After writing my entry earlier I was in a very Trekkie mood, so I decided to go see the new film, Star Trek Beyond. Until now, I must admit I’ve been rather resistant to the reboots; the change of style and the creation of a new timeline put me off. Like many fans, I wanted Trek to continue as I knew it. Yet having seen many videos arguing for the validity of the new films, and pointing out the ties between them and the original series, I thought I’d go give it a watch.

I’m glad I did. I should not have been so dismissive. It may not have been the Trek of my childhood, but as others have pointed out it wasn’t supposed to be. These films do not try to compete with or replace what went before; they pay homage to it, play with it, and explore it. I had thought Abrams was hijacking Star Trek, but he is just taking it in a new direction, and in so doing he breathes new life into it. Rejecting the new films because they differ from the old is like rejecting Moore’s Bond because he differ’s from Connery’s. There is room for both. At the same time, this new film is tied intimately to the old trek: there are countless references, countless tributes, including one towards the end, involving a photo found in Ambassador Spock’s belongings, which brought a tear to my eye.

This is not, then, the trek I grew up with, but it is trek. It’s makers clearly know and love what went before, but they clearly realised the franchise would stagnate if it was just allowed to continue in the same vein. In creating this alternative timeline, they have given themselves room to explore new paths, to go back and reexamine old characters, without blotting out what went before. Kirk, Spock and McCoy may be played by different actors, for example, but there is still the dynamic we love between them; to see that once more, not replaced but echoed and commemorated, is truly touching, especially given two of the three original actors are no longer with us. This film, then, is a wonderful revival which both takes one back to a franchise I love and also extends and refreshes it. I might be glad that the new series will be based in the original timeline (the one where Vulcan was not destroyed) but if these films continue down their own path, that’s cool too; there’s room for both. Star Trek is far from dead: it has now been expanded upon and refreshed, but it remains the same group of characters and stories, the same optimistic vision of the future, that I, like so many others, fell in love with.