramsverse Star Trek movies.

Have you watched ST:ID?

All of the TNG movies seem to have suffered because of the way they were written, which was by committee. Several people - including Spiner, Stewart, Berman etc. inputted their mutually inconsistent requirements and they had to shoehorn the whole lot into a plot.

Yes.

Vendetta is one of those novels that is a fun, even gripping first read, but falls apart on rereading.

She looks like she's in favor of it too.

It has flaws (as I've mentioned) but exactly how does it fall apart?

Did you steal it?

My first copy of Vendetta I bought new. It was water damaged years later and I bought a used copy to replace it.

The easy answer is that it tends to be facile and lack subtlety.

* As much space as the Ferengi encounter with the Borg took up, ultimately it turned out to be an excuse/plot device for a Borg to twiddle its moustache at Picard and give him An Evil Dilemma. (Incidentally, this ties into "we have to keep the Borg beatable" because the Borg should already have memories from assimilating some other bargaining-driven species. They shouldn't need to assimilate a Ferengi to think like that, any more than they should wait to be mown down in First Contact before they think "Hmm, we're up against this Federation thing again, maybe we should dig our phaser shielding out of the attic." If the Borg had a smidgen of proactivity, they'd rule the galaxy by now.)

* As nice as the parallel between the Don Quixote program and rehabbing the rescued Borg is, it's really just on the surface and made reeeally obvious. La Forge even spells it out, I believe, just in case we the readers aren't paying attention.

* Captain Grudge was annoying and an obstructive plot device. He did come back to reality, so this is only like a half-point against the book.

* Adding to the pattern is the trip into Gorn(?) space. When you're chasing a second Doomsday Machine you don't have the time to stop and consider local politics in any depth, but as I remember, there was a big build-up of "oh no, what will the Gorn(?) do to us for crossing into the heart of their empire" followed by a line or two of resolution that, surprisingly, they were too busy fussing over a planet-eating machine to pay much mind.

It doesn't fall apart so much as it wears thin, is what I should have said. It's been years since I opened it, but those are the main points against it that I remember. I'm not saying that it's a bad story, just that my opinion of it dropped after the first read.

I enjoy the things he does with minor secondary characters or people the show lost track of -- bringing in Pulaski and Selar and inventing likable personalities for people like Captain Taggert. (Even if he did accidentally give Taggert a sex change. And yes, I know, fandom has declared Ariel Taggert to be the previous Captain Taggert's daughter, but the guy we see in TNG doesn't look old enough to have high-ranking officers as children, and besides, what is this, a European monarchy? But still -- enjoyable.)

And, yeah, I guess having the Tholian they run into be the exact same one that faced off against Spock is a bit much.

The Gorn were referenced but it was actually Tholian space where there was a "side adventure".

Yeah, Vendetta had problems to me

1) Delcara
2) Guinan (I've hated few characters in Star Trek more than Guinan).
3) The female Borg drone (completely irrelevant to the story)
4) Peter David has a huge problem with thinking that STARS are simple things you can muck around with. Of course that happened in several Star Trek episodes including Deep Space Nine where a handful of elements in a runabout was enough to make a star explode.

I didn't mind the captain of the Chekov who was jealous and resentful of Picard. There first encounter in some time

Korsmo "Picard. Still bald I see".

Picard "Korsmo. Still fat I see".

Korsmo "True. But I can always lose weight. You can hardly grow more hair".

I thought that sounded like one could imagine from the lighthearted banter to two old classmates/rivals who haven't seen either in a while. Their conversation reverts to "high school type" briefly.

Yeah, I can't stand women either.

Not my intended meaning but I hear you buddy.

The Tholians were totally my second guess.

I minded it when it interfered with professionalism competence. Being a snot at the lady in charge of the big planet-eating thing you're trying to be diplomatic with? Letting your resentment get in the way of fighting a battle, thereby endangering the ship and crew you were entrusted with? Pretty sure I remember him pulling both of those things. Very simplistic "Look I'm an obstruction to the heroes!" plotting the way it was written, and the sort of thing that really rubs me the wrong way.

The female Borg drone was maybe irrelevant to the plot, but very relevant to the theme. Not just reflecting Don Quixote, but also the eventual futility of Picard trying to get through to Delcara and of Delcara trying to defeat the Borg on her own.