Family and Reboots

Sunday was Mother's Day, which means a few things in my world.

1. I would be spending some amount of time with my family, which can be a good thing, or a not so good thing, depending on the mood of the players involved at the time, and what's going on in their lives.  More on this in a moment.  This time, it meant brunch at my Uncle's.
2. I would be spending some amount of time with my girlfriend's family, around dinner time.  This is nice, as it allows me to interact with her on a level that is reserved for those we feel most comfortable with.  I'm not completely at ease around them yet, as I've only been to a couple holiday events, but it's getting there.  Consider it a work in progress.
3. I have about three hours to kill after leaving ma familia and before heading to Jen's.  Jen is my girlfriend, by the way.

Before I get into the events of the day, let me give you some background on my family.  We're an Italian family, straight out of the 1950s.  My parents are still happily married after 35 years, as are my father's parents, who are both in their mid 80s.  It's a picture straight out of Pleasantville, which made it an incredibly warm and welcoming environment to grow up in.  Unless it wasn't.  Like any family, there are times when we just do not get along.  Most of these have to do with one of three things:

• My Aunt being neurotic, and the rest of us calling her on it.
• My father and his brother being on opposite sides of an argument
• My brother.  Period.

As much as I love my brother, he's the epitome of the black sheep.  Covered head to toe in tattoos (not that I'm against that, being only slightly behind him on that road), living in a perpetual state of summer vacation.  Still, he is one of the most compassionate people I know, when he can get out of his own way.  He's seeing a girl now who brings that out of him, which I like a lot, so it's a bit easier for me to handle him for more than a few minutes at a time.

You've got to understand, we spent our childhood hating each other.  Not disliking, HATING.  We were frequently in need of forcible restraint to keep us from hurting each other physically.  It was out of control, and I honestly don't understand how our parents dealt with it.  It must have been exhausting for them to work all day and come home to deal with us.  But, as we both got older, we managed to find some common ground, and now I can happily say that while we don't always see eye to eye, we've managed to find ways to accept each other.  Sappy, I know.

The point is, Sunday was a good day.  We all had brunch at my uncle's, and then sat and talked for a bit, before heading our separate ways.

Tony (my brother) and I decided to check out a matinee of the new Star Trek movie in the three hour window, while Jen went home and caught up on sleep.  Apparently, girls aren't that interested in Star Trek.  Who knew?

There's obviously been a lot said about the movie already, since we're days past the opening weekend.  The word of mouth is overwhelmingly positive, some critics calling it "This year's Iron Man."  I'm not sure what they mean by that - whether it means it's this year's "Geek Movie" to make a bunch of money, or if it means its the genre film that actually turns out to be good, who can tell?  I know this much - I enjoyed it very much.  While the film starts off slow, with the campy dialogue that we're all so familiar with from the original series and first few films, it quickly picks up steam.  Once the plot really started moving, as Kirk begins his schooling at Star Fleet, the film won me over.  I was hooked, and along for the ride.  There were only a few complaints I had, and contrary to popular opinion, the lens flares weren't it.

• I was disappointed by the "Three Years Later" that immediately followed Kirk's first meeting with Bones.  I turned to my brother and said "I want to see the movie we just skipped."  I'm concerned that now, since we've established these characters and the actors playing them, that the story in any subsequent movies will be forced to move forward, and we've lost the opportunity to show Kirk at Star Fleet Academy.  It's too bad, because it has a real Ender's Game quality that has a lot of potential.
• Eric Bana's character, Nero, doesn't really fit the mold of the dangerous villain.  He's the captain of a mining ship, certainly, but even being pissed about his situation (no spoilers), it seems like he's harboring far more resentment than he really should be.  He holds Spock responsible, but that just seems short sighted to me - it's not like he had any real control over the situation that caused his resentment.  His anger seems misplaced.  Maybe it's just Bana's acting that's the problem.

I don't want to nitpick too much though, because I really did like the film.  I'm by no means a trekkie, really I've only seen some syndicated episodes of TNG and Voyager, along with watching the movies, more out of a sense of geek obligation than any real love for the material, but I think this cast, with JJ Abrams at the helm, could reasonably put out a number of movies and I'd be in line to see all of them.  They've got a great chemistry, and I'd love to see more.