A Romulan travels back in time and sets out to take revenge upon Spock, Vulcan, and the Federation, in that order. His initial attack changes the timeline as we know it, giving particularly Kirk and Spock altered lives and personalities. The young crew of the Enterprise, Captained by Christopher Pike, responds to a distress call from Vulcan and ends up being the only hope to save the Federation.
Well, it is pretty. This reboot of the franchise brought in new actors and a new non-Star-Trek point of view. It gave us a petulant and illogical Spock and an immature Kirk. Pretty much everything else was borrowed from an earlier Star Trek film (and in several cases, from Star Wars films—points for working out the two most obvious cases of Star Wars invasion). We have the home world of a major enemy of The Federation destroyed (Star Trek VI). An enemy, driven insane by grief intends to avenge himself on a member of the bridge crew (Star Trek II, Nemesis). That enemy goes back in time when destroying the Federation is easier to accomplish (First Contact). He captures a captain and uses a mind altering pincer bug to force him to talk (Star Trek II). He has an unstoppable weapon that will destroy everything and plans to use it on Earth (Star Trek I, II, IV, Nemesis). The Enterprise is forced to set out with cadet crew (Star Trek II). I could go on.
What isn’t swiped plot points is fan service. The sexy green alien is one of the more blatant cases, but almost every scene has something. Sulu caries a sword… Really?
Does all that make it a bad film? No, although the nonsensical way the plot is stitched together doesn’t help (Spock maroons Kirk on a nearby planetoid that happens to be in sight of Vulcan and also happens to be where old Spock was marooned by Nero and where Scotty was stationed—ummm…Wow, that might be the definition of lazy writing), but in the end this film isn’t about sense or thought or originality. It is lowest common denominator fun. And as I will mention again a few films up this list, it is more important to get a bullseye with an easy target than to miss a harder one—less interesting, but more important. Star Trek 2009 might not have gotten that bullseye (Abrams’s love of annoying lens flairs—that make it impossible to see half of what is going on in early scenes—is enough to dock the film a few points), but it is a solid hit. It’s supposed to entertain and nothing more. It’s fast paced, occasionally funny, reasonably exciting, and, minus those lens flairs, it looks good. And if you are a fan, a little fan service is kinda nice.