How J.J. Abrams Made Me a Star Trek Fan

The legendary U.S.S. Enterprise as it's portrayed in J.J. Abrams Star Trek reboot.

This is way overdue, but since Star Trek Into Darkness was out this summer, I felt it was time to write about the new Star Trek films and how I was turned into a fan practically overnight.  Yea, I wasn't a Trekkie growing up; I was more into Star Wars during my formative years, probably because it was easier to watch three films than sit through an entire series as a restless child.  The Star Trek universe just seemed too vast; I never knew where to start.  My brothers were Trekkies growing up, so perhaps I felt I should balance things out by being a fan of the Wars.  I've seen a few stray episodes of "Next Generation" here and there and feel like I could get into that more than the original series, but for a Trek newbie like me, J.J. Abrams' films are a great place to start, appealing to both hardcore fans and newcomers alike.   
I saw Star Trek in theaters and immediately got sucked into the story.  I was familiar enough with Kirk and Spock, but didn't know a whole lot about the rest of the crew.  Because Abrams' film features an alternate version of the origin rather than being a straight retelling, I was able to dive into the story from a fresh place rather than having to familiarize myself with all the pre-established elements.  The film's alternate timeline results when, more than 100 years after the original exploits of Kirk and crew, a ship captained by a Romulan named Nero, gets pulled into a black hole created by an elderly Spock (played by the legendary Leonard Nimoy) in an attempt to consume a supernova that ends up destroying Nero's home world, Romulus. After traversing the black hole, Nero's ship emerges 129 years in the past, at which point he and his crew, furious at their planet's destruction, attack a Federation ship, the U.S.S. Kelvin, which happens to contain James T. Kirk's father and mother, who's pregnant with him.  Kirk's father sacrifices his own life to ensure his wife and unborn son escape the ship.  The untimely demise of Kirk's father is one of the first altered details of the new timeline. 
In the altered timeline, we meet a young Spock on Vulcan who feels alienated from his own people because of his half human side.  He battles to keep his emotions in check and considers following the Vulcan discipline of Kolinahr to purge all remaining emotion.  Ultimately though, Spock turns down acceptance into the Vulcan Science Academy in favor of joining Starfleet.  Meanwhile on Earth, we meet young Kirk, who is a brash and cocky daredevil even as a kid.  Once he's grown up, he's persuaded to join Starfleet where he meets Captain Pike, who challenges him to live up to his father's legacy.  Soon, we meet all the key members of the famous Enterprise crew: Lieutenant Uhura, Leonard "Bones" McCoy, Hikara Sulu and Pavel Chekov.  All the actors seem tailor made for their legendary roles and it's a thrill to see how they all meet each other in the film; Kirk starts out by repeatedly hitting on Uhura to no avail.  Kirk and Bones first meet while first entering Starfleet in a humorous scene in which a washed up McCoy runs through all the terrible things that can happen to a person in space.  The dialogue gives you a clear insight into the personalities of these famous characters.   
This version of Kirk has a chip on his shoulder because he never knew his father and therefore he gets off to a bad start with a few of the characters.  Him and Spock, for example, start out as rivals after Kirk manages to beat the "unwinnable" Kobayashi-Maru simulation, which Spock designed.  It's fascinating to see two people who are destined to be friends start out more as foes.  So, we find out that Nero and his crew, still stranded 129 years in their past, have been waiting over twenty years for the elderly Spock, who was also pulled into the hole, to emerge back in time.  Once he does, Nero captures Spock's ship and strands him on the Hoth-like planet Delta Vega to watch helplessly as Nero uses Spock's own red matter to create a black hole that consumes Vulcan.  Before this however, Nero goes on a mission of revenge against the Federation, taking out all ships except for The Enterprise.  When the Enterprise arrives at Vulcan, young Spock beams down in an attempt to retrieve as many Vulcans as he can from his quickly crumbling planet.  He manages to escape with his father and a small group of others, but is unable to beam his mother back and she falls to her death into the planet's center.   
Because he was accused of cheating on the Kobayashi exam, Kirk is suspended from duty aboard any ship, but is reluctantly snuck onto the Enterprise by Bones, who pretends that Kirk's a sick patient.  Once on board, Kirk recognizes that the ship attacking Vulcan is the same one that attacked the U.S.S. Kelvin on the day of his birth.  It's awesome to watch Kirk go from being suspended to ultimately winning the Captain's chair after Pike is taken hostage by Nero.  Although Kirk and Spock start out as rivals, with the latter ultimately marooning Kirk on Delta Vega where he meets the future Spock, they eventually work together with the rest of the crew to rescue Pike and save Earth from suffering the same fate as Vulcan.  On Delta Vega, the future Spock, who has been Kirk's lifelong friend, tells Kirk that in order to get control of his ship he must show that the younger Spock has been emotionally compromised by losing his mother and therefore is unfit for duty.  It's also on Delta Vega that we meet "Scotty", played wonderfully by Simon Pegg, who uses his future equation for trans-warp beaming to beam Kirk and himself onto the Enterprise while she's moving at light speed. 
As a fan of J.J. Abrams' work, especially Fringe, I dug the film's alternate timeline.  I imagine many diehard fans were upset at Vulcan's destruction, but I felt that it makes Spock a very sympathetic character: both the original Spock and the young Spock have to suffer the pain of watching their planet be destroyed.  In this way, Spock becomes like Superman; one of the last survivors of an endangered race.  Abrams' reimagined Star Trek is an awesome film through and through.  The effects are incredible and the story is really engaging, even for people who aren't so familiar with the world.  Even though I wasn't a big fan when I watched it, when the Enterprise is first revealed and the music triumphantly swells, I got chills looking at that beautiful ship.  What Abrams really understands and conveys is what's at the heart of Star Trek; the ability of people with vastly diverse backgrounds and points of view to find areas of common ground and work together for a common goal.  Star Trek is really about the melding of initially opposing concepts into something stronger, much like Spock's acceptance of his more emotional human side and his logical Vulcan side.  It's the harmony of diversity that's really at the core of the Star Trek universe and it's a vision of a hopeful future where people can put aside their petty differences and come together for the betterment of all people across that vast final frontier.