The four Next Generation films generated a host of footage that ended up being cut from the final theatrical presentations: Generations featured the famed Shatner skydiving sequence and Kirk’s original death, Quark’s visit to the Ba’ku homeworld got the chop from Insurrection, and the Enterprise-E lost its new first officer after Nemesis went through the editing bay.
Star Trek: First Contact, however, is somewhat of an anomaly in the big-screen adventures of Captain Picard and crew. Nothing extraneous from the 1996 film has ever surfaced, aside from reports of a few sequences that never made the leap from script to set, including a scene where Zefram Cochrane jumps from a cliff to be caught by a force field. Additional reports of scenes cut after the UK premiere of the movie have never been able to be verified, even nearly twenty years after First Contact debuted in cinemas.
Now, however, we have hope that there is more First Contact out there than previously assumed! Business consultant and motivational speaker James Mapes, who also takes occasional acting roles, has in his performance reel a short excerpt from Lily and Picard’s visit to the Enterprise holodeck, which was excised from the final cut of the film.
Oh, and we figured we’d ask the guy who shared this footage with the world how he ended up with Captain Picard on the Enterprise-E holodeck in the first place!
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JAMES MAPES: “My family is in the movie-making business. My wife’s father was head of Columbia Pictures under Harry Cohn; her stepfather and son each made about fifteen films each; our son spent nine months on Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation. I had been acting since I was young, the first movie I got to be a part of was Taxi Driver.
Don, my son, used to be at Paramount, and I used to be able to visit the Star Trek sets – one time I said to him, “You know, I’d really love to be in a Star Trek movie!” Don was able to arrange a meeting for me with Rick Berman.
I went into his office – it was just this huge office, with a blindfolded bust of Gene Roddenberry on his desk – and he was telling me they were working on things they didn’t want Gene to see! [Laughs]
We talked about a lot of things, he knew I was an actor, and was fascinated with the presentations I was doing, some of the hypnosis work I was doing, and I was sitting there trying to figure out how to approach the subject — how do I tell him I want to be in a film? So we talked for like thirty minutes about philosophy, and life, it was just a great conversation, and he didn’t ask me anything!
So I get up, and I said, “Well, thanks for the time.” He said thanks, and as I touched the doorknob, he says, “James, would you like to be in the next film?” Well! [Laughs] I thought I was going to faint!
So that was Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country – but it was a miserable experience. It was like ninety degrees, and I’m covered in this phosphorescent blue paint that took four hours to do. I was on set for about a week, and while I thought it was kind of cool, I didn’t really want to do something like that again.”
A few years later, I got another call from Rick, who said he had a part for me in Star Trek: First Contact. So I fly out to California, and it really was a dream. I actually spent some time with Patrick Stewart at the premiere party for opening night of his A Christmas Carol show, so when I showed up on set, we really had a great report. I’ve always liked Alfre Woodard, too, so it was just a blast.
Six weeks after the shoot, though, I got a call from Rick. “I’ve got some bad news for you,” he said, “I hope you’re not going to hate me.” He told me that my part was cut because the film was spending too much time on the holodeck. I was crushed.
He said that he and Jonathan Frakes were going to do another cut of the film that would get the footage back into the movie, but unfortunately it never happened.
Rick did, however, write me a part as a Klingon captain in one of the later movies, but I wasn’t able to make it due to a speaking engagement I couldn’t reschedule. I even told the clients I’d do the presentation for free if they’d let me change the date, but we couldn’t make it happen.
I have a several careers, but acting I love – and that First Contact thing I really, really loved.”
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
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Okay, we’ll admit that clip is not a lot of new material — but with the absolute vacuum of deleted footage from the eighth Star Trek film, any hint towards the existence of more Trek movie content only amps up our desire for a fiftieth-anniversary revisit to the film series’ home media releases.
