Imagine there’s no multiverse. Before 2009, that was an easy request. Although comic books and sci-fi TV had delved into parallel worlds for decades, the number of mainstream movies trafficking in alternate timelines was vanishingly small. Even when there were splits in spacetime, like in Back to the Future II, those were generally resolved by story’s end. But that all changed when the little sci-fi franchise that could, Star Trek, came roaring back onto the big screen. This J.J. Abrams flick gets a lot of credit for revitalizing blockbusters, sci-fi, and the Trek franchise, but it doesn’t get credit for normalizing the multiverse in mainstream movies.
