I suppose it goes without saying that franchise reboots are the thing of the moment—James Bond, Superman, Transformers, and however many other examples that can probably trace their inspiration (if not their exemplars of financial success) back to the Star Wars prequels and that execrable Lost in Space movie. Some, like the Hitch Hiker's Guide movie, were stupid and lost the plot (in that particular case by making the mistake of focusing on the plot rather than the humor). Others, like Lord of the Rings, have been so epic and successful as to banish all previous attempts permanently to the realm of parody.
And when it comes to Star Trek, there's Battlestar Galactica to be measured against—clearly as high a bar as the Chronicles of Narnia filmmakers had hovering over them when they kept explicitly comparing their as-yet-unreleased effort to Jackson's opus. J.J. Abrams has got to know the level of expectation people will have for him in this effort, and it's got to be as epic and as believable and inevitable in its self-confidence as BSG is, and as Nemesis was not.
Real people, with real motivations and real character. People you can imagine actually standing there in the same room with you and delivering their lines as though they came up with them themselves to fit the moment, without having had to memorize or recite anything. Lines that don't feel like they're distilled and winnowed from idealized Shakespearean archetypes intoning pronouncements with all the spontaneity and humanity of HAL. Not to mention ships that get scorched and dented, technology that could actually happen, physics that pertains to the universe we know and understand, and—if we're lucky—a renewed sense that this stuff really could happen, that it's not just an elaborate set and a bunch of fanciful CG that exists only to realize some 70s sci-fi artist's pipe-dream antiseptic fantasy world. (Who is it I'm thinking of? His name is on the tip of my tongue, and it was on posters all over Caltech. Anyone have a clue? I think his name started with N...) (Syd Mead! Gah! Can't believe I blanked on that.)
Will that work for Trek? From the look of this, it sure couldn't hurt. And anyway, that's the mood we appear to be in these days when it comes to our franchise reboots. It'll be difficult to imagine how well it fits until we actually see it completed. Whether it's good doesn't appear to be the issue; whether it's Trek seems to be the question.
UPDATE: I understand there's also a franchise reboot of this old Saturday Morning favorite coming to the big screen this weekend. I hope they don't ruin it by making it all serious and existential and sardonic and stuff.