Star Trek · reception & legacy

2009 · J.J. Abrams

How Star Trek has been received, argued over, and remembered.

The arc

A genuine event in summer 2009 — rapturous reviews, a franchise everyone had written off suddenly cool again. Today it's remembered as the gold standard of the reboot era, even as the Kelvin timeline it launched quietly stalled out after two sequels.

What's debated

The forever-war it started: it's a great movie, but is it *Star Trek* — a thrilling space adventure, or Star Wars wearing a Starfleet uniform?

Its footprint

This is the film that made 'lens flare' a punchline — Abrams' blown-out anamorphic streaks became such a meme that he later joked he'd gone overboard with them. The Beastie Boys' 'Sabotage' needle drop became a signature too, recurring across the Kelvin films.

Where it stands

A canon-climbing crowd-pleaser and the reboot other reboots get measured against — the rare franchise revival cinephiles admit actually worked.

★ Did you know? The USS Kelvin — and the entire 'Kelvin timeline' named after it — is a tribute to J.J. Abrams' grandfather, Harry Kelvin, whose name Abrams has tucked into nearly all of his projects.

Named by the director

Influences J.J. Abrams has publicly named — the director's own word, distinct from the inferred lines of influence.

Star Wars (1977) — Abrams openly admitted he was a Star Wars kid rather than a Trek fan, and said he set out to give Star Trek that same swashbuckling, adventure-first energy.