This week, the new Star Trek, directed by J.J. Abrams, comes out on DVD. It has garnered overwhelming praise from Star Trek fans and newcomers alike for its fast-paced, slick action sequences and generally fun approach. Of course, some believe that it pandered to the lowest common denominator and fundamentally killed everything that Gene Roddenberry’s vision for the future was about.

I had a great time watching this movie in theaters, but at the same time, I knew that it wasn’t, as promos were claiming, “my father’s Star Trek.” It was something very different. My father would agree. But if it wasn’t his, whose was it? I mean, I watched the same ones he did, so technically, wasn’t it mine also? Is the new one not my Star Trek either? What are you trying to tell me, J.J.?

But I digress. J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek has been referred to by a term that has fallen into vogue over the past couple of years to describe a trend that arguably began with the success of Batman Begins in 2005. That term is “reboot.” It’s an interesting word to use, complete with all sorts of different meanings.

It eschews negative connotations of terms like sequel, prequel or remake. A sequel is typically a bad photocopy of a predecessor in an attempt to make more money off of an audience. A prequel is the same thing as a sequel, except it’s set before the events of the initial films because original actors cannot come back, or a franchise has been written into a corner from which it cannot go forward. A remake, in the eyes of the audience, is just a concession because nobody could be bothered with to come up with an original idea.

But a reboot? Well, that’s a good thing. If you reboot a broken computer, it will work correctly, right? It’s like a recharge, a shot in the arm, some new blood. A remake sounds like a redo. You screwed it up the first time, and by the grace of God you’re getting another chance. A reboot makes it sound like if not for a few problems, everything you need is already there. Reboots usually refer to the start of an intended franchise, because, honestly, how can you remake an entire franchise? That would require remaking every movie in it, and that is just ridiculous.

And so, for the past several years, we have been getting reboots instead of remakes. We have had movies like the fantastic Batman Begins, the James Bond reboot Casino Royale, and now Star Trek, the middling (depending on who you ask) Superman Returns, and a spate of slasher films produced by Michael Bay, who, with his production company Platinum Dunes, seems to be on a one-man mission to reboot every horror property he can get his hands on (Friday the 13th, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the upcoming Nightmare on Elm Street). The trend has even continued to television, with shows like the recent “Battlestar Galactica,” which has the distinction of being even more popular and successful than the movie it is based on.

The Bond and Batman reboots are the best examples of how this approach to franchise can work really well. Both franchises have established characters with rich histories to draw from, but, for some reason or another, their franchises entered a period of creative atrophy (the Bond films became bloated self-parodies) or mismanagement (Joel Schumacher’s direction and Akiva Goldsman’s writing took the franchise started by the morose Tim Burton to the far reaches of camp).

Casino Royale took the formerly pun-spouting, smirking superhero and turned him into the super-serious, Jason Bourne-type bulldozer.
Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins was the first Batman film to focus on the psychology of its title character, divulging what might compel a man to bring justice to the world while dressed up as a winged, nocturnal mammal.

Star Trek had become bloated by the weight of its own continuity, as well as a complete lack of creative blood. (Insurrection. Nemesis. Enterprise. Yeah … ) Abrams’ approach may not have been what everyone wanted, but it is what every franchise needs when it gets its reboot: A return to basics. It took Star Trek back to at least one aspect that everyone agreed worked: an ensemble adventure in space. All the high-minded science fiction doesn’t work if it isn’t interesting to watch. Now that Abrams has won an audience, he will work on that for the next film.

Star Trek was far from perfect, with one-dimensional characters, plot contrivances, an ill-conceived romance and a massive restructuring of continuity that may or may not be a good thing. Only time will tell if it can prove itself. But the movie has Kirk, Spock, McCoy and the rest of the crew, the Enterprise and the fate of the galaxy in the balance. They’re not back; they never really left. Just like Bond and Batman. All it needed was a reboot.