My First Contact Experience

[Newt]

The year is 1996, I am on holiday with my family in Florida. And Star Trek First Contact is out in cinemas. I plead to my parents to take me. I beg. My younger sister hates Star Trek and is not keen on the idea. But we manage to bribe her by taking her to favourite theme park for an extra day if she put up with going as a family. It worked. I was going to see First Contact before all my friends. The uk release date was 3 weeks after the U.S.
Man what an experience. It was the premiere screening. The audience reaction was unreal. And completely different to the uk experience.
It was a packed showing. Everyone cheered at the music with Star Trek fan fair theme. There was gasps and clapping. Worf’s introduction was electric and got a nice applause The biggest reaction of the entire film was the cameo of The E.M.H. All the jokes got the right reactions.
Nothing came across as flat. The audience was generally shocked at Picard’s draw the line speech.
And when it finished everyone stood up and clapped.
Most exciting moment of being a Star Trek fan.

I saw the film again when I was back of holiday with my friends. On the uk premiere date that so happened to be my birthday. Well it was well regarded by my friends. But as it was in England we don’t tend to cheer or clap or give and standing ovation for films in cinema.
You get an idea if the audience liked the film or not with the chatter whilst leaving the venue.
Anyway I saw it another two times at the cinema. Video release was a long time off haha

 

[CoveTom]

I, too, saw First Contact on opening day in the theater. It was, and remains, a great film. Our theater didn't do any cheering or applauding as I recall. But there was no denying it was the TNG cast firing on all cylinders. The direction, the acting, the special effects, the score, it was all wonderful. It's a shame that it's the only film from the TNG era, which is so beloved, to achieve that.

One funny story that I remember to this day... toward the end of the film when the Borg queen has been killed by Data by puncturing the coolant tank (or whatever it was) and having that stuff fill engineering while Picard goes climbing through the rafters. At the end, Picard reaches over to a panel and, seemingly with basically a single button press, manages to clean all of that out of engineering in about 5 seconds and make it safe again. My friend leaned over to me in the theater and said, "he pressed the 'suck all the plasma out of the engineering section' button."

 

[NCC-73515]

It was my first Trek movie on the big screen. When the D was destroyed, I thought no other ship can be as great, but then I saw the E here and it was even better. Quantum torpedoes! Borg now have a sphere as well! The first spacesuited hull walk ever! And then showing the most historic moment (in universe) for the first time! I was wondering who those first aliens could be, and when the ears were shown, my brother and I laughed and gave the salute to each other before the guy on the screen did

 

[Newt]

The best thing about first contact was there little spoilers around that I remember.
I kinda remember a teaser trailer, a poster, some Magazine articles. There was no big reveal that I was aware on the design of the new Enterprise. I remember seeing it on a teaser poster and maybe a publicity photo, which I had on a T-shirt. It’s there in my avatar lol.
So when in the cinema when we see see the new ship is the first time I remember getting a good look at it. To this day I have a soft spot for the Enterprise-E
Still say filming models trump cgi ones. Even though there was some cgi mixed with model work but it was so good I couldn’t tell you what was what.

Also when I was in America the merch was insane. I rember seeing these

https://imgur.com/qleawog

 

[Vger23]

There was nothing quite like the "shared experience" of being with all the hardcore fans for a Trek movie premier on opening night.

It's too bad that those days are pretty much gone. The thrill of seeing either of the two "classic" casts in a big production on opening night surrounded by fellow fans was so awesome.