When JJ Abrams began rebooting Star Trek with a fresh cast and crew of the Enterprise in 2009, many hardcore Trekkers complained that the new movies lacked the Apollo-era optimism and vision of space adventure as one giant cosmic morality tale that, in their view, had made the long-running saga stand out from its peers. Gone were slow-paced allegories playing on contemporary western culture, its triumphs and its horrors. In were hectic space battles, time travel, a strange obsession with motorbikes and plenty of fisticuffs.
What many of these critics failed to notice, was that this dichotomy between Star Trek as blockbuster space opera and thinking-man’s sci-fi had been going on for at least three decades before Abrams even got his hand on the Enterprise’s tiller. And to this day, the series’ greatest movie, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, only succeeded because it broke all the rules expected from an episode of Gene Roddenberry’s creation.
