Reminder: See Star Trek First Contact w/ Brannon Braga Saturday in West LA + Schedule Updated

After taking a week off for the Star Trek con in Vegas, the Summer STAR TREK Simply Spectacular Saturdays at the Royal Theater in West LA picks up again tomorrow with a showing of Star Trek: First Contact on the big screen, along with special guest Brannon Braga. Plus we have updated the schedule for the rest of the series…details below.

 

Assimilate the best TNG movie with the most prolific Trek writer

Saturday night Laemmle Theaters (in conjunction with Ledjer Film & Theater services and TrekMovie.com) continues the Summer series of Star Trek Saturday midnight movies with the second (and what most consider to be the best) feature film from the Next Generation crew. In Star Trek: First Contact, Captain Picard and crew stand on their own, in a brand new ship, to take on their ultimate adversaries — the Borg. See the Enterprise E and crew hit the big screen Saturday at the Royal Theatre in West L.A.


Star Trek First Contact trailer

As we do with each film, the screening is proceeded with a Q&A session and tonight I will be talking with the Star Trek writer/producer Brannon Braga. Brannon co-wrote First Contact and wrote more Star Trek episodes than any other writer. We will talk about First Contact, and his other work. We will also open it up to the audience for some questions as well.


See Star Trek First Contact in on the big screen with special guest Brannon Braga at the Royal Theater in West LA tonight Saturday August 14th

 

Updated schedule

The schedule has been updated for the rest of the series. After Brannon Braga for this weekend comes Insurrection on August 21st with Michael Welch who played the Ba’ku Artim befriended by Data (Welch is now more famous as Mike Newton in the Twilight series of movies). For Nemesis Wil Wheaton could not make it, but production designer Herman Zimmerman has been confirmed. The guest for the 2009 Star Trek movie is currently being confirmed.

Here is full schedule current schedule.

Date Film Guest
August 14 STAR TREK FIRST CONTACT Brannon Braga
(co-writer)
August 21 STAR TREK INSURRECTION Michael Welch
(Artim)
August 28 STAR TREK NEMESIS Herman Zimmerman
(TNG era production designer)
September 4 STAR TREK (2009) Guest TBA

EVENT DETAILS

What: Star Trek Movie Series

When: Saturdays at midnight in July-September (see above schedule)

Where: Laemmle’s Royal Theatre is located at 11523 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90025, (310) 478-3836 

Tickets: $10 for general admission. You can buy tickets at the box office or online at www.laemmle.com.

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I’m actually watching this on DVD as I type this.

Alice Krige is such a terrific actress.

The Michael in Twilight threw me, sorry, I had to imdb it — Welch plays Mike Newton, got it now.

1st contact was, is my favorite of all the TNG movies. The story of. Zephram Cochoran was fantasticaly told. Out of the Ashes of. Nuclear war and a ICBM he ushered mankind to where he was not going before. Though the Borg nearly trashed our new path. A path that Cochran. Nearly did not realize. I still believe the 1st contact theme song should have been the Federation’s Anthem.

Zephram Cochran of Alpha Centauri…………….

For my money, as good as any Star Trek movie.

Does anyone know which soundtrack the music played beginning at :32 is from? I can’t place it. Thanks!

^Josh, it’s “Genesis Countdown” from Star Trek II, by James Horner.

6 – that is ST II music, the buildup to the Genesis detonation IIRC

Lol… sorry 7, what you said!

Thanks everyone! I’m listening to it now.

The best Trek movie theater experience I ever had was “First Contact.” The crowd went wild every time a name from the regular cast came on the screen—followed by a big silence and a “huh-what-who?” when Alfre Woodard’s name came on. Little did we know how awesome she would be in this thoroughly awesome movie.

“Jean-Luc, blow up the damn ship!!!”

My views on STFC are a matter of record (or of DVD / Bluray) if you pick up the 2009 re-issue you can hear my commentary with Damon Lindelof. But I am a big fan and look forward to talking to Brannon about time travel and the Borg Queen and more.

If you have suggestions for questions for Brannon please post them here

First Contact was by far the best of the Tng Movies. In fact I usualy rate it in the Top 4 of all the Movies. The Action and the Drama was incredable. I remember seeing it in Sandieago in 96 and it was a packed house with people wearing all kinds of costumes. It was a wild time and a great Movie.

Why, oh why, oh why, did everyone think for *so long* that that style of narration in trailers is anything but cheesy.

*WHY.*

Interesting what marketing picks as the sell-scenes of the movie. Most of that trailer is from the first 10 minutes of the movie, plus some of the confrontations. Non of the humor there, and FC has some good humor that works well. Not a lot of the supporting cast, either.

Ah well… Excellent movie.

Great movie! I remember the time watching it in the theatre. It was a real blast and everyone in the cinema cheered when the EMH (played by Robert Picardo) was activated and at the end of the movie. I love the music from “First Contact” especially the theme, which captured the spirit of the film perfectly. Patrick Stewart provided one of his greatest performances, the rest of the main cast all got good lines (Unfortunately, Gates McFadden got the short end of the stick when it came to screen time), James Cromwell was excellent and provided a down-to-earth relatable performance as Zefram Cochrane, Alfre Woodard was great and provided a great balance to Captain Picard’s desire for revenge, and Alice Krige was a truly frightening and sexy villain. Great battle scenes and visual effects added to the film.

There are so many great scenes in this film, its hard to choose which is my favorite. The flashback scenes early in the film set the tone of the movie, the first contact scene between the Vulcans and humans was quintessential Star Trek, the battle scenes between the Federation ships and the Borg Cube was done quite well and still holds up nicely, seeing the Defiant and the EMH was cool, the shot of the crewman being surgically altered was creepy, and the shot of the Phoenix launching into space reminds me of a butterfly bursting out of its cocoon.

I rank this film right up there with “The Wrath Of Khan”, and “Star Trek”.

And I enjoyed listening to Anthony Pascale and Damon Lindelof’s commentary.

I’d love to see this movie get a quality Blu-ray transfer!

I have FC on Blu-ray, and it’s great.

I will be out of the country for a little while (I actually postponed my trip so that I could be at the Las Vegas Star Trek Convention) so I cannot see FC in the theater in West L.A.

I trust that it will be an amazing presentation.

For all that has been said about Brannon Braga, he certainly has done some very good things for Trek, including FC, and I believe he should be credited accordingly.

The Blu-ray transfer suffers from noise reduction; there nary a speckle of grain to be seen. Backgrounds often look static, and the image on the whole appears rather listless and flat. On top of that, the film occasionally takes on a soft appearance and looks downright fuzzy in several places. Blacks can be a bit wobbly, fluctuating between deep and inky and bright and gray. There’s a purple tint to the film that wasn’t in the DVD or even in the theatrical print.

I

I wis I was tere, It was great seeing First Contact on the big screen back in 1996. Its great on blu ray by the ray.

Still one of my favs

Can you ask him at what point the RUSH HOUR screenwriter was involved on FIRST CONTACT. There was a brief mention of his working on it (presumably a polish, maybe for Stewart?) in a CREATIVE SCREENWRITING mag interview many years back, but I’ve never seen anybody discuss it from the TREK end of things.

I’ve always figured that ‘line must be drawn here’ stuff was from the RH guy — sounded kind of ripe to me, like something done by an outsider who was just trying to shoehorn movie conventions into a trek script.

Way to try to undercut someone. Real classy fail. LOL

The best of the NG movies by far. Nothing new in that view, just my opinion.
I remember taking my ‘non-Trekkie’ sister to that one, and even she liked it. Ironically since then, she and her boyfriend have become NG fans, and I and my wife have moved on to other franchises (particularly BSG), but I still like FC quite a bit.

Just be prepared to have the movie start at 11:55 or later.

I think it’s hillarious that they’ve gotten decent guests for every one of these movies…but for “Star Trek Insurrection” they get the little annoying blonde kid. WOW.

Anyway, First Contact was great. I remember going to the box office on opening day at about 12 noon to get 6 tickets for the late show, and the guy in front of me was buying 30 tickets.

Now THAT’s awesome!

First Contact imho is the all time best Star Trek movie.
Its one of the Trek movies that everyone knows and at least likes or loves. Plus its one of my most favorite movies in general. I have seen it at least 40 to 50 times and stil love every second of it. each shot could be a postcard, each script line has got a purpose…its just one of the most perfect movies i saw (as a Trekkie :) .

Would very much love to see the movie again on the big screen. unfortunately this won´t happen in good old Germany. if we are very lucky they will show the German Dub which is unwatchable for me since i watch Trek only in the original version.

27 – I was dying to see Trek in the original for many years, but now that everything is happily available on DVD and I’ve seen all of TOS, TNG, and DS9 in English, I sometimes have fun watching German dubs with subtitles on. The later SAT 1 dubs are quite accurate, actually – I tried it with “This Side of Paradise”, for example – and a lot of fixing and patching was done for the DVD editions. This is a great site:

http://old.synchronkartei.de/classic guide/

Like Ron Moore said on the DVD commentary, this movie was pretty much the peak of the Berman-Trek era’s popularity. And maybe it was just my particular theater, but I remember there being a bigger, more enthusiastic audience for First Contact than Star Trek ’09. A slightly older audience as well. More teens than tweens. Just an observation…

29

Cool

I do think First Contact was a great event movie. Star Trek XI brought Trek back but First Contact was a stronger film when Trek was at its peak of popularity in the 90s.

Both films are great but there was a big buzz for me when First Contact came out.

#30

Yeah, me too. I was in seventh or eight grade at the time of First Contact’s release, and I remember it was the first (and only) time I had non-Trekkies asking me about the movie. I kinda envy the kids today, what with Trek supposedly being “in” again.

I went opening night on First Contact. Everyone applauded at the end of the movie. I saw it three times in the theaters. it’s really too bad the next movie just sucked the entire life out of the franchise.

Its too bad I don’t live in the L.A area. It would have been great watching it on the big screen again. Oh well! At least I can pop in my “First Contact” Blu Ray and kick back.

And I have always loved the main poster. It let everyone get the mood of the film without giving too much away.

Guest TBA: It’s gotta be Bob! : )

First Contact, ST6 and ST09: the best films in the franchise. I wish they all could have been of that high level.

#34

I hear “The Wrath Of Khan” was pretty good, as well. :-)

Since I was not even 2 years old at the time of TWOK’S theatrical release, “First Contact” has a special place for me. I was 15 and in grade 10 that year. I had seen “The Undiscovered Country” and “Generations” in the theatre, but FC blew those movies out of the water in terms of action, plot, character moments and visual effects. And everyone applauded at the end of the film. You don’t see that too often. Good times. “Star Trek” ’09 was great, but it just wasn’t the same, since we are only starting to get used to new actors playing the classic, iconic TOS characters. I want the sequel to do for me what FC did 15 years ago, which is getting me to think “Wow, what a great time to be a Trekkie!”

Great movie. Just brilliant. I spoke to Brannon at Las Vegas Con – an absolute pleasure and a moment for me. Legend! I got a photo too. That’s going up on my wall as soon as I get over the jet lag. Only been back (Australia) a few days.

36

I talked to him to at Vegas, a dead on guy.

35

With First Contat, what made it more speical was seeing the characters from your fav show being played by the same actors, made it more special.

I saw FC in the theater, and it was a great movie–a lot of fun, even with plot holes (but I ignored them. Anyone who only watches movies to see the plotholes….well, they don’t have much of a life, do they?).

It’s still worth watching, and I try to catch in on TV or DVD whenever possible.

Braga is a great writer, one who gets far too much s@*% thrown at him for no good reason. Still glad he’s working on stuff, because both he and Ron Moore were on hell of a writing team back in the TNG days….

39 – He was the showrunner on “Enterprise” and later on “Voyager”, yet those shows won’t exactly be remembered same as TOS, TNG or DS9. He might be a passable writer under certain showrunners (like he was supervised recently on “24”), but he never should’ve accepted the position of showrunner himself.

A good Star Trek showrunner needed to be able to stand up to Berman’s insistence on uniformity and fear of experimentation, but Braga obviously didn’t do as well as Behr or Piller, which is why he’s blamed. On the other hand, Ron Moore went on to do “Galactica”, which had its faults but at least dared to experiment with the format.

40 – Oops, switched around “Enterprise” and “Voyager”. Sorry.

So, was there any Q&A to speak of from this one?

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