The new Star Trek was surprisingly good. The bad scenes from the first trailer were nothing like the movie. I came out of it wanting to watch the next installment, and wishing I had some of the original series on DVD at home. This was one of the most fun movies I’ve seen in a long time.

They really honored the original actors. Those actors defined the roles; the new actors are skilled enough to live within that definition without becoming cardboard or stereotyped. It was almost scintillating watching these characters develop into the familiar roles I saw as a kid.

Karl Urban’s Dr. McCoy is probably the most brilliant portrayal; he’s an entirely natural curmudgeon throughout the show. Chris Pine, well, at one point in the movie Pine must be channeling Shatner. It’s one of the scenes that made me want to go right back in and watch the show again, or at least go home and watch the original series.

It’s clearly being set up for sequels, and they’re not limiting themselves to the original series. They’ve blatantly announced that nothing is canon. Not the original series or anything that came after it. The entire plot sets that up, and various folks make sure to repeat it during the movie (Uhura and Spock most obviously). With the odd exception of Montgomery Scott, the change doesn’t require major coincidences to ensure that the Enterprise’s crew remains intact.

As it turns out, I won’t know when they’re departing from canon; I watched the show religiously as a kid, but rarely saw the endings. We had a very strict supper time, and it came at the halfway mark through the reruns I watched.