Remember how fun we are?  We even started a movie theme this week.  Fun movie-themers in the house whoop, whoop!

Now, continuing with our theme–here’s what I have to say about Star Trek after watching the 2009 remake with the kids a few days ago…

Any and every Star Trek movie I have ever seen is sooooo annoying.  I never, EVER know what’s going on.  It’s like one big, never-ending math problem.  And if you miss out on the ground-floor addition and subtraction, then you’re totally hosed when it comes time to figure out how to beam people in from ships traveling at warp or how much red matter to add to the black-hole-that-the-bad-guy-is-creating in order to make it go away. 

Red matter?  Really??  REALLY?!?  Suck it, Trekees. (Trekors?  TrekDorks??)

Have I made it clear?  I HATE Star Trek movies.

And that’s even before they add the Spock-in-the-future component where he (Leonard Nemoy) comes back to talk to Spock-in-the-present-and-by-present-I-mean-still-distant-future-stardate-2250 (Zachary Quinto) to talk about the Über-future-star-date-a-million-light-years-from-now-who-cares.

And?  And this is where my head implodes into its own mini black hole because I.  Hate.  Star Trek.  Movies.  And I hate YOU Spock.  And I hate the fact that you hooked up with Lieutenant Nyota Uhura when she was young and firm and had a long, black ponytail.  But in the 1960’s future/past?  When you’re all grown up??  And our good lieutenant isn’t so young and firm anymore and in fact has a bad, short haircut with big dippety-doo curls?  Then you act like you barely even know her.  Jerk star date now.

But, I’m not a TOTAL Trek Hater.  And I CAN find the very few good things in a Star Trek movie.  For example, there’s this one part where young James T. Kirk says, “Fire everything!  Just…fire whatever we have!!” 

Yeah.  What he said.  Because I am totally on board with this approach.  Just in general.  Every day.  Fire everything.  Give ‘em everything you got.  Damn the torpedoes – full speed ahead!!!!

And then there’s that other great part.  Where the movie is finally over.  Yay!  Love that part.  And the voiceover says, “Space: The Final Frontier,” and Sonny says, “Wait!  I thought ALASKA was the final frontier.”

Yep.  That’s my fave.  

And a word to the wise here: That’s the problem with calling ANYTHING the FINAL anything.  There could always be one more final SOMETHING waiting in the wings. 

And ANOTHER word to the wise?  Live long and prosper. 

Now, not another word outta me about it–and that’s FINAL!

Hey!  I know what we could do!  We could get a movie theme going here.  We’re fun!  How fun are we?!  Yippeeeeee!!! 

Ok, I’ll go first…

I saw Catching Fire last week-end with Sissy (the requirement was that she had to finish the book before she saw the movie.  Aren’t I a good mother!?  And me?  I read those books like two years ago.  ‘Cause that’s what we 40-somethings do.  We read tween books to see what the hubbub is all about.  I also read the Twilight stuff.  Sue me.)

We met up with Sissy’s friend and the friend’s mother at the theater for a fun Mother/Daughter Catching Fire afternoon.

But in some weird unspoken seating arrangement scenario, Sissy ended up sitting with her friend on the RIGHT side of the friend’s mother.  So I was left to sit to the LEFT of the friend’s mother.  I had envisioned more of a mothers-bookending-tweens scenario, with each mother on the outside of her respective tween, instead of what actually went down.  Sissy and I were book-ending THEM! 

Whatevs.

And by ‘whatevs’ I mean I actually spent the entire movie not quite getting over how weird the seating arrangement was.

And when I wasn’t downward-spiraling over that, I was trying to figure out the knit and crochet patterns for all of Katniss’ awesome top layers – especially those worn before and during the Victory Tour.  There may have even been some rough homespun type duds I’d like to reproduce from that Quarter Quell business. 

And when I wasn’t enamored with the chunky-knits, I was…acckkk!….CRYING!

What?!  WHAT??  This is a TWEEN movie and I was with TWEENS.  Why was I crying?!?  And the tweens weren’t?  (Or were they?  I couldn’t quite…see them.)   Suffice to say the whole crying thing was ridiculous – especially that part about going into stealth tears mode; trying to HIDE my tears from the other mother.  Who wasn’t crying.  At all. 

Nor did she seem to be worried about crochet patterns.  Or seating arrangements.  Or hiding her tears from ME!  Some people seem to breeze through life.  And the odds are ever in their favor.

Would you say it’s luck?  Or just…odd??

Have you seen this movie?  I only ask because I just saw it this week-end.  And it’s my worst nightmare come true. 

In this movie, the girl’s parents are taken by Serbian revolutionaries.  Blah, blah, blah – the details aren’t important; What’s important is that in order to save them, she has to do…MATH!

Are you FREAKIN’ kidding me?!?!  To have to SAVE people you LOVE using MATH???  Like I said: Worst.  Nightmare. 

After her ex-CIA agent father has been strung up and chained to a pipe in a basement somewhere in Istanbul, he places a call to the girl (where she’s hiding in a closet) from his impossibly-tiny-phone-hidden-in-a-boot.

He tells her to get out a map.  And then instructs her on how to jerry-rig a protractor out of a shoelace and a sharpie.  Whaaaat?  What the hell?!?

But it doesn’t stop there.  She then has to protract the HECK out of the map, measuring the shoelace to varying lengths and creating Venn diagrams.  This part might SEEM like total bs, but actually, Venn diagrams are pretty fun.  Venn there, done that.  Hee hee hee.

At some point she has to tell direction.  In Istanbul.  From a hotel room window.  Yeah, right.  I’m pretty sure my trick of holding up my thumb and forefinger to see which hand spells the letter “L” is not going to tell me which way EAST is.  In Istanbul.  From a hotel room window.

Because once she figures out which way EAST is, she has to then throw a grenade on the rooftop that’s east of the hotel. 

Ok.  Now THROWING?  Come on.  If I had to throw a live grenade – (“Let me hear you count to three before you do it, Sweetheart,” says the disembodied dad-voice on the other end of the line) Counting?  You’re really adding COUNTING to the mix?!? – that would pretty much be the end of the conversation right there.  Because I’d get so wild with my throw that instead of sailing out of the open balcony door, the grenade would hit the door jamb and ricochet back into the room.  For those who have seen me throw-like-a-girl, this is a distinct possibility.   

So.  Given all of this, Mom & Dad, please, please, please don’t get kidnapped in Istanbul.  Because if I then had to save you using protractors, directional cues and throwing?  (Oh, and let’s not forget counting.  But WHY counting??  That’s just rubbing it in.)  I don’t think I’d be able to do it.  Not that I wouldn’t WANT to.  I just literally COULDN’T. 

In which case the phone call from the tiny, boot-phone would go WAY differently than it did in the movie, “Oh, hi, Dad.  Thanks for calling.  Hi to Mom too.  Love you both!  But we should probably just say good-bye now.”