I think the marketing of this film has been a masterstroke. The way they set up the prescreenings, the worldwide tour, the Kuwait visit, the Austin premier, has generated enormous goodwill towards this production. The casting was a stroke of genius too. All the movie stars are in non-recurring roles. I imagine they will follow the same template for the sequel. At the same time, the cast and crew of this film have expressed enormous respect for all that has preceded them. Yes, you can point to the decidedly ungeeky proclamations that certain cast or crew haven't ever watched Star Trek. Elijah Wood evidently never read LOTR. At the same time, there are an equal, if not greater, number of cast and crew who were Trek fans all along. There's a balance between the old and the new. Also, for all the fretting over Abrams "for future fans of Star Trek" line, that's the truth, any successful Star Trek film is for future fans of Star Trek, because the existing ones are either getting older or don't have the numbers to sustain a successful franchise. Star Trek needs to be new. It needs to be relevant to young people today. Part of that relevance is going to come from forgetting what you already know about Star Trek. A case in point: Leno deriding Trek fans as pathetic losers who could only get a date with a blowup doll in his segment on the trek cologne. That attitude has to change, and Abrams and Paramount are doing their damndest to change it. I support them fully. I hope they pull it off. Appeal to new fans will appeal to critics. Goodwill towards new and existing Trek fans generates positive momentum, good reviews, and ultimately big box office numbers, which is what it's all about in the end. Make a profitable movie and have fun doing it. It seems they've accomplished the latter goal. I suspect they'll make a lot of money too.
