Borg Invasion 4-D
Two tickets to Borg Invasion 4-D: $59.98.
One oh-I-so-want-it! life-size statue of the Borg Queen: $5000.00.
Being assimilated by Her Borgliness (well, almost) on the attraction’s opening day: Priceless.
The Borg Invasion 4-D attraction at the Las Vegas Hilton represents a definite improvement over their earlier (and still operational) Klingon Encounter, though it wasn’t the end all and be all that I’d let the hype convince me it was going to be.
Spoilers for the ride follow.
As the 22 minutes of fun began, Jason and I (along with 40 or so others) were whisked from Space Station Copernicus into a high-capacity shuttlepod, with our group’s Starfleet personnel chaperones getting plucked off, one by one, by the invading Borg. The “safety goggles” that Ensign Imgonnadiesoon instructed us to put on turned out, unsurprisingly, to be a pair of polarized 3-d glasses (pretty much the same sort that Disneyland used in Captain EO). The ship launched, but wasn’t quick enough to escape capture by the Borg Cube, which tractored the shuttle into its heart where we were brought before the Borg Queen herself (Alice Krige, reprising her role from Star Trek: First Contact)!
And then we got assimilated.
The Borg Queen sprayed us with assimilation nanites (which we felt, thanks to hidden water misters), which we could feel working through our bodies, reshaping us, joining us to the Collective. (This effect was achieved with mobile protrusions in our seats, under our legs and at our back. Think of one of those massaging chairs and amp its strength up a bit and you’ve got a decent idea of what it felt like.)
We floated through different points of view of other drones, only to be “talked down” by the holographic Doctor (Robert Picardo) from Voyager, who reminded us that (thanks to a pre-established deus ex technobabble) our DNA would allow us to resist assimilation.
We did.
The Borg Queen wasn’t happy. “Doom! Fie on thee!” she said. Okay, so she actually said something cooler and sexier and more malevolent, but hell if I can remember exactly what it was, spellbound as I was. (Yeah, I loves me the Borg Queen! 
) Resistance was futile, she insisted, futile!
And then Admiral Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) showed up, riding high in Voyager as she does, to spoil things for the Borg. Several volleys of quantum torpedoes and phaser banks later, the Borg Cube blew up, the Borg Queen vowing her revenge.
The crisis thwarted, we were led out into the [relative] safety of the gift shop. 
The three-dimensional effects were decent, though I think my glasses were a bit messed up, as I got a fair amount of ghosting. The immersiveness of the in-chair environment was really neat, and the entire experience was very well-crafted to be consistent with existing Trek lore.
If you’re in Vegas, it’s definitely worth seeing, though I don’t know that it’d be worth a special pilgrimage to see on its own.
I’m sure the Hilton will be dismayed to discover that they have to get all their stuff reprinted, because it says “Las Vegas” not “Los Vegas”.
Scott Wagner, ladies and gentlemen, resident smart-ass!
See, the nice thing is that I have now edited the post to correct my typo, so your comment, useful as it was, will be devoid of context to future blog archaeologists. So there!
Seriously, thanks for the heads-up.