The Family Everywhere Film Trilogy

Episode - I

Family Everywhere


This is an excerpt from Chapter 12 of the WonderProjectä book that detailing our vision for the next quantum leap in entertainment, education and human development. It describes in detail the experience guests have in the theme park version of the restaurant and tells the story that is portrayed in the 2nd installment of the Family Everywhere Film Trilogy.

Chapter - 12

Italian WonderFilms

    
The complete story of Mama’s Galaxy Restaurant and the love that the family generated throughout the galaxies will be told in a trilogy of WonderFilmsä, a prime time television show and a theatrical production.

The first installment of our Italian trilogy is an Earthbound, heart-warming comedy-drama reminiscent of the movies Moon Struck and Return to Me.

In the film, entitled Family Everywhere, Tony Gionelli is a member of a very close and very large Italian family. In addition to his two brothers, three sisters, parents and grandparents, there are numerous cousins, uncles, aunts, relatives and friends.

Practically from the day he was born, Tony has had a burning desire to show the world that love, family and good Italian food are the answers to everything.

He constantly comes up with wild new ideas to expand the family restaurant and pastry business - ideas that everyone but Mama thinks are a bit off the deep end.  

After the tragedy of Mama’s death, early in the film, the family goes into a slump.  Then Tony has this really unusual dream.  

In the dream he watches as Mama creates a new dessert.  

Cutting to a wind-torn, desolate environment, we follow a group of tough looking miners as they head into a cafeteria.  As they enter, Mama emerges from the kitchen with the new dessert.   

Mama, this is incredible!, one of the miners exclaims. What do you call it?  Mama shrugs.  It’s Ice Box Cake.

Waking from the dream in the wee hours, Tony heads for the kitchen, intent on making this amazing dessert.     

Several hours later, one of his brothers finds him cleaning and wants to know what he’s doing up so early. Opening the fridge Tony offers him a taste of the ice box cake.  Oh Marone! his brother exclaims.  Where did you get the recipe for this?  From Mama, Tony replies.

The dessert is an instant hit. Everyone loves it, and soon the family is distributing it to fine restaurants all over New York.  Even though they are all delighted with their new-found success, they get a bit nervous when Tony comes up with a plan to make it for restaurants all over the country.  It’s a bit of too much too fast.

In Tony’s next dream, he finds himself descending into the atmosphere of a planet. Briefly he flies over a park-like urban setting, and approaches a magnificent restaurant consisting of four saucer-shaped units piled on top of each other.  

Entering the structure he passes a sign that says, Mama’s Galaxy Restaurant - Fine Food and Good Service, a tradition in seven galaxies for over a million years.  

Walking down a corridor, he passes a depiction of the restaurant’s history.  Continuing to the end of the corridor, he finds himself confronted with a panoramic, almost dizzying view of the restaurant’s interior. Below and above him a vast array of dining tables are sprinkled through the space like tiny floating islands. He sees a projected collection of multi-colored, holographic, slowly rotating spiral galaxies appearing to pass though the space and tables.

Snapping out of his dream, Tony is totally excited.

The next day his brothers and sisters find him dressing their restaurant and pastry shop with pictures of galaxies, star fields and nebula.  

The Galaxy Restaurant theme really catches on. Amid an ongoing stream of humorous heckling from family and friends, the customers seem to love it. The business expands as never before. Tony feels that Mama herself is supporting this venture from beyond the grave.

In his third dream, Tony discovers a production and distribution network that services a chain of Mama’s Galaxy restaurants stretching from one side of the galaxy to the other.  This he sees as an unmistakable sign that it is the family’s destiny to spread Mama’s desserts, cooking and family spirit throughout the world.  

The family, however, does not see it that way. For a couple of generations it has been one small restaurant and pastry shop. The idea of a big corporate chain does not sit well with them.  

When he asks one sister if she has ever considered the possibility that his dreams might actually be real, she gets a bit nervous.  

Remember what Mama said on her death bed! he exclaims.  She said that the family was everywhere and she was going off to see the rest of them.  Maybe we really do have relatives in other parts of the universe!

Irritated and upset with the family not supporting his grand vision, he seeks to find a way to prove to them that he is right.  

With the amazing new-found popularity of the restaurant, the way seems to fall into his lap. A major corporation presents him with a proposal to create a nation-wide chain of Galaxy restaurants.  

He feels this is a vision come true.  It is exactly what he saw in his dream - a vast network of restaurants. He fails to notice that his original goal of inviting the world to discover that love, family and good Italian food are the answers to everything, has now transformed into an anxiety to prove himself to his family.   

Although Papa is at first very reluctant to sign the contract drafted by the corporate lawyers, he finally agrees to do so after Tony’s assurance that it is what Mama would have wanted.

Shortly thereafter we see a montage of scenes showing Tony’s excitement as he is invited to participate in the creation of a chain of restaurants. These restaurants would incorporate Mama’s style of cooking and philosophy.   

We see artists drawing and rendering a four-tired saucer-shaped restaurant patterned after the one Tony saw in his dream. We watch as modelers put the finishing touches on the saucer-type version and a magnificent Victorian style restaurant. Interspersed we see views of construction sites in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Florida.

The scenes culminate in a board room decision to start construction on three prototype versions of the saucer design. The Victorian version is slated to be incorporated in the newly designed WonderWorld theme park.

Then, without warning, Tony and Papa are served with a subpoena and the corporation is served with a court injunction to cease construction and halt the national marketing campaign they were just about to launch. Someone is claiming that Tony stole the Ice Box Cake recipe and the Galaxy Restaurant concept from him.

As a heated court drama ensues Tony becomes worried that the family could lose everything if they lose the case.  

Just as the jury is about to render its verdict, a mysterious stranger arrives in court. In a dramatic turn of events, he proves that the claim against Tony and the family is actually a money-motivated fraud.

___________________________________

It is now two years later and the family is closer than ever.

As the film nears it’s conclusion, we see Tony shaking hands with a man who plans to  open a franchise of Mama’s Galaxy restaurant on the outskirts of his small country town.

On his way back, he stops at a local diner for a bite. To his utter surprise, he discovers the guy who saved the family sitting on a stool next to him.   

“Hey, it’s you!” he exclaims. “I never got a chance to thank you.  I looked all over for you after the trial but you’d disappeared.”

“Yeah, sorry.  I had another job I needed to get to”  “And besides, you don’t really need to thank me.   I was just doing my job.”

“Your job?”  

“I handle copyright and trademark disputes. Normally I don’t get out this far, but I received a special request to step in and handle this one personally.”

“Well  I don’t know if you know it, but that day you saved me and my family. If you hadn’t showed up, we would have lost everything.  I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to repay you.”

“It’s OK, really.  Like I said, it’s my job.  If you like, you can pick up the tab for my coffee.  

“Yeah. Sure.  It‘s the least I can do.”

Rising from his seat the man shakes Tony‘s hand. “It’s been nice seeing you again”.  Sorry to rush, but my flight is scheduled to leave in a couple of minutes.  Thanks for the coffee and good luck with everything.”

“Uh… you’re welcome”,  Tony replies as the man heads out.   
 
As he reaches the door, Tony asks, “Hey, who asked you to help us? You said that someone had made a special request.”

“Your Mother“, the agent replies as he walks out the door.

Recovering from his shock, Tony races out of the restaurant into a pitch black, star-studded night.  The mysterious stranger is nowhere to be found.

Quietly now, amid the sound of crickets, Tony stares up into the wonder of the night sky.   His eyes fill with tears as he quietly whispers, “Thank you Mama.”

The scene then dissolves to the agent looking through a window at the Earth as it slowly revolves in space. Reversing our point of view, we pull back to reveal the man looking out the view port of a large oval-shaped space ship that begins to slowly turn toward the stars. Printed on the side of the ship we see, “Mama’s Galaxy Restaurants - fine food and good service, a tradition in seven galaxies for over a million years.”

The ship then accelerates to warp speed and vanishes, leaving us with a view of the star-studded heavens as the film ends.
 
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