5 Things That Didn't Work
5. Exposition
Here's some actual dialogue exchange from the movie:
PICARD: The first thing they'll do in engineering is establish a collective, a central point from which they can control the hive. The problem is if we begin firing particle weapons in engineering there's a risk we may hit the warp core. I believe our goal should be to puncture one of the plasma coolant tanks. Data? DATA: Excellent idea. Plasma coolant will liquefy organic material on contact. WORF: But the Borg are not entirely organic. PICARD: True, but like all cybernetic life forms they cannot survive without their organic components.
The Enterprise is always the flagship of Starfleet. It's crewed by the best of the best. More so, this particular crew not only made first contact with the Borg (in the 24th century, anyway), but also stopped them on several occasions, including their first attempted invasion of Earth. With that in mind, does Worf really not know that the Borg are a mix of organic and cybernetic parts? Or that they can't survive without their organic components? Of course it's a bit of exposition for the audience First Contact also hoped to reach - non-Trekkers - but it's awfully clunky and makes it sound like at least one of the senior staff (one whose able to come on board from a different assignment and pick up right where he left off, nonetheless) has never encountered a Borg before. It probably would have been better to delegate that line to a nondescript crew member...but even then, it's not like the Borg are classified and no one outside the upper echelon of Starfleet knows about them. They damn near assimilated Earth in "Best of Both Worlds" - we all know more about Kim Kardashian then we ever wanted to and she's never done anything remotely worthy. Tomes would have been written about the Borg and their near assimilation of Earth.