“Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved eight hundred lives, including your mother’s… and yours. I dare you to do better.” – Captain Christopher Pike.
Premiered: May 8th, 2009
Directed By: JJ Abrams
Written By: Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman.
Plot: In the 23rd Century, an errant Romulan ship attacks the USS Kelvin, leading to the deaths of Captain Robau and First Officer George Kirk. The latter’s death comes as a supreme sacrifice, as he manages to get his laboring wife and 800 others off the ship before crashing the ship into the Narada to ward off the attacks. Just before the ship crashes, the cries of a baby echo through the moribund bridge.
Twenty years later, a young James Tiberius Kirk has crafted a reputation as a troublemaker, albeit one whose behavior bellies a certain intelligence. Starfleet Captain Christopher Pike talks to him after he gets involved in a bar brawl, recommends that he enlists, urging Kirk to do better than his venerated late father. Concurrently, on the planet Vulcan, mega-genius Spock rejects an entry into the Vulcan Science Academy after they make a backhanded comment regarding his mother; instead, he winds up rising through Starfleet, even taking on some administrative duties.
Spock winds up meeting Kirk after the latter cheats at the Kobayashi Maru test, meant to be unwinnable. Before a verdict can be rendered after Kirk discusses the ethics of the exam, Starfleet is called to a situation on Vulcan – with a “lightning storm” slowly attacking the planet. Kirk and Spock wind up on the same ship, the USS Enterprise… and wind up facing an intellectual struggle between the two of them.
Review:
Star Trek.
Few words, combined, bring to mind such a vast science fiction franchise. The two big competitors in that regard are Doctor Who and Star Wars. From 1966-1969, The Original Series countered the fears of the Cold War by saying that, yes, there would be a brighter tomorrow where humanity comes together to search for the greater good. The series gained international popularity in syndication, thus leading to the creation of ten movies released between 1979 and 2002, as well as four other television series between 1987 and 2005. To this day, Star Trek: The Next Generation remains one of the most feted TV series of all time, and Deep Space Nine is often cited as a forerunner for the more serialized TV dramas airing today on networks such as AMC and Netflix.
That said, there was once a time when it seemed like Star Trek was going to fade into the ether. Voyager split opinion during its seven-year reign, suffering from a drift as to what the characters and mission statement should have been. Enterprise proved controversial from the word “go”, for providing an answer to much fan lore, and the early episodes were also considered weak. The second half of 2002 would provide major body blows to the franchise – Enterprise sent out some of it’s most critically derided episodes (with one in particular, “A Night In Sickbay”, said to have started a permanent rating decline), and Nemesis bombed at the box office, losing in its opening weekend to Maid in Manhattan. The UPN renewed Enterprise by the skin of their teeth in 2004, but punted the show to Friday Nights – not only the dregs of the schedule for any network, but also when the two largest markets would air Yankee and Dodgers games.
In May 2005, Enterprise faded away with an episode that made remaining Trekkies embarrassed. (A year later, the UPN was moribund.) Brannon Braga and Rick Berman left the franchise, all but disgraced in the eyes of quite a few fans.
In short, as the 40th anniversary of the debut of The Original Series approached, Star Trek appeared to be in dire straits. Concurrently, Viacom (which owned Paramount) split from CBS (which owned the Star Trek franchise). However, Paramount was able to get a deal together to develop a new film. To secure this, the company decided to draw on one of the big franchises of the 2000s – Mission: Impossible III writers Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, and JJ Abrams (who also served as director). With Kurtzman and Orci behind the computer, and Abrams in the chair, the decision was made to do a partial reboot of the franchise – bring back the characters from The Original Series, all while setting up a separate timeline.
On May 8th, 2009, the United States got to see the end result. The end product was simply called Star Trek.
A generation began anew.
And… I actually like it.
The Review Nebula 
You must be logged in to post a comment.