Definitely not Swedish

"Star Trek: First Contact" is the eighth movie in the apparently infinite Star Trek franchise. It features the heroes from the TV series "Star Trek: The Next Generation", most notably Captain Jean-Luc Picard, starred as usual by Patrick Stewart. Believe it or not, Stewart is actually an accomplished Shakespeare stage actor when not moonlighting in the Trekkie universe. The plot pits the evil, cybernetic creatures known as the Borg against humans and their allies.

After a failed attempt to destroy the Federation in the 23rd century, the indomitable Borg attack Earth by travelling back in time to the 21st century, when humanity was to weak to defend itself from an attack from outer space. To stop the cybernetic super-creatures, Picard and the Starship Enterprise follow suit. They end up in Montana on April 4, 2063, the very day before the "First Contact" between humans and Vulcans (a pivotal event in the Star Trek universe). The most humorous part of the film is when the Enterprise crew realizes that their childhood hero, trail-blazing scientist Zefran Cochrane, was really an alcoholic with a penchant for nude Hawaiian females!

It's probably the quasi-blasphemous character of "Star Trek: First Contact" that makes me like it. I suspect it's very deliberately un-Star Trek-like, to broaden the franchise to non-Trekkies. The nerd factor is almost zero, the action more straightforward than usual, and the film even includes self-referential humour, as when Cochrane asks the Enterprise crew if they are on "some kind of star trek", or when Lily says that "the Borg sounds Swedish". LOL!

I'm really too old to watch this kind of stuff, but oookay, I give it four stars. Live long and prosper...