It's a trek, but the truth is not pretty
It was the weekly Bad Movie Night at the Offutts. The night when my wife and I watch a high-budget, popular movie, then make fun of it.
Bad Movie Night Tip No. 207: You never have to leave the '80s.
But this week we ran into trouble. We'd watched all the bad movies I owned, and I hadn't gone to the video store for more.
We'd already gone through my collection of Stallone, Snipes and Willis, and I had discovered something - the best way to ruin a movie you like is to have your wife laugh at it right in front of you.
"Got any more Arnold?" she asked.
"No, 'End of Days' was my last."
"'Alien' movies?"
I shook my head.
"We've watched all four."
"'Species?'"
"Nope."
"Something with Bigfoot?"
"Uh-uh."
"Then how about 'Star Trek?'" She asked.
Oh, no. Not "Star Trek." That TV show meant more to me growing up than elementary school, a bowl of Quisp cereal or my sisters. She couldn't be serious.
"Don't you have some 'Star Trek?'"
She was serious.
"Yes," I said, although I should have lied. "I have some 'Star Trek.'"
"The Wrath of Khan," "The Search for Spock," "The Voyage Home," "The Undiscovered Country" and more TV episodes than I care to admit. Yeah, I've got your "Star Trek."
"Have you ever watched it before?" I asked.
"Not really."
In order to give her the proper background for the "Star Trek" universe - lacking which would be like learning to ski without first understanding that trees are hard - we started off with a TV episode.
She loved it.
Oh, not for its commentary on the political climate of the 1960s, the message that people are just people no matter what shape their ears, or for the aliens and ray guns I fell in love with it as a pre-pubescent boy. She loved it for the camp.
She laughed at the plot holes, continuity errors, bad dialogue and the bad acting that went with it. Sure, I always knew the captain and first officer leaving the ship on a dangerous mission didn't make sense, but I chose to ignore it. She pointed it out.
And that's what really hurt.
I mean, who wants to see their fond childhood memories butchered into something that resembled Klingon food? It was like I was a kid and saw a truck hit the family dog - then back up and hit it again.
Then she wanted to watch the movies.
OK, fine. I showed her the best of the "Star Trek" movies - "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan." It had action, adventure, a 20-something Kirstie Alley with pointed ears, and enough lines from Shakespeare to give it a touch of class.
Yeah, I thought, that'll shut her up.
"Oh, God," she said in the first 10 minutes of the movie when two people are captured by the villain when they could have just beamed up. "This is terrible."
You know, she's right. "The Wrath of Khan" is a terrible movie. I just hadn't noticed it before. Every time I watch that movie, I fondly remember myself as a high school kid with a van-load of my buddies at the drive-in getting teary-eyed when Spock died - although the way he died would have been easily preventable with technology they'd shown earlier in the movie.
That's it. I gave up. There was no chance to prove to her that "Star Trek" was actually good. And my belief in it was wavering.
My lesson?
I'm not letting her get near "Battlestar Galactica."
