A car is moving fast through the desert. It’s being chased by a motorcycle. The car is heading towards a cliff. The driver can’t stop in time and jumps out of the car barely making it out. The driver is a young boy. The motorcyclist is driving a futuristic speeder. The young boy announces to the cyclist that he is James Tiberius Kirk. So opens the new trailer for next year’s relaunch of the Star Trek franchise.

I wouldn’t call myself a “Trekker” or a “Trekkie” (I don’t know which is the preferred term these days), but I have seen a ton of Star Trek over the years.

The new trailer shows the building of the new Enterprise; Uhura taking her shirt off; a battle in space, and a young Spock showing emotion. Looks good, but will it deliver?  I remember seeing the trailer for “Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace” and thinking, man that was awesome… this movie is going to rock… and we all know how that turned out.

J.J. Abrams has been given the controls to revamp and restart the Star Trek franchise. After the disappointing bomb that was “Star Trek: Nemesis” in 2002, and the cancellation of “Enterprise,” the Trek franchise was all but dead. However a few years back, Paramount decided to relaunch the franchise and gave the LOST co-creator the opportunity to direct a new Star Trek.  This new film will have the original crew of the Enterprise with new actors cast in the different roles. 

The mainstream knows and remembers Kirk and his crew when they think of Star Trek.  In order for Star Trek to live on in film and/or in television, we need the mainstream audience; we need the non-Trekker/Trekkie.  Without them, it’s just the hard-core audience and that doesn’t equal big bucks to studios.  So the return of the original crew with new actors was fine with me.

From the trailer, we see that everyone is wearing the original uniforms from the 1960’s show.  However, the look of the Enterprise is very different.  It’s understandable that Abrams would update the bridge from what it looked like in the 60’s, but I would have still kept a little bit of the original look of the bridge.  This one is completely different.

Chris Pine is playing the young James Kirk.  He’s his own man in this role.  He’s not doing a William Shatner impersonation, which is good.  Zachary Quinto of “Heroes” is the young Spock.  He looks incredibly similar to Leonard Nimoy when he played the role in the 60’s.  Simon Pegg who plays Scotty is shown briefly and his accent sounds good.  The trailer ends with Erica Bana who plays the main villian Nero saying “The wait is over.”  Well, not quite yet, we still have about six months until the film comes out, but this trailer does make the wait a bit easier as I am happy with what I see so far.

I look forward to seeing these characters again - even though they are played by different people.  As long time fans, we do get the treat of Leonard Nimoy reprising his role as an older Spock who from what we know of the plot,  will be traveling back in time to before Kirk took command of the Enterprise.  The character of Captain Christopher Pike also makes an appearance in the film.  It will be cool to see that Star Trek history of James Kirk taking command of the Enterprise.

I hope Abrams has done a good job.  LOST is one of my all-time favorite shows and what he has done with that show is fantastic.  I hope this is not the last time we see the original crew of the starship Enterprise. 

You can view the movie trailer here!