10 Things You Learn Revisiting Star Trek: First Contact For First Contact Day
6. Zefram Cochrane
No stranger to the Star Trek franchise, James Cromwell appears here as Zefram Cochrane, the inventor of warp drive among humanity. He is far from any scientist the audience had met before, valuing his drinking and dollars over scientific discoveries. It takes several lectures and a shot from a phaser to sort him out.
The role was written for long-time Star Trek fan Tom Hanks. He was approached by the producers for the part but he had to turn them down as he had already committed to another project. Director Jonathan Frakes later commented that this was a blessing in disguise - not that Hanks would have been anything less than brilliant in the role - but that having an actor so well known may have overshadowed the movie itself.
Cromwell instead takes the reins and now is cemented in Trek history as the heavy drinking, rock music blaring crazy scientist and incidentally, the man who makes first contact with another alien race. While it's true that Earth had been visited many times throughout the years by various other cultures and races, this was the first time one declared itself openly to Humanity. This was a seminal moment in Star Trek history.
Cochrane had been introduced back in the Original Series as the inventor of warp drive but in the thirty years between, no further exploration had been made of his character, nor of the intervening years. Through Cochrane here, the audience is shown where humanity has landed by the second half of the 21st century, offering a light out of the dark.