Star Trek: First Contact Never Shows The Back Of Locutus For A Reason

Jonathan Frakes' 1996 film "Star Trek: First Contact" was extrapolated from the popularity of 1990's "The Best of Both Worlds," the two-part episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" wherein Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) was forcibly assimilated into the Borg. Picard had machinery surgically implanted into his body, and he was forced to become the human voice for the cold, all-conquering cyborgs. He was given the name Locutus, the Latin word for "spoken."

Picard was luckily rescued from the Borg, but it would take several additional confrontations over several more episodes for him to truly work through his trauma. Despite his pain, he managed to remain collected and mature in future confrontations.

In "First Contact," Picard had to face off against the Borg again, although this time, his anger was, for some reason, triggered to a dramatic degree. Picard transformed from a judicious leader into a vengeful killing machine, screaming at people and smashing s***, eager to blast holes through the Borg and "make them pay for what they've done." "First Contact" is an exciting action film, although its tone is very far afield from the cerebral, scientific TV series on which it was based. 

In a few brief flashbacks, Picard imagines himself to be encrusted with Borg machinery again, recalling when he was Locutus. Picard's Borg persona had an appliance over the right side of his head and a wandering red laser light. In a 2016 oral history of "First Contact," printed in The Hollywood Reporter, supervising Borg designer Todd Masters explained that the Locutus suit he constructed for "First Contact" was actually cobbled together at the last minute. He thought he'd have more time and money, but the budget closed around him.

As such, the Locutus suit doesn't actually close in the back. 

Back in "The Best of Both Worlds," one could see that the Borg were inspired by the works of H.R. Giger. Their steely, gray color and disturbing biomechanical bodies were the network TV version of Giger's psychosexual, mecha-dystopian art. Because the Borg were created on a budget, however, the cybernetic costumes were cobbled together out of whatever they had on hand in 1990, including board game parts. It looks fine, but the 1990-era Borg costumes are certainly not grandly cinematic. 

Todd Masters, when making the Borg for "First Contact," felt that he could make them look far more elaborate. He made the Borg machinery less blocky and more streamlined. The facial appliances were larger and glowier. And the pale-skinned cyborgs were now veiny and sweaty. In the movie, the Borg are more animal than mechanical. 

The new designs, however, were expensive to produce, and Masters knew it. His work philosophy was simple: "We kind of kept going until they told us to stop." He added: 

"Things like the Locutus suit. They told us to stop. They said, 'We don't have the budget for the Locutus suit! We're going to use the Locutus suit from the television show.' I put my foot down, and I said, 'There's a big difference between what we're doing here and what was done from the TV show.' That was black long Johns with Battleship parts. It had phone cords wrapped around. No disrespect to the people who made that stuff, but it was made for a small screen. Our stuff had to be projected on these huge, 300-foot wide screens." 

Masters had to petition for a Locutus suit to be added to the budget. He got his wish, but even then, had to scrimp.

Masters even wanted to show off that the six-year-old TV show suit wasn't going to work by putting it on one of Patrick Stewart's stand-ins. Masters was convincing, but not convincing enough to build the suit he wanted. As such, he had to improvise. He said: 

"I finally convinced the producer to bring in Picard's double, so we put the television suit on the double to prove to them. Still, they said, 'We don't have the budget.' My team somehow cobbled together a suit for Locutus out of Borg parts. So we didn't use the TV suit. We actually made it. I think the top is part of the Queen's suit and part of one the male Borg suits. It actually didn't close in the back, so you never see Locutus from the back." 

To be fair to the producers, Locutus doesn't play a major role in "First Contact," only appearing in a few flashbacks that last a few seconds each. Indeed, in one flashback, Stewart, in a medium close-up, merely turns his head slowly toward the camera. In the other, the Borg Queen (Alice Krige) moved her face slowly toward his, this time in an even tighter close-up. There was no reason to show him close up, and certainly no reason to construct a full-body suit. 

The final result, made under duress, looks fine. It's an example of movie magic at its finest.