I really do love JJ Abrams. Granted, I have refused to watch Lost after the first season because I was irritated at the way the third season of Alias was mangled, and I blamed it on his distraction with preparing for Lost... but I was SO thrilled to find out that he was going to be in charge of the new Star Trek movie! That just sounded perfect! Such an amazing producer in charge of one of my most beloved shows? GREAT!

And then I check the credits on filmspot, and I see two things. Number one, Matt Damon is listed in the cast???? I don't want to think of him as Spock OR Kirk. Ack.

But even more disturbing, when I click on JJ's credits to add him to my favorites, I see... that HE is the one who wrote the script for Regarding Henry.

Sigh.

That is one of the few movies I ever saw with my late husband that he just truly, truly hated, and for good reason. Like the kid in the movie, he had a father who suffered a traumatic brain injury when he was a child - but unlike Harrison Ford's character, Ian's father didn't change for the better in the end. He went from a wonderful, loving father to a man who had violent mood swings and had to be helped with everything, and in the end, Ian's mother - with a five year old and a new baby (she was pregnant when the accident happened) ended up divorcing him to protect her children. Ian never saw his father again. His sister grew up being told that her father had died, not learning the truth until she was in either high school or college, I forget which, when she visited her paternal grandparents (their mother had died when Ian was nine - they were raised by their maternal grandmother and had little contact with their paternal grandparents) for a weekend and suddenly was introduced to her father. The only memories Ian had were of a man who was wonderful when he was four, then went away for a while and came back completely different - mean and unpredictable and NOT his father, and his life was torn apart. It wasn't ANYthing like the movie, and he resented the implication that it should be. I think he kind of didn't like the end to Return of the Jedi for close to the same reason... he never wanted to see his father again - he wanted to try to keep the memories of the highly intelligent man who was going to college and the editor of the literary magazine on campus, and not see the man he had become.

I met his father at the visitation before the funeral. It was strange. This Tuesday, the 26th, it will be 10 years since Ian died. He would have turned 39 in August. As far as I know, though, his dad is still alive. After the funeral, his sister tried to keep in touch with her father and that side of the family for a while, but old habits die hard - they didn't keep in touch with her for long. I guess because none of them had actually kept in touch with her father, either... keeping in touch with her would have reminded them of that.

Anyway. That movie was over 15 years ago, and JJ isn't actually writing the Star Trek show, so I'm sure it will all turn out fine.

But seriously. Matt Damon??? What, is Ben Affleck playing Captain Kirk??