4. The Potential Of The Borg As Villains
The Klingons have been done before- to death, in fact. Theyve been in seven films, whereas The Borg have only had one filmic outing to date- give another enemy a chance to shine! Apart from The Klingons, The Borg, The Romulans, Q and The Gorn- though the latter may be renowned for more ironic reasons- how many genuinely iconic Star Trek villains are there that the general public may know? Talk about flogging a dead Warbird Imagine the Gigerian design and insect characteristics of the Xenomorph from Alien crossed with the ruthless efficiency and total lack of humanity of The Cybermen- thats The Borg! Seeing all those red lasers in the dark still gives me shivers when I see it onscreen. Im sure Abrams and co would do a great Klingon film, but to me The Borg just seem a much more cinematic villain. Jonathan Frakes certainly understood that when he directed First Contact- the best parts of the film involve The Borg. Theres only so many ways you can tell a story with Klingons. They have Cornish pasty heads and a fully developed language and some cool-looking battleships. Big whoop! With The Borg, you can go in bold directions since they are not as fully explored as a society or as a species. Any problems the current creative team may have with The Borg can be fixed. They havent been seen in a long time in cinemas or on Television- like the series itself back in 2009, they are in fact ripe for a reboot. Technology has caught up with ideas and concepts so this would be a chance to reinvent anything about The Borg that doesnt stand up- the creative team working on the new Star Trek movies are phenomenal- the costume design, the makeup, the sets, the creature designs... There seems to be so much potential in The Borg for them, whereas The Klingons in comparison seems more of an open-and-shut case in terms of creativity and design. Gory, Cronenbergian body horror wouldnt be out the question- its something we havent really seen in the Star Trek movies, it would add to the terror of The Borg, and wouldnt have to be in detail to make itself felt- for crying out loud, the effective editing in Star Trek into Darkness shows Khan snap someones leg clean in half and crush a mans skull with his bare hands- that wasnt gratuitous, it was nastily effective and still garnered a PG-13! I mean, The Borg can adapt to become immune to Starfleet weapons, for petes sake! What you have is a truly unstoppable force immune to Spocks logic, Bones dry wit, or Kirks cunning. That certainly is one hell of a threat!