(2009) Contrary to the received version of events as fans of Star Trek, the TV series, have long understood, Captain (taking command just 12 minutes prior to implosion) George Kirk, caught in a Romulan trap, orders evacuation of the USS Kelvin before crashing into the enemy's space fortress. His act of selfless courage saves the lives of 800 crewmembers, including his wife Winona and their just-born son James.

While I watched many of the episodes from the original TV series as reruns during the late '70s and later, as well as all the movies based on that series (I took almost no interest in the following generations of the franchise), I don't consider myself a Trekkie or Trekker. Nevertheless, I'm fond of Gene Roddenberry's munificent creation (a mission endeavoring on a vision of discovery for peaceful coexistence with all intelligent life throughout the universe) with its memorable characters. (One of my favorite math instructors at Northern Arizona University in the '80s had the name James Kirk.)

Similar to Daniel Craig's James Bond, revitalizing the 007 franchise, and the Sci-Fi Channel's re-imagining Battlestar Galactica, director/producer J.J. Abrams's bold, new interpretation (screenplay by Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman, also executive producers), taking us into a frontier where others feared to venture, of James Tiberius Kirk (Chris Pine), Uhura (Zoë Saldana), Dr Leonard "Bones" McCoy (Karl Urban), Sulu (John Cho), and 17-year-old Chekov (Anton Yelchin) - all sharing likenesses with the original actors - in the time before we first were introduced to them on the small screen of our television sets, they are recent graduates of the Starfleet Academy forced into service on the maiden voyage of the USS Enterprise (NCC 1701), under the command of Capt Christopher Pike (Bruce Greenwood), to save the Federation from the vengeance-obsessed Romulan (25 years in the making) Nero (Eric Bana).

They are headed to the defense of Vulcan, the planet and home of Mr Spock (Zachary Quinto), second in command; his father, as Vulcan's ambassador to Earth, mated with a human female. As a favor, Bones brings aboard Kirk (who had been grounded for misconduct - cheating on a test designed by Spock to be impossible to defeat, its intention being to induce fear in the trainee captain) as his patient. Along with their earlier contentious confrontation, Kirk and Spock further antagonize each other (not least of which involves competition for Uhura's affections), resulting in Kirk's being marooned on a frosty planet where he comes face to face with Mr Spock (Leonard Nimoy) from 120 years in the future.

What we have is an alternative history produced by Nero's returning from the future with red matter and a huge space drill with which he can destroy a planet by inducing a black hole at its core. His evil motivation, arising from the obliteration of his own home, is to have both Spocks witness the destruction of Vulcan with its 6 billion inhabitants, including his parents, followed by Earth and the other planets of the Federation.

We need not take too seriously the implausibility of the physics required for any of this, just as the original series didn't, or the myriad contradictions inherent in time travel; the screenwriters toss in enough tongue-in-cheek humor to remind us that entertainment is their primary objective, along with developing the possibility of continuing with these characters into a parallel universe of further adventures. This is especially apparent when Montgomery Scott (Simon Pegg) makes his appearance.

We are introduced to Spock and Kirk as youths. When Kirk is just an unruly kid in Iowa, hotrodding in his uncle's antique Corvette, chased by a cop on a jet-powered motorcycle, he lets the prized machine go over a precipice (reminiscent of an incident in Northern Exposure), leaping out just in time and barely grabbing hold of the cliff's edge; twice more he will experience similar treacherous moments of clinging to a surface above an abyss. That's Kirk's intuitive, headlong rush at living life on the edge in full confidence of his abilities (there must be a way out), rarely introspective or second guessing himself.

While trained (with genetic advantages) to approach all problems with rapid, analytical reasoning, keeping control of his emotions, logic-driven Spock nevertheless, at first as a half-human/half-Vulcan child and later as an adult, must learn that emotions cannot be entirely discredited, for they are the ultimate guides of wisdom, assigning value to the various paths of possibilities in ambiguous circumstances, by which we and Vulcans move toward authenticity.

In an essay about empathy, David Brooks wrote: "People without emotions cannot make sensible decisions because they don't know how much anything is worth." They are incapable of compassion or love. May the human race survive to see the era of Star Trek's future. "Live long and prosper."

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Copyright © 2009 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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