They boldly go, but not where they haven’t been before.

Expectations for a new Star Trek film have not been this high since the release of Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979, the first since the TV series’ cancellation a decade earlier. That film certainly laid bare Gene Roddenberry’s ambitions, since he was no longer constrained by TV convention and budget. Viewers, meanwhile, struggle to stay awake during drawn-out effects sequences and exposition.

Most viewers prefer 1982’s Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, a rousing action adventure and big hit. Elements from Khan have been revisited in nearly every Star Trek theatre outing up to and including 2002’s Star Trek: Nemesis. The vengeful villain, the heroic sacrifice, and the mix of campy humour and oblivious melodrama: present and accounted for. However, these elements alone do not stack up to a successful movie, since Nemesis was a flop with fans and a non-entity to the general public.

Director J.J. Abrams (creator of TV’s Lost and Fringe) moves eons away from Nemesis’s ageing Next Generation cast, grim look, and limp writing, by going back in time to Captain Kirk’s youth, in 2009’s Star Trek.

The Original Series characters are back, played by energetic young actors. Chris Pine is Captain Kirk, who takes Shatner’s swagger and bravado but not his hammier aspects. Zachary Quinto (Sylar on TV’s Heroes) is Spock, capturing the Vulcan’s poise and inner conflict. Karl Urban uncannily channels DeForst Kelley as cranky Dr. McCoy, while Simon Pegg is basically himself while tackling Scotty. Uhura (Zoey Saldana), Sulu (John Cho), and Chekhov (Anton Yelchin) are on their way to becoming fleshed-out characters, something they have never been.

Rating:

Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban

Directed By: J.J. Abrams

Written by: Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci

After the opening scenes in which a mysterious ship attacks Kirk’s father’s vessel, and we glimpse both Kirk and Spock’s childhoods, we meet up with our cadets at Starfleet Academy. All are summoned to the newly commissioned flagship the U.S.S. Enterprise to confront an interplanetary threat from the Romulan Nero (Eric Bana). Lively chases, tense drama, time travel, and dubious science follow.

Lest anything transpiring on screen jar the nitpicking fans, thinking ” It didn’t happen like that!”, Star Trek (2009) is set in an alternate time line, wherein events occurred differently than in The Original Series and the films that followed. “Old Spock” (Leonard Nimoy), who travels back in time, is from the time line we recall. This is a very Star Trek spin on retroactive continuity.

It’s puzzling that given the freedom to do just about anything with the source material, Abrams and his production crew, well, don’t. Batman Begins (2005) and Casino Royale (2005) - doubtless models for a viable franchise relaunch - were unafraid to make surface-level changes (Batman trains with ninjas, a blond Bond) since these changes led to better final products. (Martial arts training suits Bruce Wayne, Daniel Craig is a superior 007.)

Star Trek (2009), by contrast, celebrates surfaces, with visual cues, parroted lines, and recreations of events already familiar to fans, like Spock’s childhood bullying and Kirk’s Kobiyashi Maru test.

Abrams fails to strip the layers off Star Trek and arrive at its core: telling thoughtful science fiction stories using the Enterprise as a framing device. The best Original Series episodes, such as The Devil in the Dark and City on the Edge of Forever, take the living-room familiarity of the Enterprise bridge and contrast it with something strange and new. The Motion Picture, for all its flaws, remains the best because Kirk and Co. truly encounter the unknown.

The five Original Series films that followed were insular and character-driven, riffing on established situations and personalities. They are safe, satisfying dramas befitting a crew heading into their twilight years, and an audience reaching middle age.

2009’s Star Trek, as a prequel, lacks the back story that, say, The Wrath of Khan or 1992’s The Undiscovered Country draw from. Nonetheless, the producers assume that the characters and setting can carry the film, with only decorative plot elements in place.

Admittedly, the characters (all pop culture archetypes) and the setting (the woolly Alpha Quadrant and its anomalies) do carry the film as far as it need go for assured box office success. But it’s not anywhere they - and longtime viewers - haven’t previously been.

Still, in the optimistic spirit of the franchise, one hopes that Star Trek (2009) is the launching pad for further films,  showcasing thoughtful science fiction stories, in the near future.