Star Trek (2009)

“This is a radical rethink which may lose some purists... but there’s no denying the love and respect with which it has been mounted.” Kim Newman, Sight & Sound, July 2009 J.J. Abrams made his name as creator of the TV series Alias (2001-06) and Lost (2004-10), before turning to features with Mission Impossible III (2005) and this Star Trek reboot – both themselves originally based on small-screen sources. The film introduces us to a group of young Starfleet Academy cadets that includes Spock (Zachary Quinto) and James T. Kirk (Chris Pine), ensuring that the film is  accessible to franchise newcomers while inviting veterans to smile knowingly at the future that awaits them. The interstellar and interpersonal trials the characters meet on the way are visualised with the kind of swooping, glossy visuals that Star Trek’s original creator Gene Roddenberry probably only saw in his dreams. Before Abrams’s 2009 reboot, ten previous Star Trek feature films were released between Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) and Star Trek: Nemesis (2002).