Something happened around the time of - and this is arguable - Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. That was the last movie, where the franchise took a dark turn, and went from PG to PG-13.

In general, audiences liked the change, as between Jar Jar Binks and the mindless dialogue between Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman, the series had gotten really BLAND. It needed a little sizzle. It needed a little more adrenaline apart from yet-another-space-battle.

Hollywood took notice, and the relative success of RotS was definitely an inspiration for ‘Batman Begins‘ - a re-booting of the franchise to create the best film possible, kids be damned. No more compromises.

And the trend continued - Casino Royale, The Dark Knight, Quantum Of Solace - these movies shed the baggage and expectations of their respective franchises to give the creators freedom to re-invent. Thankfully, this is resulting in deeper characters, serialization, and the room to go into dark places traditionally avoided.

Before the first Tim Burton Batman movie came out, I had truly hoped it would be more like Batman Begins then what was released (which was ridiculous). If you ever read a truly great Batman novel, like Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, you realize that for a series based on a comic book, its been comparatively shallow up until recently.

And now, its clear that the reins of Star Trek have been handed over to JJ Abrahms to do the same. Although I am not a big fan of Abrahm’s ‘fantastical storylines leading nowhere’ technique, from the looks of this trailer, it seems he has a firm grasp of what his expectations were for this film - the ‘Batman Begins‘ of Star Treks….