Image credit: ILM

Abrams may have started the production not knowing tranya from Tribbles, but he ended up a supernerd. His movie is festooned with enough Easter-egg references to classic Trek trivia to keep fansites humming for months (look carefully and you might even spot one of the aforementioned fur balls in a scene with Scotty). The set designs have all been updated in the sleek glass and white-plastic Apple Store aesthetic — the transporter room looks just like a Genius Bar — but even the sound effects and lighting techniques hark back to an earlier, simpler era. ''When Captain Pike sits in the chair on the Enterprise for the first time, there's a splash of light right across his eyes,'' Abrams says. ''They used to do that all the time on the old Trek — a splash of light across Kirk's face to heighten the drama. I did that on purpose. I wanted to show people that we weren't trying to undo Star Trek. We were embracing it.''

''The movie doesn't shatter everything you know about the show,'' says Quinto. ''It just comes at Star Trek from a different perspective. It straddles a line between giving people what they've known about these characters for 40 years and what they've wished they knew about them.''

Some viewers may find metaphors in Star Trek — there is a cataclysmic, timeline-altering disaster that Kurtzman refers to as ''the September 11th of the movie'' — but for the most part the film goes easy on the allegories. Instead, the screen is filled with eye-popping phaser battles, harrowing free-fall stunts, even a sword fight between Mr. Sulu and a Romulan thug (''That's all we know about Sulu from the TV series — he fences,'' says Cho). Pine, for one, is happy to hold off on metaphors, at least for now. ''Exploring grand social issues can wait till the next movie,'' says the actor, who, like the rest of the cast, is signed on for two more. ''The goal this time was to make a Star Trek that wasn't alienating to nonfans. We mainly wanted it to be accessible.'' Quinto agrees. ''Just the idea that people are coming together for the advancement of the human race is metaphor enough for me,'' he says.

NEXT PAGE: ''People are saying, 'Oh, Star Trek is an optimistic film for the Obama era. It's a nice idea, but we started making the movie three years ago.''