I had really big hopes for this film. I'm a fan of J.J. Abrams but not a huge fan. I watch Lost and Fringe but for his projects that's about it for me. I was hoping that somehow Abrams could bring back some of the sense of adventure that the original series had and that the later series lost.

For fans, you either love this movie or absolutely hate it.

I, for one, absolutely loved it.

It does have its problems but it's the kick in the pants the franchise needed. After Roddenberry died the series stagnated and became a bit boring. The people that took charge after Roddenberry ruined the franchise for me.

So Abrams came in with new people and set about to reboot the franchise. Rebooting a franchise seems to be popular these days but these guys did it in a way that fits.

Time travel.

Ah yes, the solution to almost every painted-in-the-corner story problem in science fiction. "We'll just travel back in time and change things!" This has been done so many times throughout the different Star Trek shows/movies that it isn't even outlandish to suggest using the device as a way to reboot the franchise but actually keep it in touch with the original stories.

Some Romulans accidentally send themselves back in time and seriously screw up everything. Kirk's dad dies just after he's born and he grows up useless. A nice scene with Captain Pike urges him to join Starfleet. It's a nice scene because Pike was the Captain of the Enterprise before Kirk in the original timeline and to use him in this way is a nice nod to canon. Plus I love this line:

"Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved 800 lives, including your mothers and yours. I dare you to do better."

So Kirk joins Star Fleet and thus the adventure begins. Each of the characters are introduced into the story from where they were in the original timeline. Keep in mind that Kirk gets on the Enterprise almost a decade early so the characters are a tad different than they would be as set in the original show. So they blast around the galaxy in an attempt to keep the bad guy from exacting his revenge for an event that hasn't even happened yet.

It's time travel, it gets complicated.

But it's Star Trek and you can guess the outcome. In fact, even if you aren't a fan you can probably guess the outcome. There's only a few serious changes to the timeline overall so there aren't too many surprises.

What I liked:

There are lots of nods to canon and insider jokes that only fans of the franchise would understand. But I think that most people who were not fans will understand what's going on, for the most part. The movie was done very well in terms of bringing in new fans.

The fact that they went with the idea that time travel does not create paradoxes that destroy the universe. You are essentially free to do whatever you want and ignore continuity. I've always preferred this type of theory of time travel.

The red shirt dies. Have to be a fan to understand.

The inside of the Enterprise actually feels like a functional ship and not a series of endless hallways.

My problems:

Somehow I think they went too far in introducing every character from the original series. A lot of their introductions felt rushed and not enough screen time to explain their significance. Non-fans might have troubles keeping up with the intros.

The bad guy, Nero, has the most complicated revenge scheme in Star Trek history. It took decades to complete and in the end he only barely partially succeeded. In everything else he failed horribly. And the terrible event in the future that caused his desire for revenge is still going to happen because he didn't bother to take the steps to prevent it since he had like a hundred years to do something about it. If he had prevented the event then he wouldn't even need to bother with the revenge plot in the first place.

I don't like that they put Pike in a wheelchair despite it being canon. It would have been nice to see more of him in the next movie, I liked the character.

If only a drop of the red stuff, that you plan to use only once, is needed to create a black hole that can destroy a world then why do you need to create fifty gallons of it?

Pike makes Spock Captain and promotes Kirk to First Officer. Wouldn't that piss off the guy that was third in command before Kirk came along? When Spock became Captain could he not just demote Kirk?

My understanding of beaming someone onto a ship in warp required being beamed from another ship in warp at a similar velocity. I remember nothing of beaming someone from a planet to a ship in warp that is light years away.

I think the bridge's technology looked way too advanced as compared to the rest of the ship. And what's with the big freaking window that barely separates the bridge crew from the vacuum of space? That seems a might dangerous to me but it does seem standard to the franchise.

Kirk's defeating the Kobayashi Maru test was too comical. Based on the stories from canon I was expecting something more.

Anyway.

Don't be alarmed that my problems outnumber the things I liked. I really liked the movie but I have a knack for pointing out problems in movies, especially science fiction.

This was an excellent reboot of the series and now that they got the introductions out of the way we can get a high adventure tale in space.

Just like the idea of the original series.