Even Han would be impressed by Chris Pine's Kirk

Star Trek
Directed by: JJ Abrams
Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto. John Cho, Bruce Greenwood, Winona Ryder, Eric Bana
Released by: Paramount

My first cinematic memory is of being convinced that the spotlights which shone upon the 20th Century Fox logo were actually lightsabers. Indeed, in my solipsistic pre-school existence, it was as if cinema had been invented for the sole purpose of providing a medium through which I could watch Star Wars.

I needn’t run through the things that made Star Wars cool because: a) this isn’t a Kevin Smith script; and b) they are self-evident. Needless to say, Han Solo rocked my world, and I rocked to pieces many small wooden chairs which, for around two hours most weekends, doubled as an X-Wing.

Now, I’m not going to get into the whole Star Wars: Yay!, Star Trek: Boo! (inverse as required) argument, as it’s rather dull and geeky. Simply, Star Trek was off my radar. My parents watched the films occasionally, and they thought I might like Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, sweetly unaware that interstellar adventure and whales are a confusing and unnecessary pairing in a six-year-old’s mind.

Of course, these days, the word ‘prequel’ is enough to send any self-respecting Star Wars fan into a gooey state of muted resignation. However, in the continued fallout from George Lucas’s foray into cinematic incest, an unexpected positive has emerged: Star Trek no longer feels like cheating. With the kind of cautious curiosity exhibited by small animals, Star Wars fans worldwide are surely skulking into cineplexes to see how things might have been – and with The Empire Strikes Back on standby in the DVD player at home, just in case things didn’t work out.

The obvious advantage possessed by the Star Trek prequel over those other ones is that the script was written by actual writers.  And confessed Trekkies (or Trekkers, whatever) to boot. In other words, they have good working knowledge of what a fan might expect from a prequel. Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman have created an entirely new alternate reality (via some sneaky wormholes, of course) for the stories of Kirk and co. to be framed within.

You see, a rather grumpy Romulan (Eric Bana) has just seen his home planet destroyed by an expanding supernova. For this he blames Spock, and the duelling pair are sucked into the eventuating black hole caused by the dying star, propelling them and their crafts some 153 years into the past. Coincidentally, amid the infinitesimal nature of time and space, the Romulan ship finds itself in the general vicinity of the USS Kelvin, a Federation Starship. Cue some intergalactic pyrotechnics and the world of James Tiberius Kirk plots a different course and is changed forever. For many, many sequels.

Director JJ Abrams makes the most of the narrative freedom with which he’s provided. The four-decade-old characters are at once familiar and novel – re-imagined as opposed to imitated. Most notably, Chris Pine’s Kirk deliberately and cleverly avoids William Shatner’s distinctive enunciation, a lesson in retrospect for Ewan McGregor. There’s also more than a nod to Han Solo in his reckless bravado, first witnessed as a young Jim careens across the American desert in a vintage Corvette (apparently, the fossil fuel crisis has been overstated). Though I’m unsure if Han would ever have indulged in the kind of intergalactic equal opportunity as Kirk, as exhibited via a true-to-form encounter with a green-skinned babe.

At the other end of the personality spectrum is Zachary Quinto’s Spock, whose internal Human-Vulcan struggle steers the philosophical undercurrent – a nod, albeit a gentle one, to the thoughtfulness of creator Gene Roddenberry’s original vision. While his inner turmoil, grounded in the battle between emotion and logic, is a tad more nuanced than the dark side / light side dichotomy, Star Trek also treats bursts of righteous anger as something to be avoided.

But it’s the film’s sheer romp that appeals most. Just as the crew of the Enterprise excitedly embark on their first adventure, Abrams is able to translate the wide-eyed enthusiasm to his audience. Indeed, he has assured that the franchise will live long and prosper, having snagged a swathe of Trek-converts in the process. Myself included.