JJ Abrams pretty much said from the get go, he never really liked Star Trek as a child... which probably - somewhat perversely - made him a rather good choice for the inevitable reboot of the franchise. Why inevitable? Because Star Trek is just about the longest running sci-fi franchise, with one of the most rabid fanbases...

Which has been the problem in recent years. The TNG films especially were perceived as lengthy episode, aimed at the fanbase - rather than the actual general public. Which isn't a particularly good way to make money. Hence, Hollywood's current golden boy being given the keys to the broken franchise.

There isn't a great deal to say about the film, as it happens. It's solid and enjoyable but... it's forgettable. It skirts close to being little more than a big dumb action film but... it avoids that - not due to the idiotic story - because of the solid casting. Bones and Spock are dead on... Kirk is passable... the other characters are as transitory as they are in the series. So, it's not quite built around the pretty (if rather too frequently prone to lens flare and shaky cam) action scenes entirely. Which isn't to say Nero isn't a two dimensional non-character... because, he is. Even IF you were to read the comic that precedes the film for his background his motivation still equates to BEING INSANE.

Thin story - good characters, good action... decent film. There isn't much to say about it. It's just kinda... And that sums it up. Not QUITE big dumb action but really - not far off. Better than Lost... but so is slamming your genitals in the door.

JJ Abrams warned fans that his Star Trek would not be their Star Trek... in fact, he pretty much said he was going to take the mutilated carcasses of the franchise and play Frankenstein because THIS IS NOT A REBOOT. Which seems fairly stupid - the franchise was worn out and something entirely new may well have been to the benefit of it, rather than simply going out and making the cast younger and edgier.

Much was made of the teaser trailer released some time ago, where people are seen spot welding the Enterprise together, on the face of a planet... which - surprise! - vexed a lot of Trek fans who pointed out that we don't even weld modern ships together these days and that it's pretty stupid to build a ship on a planet... presumably because all previous instances of construction have been shown in orbit... which makes sense, given that the majority of ships in Star Trek have never shown any great affinity for landing on planets.

As one might imagine, the release of the new trailer has provoked a new round of concern and speculation. The greatest concern seems to be pretty obvious. This looks a LOT like a Star Wars trailer. A great deal of action, explosions and fisticuffs that put it more in the territory of summer blockbuster/popcorn movie than in traditional Star Trek territory.

Of course - if anything - this addresses what must be one of the main failings of the franchise to date... that they're prone to be ponderous introspection and a pretentiousness that often led them to be rather boring... only die hard Trek fans could really sit through the seemingly endless hours of tedium that are Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Even with the now infamously misleading editing of trailers, it seems unlikely that the new Trek film will have to worry about a dearth of action and in many ways, the fact that it was so easy to equate the Next Generation films with episodes was oft to their detriment - especially in terms of general appeal.

The other questionable decision is naturally the fact we have scenes with young Kirk and young Spock. No, not the 90210 aged types. We're talking Anakin podracing age. The opening shot is Kirk in a car (AN ACTUAL CAR) driving toward a cliff, before leaping out at the last minute and proclaiming his name. Little is ever really gained by showing bad ass protagonists as kids.

Terminator 2 got away with it because we'd really only HEARD about John Connor. He was never introduced as an adult character... and as a teen, he was actually pretty decent - and we're just ignoring that Sarah Connor Chronicles happened because it's canon defilement of the 1st degree.

It's not fair to judge a film on the basis of a trailer but Trek fans are already foaming at the mouth that this seems to be action, action, action. Perhaps what set Star Trek apart from much of what came before and what came after was the fact it wasn't predisposed to that. Oh, yes - even the original series had its fair share of fisticuffs and space battles but that was never the thrust of the show... and depending on what you like to believe, it was the necessity of fisticuffs and space battles that led to the prosaic, formulaic blandness of Voyager and Enterprise.

Trek fans are... often rather undiscerning - the fact some will still defend Voyager tooth and nail should be proof of that - but this seems to have irked those who are beyond the "any trek is good trek" mob. This was a fairly predictable moment from the time Abrams came on-board, he likes pretentious pseudo-intellectual stuff (just look at Lost)... which suits Trek down to a tee... but at the same time, he likes lots of big explosions and Mary Sues (just look at Alias).

What will the 11th Star Trek film be? Only time will tell... and whether it'll be a good or bad film remain to be seen... but it seems likely to be far more popcorn that Star Trek.

It seems these days that the typical way to deal with an established, popular franchise that has fallen on times, is to give it to some flavour of the month type writer/producer, who will then proceed to "make it their own"... which seems to mean pissing all over it by ignoring continuity, deliberately antagonising established fans (because who cares about them? They'll watch it if you show them paint drying) and doing what they want, regardless of how rubbish it is.

It happened to Doctor Who, it happened to Alien vs. Predator and Transformers and of course, JJ Abrams is working flat out to make sure that Trek fans would rather have a root canal than pay money to see Star Trek XI... naturally, they will but they'll be wishing it was a root canal.

Abrams doubtless thinks that he's hot stuff with the success of Lost - despite the fact that viewership is starting to drop off as the slow minded public start to realise that it'll drag on and on and then at the end, it'll all be a dream... - and MI:3, which is a bad thing. It seem as soon as people get on the Hollywood gravy train, people start sucking... Just look at Kevin Smith and M. Night Shimshamwallawallawhatavideo. Both pulled an Orson Welles and started with quite impressive films, then instantly slid into mediocrity and of course, Abrams wasn't even good to begin with.

This isn't all baseless speculation though... Instead of forging ahead with some interesting new ideas has committed himself to returning to the Kirk era AND time travel. So, boldly going where we've gone in 70+ episodes and 6 (and a bit) films have gone before. Of course, in keeping with screwing over fans, pissing over continuity and generally being unimaginative we can't have the surviving crew don corsets and shine up their Zimmer frames to star.

Nope, we need a new younger cast... that's actually fairly reasonable. The cast were making jokes about how they were past it in films over two decades ago and it was true then. However, the new cast will be playing considerably younger versions of the well known crew. Why? TIME TRAVEL!

Yes, proving how incredibly innovative he is, Abrams whips out just about the biggest sci-fi cliche - which handily gives him a level of immunity from fans complaining about continuity violations... In any event, those pesky Romulans apparently want to kill Kirk or some such and it's up to Spock to make sure that drunken, inter-species womanising and outrageous bluffing become the Star Trek way. Which leads to Old Spock and Young Spock meeting up and us getting Star Trek - the college years.

Fanboys should start putting down tarps now... because it seems certain that there will be a lot of foaming at the mouth to do in the next 12 months... You can start on this - Winona Ryder is Spock's mother. She's going to shoplift the components for him to build a time machine or something.

As if it was needed there is confirmation that the next Star Trek film is to be a great step backward. Perhaps this isn't as dire as the original concept for Star Trek XI, which was to be - apparently - set in the very near future and to not really be about space but nuclear war... or something similarly half-baked.

Of course, this was to be expected. When a director/producer is given what is generally considered to be a beloved franchise, the last thing you ever want to hear out of their mouth is the confession that they're a "big fan" or "have a lot of respect for the films". This is code for either "never seen it" or "don't care", or most likely something that amounts to the fact that their vision must be paramount above all other considerations. Continuity, fans and logic are not considerations when it comes to this vision.

While it's easy to see why Abrahms wants to go back to Kirk et al - he's got no idea what to do, they're still probably the best known Trek characters, it lets him put in younger, edgier actors like MATT DAMON - it seems to be ill conceived. If a prequel didn't work before, it seems naive to think a prequel/remake combined is going to fair any better. Not just that but you're messing around with characters that are very much identified with specific actors. Shatner's OTT hamming up, Nimoy's indifference, DeForrest Kelly the drunk... Scotty the fat bastard - these are all images that are well engrained upon the collective consciousness of Western society.

So, really there are two options available. Either try and redo it, being as true to the original as possible... which is going to be - at best, hard - or just strike out in a new direction and thus, more or less invalidate the reason for using the characters again... except if you say "this will have Kirk in it!" you can guarantee that slavering fanboys will turn out just to see that - even if they have gone "BUT IT'S NOT SHATNER" for eighteen months solid.

Not to mention the issue of the set... will things be recreated verbatim from the 1960s show? Or will we have that perverse situation of things looking more hi-tech, despite it being set before the first show of the TV series? Enterprise still looked helluva better than TOS ever did... and there's also the most pertinent question for Trek fans...

Where will this put any potential TV show? Presumably, if the film is a success - and it could go either way - it will be an incentive for either further films or continuation of the television franchise... Given the likelihood that the film will have big name actors - its seems hard to imagine a TV show containing the same cast...

All in all, this selection of premise is poor - not as bad as the uber prequel idea - and if it's thrusting big name actors into the well established roles, it's going to take a feat of supremely good writing, acting and directing to make this film come close to being a fan pleaser. Of course, the proles are who will doubtless be targeted for the commercial success of the film because, even if there is a loyal Trek following, willing to see the film several times to make it "succeed" they pale to the demographics of the many. So, don't be too surprised if you get Matt Damon or similar hamming it up in a summer popcorn movie because this could be another great step back for Star Trek... and of course, if the film doesn't break even or just scrapes it - Star Trek might well not get parole from purgatory.

Remember the "Save Enterprise?" campaign? That was kind of pathetic... anyone that actually watched Enterprise would what a bad idea that was... Although, isn't it interesting that when Rick Berman and Brannon Braga were jettisoned that the quality of the show mysteriously improved substantially? The number of times T'Pol got a rub down dropped too... anyway, when the show stopped just shy of 100 episodes, it seemed as if Trek was in for a bit of a rest... which seems only fair given the fact it's been working since the late 80s without one.

Of course, just as Paramount was assuring us that all the sets had been burned down and that Threshold had ensured Braga would be launched into space for his sins... we hear that J.J. Abrams is going to test his mettle on a new Trek film. Best known for his shows, Alias and Lost could he be the man to revitalise the fallen franchise?

The short answer is no. While he's not said anything concrete about the plot it seems likely that there is something to the Star Trek Academy rumours... and that might just be horrible. You don't butter up fans as much as he's done unless you're planning on kicking them in the genitals and what could be more enraging to fans than a young Kirk and Spock, raiding the girl's dorms at the Academy.

It really hasn't been long enough... and while there are surely blubbering fanboys - aren't there always? - who pray at the altar of William Shatner every day that there will be a return to the screen, it seems as if the public will probably be jaded about the film... Nemesis was a bit of a disaster at the box office and pretty much everything after TNG was on a downward spiral of ratings... by the end of Enterprise, only three people and a cat were watching... which is a shame, seeing Jonathan Frakes look as if he'd been living on paint stripper for a month was funny... but if Enterprise showed us anything, it's that you can't move forward by looking backwards. An obvious lesson but Abrams may not have learned it.