Mom Watches Star Trek Movies!

[mj 7]

My 72-year -old mother is visiting. One of the things we ususally do is watch romantic comedies or dramas, over and over again! We watch When Harry met Sally, While You Were Sleeping, Gigi, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensability, Mansfield Park, others....over and over.

 

Of course, being a Star Trek fan, I cannot complain about anyone watching anything over and over.... :)

 

But Mom suddenly said two days ago...Why don't we watch one of your Star Trek movies? :)

 

Mom does not like "weird" things like aliens, so I thought Insurrection would be a good start. After a few minutes of the idyllic opening scene, she said, "Where are the Star Trek people?" Well of course they all appeared soon. She really got into the movie! When Golna (sp) was convincing his friend to go with the isolinear tags, my mother said, " I don't think he much likes what his boss is thinking." I said, "Mom just keep watching...you are on the right track." She picked up the fact that there was a dissenting opinion. Anyway she stayed with the movie and in the end said, "Oh, the robot learned how to play." "Android, Mom."

 

Yesterday, we went with First Contact. I tried to prepare Mom for the idea of the Borg. "Do they have funny looking faces?" "No Mom, you are thinking of the Klingons. The Borg are humans with machine parts. They look awful, and they will be taking over other humans right and left." "Okay." I know I oversimplified what the Borg were, but it was clear enough for this movie. Mom was happy to recognize some actors, like Alfre Woodard, and of course she was familiar with the TNG crew from the previous movie. "Mom, now Captain Picard will be dreaming about the Borg." "Okay." " Mom, the Enterprise is in the past and the Borg are taking things over behind the scenes." "Okay." When Picard and the others finally arm themselves to try to get to engineering, I told Mom, "Now, here are the Borg." Mom says, "Is that all!!?? After all your build-up I would expect much more than that! Oh, did they just take the wooden man?" "Mom, that was Data, the Android. Pinocchio was wooden." "Oh, that's right!" Well, anyway she loved the movie. She really liked Lily's dress in the holodeck. And when Lily met Worf, Mom said, "And what was that thing on his forehead?" "Mom he is a Klingon...that is his forehead." "Oh, I see. I understand that he is a very handsome man in real life." "Yeah, Mom, that's right!" Towards the end Mom says, "So the captain had a relationship with this woman before?" "Not really , Mom...he was assimilated, he was a Borg, so he had no choice." After Picard and Data were walking out of engineering trumphantly, Mom said, "This can't be the end?" "Not yet." "What's that funny looking plane?""It's not a plane. It's the Vulcans, like Mr. Spock." "Okay." Now in spite of appearances she liked this movie also!

 

Today we watched The Undiscovered Country. Now Mom knows the crew of the original series, because when my sister and I were watching TOS while it was originally aired, at times my dad would refuse to relinquish the main TV, so we would beg my mother to let us watch it on her TV, and she always did. So today I warned her, "Mom, Captain Kirk is much older than when you watched him years ago." "I know that! I saw William Shatner in Miss Congeniality!" ( Another romantic comedy..) She loved TUC...at one point she said, " I don't think Captain Kirk is going to get out of this one." I said, "Mom, when did Captain Kirk not win? Just watch!" I didn't tell her about Generations.. :( Mom loved this movie! "I see why you like this so much!" :)

 

Tomorrow or Thursday: The Wrath of Khan!

[A l t e r E g o 9]

That's great mj and it reminds of the days when my mom got into TOS, we had many of the same types of conversations over the characters. Thanks for the flashback. :)

[Vulcan IDIC 0]

You'll have to let us know what her reaction to the Wrath of Kahn was and how she took Spock's death scene. That's great that she's watching those with you. The only one that I can my mom to watch is the Voyage Home and even then she's really not that interested in it.

[Mike 5]

That's great MJ..You will have to let us know what she thinks of ST II..

 

I've been watching Star Trek movies with my parents for years..They like them alot..Course as a teenager I would always beg them to watch TOS when it was in rerun mode..(We only had 1 TV)..So they've grown to like Star Trek over the years..And I've got my Mom hooked on Star Trek Enterprise.. :) She really likes the show a lot..I even got her to register at this site though she never posts..

[Jeanway 0]

OH. mj, I just watched " Ripley's Game" it was Brutal, maybe she'd like it? :) Oh, and " Sexy Beast " with Ben Kingsley :) Same kind of movie. and I loved them both, and I'm a girl. :)

[v_seven 0]

Its the other way around with me...My son knows alot about ST but only because

he heard it the back ground his whole life....and we saw all the movies at the

theatre together cause I bribed him...he went with me to ST and I took him to Anaconda or whatever he wanted to see at the time....worked out better for me

I think because I like monster movies too!

 

PS

I even took him to a ST convention when he was 11 because he was grounded

and couldn't stay home alone, he had way more fun than he's ever admit!

 

You are making memories mj.....treasure them! :o

[Ace 0]

That's hilarious, mj. I'm glad she's enjoying it. I'm afraid there's no hope for my grandmother, though. She doesn't know what we see in that "science-fictiony" stuff .

[VaBeachGuy 12]

That's great and I love the order you are taking her through them in. Ease her into it so she gets hooked then bring out your DS9 DVD's and introduce her to Garak and Quark lol. You could also show her Michael Dorn in the episode "Far Beyond The Stars", he's out of make-up in that episode.

[mj 7]

Mom has always know what Star Trek is, because as I said above, she would let us watch it on her TV whenever my Dad refused to let us watch it on the main TV. However she did this sacrificially...and never really paid much attention (except being shocked when Kirk kissed Uhura...). She does that to this day. Whenever I go home there is at least one set free for me to watch Star Trek on....

 

Well, we watched the Wrath of Khan Wednesday night after watching Enterprise. She acted like she had never watched Enterprise before. I said, "Mom, remember the last time you visited me, the only thing I insisted on watching was Enterprise. (She chose everything else we watched.) Weren't you paying attention then?" "No.."--I shouldn't have been surprised....She let us watch Star Trek when we were young, and did not watch whole episodes very often. Nowadays she always has a crossword puzzle book and pen in hand, so she can very effectively ignore a show she is not interested in.

 

At first she was put off by the violence in TWOK (she and Daddy used to love John Wayne westerns, however....). She hated the scene where they found the people tortured and hanging. "This is worse than the Borg...." She did not like the scene with Scotty carrying the badly wounded cadet..it took her by surprise. Actually, there were a lot of people disfigured in ST II..I didn't notice till Mom reacted. But she got into it, and was glued to the set as the last battle began. She was surprised that Mr. Spock actually died. ( This is a sign of age, because I know that my sister and I came home from the theater complaining about it back when the film first came out, so Mom must have forgotten that.) As we discussed the movie, she said she liked that story too, but that it was sad. She had thought that Spock would not die because he was not human. She said, " I guess I expected him to be like the wooden man. He would not have died." " Mom, you are talking about Data, and he is not made out of wood. Remember we talked about this." "Well, what is he made out of?" "Don't know, Mom". I told her about what happended to Data in Nemesis.

 

We may watch the Voyage Home.

 

Mom said she enjoyed the Star Trek movies, but would not watch them over and over like her own favorite movies-- romantic comedies.

 

That's great and I love the order you are taking her through them in. Ease her into it so she gets hooked then bring out your DS9 DVD's and introduce her to Garak and Quark lol. You could also show her Michael Dorn in the episode "Far Beyond The Stars", he's out of make-up in that episode.

My mother enjoyed the movies, but she has not been converted to a bona fide Star Trek fan. I think I will show her Michael Dorn in "Far Beyond the Stars" ... that is a good idea. She has seen part of one DS9 episode repeatedly, and that is "His Way," the one where Kira and Odo finally get together. It is right up her alley in terms of her tastes, and includes a lot of the type of music she likes.

 

It's been fun seeing her find out that these movies had good story lines...but she is still not a science fiction fan.

[Valeris 2]

It is nice to see some else whose Mom likes Star Trek. My Mom is really annoyed with my "obsession," as she calls it, but then she tells me of all the crazy things she did back in the seventies or something because she liked it almost as much as I do now! However, she can still sometimes sit down and watch Star Trek with me.

[mj 7]

We rented Star Trek III amd IV so Mom could see what happened to Mr. Spock. We actually watched Star Trek IV, The Voyage home, twice! She truly understands that Star Trek has good stories.

 

She still does not like "aliens." I have the DS9 pilot on tape, and after wacthing it, and finding it confusing, she pointed out that the Cardassians and Ferengi have too much make-up, her way of saying that she did not like them. So no DS9 for her.

 

Except we did watch "Far Beyond the Stars," which had no make-up. Mom was truly amazed that there was such a story in Star Trek. She was born in 1931, and both she and my father told us children they did not expect to have what they eventually attained in life. Their expectations were low. For example my father never dreamed of going to college, nor did anyone he knew. (But that chance did come to him.) During the show, I tried to point out to Mom the actors she had seen in make-up, but it was the story itself that impressed her.

 

She now respects my choice of Star Trek, rather than merely patiently forbearing her daughter's peculiar tastes.

[Q stole my bike 0]

Star Trek has always been something me and my parents can enjoy together. My parents were fans since "back in the day." Sadly, I wasn't one of those kids who was raised on Trek I had to discover it on my own, but I do remember seeing a little of TNG when I was very young, and when I saw Geordi I was all "Mommy, what's that thing on that guy's head?" lol

[Odo 0]

When I was a little one back in1966 It Was my mother who started me on my life long affiar with Star Trek. now that she is gone every time i here someone call kirk a space stud i smile thats what she always called him

[blitzkrieg1110 0]

Both my parents love star trek! They were the ones to get me hooked lol. My mom has seen every movie except for nemesis at least 3 times. I watch them so much how could she not. She is not old enough to have seen TOS but she had watched reruns of it played. Dad was not into star trek until the mid 80's so same thing with him. I think the first movie he saw was the wrath of Khan.

Edited June 20, 2004 by blitzkrieg1110

[Yillara Skye 1]

That was a great story, mj.

 

 

 

In my case, my mom was the one who got me started into liking Trek. I already was obsessed with astronomy & space travel, so she introduced me to TOS when I was a toddler.

 

Then when TNG was about to start, she rented all of the available TOS movies and I watched them. THen Encounter at Farpoint started and the rest is history.

 

The rest of my family followed suit... pretty much in the following order: my sister(right about when TNG started, but she liked Spock from what TOS she did watch beforehand), my brother(starting around First Contact).

 

My dad, well I am not entirely sure when or if he ever really did get into watching Trek( I believe it was a little while after my sister & I did). He still is not too much into it, he will watch if that is what is on TV and says he liked the movies.

Edited June 20, 2004 by Yillara_Soong

[mj 7]

Nice to see that Star Trek was a "family affair" for so many! And for many of you, even you dads were into Star Trek... ! My father could never quite understand the interest we (my sister and I) exhibited in anything related to Star Trek, but he loved us anyway!

[VaBeachGuy 12]

We rented Star Trek III amd IV so Mom could see what happened to Mr. Spock. We actually watched Star Trek IV, The Voyage home, twice! She truly understands that Star Trek has good stories.

 

She still does not like "aliens." I have the DS9 pilot on tape, and after wacthing it, and finding it confusing, she pointed out that the Cardassians and Ferengi have too much make-up, her way of saying that she did not like them. So no DS9 for her.

 

Except we did watch "Far Beyond the Stars," which had no make-up. Mom was truly amazed that there was such a story in Star Trek. She was born in 1931, and both she and my father told us children they did not expect to have what they eventually attained in life. Their expectations were low. For example my father never dreamed of going to college, nor did anyone he knew. (But that chance did come to him.) During the show,  I tried to point out to Mom the actors she had seen in make-up, but it was the story itself that impressed her.

 

She now respects my choice of Star Trek, rather than merely patiently forbearing her daughter's peculiar tastes.

Yeah, Far Beyond The Stars is a great story and shows us that while we've come a long way in our society we still have a long way to go.

 

In the story they kind of couch the issues with the "Are we the Dream or the Dreamer" which is an interesting concept to think about but the underlying theme of the story is the dream of equality and the belief that in the future things like race, religion and sex won't matter in how we deal with one another.

[Admiral Kirk 1]

It's great that some peoples parents have similar viewing habits. My parents will not sit and watch ST or any other Sci FI show with me and I want watch westerns with them.

[WEAREBORG4102 0]

Over the past few months, I've actually made my family watch Voyager as a routine every weekday night at midnight....

 

well technically Tues.-Sat. at 1200 am

 

It's great!!!

[Captain Smith 0]

Man mj, i wish i had family members like that. the Only Trekkies inmy family live far away from me, so we never get to talk about it. You're a VERY lucky person.

[WEAREBORG4102 0]

I just found out that MY UNCLE IS A TREKKIE!!!!!!

[mj 7]

Over the past few months, I've actually made my family watch Voyager as a routine every weekday  night at midnight....

 

well technically Tues.-Sat. at 1200 am

 

It's great!!!

Doesn't anyone have to get up early for work during the week?

  I just found out that MY UNCLE IS A TREKKIE!!!!!!

Well that's great too!

Man mj, i wish i had family members like that. the Only Trekkies inmy family live far away from me, so we never get to talk about it. You're a VERY lucky person.

Mom is not a convert...she is not a trekkie. She just has come to understand that the stories are good, and now sees why I like it so much. She still can't quite accept the look of "aliens."

[seigler 0]

Well, i'm only 17.... and i'd say it was my dad that got me on ST. Actually what happened was my mom was like anti-sci-fi, heck she thought the Ninja Turtles were evil. So needless to say, when they got married my dad put aside his sci-fi ways. Then about a year after my parents split my dad bought all three TOS seasons on laser disc (Any one know what those are ans I watched all of them. Then I bought all the movies, all seven TNG season on DVD, and I am now working on DS9.

[ragingtarg 0]

I am very, very jealous. Most of you have got parents who are into Trek and all that, but only my mum is merely tolerant of my Trekkishness. She's the one who introduced me to Star Trek -- she was a sci-fi junkie when she was growing up -- and know she jokingly regrets it. mj, I admire your mum =D