Giant Freakin Robot

Believe it or not, it’s been ten years since the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation was last on the bridge of the Enterprise in movie theaters. December 13, 2002 was the day Nemesis flopped and killed Star Trek resulting eventually in the current franchise reboot scenario.

The TNG cast may be gone (at least until Michael Dorn gets his Worf movie off the ground) but they’re not forgotten. Captain Picard and his crew will be back in theaters this summer to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of TNG, thanks to Fathom events.

For one night only, on July 23rd, Fathom will be showing two TNG episodes from season one in movie theaters around the country. The episodes they’ve chosen are “Where No One Has Gone Before” and “Datalore”.

Why stick with season one? TNG season one arrives on Blu-ray this year and all of those episodes have been restored to the highest possible standards. That means they’ll look brilliant, even when projected up on a movie theater’s big screen. These two episodes in particular were chosen by long time Trek luminaries Mike and Denise Okuda.

If you’re picking from season one then, “Where No One Has Gone Before” makes sense. It’s a fairly cinematic episode involving an accident which flings the Enterprise off so far that they’re beyond the Milky Way galaxy. Yes, it’s the one with The Travler.

“Datalore” is a little less cinematic, except for some pretty amazing shots of the Crystaline Entity. Yes, that’s the one where we meet Data’s evil twin brother Lore. You know he’s evil because he can say “don’t” instead of “do not”.

Tickets for this Star Trek: The Next Generation 25th Anniversary Event go on sale this Friday, June 8th. I attended a similarly staged theatrical showing of Star Trek’s “The Menagerie” a few years ago, and it was absolutely worth the price of admission. Don’t miss this. Get your tickets right here on Friday and be in a movie theater crammed with other Trekkies on July 23rd.