Star Trek [2009] is the eleventh Star Trek film, and it's the first film to take place in the so-called “Kelvin Timeline”. This is an alternate/separate timeline from the Trek that we know, which we'll call the “Prime Timeline”. In the year 2387 of the Prime Timeline (which comes after the events of TNG, DS9, VOY, Lower Decks, and Prodigy), the Romulan star goes supernova. Spock had attempted to prevent the crisis, but when he failed, his ship – and another ship piloted by a vengeful Romulan named Nero – are thrown over 100 years into the past. Nero's ship, the Narada, arrives first, in the year 2233. The USS Kelvin, carrying George Kirk and his pregnant wife, engages the Narada and is destroyed. George sacrifices himself so that his wife and newborn son, James, can make it out alive.

The arrival of the Narada and the destruction of the USS Kelvin are what set this alternate timeline in motion. The Kelvin Timeline is named after the destroyed Starfleet ship, but you may also hear these events referred to as “The Narada Incursion”. So, this alternate timeline explains why events don't unfold the way they did in the Prime Timeline. Here, the fates of Kirk, Spock, and the rest of the crew are very different from their Prime Timeline counterparts.

This film tells the story of a version of Kirk that grew up without a father, joining Starfleet in an attempt to get his life back together. In his third year at the academy, he must face the nemesis that was responsible for his father's death: Nero.

Let me tell you just a little bit about my mindspace when this film first came out. This film was the first new thing to bear the Star Trek name since the series Star Trek: Enterprise wrapped four years prior. Enterprise was airing as I was transitioning from high school to college, so I had other things to worry about. Plus, Enterprise was so different from the TNG, DS9, and VOY that I was used to. So, for me, this film was more like the first new Trek since Star Trek: Nemesis, six and a half years prior. After such a long break, you'd think I'd be thrilled for some new content, but I knew that this film was going to take place in an alternate timeline and that it was going to be newer, younger... hipper... so I wasn't really excited about it, at all. No, the Star Trek I grew up on was dead and gone, and I had become an adult since then, so it was time for me to grow up and move on.

Did I see it in theaters, anyway? Of course I did! And you know what? I rather enjoyed it! But my enjoyment came with the caveat that I didn't really believe that it was “true” Star Trek, since it was an entirely different timeline. Still, it was a lot of fun. There was action, comedy, space ships... lens flares. I was a little skeptical about Chris Pine, at first, but at one point he smiled in a semi-lecherous way and I thought, “Yep, that's Kirk.” And sure, it's fun to see our heroes in a different timeline so we can ask all the “what ifs?” about what would have happened if things had been just a little different. Also, this movie manages to cast and write for younger versions of all our heroes without resorting too much into a young-adult melodrama where no one can control their emotions or libidos. And then the movie ended, and I left the theater, and I moved on with my life.

Now that I have 15 years to look back on it, I can actually better appreciate what it was trying to do. It was probably exactly what the franchise needed at the time – a sci-fi space adventure, but still somehow a little more main stream and accessible to the general public. By placing it in an alternate timeline, they made it easy for people who weren't familiar with Star Trek to enjoy it, and they made it so long-time fans couldn't get too upset about any continuity failures. Still, there were some shortcomings. Specifically, the movie's desire to portray this Kirk as an undisciplined young man who frequently gets in trouble with the law because he didn't have a father growing up gets in the way of the need to have Kirk in the captain's chair where he belongs. And so a fantastic series of events must occur to fast-track him to that chair, to the point that it becomes unbelievable. Also, the villain needs a little work. He's a bit generic and a bit overly-angry without quite enough background. I get it, I'd be upset if Earth were blown up, but we don't get quite enough explanation for Nero's role. I think this could have been improved if they had spent a little more time in the mind-meld/flashback scene – if we could have seen Nero before the catastrophe, and somehow witnessed his transition from “average blue-collar man making an honest living” to “enraged and disturbed madman hellbent on seeking revenge on the one person who was trying to save the planet, but failed”.

👍 Opening Scene — Yeah, I would say that was an effectively emotional start to the film.

👎 Extremely Contrived Circumstances — Cadets Kirk, McCoy, and Uhura all had to get into positions of power for this movie to work, right? So Uhura ends up at the bridge communications station because they needed someone to discern the Romulan language from the Vulcan language, but the lieutenant she relieves never comes back. The ship's Chief Medical Officer is killed, and somehow McCoy becomes acting CMO because there were no other more-senior officers? He even wears commander's bars on his sleeves – that's quite a promotion! And Pike promotes Kirk to first officer because... well, the story wouldn't work otherwise!

👍 Casting — Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto fulfill their legendary roles of Kirk and Spock quite well.

👎 LENS FLARE! — This film was made fun of, quite frequently, for the overuse of lens flare. It is especially unbearable on the almost all-white Enterprise bridge that was apparently designed by Apple®.

🤷‍♂️ Nero — He's just a blue-collar worker earning an honest living who got really angry and stayed really angry. And he has an entire crew of really loyal people who just waited around with him for 25 years to help seek revenge on Spock. You'd think a lot of them might have just left and tried to pick up the pieces of their lives. As the primary antagonist, Nero needed more screen-time and backstory.

👍 Leonard Nimoy as Spock — Our only real tie to the Prime Timeline comes in the form of the original Spock, played by Leonard Nimoy. This is a great way to sort of reboot the story while giving it a strong connection to the original.

👎 Promoted to Captain! — The problem is that they wanted to establish THIS Kirk as a troubled youth, but by the end of the movie, they kind of needed him to be the new, permanent captain of the Enterprise. And so, after this disaster, the powers at Starfleet just promote Kirk from a cadet – someone who hasn't even graduated from the academy – past five officer ranks and straight to captain, and they just give him the Enterprise! Sorry, I can't forgive this, it's just too insane.