Star Trek: First Contact. I hear this is the best of the TNG cast, and it is good, but doesn’t measure up to the best of the original cast. Definitely darker. Some of that innocence and optimism is gone (which makes some of the humor and goofiness just… awkward), though thankfully the special effects are finally worthy of the setting. Highlights? I loved the editing and cuts between the scenes on Earth and the various ship scenes–so fluid. Patrick Stewart breaks out of Shatner’s shadow at last. The scenes with Data and the Borg are really good. The spacewalk scene is one of the most typically movie-theater-type fun set pieces in the whole series. There’s also a thematically appropriate opera reference in the solid soundtrack. I liked it.
Mark Larson 