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Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
1996 | Action, Sci-Fi
It’s a close run thing with “Wrath of Khan”, but this tops it as my favourite Trek film. There are so many memorable scenes:

The dramatic opening shots of Picard strapped into the Borg ship (and the subsequent jolts x 2!);
The comical drinking scene between Troi (Marina Sirtis) and Cochrane (James Cromwell);
The “Big Sleep” style holodeck sequence;
The spectacular entrance of the Borg Queen (Alice Krige);
The first warp flight;
The first contact scene, framed by Jerry Goldsmith‘s spectacular theme.
We’re up to the Enterprise-E in this one, and even that gets a self-destruct sequence! These movies must be playing havoc with their insurance premiums!

There are some nice touches for Trek fans in here: the first appearance of Robert Picardo‘s holographic doctor (before he became a regular on Star Trek: Voyager); and Dwight Schultz reprising his role from the TNG series as the nerdy fan-boy Lieutenant Barclay. In addition, the whole cast (including Gates McFadden’s Crusher) get a fairer share of the air time under Jonathan Frake’s direction.

Once again, the time travel (particularly the return journey!) is just a bit too trite and convenient. But other than that, this is a top-notch Trek movie. It features (in Alfre Woodard, just BAFTA nominated) a strong role for a female of colour. And it provides a great chance to showcase Stewart’s acting talents, as he wrestles with his own ‘great white whale’.

Given my love for the movie, I was tempted to give this one 5*s. The one thing holding me back is just a single line of dialogue. Do you know the one? Zephram Cochrane’s line…

“So, you’re astronauts? On some kind of a star trek?”.

It is just SO UTTERLY CRASS that I manage to throw up a little in my mouth as that scene happens. WHY WRITERS, WHY???
  
As well as the love of reading, I also seem to have passed on my love of history to the Mini Bookworm. He is 8 and I often find myself digging him out of a pile of "Horrible Histories" books just to tuck him in at night!

So when I saw the cover and concept of "A Day in the Life of a Caveman, a Queen and Everything Inbetween", requesting a spot on the book tour was a no brainer.
This GORGEOUS book takes the concept of the illustrations within HH books and totally runs with it. The comic book style really spoke to the mini bookworm and really kept him engaged for a long period of time. In fact, when I asked him if he had any negative points for this review he thought for a very long time before finally saying "it just wasn't long enough".
The topics are presented in one page snippets - it's not going to teach your kids all about one particular subject but, in my opinion, it is going to get them excited to learn more.
As a parent, I also really appreciated the progression of the topics into modern history. The civil rights page initiated a whole conversation about segregation and racism for example! Similarly, fossil fuels and global warming are factors that greatly affect our youngsters, but are presented in a really fun way.
Thank you to Mike Barfield and Jess Bradley for creating this wonderful book, and to Love Books Tours for giving the Mini Bookworm and I the opportunity to review it. As we live in the same county as Mike Barfield the Mini Bookworm did initially want to find him to be his friend, but apparently will settle for adding "A Day in the Life of a Poo, a Gnu and You" to his Christmas list!