Written by Steve 'Frosty' Weintraub

While many Trekkies might take offense at what I’m about to write….I think most of us can agree that Star Trek was never as cool as Star Wars. Sure, Star Trek had fans. In fact, Trek has millions of fans. But Trek was never as cool as Star Wars. At least it never was to me.

But I can honestly say after watching about 15 minutes of J.J. Abrams upcoming Star Trek movie…I think it’s all about to change. By sometime next summer, it is entirely possible Star Trek might be cooler than Star Wars. And I have no problem with it.

But let me take a few steps back.

Earlier tonight, Paramount invited a lot of people to watch some footage from their upcoming Star Trek movie. In attendance were all the normal journalists I see everyday, as well as tons of other people. The event was held in the big theater on the Paramount lot and it was packed pretty tight.

When the event started, J.J. Abrams took the stage and told us how he got involved and what directing Trek meant to him. He told us a great story about how he saw the very first Star Trek movie on the Paramount lot due to his dad working there and how it meant a great deal to him to be on the lot and showing the footage.

After talking for awhile and introducing the cast that was in attendance (Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, John Cho, Bruce Greenwood, Chris Hemsworth), we were shown the trailer that was just released and four scenes from the movie.

Since many other websites have done an amazing job summarizing the footage that was shown, I’ll instead focus on my impressions of the footage in a very spoiler free way.

It was fucking awesome.

I’ve been a Star Trek fan for most of my life. I remember watching the original series as a kid when it aired on some uhf channel with my dad. It’s a strong memory and I’ve loved Trek since then but I’ve never been a nerd about it. I don’t care that Kirk said something in one episode that was contradicted by another episode. I love the concept of Trek and I accept that mistakes have been made along the way. So for me, I welcomed with open arms the reboot of the Trek universe with J.J. Abrams at the helm.

And when we got to see that first trailer a few days ago…you could say I got excited. After all, we’ve never had a Trek movie with a real budget and the footage in the trailer made it seem like they’d spent some money. And I can tell you after watching about 15 minutes tonight, you haven’t seen anything yet. Since I want to be spoiler free….let me just say we saw an insane outer space sequence with amazing effects and killer action. It was everything I hoped for plus a lot more.

Trust me, if you thought the trailer looked cool….get ready to lose your mind. You’ve never seen a Trek movie with effects like these. I don’t know what the final budget was…but I can tell you they spent a truck load of money on it. All the scenes had amazing production value, the action sequences were insane, and I left the theater utterly blown away by what I saw.

I never expected to get a new Star Trek movie with state of the art everything…but J.J. Abrams and all the people that helped him make this movie have done what I never thought possible, I think they’ve made a Star Trek movie that’s going to be cool. I think people have no idea what they’re in for, and the folks that walk into a theater with an open mind and are willing to see other people play these classic characters are going to leave feeling like they got their money’s worth and will be clamoring for more.

I actually left Paramount tonight having to see another movie….and about half way through the other film I started thinking about the Trek footage. All I wanted to do was rewatch it and study the scenes for all the little things I missed.

While I have no idea how the final film is going to turn out and what the die hard fans are going to say, I walked away extremely impressed and wanting more. I also left the theater thinking about what direction the sequel will go in after this film sets everything up. The possibilities are endless and I can’t wait.