star trek filmreihe die kelvin zeitachse

Star Trek: Kelvin Timeline explained

We've remodulated our tricorders to help you make sense of the Star Trek Kelvin timeline from the recent Star Trek movies.

Our Star Trek: Kelvin Timeline explained article is here to tell Spock from Spock.

How do you reboot a franchise that’s been around more than 50 years old and whose fan base is, shall we say, passionate about the accuracy of its canon? If you wipe the slate completely clean and start afresh, you lose the benefit of five decades of lore from which to draw inspiration and characters. If you keep the continuity, you’re shackled to decades of details from which you can’t escape. What can you do? If you’re Star Trek, you create the Kelvin Timeline.

The Kelvin timeline, or "alternate universe Trek", creates a new environment in which the events of the more recent Star Trek films (Star Trek, Into Darkness, Beyond) won’t contradict those that came before. It’s also how Spock ended up meeting himself. 

If you want to rewatch the new Star Trek movies, our Star Trek streaming guide will show you where to watch them all online. And if you're curious to see how the new movies stack up against the classics, check out our Star Trek movies, ranked worst to best article. Now, let's dive into the Star Trek Kelvin timeline.

Event One: Nero Travels Through Time 

According to Star Trek (2009), the planet Romulus was destroyed by a supernova in the year 2387. Ambassador Spock attempted to use "red matter", a substance so powerful that a single drop can destroy a planet, to save Romulus by destroying the supernova. He did indeed manage to destroy the supernova, but not in time to prevent the planet’s destruction. To make matters worse, both his ship, the experimental Jellyfish, and the Romulan mining ship Narada were pulled into the black hole’s wake and sent hurtling backwards in time. Spock emerged in 2258 while the Romulans landed in 2233. 

The Narada’s captain, Nero decides to use this opportunity to take out his grief on the organization he holds responsible for the ruin of Romulus and, by extension, the death of his family: the Federation. One of his first acts is to destroy the U.S.S. Kelvin, captained heroically to the very last minute by George Kirk, who lives just long enough to name his newborn son James.

And thus begins the Kelvin timeline. 

Spock, Meet Spock 

Jim Kirk grows up as a rebellious punk constantly trying to outrun his father’s long shadow. Christopher Pike sees something of value in him and urges him to join Starfleet, which he eventually does. Through a contrivance of events, he ends up aboard the Enterprise along with Spock, Bones McCoy, Uhura, and the rest of the Original Series crew. 

It’s now 2258 and Ambassador Spock emerges from the black hole just in time to be scooped up by Nero, who keeps the Jellyfish — and its cache of red matter — for himself while abandoning Spock on the frozen planet of Delta Vega. He wants Spock to bear witness as the Narada drills a hole into the center of Vulcan and releases red matter at the planet’s core. The Enterprise tries to stop him and fails, though they do manage to rescue Spock’s father, Sarek. Nero is eventually defeated, and Spock's young and old take a moment to reflect on their coexistence

Enter Khan, Exit Kirk 

Nero’s too-close-to-success-for-comfort attempt to destroy Earth shifts Starfleet’s ethos from one of discovery to one of protection. They still want to "seek out new life forms," but only to find out how dangerous they are. In Into Darkness (2013), Alexander Marcus, leader of the secretive Section 31, finds the SS Botany Bay, stuffed to the rafters full of augmented humans in cryostasis. He wakes one of them up — Khan Noonien Singh — and forces him to build weapons that Earth could use to defend itself against alien threats. 

Huge surprise, Khan betrays Marcus, exacting vengeance on various Starfleet targets. In doing so, he kills Kirk’s father figure Christopher Pike. Marcus tries to leverage Kirk’s hot-headedness by sending Kirk after Khan, who has fled to the Klingon homeworld of Kronos. He figures Kirk will kill, not capture, Khan, thus removing a threat and evidence of Marcus’ secret project.

Kirk goes off script and keeps Khan alive, much to the chagrin of Admiral Marcus, who tries to blow them all the heck up. The sacrifice that leads to victory happens just as in the original, except in the Kelvin timeline it’s Kirk who gives his life to save his crew. In the prime timeline, Genesis brought Spock back to life, but here it’s Khan’s blood that gets the job done.

That bit of ugliness behind them, the Enterprise receives its five-year-mission. You know the one.

Farewell to Spock 

In Star Trek: Beyond (2016), the Enterprise discovers the USS Franklin, a Federation ship that had been lost for decades. Here’s what’s fun about that: the Kelvin timeline doesn’t start until 2233. The Franklin disappeared before that, so it exists in both timelines, which means a different version of it could theoretically pop up in Star Trek media that doesn’t adhere to the Kelvin timeline. 

In Kelvin, however, the Franklin is half-buried after crashing into the surface of the planet Altamid. Few of its former crew remain, and those that do are unrecognizable, having been transformed by technology they’ve used to keep themselves alive. The Franklin’s captain, Balthazar Edison, now known as Krall, rejects Starfleet ideals of peace. He’s a soldier and he believes that he should be allowed to do what he does best. He returns to starbase Yorktown with the goal of commandeering it to launch an attack on the Federation, but first he’ll have to kill every living thing in residence. Kirk et al save the day, of course. 

This is also the point at which Ambassador Spock leaves the timeline due to the passing of the peerless Leonard Nimoy. Kelvin Spock had been planning to rejoin what remains of the Vulcan people, but instead chooses to honor his other self by remaining in Starfleet.

Crossover With the Prime Timeline 

Keeping track of the Kelvin timeline is important because there are still Star Trek properties operating in the prime timeline, such as Picard . However, there has been a little bit of crossover between the two. Picard takes place long after the titular character has quit Starfleet, and early on we discover the destruction of Romulus was why. 

Picard wanted to launch a rescue mission to save as many Romulans as possible before the detonation of the supernova, but Starfleet pushed back. He went forward with it anyway, but when his ships were decimated by a fleet of rogue synths, Starfleet gave up all rescue efforts. Picard resigned in disgust. Everything that happens after that — and therefore everything taking place in the show — is part of the prime timeline, despite being kicked off by Event One.

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Susan Arendt is a freelance writer, editor, and consultant living in Burleson, TX. She's a huge sci-fi TV and movie buff, and will talk your Vulcan ears off about Star Trek. You can find more of her work at Wired, IGN, Polygon, or look for her on Twitter: @SusanArendt. Be prepared to see too many pictures of her dogs.

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Star Trek: A Watching & Reading Guide to the Kelvin Timeline

What's the best chronological order to watch and read the Star Trek Kelvin timeline stories in? Here's our suggestion...

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This article comes from Den of Geek UK .

Over the years, Star Trek has presented us with many alternative timelines and parallel dimensions, but none have become so prominent as the Kelvin Timeline. Home to alternative versions of the U.S.S. Enterprise crew of Captain James T. Kirk, science officer Mr. Spock, chief medical officer Dr. Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy, communications officer Nyota Uhura, chief engineer Montgomery ‘Scotty’ Scott, Helmsman Hikaru Sulu, and Navigator Pavel Chekov.

You will probably know the Kelvin Timeline from the 2009 movie Star Trek , and its sequels Star Trek Into Darkness and Star Trek Beyond . However, there is more to this alternate reality than just those movies.

Here we will give you an unofficial guide to the Kelvin Timeline, consisting of movies, TV series, video games, and comics. “Punch it!”

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1. Star Trek: Enterprise

Medium: TV show, seasons 1 to 4 (2001-2005)

The adventures of the Enterprise NX-01 crew, led by Captain Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula), take place between the years 2151 and 2155. Or rather, those are the adventures we see in seasons 1 to 4, as the show was cancelled before it could cover topics like the Earth-Romulan War, the origin of the Borg Queen, and the formation of the Federation. The creation of the Kelvin Timeline takes place 78 years later, in 2233, and therefore makes Star Trek: Enterprise the only TV series set in both timelines.

In Star Trek Into Darkness , a model of the NX-01 Enterprise can be seen in Admiral Markus’ collection. Video footage in Star Trek Beyond shows us that the crew on the U.S.S. Franklin wore the same uniforms as the NX-01 Enterprise crew. And the Franklin’s Captain, Balthazar M. Edison, is implied to have been part of the MACO attachment of the NX-01 Enterprise during Earth’s conflict with the Xindi.

What one must wonder is how the Borg that crashed in the Arctic after the Prime Timeline’s time travel movie Star Trek: First Contact exactly shows up in the episode “Regeneration.” Does that mean the Kelvin Timeline has no further effect on the past of the Prime Timeline, or that The Next Generation era turns out (mostly) the same in the Kelvin Timeline? We can only wait to see how the Kelvin Timeline develops.

The final episode of the show, “These Are the Voyages … ,”is only partially canon to the Kelvin Timeline, due to it basically being a holodeck episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation set during its season 7 episode “The Pegasus.” The historical parts involving the Enterprise NX-01 crew did happen, but everything involving Star Trek: The Next Generation does not.

2. Star Trek: Countdown

Medium: comic (2009)

This comic from IDW Publishing written by Mike Johnson and Tim Jones, after a story by movie scribes Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, further connects the Prime Timeline with the Kelvin Timeline and gives more motivation to movie antagonist Nero. The story leads up to the events in Star Trek , but is set in the Prime Timeline eight years after the events of the movie Star Trek: Nemesis in 2387, and it picks up some threads from Star Trek: The Next Generation ’s “Unification” two-parter. It furthermore shows where The Next Generation crew ended up since.

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Romulus, and the rest of the galaxy, is in danger of a massively destructive supernova. Spock, now ambassador on Romulus, tells the Romulan Senate of the threat and proposes the use of the Vulcan substance called “red matter” as a solution, which causes quite a stir. With a ship called Jellyfish, designed by Geordi La Forge, Spock attempts to use the red matter to create a singularity to absorb the supernova. Unfortunately, this comes too late for Romulus and the planet is destroyed. This leads to the crew of the mining ship Narada and its Captain Nero to seek revenge on Ambassador Spock and follow him through the singularity and into the past.

The destruction of Romulus eventually leads to the Prime Timeline events in the MMORPG videogame Star Trek Online . However, the canon status of that game’s story can be overwritten by potential future post- Star Trek: Nemesis projects if the power that be choose to do so.

Just recently, Eaglemoss reprinted Star Trek: Countdown as the first hardcover paperback volume in their Star Trek graphic novel collection, with a bonus classic –1960s comic story “Planet of No Return.”

3. Star Trek

Medium: movie (2009)

Directed by J.J. Abrams and written by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, the story starts on the U.S.S. Kelvin in 2233. The encounter between the Romulan ship Narada emerging from the singularity and the Kelvin causes a diversion of the Prime Timeline and the creation of the Kelvin Timeline. After this, the story picks up in 2255 when Captain Christopher Pike convinces James T. Kirk to enlist in Starfleet. Three years later, in 2258, the Narada and its Captain Nero show up again to continue their vengeance for the destruction of Romulus, and threaten the Federation.

The Kelvin incident causes a number of diversions from the Prime Timeline. For example, James T. Kirk’s father, George Kirk, dies saving the Kelvin escape shuttles from the Narada, while his wife, Winona, gives birth to James T. Kirk on one of the shuttles. In the Prime Timeline, Kirk was born on Earth in Ohio.

Another difference of note in the Kelvin Timeline is an earlier born Pavel Chekov. In the Prime Timeline, Chekov was born in 2245, while in the Kelvin Timeline he was born in 2241. A change that was probably made because Chekov would otherwise be a 13-year-old during the events of Star Trek . Former Enterprise Captain Christopher Pike also goes through a number of changes that arguably benefit him, as the events of Star Trek: The Original Series episode “The Cage” most likely do not occur.

The biggest change might be to the Enterprise herself. The interior of the ship is a lot different from what we saw in The Original Series . Most notably is the engineering section, which is humongous when compared to all others in Star Trek shows or movies – in fact it’s actually the Budweiser Brewery in Los Angeles. The ship’s measurements are also different. The Prime Timeline Constitution-class Enterprise is 288.6 meters in length, while the Galaxy-class Enterprise-D is 641 meters in length, but both are topped by the Kelvin Timeline Constitution-class Enterprise that has a length of 1,200 meters, according to the 2009 reference book Star Trek – The Art of The Film . However, the Enterprise we see in the Kelvin Timeline movies is likely not the counterpart of the Prime Timeline Enterprise. More on that later when we talk about the comic Star Trek: Countdown to Darkness .

IDW also adapted the movie into a six-issue comic, if you’d rather keep on reading.

There is also a tie-in videogame called Star Trek D·A·C , an arcade style top-down shooter. The “D·A·C” in the title stands for the game modes in the game: deathmatch, assault, and conquest.

4. Star Trek: Nero

This four-issue comic from IDW written again by Mike Johnson and Tim Jones, after a story by movie scribes Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, takes place during Star Trek . It follows Nero and his Narada crew between the moment they emerge from the singularity and their second appearance in the movie. The comic tells us what they did in those years. Actually, the comic takes a deleted scene of Nero on a Klingon prison planet and expands upon it. It’s a shame that scene was cut from the movie.

It might be best to read this comic after seeing Star Trek , as it’s quite spoiler heavy. Repeat viewers might find added motivation to Nero’s actions in the movie.

5. Star Trek, Vol. 1

Medium: comic, issues 1 to 4 (2011)

Overseen by writer/producer Roberto Orci and written by Mike Johnson, the Star Trek comic from IDW gives us Kelvin Timeline versions of Prime Timeline Star Trek: The Original Series stories. In this first volume, we get two stories set after Star Trek . The first is “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” which was  The Original Series ‘ the second pilot episode after “The Cage.” The second story is “The Galileo Seven,” which is a season 1 episode.

The comic contradicts Star Trek Into Darkness a bit, as in the movie Kirk says he didn’t lose any crew members during his first year as captain.

6. Star Trek, Vol. 2

Medium: comic, issues 5 to 8 (2011)

The second volume tells a Kelvin version of The Original Series ’s “Operation – Annihilate!,” the season 1 finale. This version of the story gives us flashbacks to just after young Kirk crashed the Corvette in the movie. The comic makes it clear that, unlike what the credits of Star Trek told us, the owner of the Corvette was not Kirk’s stepfather but his maternal uncle, Frank. Frank has a live-action appearance in a deleted scene of the movie.

The second story, called “Vulcan’s Vengeance,” is the first story not to adapt an Original Series story. However, according to writer Mike Johnson, the story is to be seen as the Kelvin Timeline’s answer to The Original Series ’s “Balance of Terror.” In the story, a group of rogue Vulcans want to take revenge on the Romulan Empire after Nero’s deeds in Star Trek . Spock attempts to infiltrate, but gets a nasty surprise.

7. Star Trek, Vol. 3

Medium: comic, issues 9 to 12 (2012)

Volume 3 starts with “The Return of the Archons,” an adaptation of the season 1 episode of The Original Series . In it the Enterprise gets a lead on the U.S.S. Archon, a starship that disappeared a century earlier.

The next story had to happen at some point. It’s a Kelvin Timeline version of The Original Series  season 2 episode “The Trouble with Tribbles.” In the story, called “The Truth About Tribbles,” Scotty has found an ideal pet for his cousin Chris, a furry little animal called a Tribble. It’s only after Scotty has teleported the pet Tribble to his cousin on Earth that the Enterprise’s crew discovers the unfortunate side effect of two Tribbles in one room.

The stories of Volume 1 , Volume 2 , and Volume 3 are also collected in Star Trek: New Adventures, Vol. 1 .

8. Star Trek, Vol. 4

Medium: comic, issues 13 to 16 (2012)

IDW’s fourth volume presents us with three stories. The first is “Hendorff” about the life of red shirt security officer Hendorff, which you might better know by his Kirk given nickname “Cupcake.” In the story, Hendorff muses about the Kelvin version of events of The Original Series  season 2 episode “The Apple.”

The second story is called “Keenser’s Story” and tells us how he ended up as Scotty’s sidekick.

The third story, “Mirrored,” is the Kelvin Timeline version of The Original Series season 2 episode “Mirror, Mirror.” In it Bones and Scotty have a discussion about alternate timelines. Following that we are transported to a Mirror Kelvin Timeline where there is no Federation of Planets but a Terran Empire, and where Mirror Spock is captain of the ISS Enterprise. Mirror Kirk, however, plans his revenge on Mirror Spock.

9. Star Trek, Vol. 5

Medium: comic, issues 17 to 20 (2013)

It’s flashback time in this fifth volume of IDW’s comic. In “Bones,” written by Mike Johnson and F. Leonard Johnson, we learn how Dr. Leonard McCoy ended up in that shuttle Kirk boards early on in Star Trek . In “The Voice of Falling Star,” written by Ryan Parrott, we discover more about Uhura and her first meeting with Spock. Then, in “Scotty,” we see how a young Montgomery Scott found his interest in engineering. And finally, in “Red Level Down,” it’s revealed that Sulu and Chekov’s lives were intertwined since their time at Starfleet Academy.

10. Star Trek

Medium: video game (2013)

In April 2013, Paramount Digital Entertainment and Namco Bandai published Star Trek , a video game developed by Digital Extremes for PC, Xbox 360, and Playstation 3. The game stars the likenesses and voice talents of the cast of the movies. With a story by Marianne Krawczyk, with input from movie scribes Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, Damon Lindelof, and comic writer Mike Johnson. It’s set between the comic Star Trek, Vol. 5 and the movie Star Trek Into Darkness , about a year after Star Trek in 2259. The Enterprise encounters a group of Vulcan scientists who want to create a new Vulcan home planet. They however open a rip in space, prompting a Gorn invasion.

The story’s canon status is in dispute. While Krawczyk’s story had input from the Star Trek movie scribes, and Senior Vice President of Paramount Pictures and producer on the game Brian Miller said the story was set in the Kelvin Timeline canon, Roberto Orci later said it was not canon. Probably because the game was panned by critics. Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness director J.J. Abrams said he was “emotionally hurt” by the game’s poor quality and reviews and that it hurt Star Trek Into Darkness by being released just before it. Nevertheless, in 2013, the 24th issue of IDW’s canon Star Trek comic reveals the story of the video game to be canon.

11. Star Trek: Countdown to Darkness

Medium: comic (2013)

IDW’s four-issue prelude to the movie Star Trek Into Darkness , written by Mike Johnson, after a story by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, isn’t as heavily involved with the plot of the movie as Star Trek: Countdown was with Star Trek ’s. The story of the comic chronicles the “Mudd incident” that is mentioned in Star Trek Into Darkness and explains how they got that ship they use to go to Qo’noS. But more importantly, we are introduced to the Kelvin Timeline version of Captain Robert April, who in the Prime Timeline was the captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise before Captain Pike and Captain Kirk. In the Kelvin Timeline, this is still true. How is that possible, as the U.S.S. Enterprise was brand new in Star Trek ? Well, April was the captain of a U.S.S. Enterprise before the U.S.S. Enterprise Kirk is the captain of. Yes, in the Kelvin timeline there is an Enterprise between the NX-01 Enterprise and the U.S.S. Enterprise Kirk helms.

Interestingly, the way the comic portrays April’s Enterprise is more reminiscent to the Enterprise we saw in The Original Series . The comic also tells us April’s Enterprise was used before the Kelvin Timeline was created. This could mean that April’s Enterprise was the Kelvin Timeline counterpart to the Prime Timeline’s Enterprise and not the one we see in the movies. Why isn’t Kirk’s Enterprise not called the Enterprise-A then? Theorize in the comments section!

12. Star Trek Into Darkness

Medium: movie (2013)

Again directed by J.J. Abrams, and written by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and Damon Lindelof. It’s now 2259, a year after the events in Star Trek , and we meet the Enterprise crew on the primitive planet Niburu. Captain Kirk and his crew violate the Prime Directive when saving the native tribes people from an impending volcanic eruption. Back on Earth this leads to a demotion for Kirk by a disappointed Admiral Pike. However, when rogue Starfleet officer John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch) attacks a Starfleet summit, Kirk and his crew is sent to apprehend him. This leads to revelations of the dark side of Starfleet with which Star Trek: Deep Space Nine fans are familiar with, and a Kelvin Timeline retelling of the movie Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan .

Paramount Pictures and production company Bad Robot went to great lengths to “cloak” the true name of Cumberbatch’s character. They redubbed promotional scenes, and actors had a hard time talking around it in press interviews, often going to answers like “Cumberbatch plays a character who has previously appeared in Star Trek canon.” This isn’t untrue, as Lieutenant Harrison was indeed a character in The Original Series , appearing in season 1 episodes “Charlie X,” “The Galileo Seven,” “Arena,” “The Return of the Archons,” and “Operation – Annihilate!”

When Kirk and company visit Klingon home planet Qo’noS, something very interesting happens. Qo’noS’ moon Praxis is already destroyed. This might have enormous repercussions for the Kelvin Timeline, as in the Prime Timeline the Klingons where forced to peace talks after the moon blew up, as seen in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country . In Star Trek Into Darkness , the destruction of Praxis isn’t seen as something that will halt the Klingons, meaning that those peace talks with the Federation might not occur.

Keep an eye out for a Star Wars easter egg around the one hour and seventeen minutes mark, as astromech droid R2-D2 flies by.

The U.S.S. Vengeance is said to be twice the size of the U.S.S. Enterprise. Which is enormous, as according to the 2009 reference book Star Trek – The Art of The Film the Enterprise is 1,200 meters in length, meaning that the Vengeance would be roughly 2,400 metres in length! It has to be said that there have been a number of contradicting measurements given for the Enterprise’s size, but still, that would mean the ship is still a lot bigger than the Prime Timeline’s U.S.S. Enterprise-E which is 685 metres.

To depict the engineering section, the L.A. Budweiser Brewery was revisited, but also the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, which is used as the Enterprise’s warp core.

While this was the first Star Trek movie in 3D, certain scenes where shot in the IMAX format. These scenes have had a bumpy road getting to home media. At firstthe IMAX version of the movie, which removes the black bars on the top and bottom of your screen, was only available on iTunes. Eventually this was fixed with the Blu-ray release of Star Trek: The Compendium , a collection of both Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness . But this release doesn’t have the 3D version of Star Trek Into Darkness . The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray of Star Trek Into Darkness does include the IMAX scenes, but also lacks a 3D version.

13. Star Trek: Khan

Medium: comic (2013, 2014)

This IDW five-issue series tells the story of the Kelvin Timeline’s Khan Noonien Singh before and after Star Trek Into Darkness . As we see Khan during the Eugenics Wars, this means this part of his story is set in the Prime Timeline. When Khan is awakened, he is the Kelvin Timeline version, and we see how he got on before the events of Star Trek Into Darkness . Most importantly, this comic explains how Khan goes from being a Sikh, as portrayed by Ricardo Montalban in the Prime Timeline, to the very English Benedict Cumberbatch in the Kelvin Timeline. Something that probably would have been better addressed in the movie.

14. Star Trek, Vol. 6: After Darkness

Medium: comic, issues 21 to 24 (2013)

Volume 6 of the Star Trek comic picks up after   Star Trek Into Darkness , which ended in 2260. The U.S.S. Enterprise is in preparation to embark on a five-year mission into unknown space. Doctor Carol Marcus has joined the crew, and Spock has come under the influence of the Vulcan mating condition known as “Pon Farr.” This calls for a detour to New Vulcan, where Spock’s girlfriend Uhura finds a nasty surprise waiting. Meanwhile, the Klingons are very much not amused by Kirk’s little visit to Qo’noS, and Section 31 is looking to partner up to get their revenge.

The other story in this volume involves the Gorn, and confirms that the story of the Star Trek video game is to be considered canon.

The stories of Star Trek Volume 6 , together with Volume 4 and Volume 5 , are also collected in Star Trek: New Adventures, Vol. 2 , which does not include Star Trek: Countdown to Darkness or Star Trek: Khan .

15. Star Trek, Vol. 7: The Khitomer Conflict

Medium: comic, issues 25 to 28 (2013)

The Enterprise is about to embark on the five-year mission into unknown space, picking up the last new crew members at a starbase, including, to the surprise of Hikaru Sulu, engineering officer Yuki Sulu, his younger sister.

On the planet Khitomer, a new Klingon colony is being set up. However, the colony is soon destroyed by Romulan warships who have acquired some technology from a third party. The Enterprise gets involved and clashes with Klingon ships that have an eerie resemblance to Nero’s Nerada.

Yuki Sulu is a new character that hasn’t appeared before in the Prime Timeline that we could find. It is unknown if her existence is caused by the creation of the Kelvin Timeline or that she just was never mentioned in the Prime Timeline.

You might remember the planet Khitomer from Prime Timeline movie Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country .

16. Star Trek, Vol. 8

Medium: comic, issues 29 to 34 (2014)

Volume 8 features three stories. In the first story, “Parallel Lives,” we follow a mission on the U.S.S. Enterprise helmed by Captain Jane Tiberius Kirk. Yes, Jane Kirk. This is a parallel universe to the Kelvin Timeline where the same things happened but everyone is gender swapped. This means that most of the main characters are now female. The story also explores whether Kirk’s contact with Khan’s blood will have repercussions in the future. Eventually, this gender-swapped crew encounters another Enterprise – the Enterprise of Captain James Tiberius Kirk.

In Star Trek Into Darkness , you might have spotted the cyborg-looking crew member on the bridge. This is Starfleet’s first and only Humanoid Mainframe Interface, Science Officer 0718. Where did he come from all of a sudden? “I, Enterprise” explains.

In “Lost Apollo,” the Enterprise’s away team gets stuck on a planet where they find a connection to NASA’s Apollo program.

The stories of Star Trek Volume 7 and Volume 8 are also collected in Star Trek: New Adventures, Vol. 3 .

17. Star Trek, Vol. 9: The Q Gambit

Medium: comic, issues 35 to 40 (2014, 2015)

This story has a lot of connections to The Next Generation era. We return to the Prime Timeline post- Star Trek: Countdown . Q visits Ambassador Jean-Luc Picard on the U.S.S. Enterprise-E. Here Q informs Picard that Spock survived and that his actions created the Kelvin Timeline. Before Q leaves, he tells Picard that Spock’s actions may have saved the Prime Timeline but might have doomed the future of the Kelvin Timeline. Then Q departs to visit the Kelvin Timeline U.S.S. Enterprise, where he takes Kirk on a trip to the Kelvin version of The Next Generation era.

18. Star Trek, Vol. 10

Medium: comic, issues 41 to 45 (2015)

In “Behemoth,” the Enterprise encounters its first alien lifeform in unknown space in a damaged ship. This unknown alien might be their only hope to stop a big threat coming their way.

In “Eurydice,” directly after the events of “Behemoth,” the Enterprise crew find themselves in the unknown space of the Delta Quadrant. Decades of travel away from home and with a low energy supply, they seemingly find help back to Federation space from female alien Eurydice.

19. Star Trek, Vol. 11

Medium: comic, issues 46 to 49 (2015)

Having found a way to get back to Federation space, tensions rise among the crew when the Enterprise gets stuck in a pocket of interphase, a state in which time and space cease to exist. Then the Enterprise gets stuck in “The Tholian Webs.” This story is a Kelvin reimagining of The Original Series  season 3 episode “The Tholian Web.”

Seeing the leadership potential in Lieutenant Sulu, Captain Kirk gives him command over an away team in “Deity.” On the planet, Sulu’s team encounter the native population during a ritual. When their deity shows up, Sulu’s team and the Enterprise have a clash with the Prime Directive.

The stories of Star Trek Volume 9: The Q Gambit , Volume 10 , and Volume 11 are also collected in Star Trek: New Adventures, Vol. 4 .

20. Star Trek: Starfleet Academy

Medium: comic (2015, 2016)

In 2258, the U.S.S. Enterprise crew are cadets at Starfleet Academy. When Cadet Uhura picks up a distress signal from the U.S.S. Slayton, she calls in some help from the other members of the would-be crew. However, when she gets close to the origin of the signal, Uhura gets stonewalled from further investigation, and the trail goes cold.

Three years later, in 2261, Vulcan Cadet T’laan wants to leave Starfleet Academy as she feels out of place. Her professor persuades her to stay to compete in the Starfleet Academy team in the Centennial Competition between academies from throughout the Federation, commemorating the 100th anniversary of Starfleet Academy. She joins a team consisting of the Andorian Shev, the Monchezkin K’bentayr, and the humans Lucia Gonzales and Grace Chen. During the competition this team also comes across the distress signal of the U.S.S. Slayton and start their own investigation.

21. Star Trek, Vol. 12

Medium: comic, issues 50 to 54 (2015, 2016)

“Live Evil” finds its inspiration in The Original Series season 2 episode “Mirror, Mirror.” When the Enterprise gets caught in an ion storm everything seems normal afterwards, until the Enterprise encounters a planet that hails them as the Imperial flagship. When Kirk leads an away team to the surface, they encounter no other than Khan Noonien Singh, man of peace.

Remember Uhura’s Orion roommate at Starfleet Academy, Gaila, with whom Kirk had a fling in Star Trek ? She is the central character in “Reunion.” When the Enterprise rendezvous with the U.S.S. Tereshkova, Gaila visits her red shirt brother Kai on the Enterprise. All seems fine until Gaila and Kai’s past comes knocking.

22. Star Trek, Vol. 13

Medium: comic, issues 55 to 60 (2016)

“Legacy of Spock: celebrates both the 50th anniversary of Star Trek as well as the late Leonard Nimoy. Set after Prime Spock attended the promotion of James T. Kirk to captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise, he intends to join the remainder of the Vulcan species. However, Spock’s father, Sarek, warns him that he should prepare for a cold greeting. The Vulcans want to resettle on the planet Ceti Alpha V, which causes Spock to speak up, as he very well knows that this planet soon will be a desolate place, as Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan showed us. Meanwhile, Romulan elements see this as the opportune moment to snuff out the Vulcans…

The series finale of the ongoing Star Trek comic is “Connection.” In this story, both the Kelvin Timeline Enterprise crew and the Prime Timeline Enterprise crew encounter the same anomaly. This causes the minds of crewmembers to swap bodies. The only solution is for both crews to work together in both timelines.

23. Star Trek: Manifest Destiny

Medium: comic (2016)

This four-issue story, written by Mike Johnson and Ryan Parrott, is the final one before  Star Trek Beyond . The Enterprise encounters a rogue and very aggressive Klingon faction. The Enterprise is on red alert as the Klingons attempt to board the ship. If this situation isn’t defused quickly, war with the Klingon Empire is a high possibility.

24. Star Trek Beyond

Medium: movie (2016)

In 2263, after almost three years into the USS Enterprise’s five-year mission, the Enterprise visits the Federation Starbase Yorktown. When an escape pod is found drifting at a nearby nebula, the Enterprise investigates. The pod’s occupant, Kalara, claims her ship is stranded on the planet Altamid, located past the dangerous and unexplored nebula. When the Enterprise travels to the planet, they are greeted by a powerful, hostile force.

Unlike the previous two movies, Star Trek Beyond is directed by Justin Lin. Writing duties also changed, as Simon Pegg co-wrote the movie with Doug Jung. While Pegg reprises the role of Scotty, Jung also has a role in the movie. He plays Sulu’s husband, Ben, whom we meet on the Starbase Yorktown along with their daughter. While their daughter remains unnamed in the movie, it is possible that she is the Kelvin Timeline version of Demora Sulu, who we saw in the Prime Timeline movie Star Trek: Generations .

There is a black lining to the movie, as two stars from the series died before release. Leonard Nimoy fell into a coma on February 25, 2015, and died February 27, 2015, at the age of 83 of complications from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Star Trek Beyond was dedicated to Nimoy.

Anton Yelchin died in June 2016, at the age of just 27. Star Trek Beyond was the first project of his that was released posthumously, and one of a number of projects dedicated to him. An “in memoriam” was included in Star Trek issue 60.

Released in the year of Star Trek ’s 50th Anniversary, there are multiple hints to the past of the franchise. The movie starts on the 966th day of the U.S.S. Enterprise’s five-year mission, a reference to 1966, the year that Star Trek: The Original Series first premiered on television screens. It also means the five-year mission is almost three years underway, which might be a reference to the three live-action seasons the show got. In the movie, Kirk says that the mission has begun to feel “episodic” – a reference to the episodic nature of The Original Series . Throughout the movie, you will see exactly 50 different new alien makeups, which was rewarded with a Oscar nomination for Best Makeup.

The passing of Leonard Nimoy is addressed in the movie, as Spock learns of the news. Among Prime Spock’s possessions is a picture of the Prime Timeline Enterprise crew. The U.S.S. Franklin and its crew are not only a call back to the Star Trek: Enterprise era, but the Franklin’s registry number NX-326 is also a reference to Leonard Nimoy’s birthday of March 26th. When Kirk asks Sulu if he can fly the Franklin, he responds with “Are you kidding me?” The line is delivered with the same expression and tone as George Takei’s Sulu in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country . The name Franklin is also a reference to director Justin Lin’s father, Frank Lin. On the dedication plaque, there is a little bit of space left between “Frank” and “Lin.”

While we are on the subject of Lin’s family, his son, Oqwe Lin, is briefly seen as a green alien child when the Enterprise enters the Starbase Yorktown. The name “Yorktown” is also a reference, as Gene Roddenberry’s early script treatments for The Original Series used the name “Yorktown” instead of “Enterprise” for the name of the starship.

When Scotty discusses the theories around the U.S.S. Franklin’s disappearance, one is a “giant green space hand,” a reference to The Original Series season 2 episode “Who Mourns for Adonais?” The hand can be briefly seen during the credits.

When the Enterprise crew disembarks on Starbase Yorktown, you can hear the Starbase’s communication system call out the Federation starship NCC-2893. This is the registry number of the U.S.S. Stargazer, the starship Star Trek: The Next Generation ’s Jean-Luc Picard once commanded before the Enterprise-D. At one point in the movie, Kirk says, “I ripped my shirt again.” This is a reference to the many times Kirk ripped his shirt in The Original Series . At the end of the movie, the main cast gives the iconic introductory speech used at the beginning of both Star Trek: The Original Series and Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes.

Star Trek Beyond is the fourth movie to be presented in the Barco Escape format, which seems similar to the Cinerama technique introduced in the 1950s. This technology uses three connected cinema screens to “wrap” the picture around the audience. Two screens are placed from the sides of the central screen to the left and right wall, giving a wide, panoramic experience. The Barco Escape Star Trek Beyond trailer on the Barco Escape YouTube channel gives you an idea of what this experience is like.

25. Star Trek: Boldly Go

Medium: comic (2016-)

IDW Publishing and writer Mike Johnson return with this follow-up comic series set after the majority of Star Trek Beyond . The crewmembers have been reassigned or have taken a leave from Starfleet. Kirk, McCoy, and Chekov are reassigned to the U.S.S. Endeavour, and Sulu is reassigned to the U.S.S. Concord, while Spock and Uhura are visiting New Vulcan. Scotty is teaching at Starfleet Academy in San Francisco. The cadets we met in Star Trek: Starfleet Academy return and are joined by Star Trek Beyond ’s Jaylah.

Things turn bad when the U.S.S. Endeavour picks up the survivors of an attack on the U.S.S. Concord. Sulu survived and has one eerie message from the attackers: Resistance is futile.

The first volume of Star Trek: Boldy Go , consisting of the first six issues, is available on July 25th.

Star Trek/Green Lantern Stories

IDW Publishing is known for their cross company and cross franchise crossovers. IDW and DC Comics teamed up for two of these crossovers, written by Mike Johnson, starring the cast of IDW’s Kelvin Timeline comics and DC Comics’ Green Lantern comics. The first story is called Star Trek/Green Lantern: The Spectrum War and the second Star Trek/Green Lantern: Stranger Worlds , which is a direct sequel. It features the  Green Lantern comic cast coming to the Star Trek Kelvin Timeline universe as a follow up of sorts to DC Comics event Blackest Night . Lantern rings choose new bearers amongst Star Trek characters and ignite conflict between the Federation and its enemies.

These Star Trek / Green Lantern stories are set in a diversion of the Kelvin Timeline, which happens between  Star Trek, Vol. 13 and  Star Trek Beyond .

At the moment, IDW’s Star Trek: Boldly Go comic is the torchbearer for the continuation of the Kelvin Timeline. There are talks about a fourth movie, and multiple actors, like Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto, have already signed on. Chris Hemsworth’s George Kirk might also return for the fourth movie. Producer J.J. Abrams has stated that Chekov would not be recast, but written out of the story, after the untimely death of Anton Yelchin.

But until the fourth movie comes around, we will have  Star Trek: Discovery in the Prime Timeline to take us where no one has gone before…

Read and download the full Den of Geek SDCC Special Edition magazine here!

Robbert de Koeijer

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The Shuttle Pod Crew Revisits The Birth Of The Kelvin Timeline In ‘Star Trek’ (2009)

| July 3, 2019 | By: Shuttle Pod Crew 76 comments so far

Subscribe to Shuttle Pod: The TrekMovie.com Podcast on  iTunes ,  Google Play Music , and  Pocket Casts ! Like what you hear? Please leave us a review on iTunes.

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the movie that was influential in the creation of TrekMovie.com, Shuttle Pod crew members Jared, Kayla, Laurie, and Matt travel through “a lightning storm in space” to discuss the first Kelvin universe movie. Listen as the podcasters discuss the buzz around the movie when it was released in 2009, the casting, the music, and more.

J.J. Abrams with the cast of Star Trek

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I like this podcast! It’s exciting!

Hahaha…Scotty! I just wanted to use a similar quote… Now, could we have a towel, please?

Just going to say it; I have never found myself coming back to the kelvin films since they were released. Does that mean I think they are bad films? I don’t think so. I think my feeling is that these films don’t resonate with me. I’m not particularly fond of the scores for these films either. The TNG films all had pretty good scores – I particular enjoy Generations and First Contact scores for example, and Insurrection and Nemesis were arguably saved quite a bit by at least a good score. The problem I see with regards to the kelvin cast is that they are the first ensemble to start out at the movies and not actually have bounced off from television previously. They might be playing well known and iconic characters but audiences have only three movies (about 7-8 hours) to get to know this cast. Star Wars is Space Opera so a three movie format works well – Star Wars is made for the movies. Star Trek is traditionally more about ideas and morality tales and character exploring. The kelvin cast I don’t think really ever go deep in those areas because the movie format doesn’t allow it, especially the J.J. Action format!

I’ve always been puzzled by this notion. Why is it that you say it’s fine for Star Wars to be a certain way, but Star Trek shouldn’t be?

If one thing is good one way, why is another bad in that same way? First of all, I felt the characters were great in these movies, mostly because I was so familiar with them in the original series and films, but this version of them, I realize was different, but still interesting.

It’s like music, there should be no boundaries. There’s no reason to just limit oneself to one genre. Sci-fi is way more eclectic than that and Star Trek is too. I think that some ideas were certainly explored in the last three films. Star Trek eleven…the first JJ Abrams Trek movie, was about destiny, shaping destiny, duality and self-acceptance. The second one touched on terrorism, friendship and propaganda. The third film, Star Trek Beyond…was practically an episode of the original series.

What exactly isn’t Star Trek about that? Oh sure, you got more action scenes then you seen in the TV show. But wasn’t Star Trek Insurrection and Nemesis pretty action packed? Sure, I see that you say the only thing that saved them was the score…well…maybe you like orchestrated music? I see…well I was always more of a rock and roller which is why I prefer the music of the new films. Although the orchestrated bits in all the other movies are fantastic…especially Wrath of Khan and Nemesis.

Not to say that mistakes weren’t made in the Abrams films (LENS FLARES!) But I still felt they were worthy of the franchise and better than any Star Wars film. They Into Darkness might even be among my favorites, right up there with the other ten films.

You totally lost me when you say the J.J films are better than any Star Wars film. Maybe it’s the eclectic pace of the films that I don’t like – all the trek’s have fairly quick run-times but the kelvin films move a warp speed and character building is pretty non-existent really. The villains are weak as well. Nero was pretty weak and by the numbers. Cumberbach was disappointing and should not be playing ‘Khan’ (nothing to do with the racial thing; I don’t feel Khan needed to be in movie at all). Idris Elba’s villain was just a bit, boring? I don’t know what it is, but I didn’t really like it. The last decent trek villain was way back in 1996’s First Contact IMO. Everything since has been a bit disappointing. And some great actors have been hired, which makes it all the more surprising really.

While I can agree with most of what you said here, especially about the villains…but the character building? I don’t know…I didn’t think they did bad at that at all, especially with Kirk, Spock, Bones and Uhura. Pike was a well-developed character too I thought.

I was glad Khan was in Into Darkness though…that’s one good villain to me. And As for Idris Elba? I don’t know about that really…but the characters I mentioned felt well-developed enough for me, and if there would ever be more films, the there’s opportunities to develop them further.

To be honest I’m more a TNG fan so that’s an issue I guess. The acting is good don’t get me wrong. I just didn’t find the stories interesting for whatever reason. They don’t seem to have rewatch value (for me) like the other 10 films previous. One scene in Into Darkness I actually cringe st is the Kirk death. It totally ruins or at least sours the movie for me. I’d love to see that entire scene ejected in a special edition (lol)

“Why is it that you say it’s fine for Star Wars to be a certain way, but Star Trek shouldn’t be?”

Because Star Trek, for the most part, has had a different ethos from Star Wars; that is it deals with specific matters within science fiction. Star Wars typically doesn’t concern itself with the minutia of how its universe works, and when it does, as with the case of midichlorians, it goes off the rails. But Star Trek can tell those stories — about science, history, philosophy, sociology, etc. It can deal in the kind of specifics that a space opera/fantasy can’t, nor should.

Star Wars is science fantasy and opera. Its spectacle. It’s a fairytale (Which explains why Disney ‘in theory’ was a good fit for Star Wars). Star Trek is fiction but it’s about Earth and humanity. Star Trek is traditionally more about exploring ideas. Star Wars is about plain Good Versus Evil and depicting insane creatures and space battles. I love Star Wars, but I don’t think Star Trek needs to imitate it at all to be successful. Hopefully whoever is in charge of Star Trek at Paramount will try to steer things in a different direction when the inevitable Trek #14 finally gears up.

I don’t think it should imitate Star Wars either…And I agree with most of what you’re saying, BUT…I think there’s nothing wrong with having a little more sci-fi in a Star Wars movie and a little more action in a Star Trek movie, every now and again…it doesn’t harm the overall franchises especially now that we got all this new material coming out.

For old fans like us, we can look forward to Star Trek: Picard, the newer fans might enjoy the next season of Discovery more. Out kids will probably be digging the Nickelodean show, and Futurama and Orville fans might find themselves attracted to Lower Decks more.

My point is that we shouldn’t be so biased. Diversity is really what I’m talking about. I may not like every show coming out of the franchise in the next several years, but I hope to find at least a couple, and really cling to it…I just hope everyone does.

Oh, and I wasn’t dissing Star Wars, I actually just like Trek that much better. It’s just my opinion. I actually thought Star Wars could be a little more sci-fi at times. Anyway, you can have your opinion, I didn’t mean to attack it.

The Beyond opening scene is for my taste totally silly. That’s Star Wars right there! Which would be fine, but do we really want that in Trek movie? I just hope Paramount or whoever try to bring a bit more ‘realism’ and ‘grounding’ back and not do silly scenes just for a show off of CGI.

What are you talking about? The underpinnings of SW is about the nature of humanity, both as “Man vs. Man” and “Man vs. Self”. Same with ST, but only with a different setting and emphasis.

Simply saying that neither should be bound to any rules. There’s no reason for not having a variety of film types.

“There’s no reason for not having a variety of film types.” I agree. That’s what different movies and different franchises are for–folks can choose what they’d like to see.

my feeling are, as usual, only into darkness gave me any kind of excite.

i really must needs say, I think star trek original series is still the very best, full of excite and action!

I enjoyed all three. But as with Disco, I don’t feel any special connection with them.

I rewatched Nemesis earlier today and felt it was superior to any of the aforementioned above.

Honestly, I can’t see the point of ducking out of the Prime Universe if all you’re going to do is throw tribbles all over the place, reference Harry Mudd, go to Delta Vega, etc. etc. etc.

It was always about having the freedom to re-exploit key iconography from the series. They weren’t looking to stake out new territory.

That was my primary disappointment with the Kelvin movies, truly. I thought the first one was OK – charismatic cast, pretty standard SF plot (though with enough repercussions for the Prime timeline to keep my interest), weak villain, too much lens flare. But I liked it enough to see it twice in theaters and was hopeful that we’d see some actual bold new ideas for the franchise. STID being an inferior retread of WoK just crushed my enthusiasm for the new series; I sat that one out (and would have done the same with Beyond if it hadn’t been the closest I felt I could come to paying my respects). I don’t mind Easter Eggs, but each of these Trek incarnations should really be its own creature, and I flinch when reboot properties do no more than mindlessly ape what’s come before.

I really wanted to hear Brian’s take on JJ Trek. These two sentences say a lot. Thank you.

I’m not sure they do. I agree with him on both points, but still think it’s a great movie (ranked at 3rd place).

Yup. But then that has been the playbook of almost everything in the mainstream for the past ten years or so, and it’s only getting worse. I just saw yesterday where they’re talking about resurrecting Perfect Strangers, Step by Step, and Family Matters!

Guess Hollywood now gets their ideas from old T-shirts and lunchboxes on ebay.

Well… There is the thought that if you are going to redo an existing property you redo the garbage with the hope of making it better. It’s rarely a good idea to reboot something that was good to begin with. So yea, reboot Battlestar Galactica. Reboot Perfect Strangers, Step by Step and Family Matters. Maybe they can be better this time….

On the subject of redoing garbage, let’s reboot ‘Black Hole.’ Great premise, great ending. Plenty of room for new storytelling for talented storytellers to fix the vacuum in between. If Disney gives up its theatrical rights, how about a streaming show . . .?

…and make Kirk a horndog, destroy Vulcan, turn Spock into a raging lunatic…

Like Kirk has never been a horndog.

No. He wasn’t. He loved one woman at a time, and each time it was genuine.

Or it was something he had to to for the sake of his ship or mission.

As people have pointed out, Captain Kirk was fun to watch as he would either f**k or fight his way across the galaxy!

I think cadets have rank. I doubt she’d go from Cadet Lt. to actual Lt., but hey… the light flares made my head woozy, so I stopped asking. Also, Starfleet is master of fudge recruiting and promotions. You can join at any age and advance at any rate.

ST09 seems sooooo long ago now.. who’d have thought 10year on we’d have seen an epic $200m redo of TWOK (with a white man as Khan!), heard tantalizing rumours of Shatner coming back as Kirk for the 3rd film before witnessing the series crash in a dull non event film (so bad the 4th film was cancelled), and see Trek back on TV with a hugely expensive streaming show with Jason Isaacs and Michelle Yeoh that split the fanbase early TNG style, and Picard coming back in his own show. And theres a very real possibility Quentin Tarantino will make a Trek film (not just a jokey rumour)..

That’s a lot of Trektivity over 10years

Unless the Picard show can have much more consistent writing than first two seasons of STD, the Quentin Tarantino film may be all there really is to look forward to.

The best thing about the movie was Leonard coming back. Also the general public liked it, but they missed the boat with the next one.

I think most of the general public actually liked the 2nd one as much as the 1st and thought it was a pretty cool fast paced space action film with some awesome set pieces. It was the 3rd film that ‘normal’ people gave a big ‘meh’ to.

That’s been my impression as well. Beyond was the Insurrection of Kelvin Trek.

the comparison is apt. it even looked abit like Insurrection

Didn’t Into Darkness do better in Asia than any other region of the world (aside from America)?

If I remember right, there was an active effort to promote that film aggressively outside of English speaking countries. Where Trek had traditionally not fared as well. As far as I know, it was the only film where the studio did such a thing.

‘Mr. Nick Meyer, what did you think of Star Trek into Darkness’?

‘I think JJ Abrams should write his own movies’.

The JJ-verse seems almost irrelevant now that we’re getting high quality Trek on TV.

The latter remains to be seen. We’ve had two seasons of STD start out strong and then fall apart.

“And then fall apart” …. how does a show fall apart when they’ve had 2 successful seasons and are about to begin production on the 3rd and have added much more to the slate because of it?

They have yet to show they can write a coherent season story arc for ST. That should go without saying. It does go without saying.

That’s not entirely true. There have been story arcs on DS9 that lasted many episodes. And season 3 of Enterprise was a 20+ episode season long story arc. One that many feel greatly improved the show.

I don’t think Sam was suggesting Star Trek hasn’t had successful story arcs before, he’s only suggesting Discovery hasn’t had it yet. At least that’s how I read it.

And I have to agree. You know my feelings about season one which was a complete mess IMO. Season 2 was better by far but sadly still dropped the ball in the end and was a complete mess as well. It was just a more enjoyable mess is probably the best way to put it.

I didn’t think the third season of Enterprise arc was that amazing and probably ran a little long, but I’ve watched it about four times in its entirety. I can’t even bring myself to watch the first season of Discovery a second time yet.

And neither show gets anywhere close to what DS9 did and at the rate Trek is going probably never will again.

I think Enterprise S3 was pretty good, myself. But let’s focus on what we both think worked well, DS9. They managed to have story arcs that both moved the major story along and focused on the people involved. This part is what Discovery is lacking. At least, that is what it feels like is lacking. There could be a number of reasons for this. Maybe it’s the short season. Maybe it’s because they jumped straight into the major story without letting the audience really get a chance to connect and flesh out the characters a bit. All I can say is that I’m really not caring much for the original Discovery people and I really don’t think I’m alone in that assessment. My thinking is that the show is harmed by the short season aspect. It doesn’t give us time to really become invested in the characters. Thus far it seems the show has never given us more than one character driven episode in row. I get the short season for streaming shows. But sometimes one needs to take a step back and look at the bigger picture for the greater good of the show.

That’s nothing. ‘Three’s Company’ ran for 8 successful seasons and launched several spin-offs.

I agree with Sam. I think both seasons started out very strong . . . but they couldn’t stick the landing either time. S1 descended into a series of increasingly absurd twists that only seemed designed to bring folks back the next week. S2 just had a giant mystery box strategy that fell apart once one had time to look back on the whole season. Maybe it was a reflection on a lack of a clear plan. I assume it’s at least in part a reflection of, what, four different showrunners/showrunner teams in two seasons?

Which brings me to the second point: a third season of Discovery does not equal two successful seasons. All the behind the scenes drama actually suggests quite the opposite. I welcome a third season. I wouldn’t be a Trek fan if I wasn’t optimistic. But I think more Discovery is more a reflection on CBSAA’s investment in Trek than in the overall quality of the show so far.

Correction. We are getting high quality production values in Trek. High quality Trek overall is debatable at best.

My general reaction to Trek ’09 was that I was completely excited to see a reboot of the franchise and thought it would be fun to see new actors inhabiting the classic characters. And for the most part, I was fine with the casting. I felt the weakest was Quinto but he wasn’t bad. So none of the changes made I had a problem with be cause I saw this whole thing as a reboot. I was not a huge fan of embracing the “Kirk beds a lot of aliens” cliche, however. The fist fights did not bother me as much as it was Kirk pretty much got his ass handed to him each time he got involved in one. It was a bit more action’y, yes. But that wasn’t a huge issue for me in this one either. Nothing really stood out as being overtly dumb. Regarding shooting the drill bit outside… I heard it was shot in the parking lot at Dodger Stadium. Still wish the disc had a commentary track. I think the commentary was only found on some appleTV version or something. I cannot imagine that TNG would ever get such a reboot treatment. Mainly because Picard and Data and Co. just don’t resonate with the public like Kirk and Spock do. I gotta say, Gianccino is quite good at emotional beats like Labor of Love. He came up with some really good ones in Lost and his other work as well. But I have to say, I really like the Spock cue he wrote a GREAT deal. It is true that the most successful Trek movie was the whale one. But the fact is the one that had the most appeal was also the most non Star Trek movie of them all. That is something that really ought to carry some weight when it comes to feature film success. FYI… The scene of Kirk staring at the Enterprise under construction JJ actually called a “Star Wars moment”. The Cadet to Captain thing, while silly, I tend to ignore. We knew Kirk had to end up in the Chair. So I forgive them for that. It may have felt like too much too fast but the movie did move rather fast itself. That is JJ’s style. The only thing that really raised an eyebrow was Spock being both a teacher, essentially, and also first officer to Pike. How does THAT happen? My main plot thing was that the friendship between Spock and Kirk felt forced. Nimoy Spock told Quinto Spock that they would be friends, so Quinto Spock essentially shrugs, and reluctantly accepts it. For some reason that bothered me more than the rank rising stuff. The comments about slowing everything down regarding their rise in the ranks… That would be possible in a TV show over 10-13 episodes or even a 20+ episode season. But this is a 2 hour feature film. They cannot take the time for all that. We just have to accept that they swiftly moved into the positions they were supposed to be in. Kicking Kirk off was rather emotional for Spock. Which was out of character. But Kirk did say in his personal log it was a violation of some regulation and it is possible the intent was to land the pod near the outpost. But, yeah… For someone they felt was just being a hot head it did feel a little extreme. Which supports my thinking that this was the series where Spock was not Spock yet. He still had a LOT of growing to do. It did feel like the film played fast and loose with galactic geography. But one could claim part of that, Spock watching Vulcan implode, was more a representation of what he was feeling. But that is not how it was presented on screen. At least, it wasn’t obvious. The “trans warp” beaming thing was pretty ridiculous. I originally thought it was beaming while ships were at warp! I honestly thought they were going to get into that ship there at the outpost, somehow head off close to Enterprise while at warp and THEN beam them over! Not beam them FROM the dang planet to a ship that left hours ago! And, unfortunately, the device showed up again in the next film. I think we can all agree that what appears to be nearly unlimited range sorta ruins the concept of transporters. I was fine with the sets. But the thing that felt BAD was the Budweiser plant. For the record, I don’t live in LA but I recognize an industrial brewery when I see one. And I was wondering why were there huge vats of beer in engineering? And the concrete floors sure didn’t help sell the illusion. The opposite, in fact. Using …  Read more »

Really enjoyed this podcast. I think JJ did not do it as a way to get Star Wars, as he was already an accomplished film and TV producer/creator. As yall said you can see the love and respect of the characters in the movie, and I believe that JJ was truly in it 100%. He brought things that were much need to the movies, things that you see in Discovery…such as seeing the saucer from the Bridge, giving the overall look some depth and dimension, versus the flatness of previous movies and TV series. People lauded the look of the Enterprise in warp, and it being to Star Warsish. I thought it was appropriate, given the ships are travelling faster than light. Similar to the trans warp conduits seen in Voyager. Shit, you are travelling like a bat out of hell, maybe it does create a tunnel effect. JJ said himself that if you look at the Enterprise in passing, it has imperfect lines, as it is created by people, there will be imperfections, just like in the warp drive.

Jeremy Pike,

Your 100 percent would be a more believable number if, JJ, himself, hadn’t said he wasn’t going to jump ship out of 100% Trek characters’ loyalty, and then went ahead and did just that, proving that he truly wasn’t in Trek 100%, but rather something less than the 100% he was into STAR WARS.

I think JJ put in 100% once he got the job, but I think he probably was just using it as a steppingstone to Star Wars.

I’m still amazed about how these movies started out so strong but ended on a whimper after just three of them. And I remember how people talked about these movies after the first one came out. I actually read Trekmovie review thread of the first one a few months ago. It’s pretty interesting how people felt. Some acted like the Kelvin universe was going to be the lay of the land from this point on and the prime universe and all the former actors are now completely forgotten and part of a by gone era. It was all about the JJ verse and setting Star Trek on a new course for a new era of fandom…yeah.

And ten years later look where we are now? They can’t even get the fourth film off the ground and it sounds like its all but cancelled indefinitely. Meanwhile the prime universe is now roaring back to life and Patrick Stewart is back in his iconic role as Picard probably shooting a scene somewhere as I type this. A nearly 80 year actor who hasn’t played the role in over 15 years is what has most of the fanbase giddy with excitement right now. And not if Chris Hemsworth is ever coming back to play Kirk’s dad again. It just proves you can’t just dump 40 years of a franchise because over a few slick looking movies. The prime universe is just too big, too vast, too known and too important for most fans who grew up watching it from TOS through Enterprise to just abandon it completely.

I think the Kelvin films were mostly successful obviously and they did get new fans into Star Trek. The problem was it never truly created a new league of committed fans like the old shows and films did. It was more a ‘hot’ new shiny toy but pretty easily to move on from after you played with it enough. And of course a big part of the reason (outside of fans still mostly devoted to the prime universe) is that they didn’t strike while the iron was hot and did more with it. IF they produced more films faster and maybe a TV show set in that universe, that would’ve built a more loyal audience and clue us in to why we should care about the Kelvin universe. But then STID came out and just gave us different versions of Khan and Section 31 while taking its ending from a 30 year old iconic film. It just sort of reminded everyone these things were already done in the prime universe…and better. And then it doesn’t help when every film, every single one, is about an uber-villain who wants revenge on the Federation. C’mon????? You make one 2 hour movie every four years, think outside the freaking box!!!

The Kelvin movies could’ve really set itself apart beyond just cooler CGI and sets, bigger production budgets and even bigger ships but it never gave us a reason WHY we should be invested in the Kelvin universe itself beyond its just cool to have Kirk and the gang in their prime again played by good looking people…but it wasn’t enough.

$1,196,533,731 – box office WW $525,000,000 – total budget

Star Trek 3-Film Kelvin Trilogy

__________________

$443,999,497 – box office WW $199,000,000 – total budget

Star Trek 4-Film TNG Quadrilogy

There is little doubt that the Kelvin films are a ‘success’ based on the numbers after three films. I didn’t love them (I felt they were mostly OK), but I can’t deny they were successful.

if it wasn’t for MCU now making 1b+ every movie about 3 times a year making everything else look like a flop in comparison then Trek and others like Xmen etc would probably be seen as very successful franchises instead of ‘it didn’t break 1b? Losers! they are so gettin rebooted!’

I said they were mostly successful. The problem is they never reached the expectations Paramount wanted given their budgets. And Beyond basically failed putting into question the films from this point on. And three years after that film the series all but appears to be dead.

The first two were successful, but they were never huge. And in this day and age where half a billion is considered the minimum mark of success for a major brand, none or those films ever achieved that.

And its really unfair to compare them to the TNG and TOS films because those films didn’t have nearly the size of releases in America, hardly any international distribution outside a few countries in Europe and no IMAX or 3D formats to speak of. And their marketing budgets were minuscule compared to the Kelvin movies. They were mostly made to perform for American Star Trek fans first and foremost and little else. The Kelvin films were made like all blockbusters, to have the widest appeal possible and were treated as so. Outside of TMP, the other Trek films were made with much smaller audiences in mind from the outset although most performed well given their budgets.

In fact all most successful TNG and TOS films made at least 3 times their budgets (TWOK is still the most successful film to this day and made 7 times its budget). For all the hype with the Kelvin films, none never even made even that. STID being the most succesful got the closest making about 2.5 times its budget. So again, you have to dig beyond just the basic numbers.

The films just never performed at a level that was probably expected of them given the budgets, marketing and wide distribution.

Beyond didn’t help either. The 50th anniversary movie and there was no real hook to excite audiences like there was with 09/ID besides the Enterprise gets destroyed. Again (yet in 2014/15 everyone was pretty excited about Shatner returning and even the mainstream press had picked up on it. That was the movie to do for the anniversary. it probably would’ve been like Treks Endgame and made $500+).. and then there was that dreadful Trek To The Furious trailer coming out at the time when even the trekkies were wetting themselves in excitement for TFA. in fact Wars coming back really pissed on Treks campfire to the point the fire went out and its going to take something like Tarantino directing to get it going again

The franchise’s 50th Anniversary was handled disgracefully.

“galactic geography” is a nonsense phrase.

From the OED:

Pronunciation /dʒɪˈɒɡrəfi/ /ˈdʒɒɡrəfi/

1. The study of the physical features of the earth and its atmosphere, and of human activity as it affects and is affected by these, including the distribution of populations and resources, land use, and industries

That is the height of being nit picky. Most understood the message being conveyed.

Accusing a production of specifically having “played fast and loose” with a personally made up nonsense concept that doesn’t appear in their canon, isn’t a very convincing debating tactic.

Correct. It is not a convincing debate tactic. Which is why I do not employ such failed strategies.

Thank you for the tangent.

“It did feel like the film played fast and loose with galactic geography.” — ML31

Well, thanks for admitting that you didn’t mean anything by it.

There is a failure of comprehension on your part going on here, my friend. Nowhere did I admit making a post where I didn’t mean anything by it. Now you are just making stuff up. I don’t mind discussing things but you need to make a genuine effort here.

If you didn’t intend the statement to be convincing that the film played fast and loose with some essential quality of STAR TREK, as you appear to be attempting to assert, then I am at loss as to what arguable quality you feel it conveyed? Precision and clarity were most obviously NOT your objectives.

I am guessing that you did not pick up on the incredibly thick irony of your comment.

Let me try this another way, you can’t dismiss “nitpicking” in a response to a canon argument, because nitpicking is the very definition of a canon debate.

Incorrect. Because “nitpicking” the comment, in this case, is ignoring the point being made and going off on some other tangent that had nothing whatsoever to do with the original comment. Which is still valid, btw.

No it isn’t, “Galactic geography” is not a part of STAR TREK canon, nor is it a defined term in astronomy, therefore it is impossible for a STAR TREK production to play fast and loose with a concept it never dealt with, nor had the scientific possibility of ever so doing.

I’m bummed that Kayla didn’t discuss the science faux pas from this movie. And there were a lot! My biggest problem was the fast and loose use with the concept of a black hole. But other things bothered me like “supernova threatened entire galaxy” and the fast travel times between planets. But all that pales in comparison to making a cadet a captain just because he saved the world. That was stupid then and it’s still stupid.

I hope that Picard goes into some details about that supernova. It didn’t make any sense when Spock was talking about it, but maybe Spock doesn’t know the full story.

I revisit the 09′ film every couple of years, STID never (and never will again, likely), and Beyond once or twice since it was released. Without the tie-in to the prime timeline, I probably never would have watched 09′ again. And I still fast-forward through the Beastie Boys part. Ugh.

…and yet no word from BobOrci any this one. A little disappointed. I always like when he pops in to add his thoughts. I would be especially interested to hear his thoughts on the the writing process and creative decisions for this film.

Just a quick note to say I thoroughly enjoyed the podcast. Lots of good insights, perhaps especially Spock’s reference to “Lt. Uhura” and all the characters fulfilling their pre-programmed destinies. Thanks!

@ 56:17 The “best” thing to remedy the situation (of Kirk being promoted to the Captain’s chair too soon) would have been to add a “time skip” at the end of the film, in which the normal flow of history resumed its “logical course” off-screen, only to pick-up with Kirk stepping unto the Bridge as the Enterprise’s captain. The explanation as to why Spock would be Kirk’s first officer would be explained with Spock taking a leave of absence in order to settle things on “New Vulcan”, before returning to duty.

The Star Trek Kelvin Timeline Explained

In 2009, Paramount Pictures released Star Trek , the first film in what would become a new action-oriented trilogy to reinvigorate the franchise at the worldwide box office. Directed by J.J. Abrams and starring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, and Zoe Saldana, Star Trek introduced the world to new versions of classic characters like Kirk, Spock, and Uhura, and it took us back to their earlier days in Starfleet. This wasn't just another reboot, though. Thanks to the heavy sci-fi influence of the original series, this version of Star Trek was actually presented in the form of an alternate timeline, with its roots in events of the original universe and one of the franchise's original characters.

Later dubbed "the Kelvin timeline" because of its connection to a destroyed Federation starship called the U.S.S.  Kelvin , this alternate reality set the stage for three different Star Trek feature films, all of which remixed original series continuity in some form or another. Plus, in recent years, the inciting incident for this reality has become a jumping-off point for more stories in the Prime Star Trek reality, making it a major influence in two different universes. From its explosive origins to its broader implications, this is Star Trek 's Kelvin timeline, explained

The real-world origins of the Kelvin timeline

In the late 2000s, Star Trek was in need of a re-invigoration. The last feature film in the franchise, Nemesis , came out in 2002, and the prequel TV series,  Star Trek: Enterprise , went off the air in 2005, leaving the legendary sci-fi property without a major live-action media presence for the first time in years. Ultimately, Paramount Pictures decided the way to bring Trek back was a prequel film ... but not just a typical prequel. The film that would become 2009's Star Trek fell into the hands of screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, who decided to use time travel to create an alternate reality that would both raise the stakes for their "prequel" concept of a younger Kirk and Spock and also allow them to take some creative liberties with the well-worn characters.

Speaking with Sci Fi Wire in 2009 , Kurtzman explained, "Yeah, the biggest thing I think we all hiccuped on, just conceptually, when Trek was presented to us was, 'Well, we know how they all died. We know what happened to them.' And when you know that, it's very difficult to put them in jeopardy in a way that feels fresh or original. How do you ever have real stakes to your characters?" Well, the answer was the introduction of an alternate reality that would link the new Star Trek film series to past canon, while also allowing filmmakers to go their own way.

The Kelvin timeline has its roots in tragedy

The story of Star Trek 's Kelvin timeline began in the Prime Star Trek universe in the 2380s , when it became clear that the Romulan sun presented a major danger not just to the Romulan Star Empire but to a whole quadrant of the galaxy. The sun was nearing the end of its life and would soon go supernova, which would in turn destroy Romulus and other nearby worlds. Desperate to save their people, the Romulans asked the United Federation of Planets for help.

When evacuation efforts failed, Spock — now an ambassador from his homeworld of Vulcan — intervened in 2387 with his own attempt to halt the supernova through the use of red matter. Spock was able to stop the supernova's expansion but not before Romulus was destroyed, something he'd promised he could prevent. Enraged, a Romulan mining ship captain named Nero sought vengeance, and he attacked Spock's one-man vessel with his own ship, the Narada . During the pursuit, both ships were pulled through the black hole left in the wake of the supernova, which sent them back in time.

The fate of the U.S.S. Kelvin

Unbeknownst to Nero, when the Narada was drawn into the black hole, the Romulan ship was sent back to 2233, more than 150 years in the past. But the dude was still very angry. Nero's rage then focused on the first Federation vessel he found, the U.S.S. Kelvin . As the Romulan vessel attacked, First Officer George Kirk took command of the Kelvin after the death of his captain, and he sacrificed the ship to protect the escape shuttles fleeing the area, including the one carrying his wife and newborn son, James Kirk. The Kelvin was destroyed, and Nero's reign of terror continued in what was now an alternate reality. 

As you've probably guessed, the Kelvin Ttmeline is so named because the destruction of the Kelvin is the event triggering the alternate reality. In the Kelvin timeline, life unfolds in a way that's quite recognizable for longtime Star Trek fans but with many differences interspersed throughout the universe. The starships look similar, for example, but the designs are altered in many ways, and the same is true of things like phasers, communicators, and Starfleet uniforms.

A different Kirk

In the Prime Star Trek timeline, James T. Kirk's path to captaining the U.S.S. Enterprise is noteworthy but very conventional. Kirk entered Starfleet in part because of his father, but George Kirk was still very much alive when he signed up, and once Kirk was a part of Starfleet, he spent quite a bit of time doing other things before joining the Enterprise , including a stint as an Academy instructor and serving on the U.S.S. Farragut .

In the Kelvin timeline, though, the absence of Kirk's father sent him off on a very different path, one with much less conviction and certainty early on. This version of James T. Kirk was a rebellious young man, joyriding in stolen cars as a teenager and getting into bar fights in his 20s. His Starfleet journey actually began when one of these fights was broken up by Captain Christopher Pike, a Starfleet officer familiar with Kirk's history and his father's heroism. Pike — who was also Kirk's predecessor as captain of the Enterprise in the Prime timeline, under very different circumstances — urged young James to do something with his life because his father sacrificed himself to make sure Kirk would live and accomplish something meaningful. Spurred on by Pike, Kirk joined Starfleet and eventually tricked his way onto the newly launched Enterprise  after cadets in the Academy were called into service to help battle Nero.

Now, there are two Spocks

While Nero arrived in the Kelvin timeline in 2233, Spock didn't actually emerge from the black hole until 25 years later, and he found the vengeful Romulan waiting for him. Nero captured Spock's ship, the Jellyfish , and left the Vulcan stranded on the icy planet Delta Vega, with the intention of making Spock watch his own homeworld perish just as Nero had to watch Romulus fall. Nero achieved this by drilling into Vulcan's core with his ship's machinery, then shooting red matter into it. Vulcan collapsed as the Kelvin timeline version of Spock attempted to evacuate as many of his people as he could. He was able to save his father but not his human mother, who fell just as they were preparing to beam back up to the Enterprise .

A short time later, Kirk was also marooned on Delta Vega by an irate Spock, who was acting captain of the Enterprise and had already discerned Nero was a time traveler. Here, Kirk met the Prime timeline version of Spock, who used a Vulcan mind meld to reveal to him the explanation for Nero's presence, including the destruction of Romulus and the black hole he journeyed through. Eventually, both Spocks met each other and attempted to rebuild Vulcan culture through their shared knowledge and experience. With Spock Prime's help — including the introduction of transwarp beaming to the Kelvin timeline — Kirk and Spock were able to make amends and defeat Nero before he could destroy Earth, cementing the dynamic of the Enterprise crew.

A warlike Federation

The sudden destruction of Vulcan and the losses in the Federation fleet during the battle with Nero, coupled with the growing hostility of the Klingons, spurred certain factions within Starfleet to seek a more militaristic approach to dealing with the future of the galaxy. In 2258 and 2259, Admiral Alexander Marcus went to great lengths to pursue this more warlike approach in secret, and he began exploring the galaxy for various resources to use for the defense of Starfleet. Marcus' search eventually led to the discovery of Botany Bay and a group of enhanced superhumans in cryogenic stasis.

Desperate to advance his cause, Marcus roused the leader of the group, Khan Noonien Singh, and held the rest of Khan's people hostage while Khan himself was forced to develop advanced weapons for the Federation under the secretive Section 31. This included the development of the Vengeance , a powerful new Federation warship, and a new advanced torpedo design that Marcus hoped to use against the Klingons.

Khan tried to smuggle his people out of Marcus' care by hiding them, still in stasis, in the torpedoes, but Marcus discovered this plan. Certain that the admiral had already killed his people, Khan set out to become a one-man vengeance machine and destroy the Federation from the inside.

The wrath of Khan

Operating under the name John Harrison, Khan staged successful attacks on Starfleet facilities that resulted in the death of Admiral Christopher Pike. After this attack, Marcus saw a path to killing his former hostage and covering up his military conspiracy at the same time. He dispatched Kirk and the Enterprise to capture "Harrison" on the Klingon world Kronos, believing Kirk would simply kill the terrorist as an act of revenge. This set Kirk, Spock, and the Enterprise crew on a new, alternate trajectory to a confrontation with their old Prime universe foe.

At fist, Harrison/Khan tried to present himself as an ally to Kirk and Spock before finally turning on them when he felt he could safely extract his still-living crewmates from their torpedoes. The resulting confrontation led to Kelvin timeline Spock seeking the advice of Spock Prime, who recalled the deadly consequences of battling Khan. In the Prime timeline, it was Spock who paid with his life before being revived. In the Kelvin timeline, though, it was Kirk who sacrificed his life in the battle with Khan. Fortunately, Spock was able to defeat Khan through some clever deception, and Dr. Leonard McCoy was able to use Khan's blood, which had strange restorative properties, to revive Kirk.

The clash with Krall in the Kelvin timeline

After the battle with Khan, the Enterprise crew in the Kelvin timeline set out for their own version of the five-year mission we saw in Star Trek: The Original Series , and three years into that mission, they encountered something interesting (particularly from our perspective as observers), something with a backstory that extended far back into the timeline, before the universes diverged.

In Star Trek Beyond , the Enterprise crew discovers the buried U.S.S. Franklin , a Federation starship that was lost decades earlier, in an era before the Kelvin incident diverged the timelines. That means that, since the alternate reality doesn't really split until 2233, the loss of the Franklin is something we can consider to exist in both timelines. What happens after that — including the Enterprise 's encounter with Krall, the mutated former captain of the Franklin  — is part of the Kelvin timeline only, which means another version of Starfleet could encounter the Franklin in the Prime universe and theoretically have a different outcome. It's an intriguing idea spinning out of the fun sci-fi adventure story that  Beyond offers.

Star Trek Beyond also offers another intriguing detail regarding the Kelvin timeline's Spock. Early in the film, he's considering leaving Starfleet to have a more direct role in redeveloping Vulcan culture. After learning that Spock Prime has died, though, he chooses to honor his alternate self's memory by remaining in Starfleet, as it's what Spock Prime was doing at the same age.

How the Kelvin timeline has impacted the Prime timeline

The Kelvin timeline of Star Trek is fascinating for a number of reasons, including the fact that it didn't have to exist this way at all. The writers of 2009's Trek film could have simply said, "We're starting over, but the other films and shows are all still there for you to watch." They didn't do that, instead leaning into the science fiction of it all. That means we have an inciting incident for the Kelvin timeline that also exists as a major, galaxy-altering event in the Prime timeline, and that means there are consequences for both realities.

For a long time, those consequences weren't directly explored in Star Trek live-action storytelling, but that changed with the 2020 series Star Trek: Picard . Set in the decades following Star Trek: The Next Generation , the series follows the latter-day adventures of Jean-Luc Picard , and it reveals that his departure from Starfleet was directly tied to the Romulan sun disaster. Though many in the Federation opposed it, Picard spearheaded a massive evacuation effort to get as many people off Romulus as possible in the years before the supernova, only to have his rescue fleet destroyed by a surprise attack from a group of rogue synths. Starfleet dropped the rescue effort entirely in the aftermath, and Picard resigned.

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The Kelvin Timeline Films – A Study of Collective Trauma and Recovery

Over the years, many things have been said about the Star Trek films of the Kelvin Timeline. Debates still rage on over whether they are “true” Star Trek stories or just popcorn flick fun. However, one of the things I rarely ever see addressed in any discussion of the Kelvin films is the core theme of trauma and recovery, specifically “collective trauma”.

In fact, the stories of trauma are so pervasive and ingrained across its three film instalments, I am often perplexed that such a fundamental part of these films are overlooked. And in the times that we are all currently living in with everything that has been happening, I think it’s now more important than ever to discuss how the Kelvin Timeline films teach us about how to recover from collective trauma through compassion, unity, and love.

What is Collective Trauma?

Collective Trauma refers to the impact or effect of a traumatic experience involving entire groups of people, communities, and societies. This type of trauma doesn’t just bring distress and negative consequences to individuals but can also change a society’s culture, governmental policies, and mass actions.

Throughout human history, there have been numerous cases of collective trauma. But the events of September 11, 2001, clearly reverberate through the core of the Kelvin Timeline films. And perhaps that is not a surprising one. After all, the main production team behind the new films like JJ Abrams, Roberto Orci, and Alex Kurtzman were in their late 20s and early 30s when the attacks took place. They would have been at an age to be able to recognize and process the trauma of the events and felt the effects of the fallout in the years to come when the US became embroiled in wars and systemic government changes.

Just 6 years after the attacks as they start production on a new Star Trek film, the shadow of 9/11 would have still loomed over them.

Star Trek 2009: A Traumatic Beginning

The Kelvin Timeline is a world born out of trauma. The film even begins with the attack on the U.S.S. Kelvin , resulting in a dramatic split between this timeline and the Prime Timeline of previous Star Trek stories. And our protagonist, James T. Kirk, is born amid this collective trauma, a survivor of something he doesn’t remember yet still has irrevocably changed his life with the death of his father. In fact, the attack on the Kelvin changed more than just Kirk’s life, it affected how Starfleet would operate. Captain Pike speaks to Starfleet losing that instinct to leap without looking and we see the Enterprise much larger in size than her Prime counterpart. These are all legacies of the Narada’s attack on the Kelvin, leading the Federation to grow weary of the world around them and trying to bulk up its ships to compensate for enemies with much larger ships and weapons than they had before. Even before the destruction of Vulcan, we see a galaxy that is already reacting to collective trauma, trying to protect itself in the same ways that we have seen reflected in our real world.

And it isn’t only the destruction of Vulcan later that changes the status of the galaxy with the massive loss of Vulcan lives, nearly an entire graduating class of young Starfleet cadets are wiped out during the battle at Vulcan too. Millions of futures that could play big parts in the Federation are gone, their potentials unrealized. And left behind to deal with that reality are what amounts of a group of “children”, the survivors of a generation now forced to face the trials of combat that they are not entirely prepared for. Numerous times throughout the movie, the command of the bridge is handed to Chekov, a 17-year-old young Ensign. And while Chekov is smart and capable, it doesn’t change the fact that this is a child thrust into the theatre of war, something that should not be Starfleet’s prerogative. When you look at this, it is hard to not see a reflection of the reality that the bulk of wars fought post 9/11 had been by young people believing in the rhetoric of defending their homeland.

But how does all of this address the themes of trauma and recovery, you may ask? To look at that, we must examine the three tales of trauma that this film explores, as it is through the individual stories, we see the message that the film is trying to tell us on a grander scale.

Nero’s backstory is one of a negative response to trauma after facing the destruction of his home planet Romulus and the death of his wife and child. His single-minded determination for revenge not only pulled him away from his timeline but in many ways doomed himself and his crew. He walks the path of the cycle of violence that leads to no catharsis, as nothing he does to Spock would bring back his home or his wife and child. And as he dictatorially controls everything on his ship, giving commands instead of listening to the people around him, he removes from himself the chance for empathy and connection. His inability to imagine a future, to build a new narrative and identity to manage the trauma, leads to his eventual downfall. Even as he is defeated, he refuses to accept the help offered, he refuses to rehabilitate his present by reconciling with his past. Responding to trauma isn’t just about restoring one’s self to the way it was before because healing demands for there to be a complete sense of reinvention. Something that Nero adamantly refuses to do.

Kirk and Spock, however, represent the other side of the coin. Both start their respective stories alone, standing apart. Their trauma pushing them away from letting others in. Kirk was a brash arrogant lone wolf. Spock was refusing to recognize his own emotions. Yet through a strong support system, they are repeatedly inundated with empathy and compassion. Pike not giving up on Kirk. McCoy not leaving Kirk behind. Uhura being there for Spock to lean on. Sarek admitting the truth of his love for Amanda. And Prime Spock sharing the mind-meld with Kirk. We see how empathy and compassion break through the darkness of trauma. We see how the crew standing together as a team gave them ideas that they never could stand alone. We see the values and ideals of the Federation play out in clear and effective ways as our heroes are time and time again saved through their abilities to connect with others and work together. Whereas Nero refused to reconcile with the past, Kirk and Spock both did. They didn’t simply restore themselves to who they were before, they reinvented their identities, they built a new future and new narrative for themselves to operate in.

Even as Nero accepts his fate in his final moments, he still did not recognize how his anger and desire for retribution doomed himself and his people. But as Spock and Kirk stood on that bridge together, we see a crew bonded through blood and fire, building a relationship that will define all of them.

However, while the characters themselves have learned the importance of empathy and unity as a response to trauma, Kirk being given the Captaincy as just a barely graduated cadet with only battle experience speaks to what is the beginning for the Federation and Starfleet’s slide into militarization. An ominous sign of things to come.

Star Trek Into Darkness: How Trauma Compromises Our Values

While Star Trek 2009 showed us more individual responses to collective trauma, this second film tackles the question of how we respond to a world and an institution still marked by that trauma, especially when the morality of our leaders start to waver from stated ideals.

Once again, we see villains motivated by trauma. Admiral Marcus would not have found Khan if Starfleet hadn’t responded to the destruction of Vulcan by aggressively searching distant quadrants of space. Khan wouldn’t have attacked if he hadn’t thought Marcus killed his crew. Pike’s death becomes the collateral damage between two men’s angry responses to traumatic events and is later used by Marcus to manipulate and exploit Kirk. Khan himself even exploits the health of a Starfleet officer’s daughter to attack a Starfleet data archive. People’s trauma becomes a weapon to be wielded by an institution that allowed compromises of values to satisfy a desire a safety. A mirror to our real world where we were told our safety justified a war, justified persecution of innocent minorities, and justified vast changes to government policies.

We even see Kirk falling into the rhetoric of safety over values as he struggles to maintain a grip on what kind of person he should be and what kind of Starfleet officer he should be. The things he had learned from the previous film about unity and empathy are clouded by grief at the loss of Pike. He dangerously skids the lines of dictatorship that we saw in Nero, that we see in Marcus and Khan. We see him clashing with his crew, who try to remind him of his morality. Scotty flat out refuses to sign for the torpedoes, pointing out how Starfleet confiscated his transwarp equation to only end up being used by a murderer and how they are explorers, not soldiers. Spock consistently tries to inform Kirk about the regulations and values that Starfleet deems to uphold.

It is because of the morality of the people around him who can speak sense through his trauma, that Kirk doesn’t simply do what Marcus asked of him and just fire the torpedoes and inevitably start a war. And it is because of Kirk’s capacity to listen, to reconcile with the past and build a new narrative, that he isn’t lost to trauma the way Marcus and Khan are. They are two men stuck in the past, but Kirk isn’t. He uses that past to remind and teach himself of who and what he can be, reconciling with it to find new identity and meaning.

Anger and fear can be blinding, we start to think the ends justify the means. Marcus sees an inevitable war. Fears that their way of life will be decimated. Yet because he doesn’t reconcile with his past to build a new narrative, he cannot imagine a future where war would not be inevitable. And because he’s decided war is inevitable, he is destroying the Federation’s way of life without even recognizing it. Khan’s anger and arrogance refuse to allow him to accept change and reinvention, much like Nero before him, Khan’s decided he knows best and that’s it. Both Marcus and Khan are two men who resolutely think they are right, mired in their respective solo agenda, and never exercising empathy and connection with others.

When our institutions fail, when our leaders fail, we must all stand up and say no. We must hold to our moral fortitude and help others keep theirs when they stumble. After all, even real-life soldiers must disobey unlawful orders. Kirk would not succeed if he did not listen to his people if he didn’t have empathy, trust, openness, and awareness that morality still has to matter. In fact, Kirk would not even be alive if the people around him hadn’t all worked together to ensure his survival because of that love and trust. We are not an island; unity is our strength. Our heroes win the day not because they were busy getting revenge, but because saving lives and holding onto their values are more important.

Yes, there will always be those who wish to do us harm, who causes trauma and makes us question our values. And to stop them, we risk awakening that same darkness and evil within ourselves. Our first instinct is to seek revenge when the people we love are taken from us but that’s not who are. Star Trek tells us of a future where our morality and our ideals matter, where we live up to the best of who we are. And this film shows that in our darkest times, it’s when we must hold onto our ideals most of all and remember who we are.

Star Trek Beyond: Recovering Who We Are

Recovering from trauma is not a linear line. Sometimes in the normalcy and mundaneness of our everyday lives, a blast from the past can come out of nowhere and make us unsteady again and question ourselves. One cannot run from trauma, in order to move on, we must confront it and work through it to reaffirm our recovery and our future.

But the villain of this story, Krall or Balthazar Edison , is very much a man living in the past, refusing to move on. Instead of learning to confront his past so that he could face a new future, he has decided to make the future fit his past. He cannot let go the feelings of abandonment, he cannot let go of the trauma of war and having to break bread with the enemy, and most of all, he sees the Federation’s unity with others as a lie and a weakness. And through him, this film tells a grander story of how a society can face the traumatic events of its past. To not ignore who we were, but to acknowledge how we have changed to make the world better.

Kirk and Spock also face their own pasts. Kirk, now a year older than his own father, wondering what it means to be Jim Kirk instead of his father. He even thinks that perhaps space is not where he belongs, but rather behind a desk. Spock is once again torn between his Vulcan side and his Human side, made more conflicted by the passing of Old Prime Spock. This leads him to even break off his relationship with Uhura. Yet unlike Krall, both Kirk and Spock do confront their past, and through compassion and unity, they find a way to move on. Kirk faces off with Krall, a man who also feels lost and without a sense of purpose, and through that confrontation, Kirk comes to realize his purpose, reaffirming his faith in the Federation, Starfleet, and his crew. Spock is reminded of how unity with others instead of him standing alone is what brings him fulfillment. And in a somber moment as he sees the picture of the Enterprise crew from another timeline’s future, he sees where that unity and love can lead him to build a new future with the crew and Uhura in his timeline.

Because of the way trauma can destroy a person’s relationship with time, causing an inability to imagine a future, it’s imperative that empathy, support, and care exist in a person’s environment. Collective Trauma must be recognized, our experiences validated and honoured. Grieving for that trauma takes time, organization, and vision in understanding how to respect the process of grieving and how to foster a sense of hope so that a community or a person can rebuild. And in this film, empathy is everywhere. Krall calls unity a weakness, yet the crew of the Enterprise shows time and time again that unity, empathy, and compassion are what makes them strong. Jaylah helps the crew because Scotty and the others extend their empathy and understanding towards her. When she’s afraid and withdrawn, they listen to her, and they make sure to let her know that she is a part of something bigger and that they won’t give up on her. Spock’s love and affection for Uhura, represented in a necklace that he gives her, ends up helping to find the location of the rest of the captured crew. And the crew’s refusal to give up on each other and their willingness to sacrifice themselves to protect each other’s lives all inch them ever closer to escape and saving Yorktown, the physical manifestation of that unity.

Krall says peace is not what he was born into. He lets his past define him and his crew, refusing to extend empathy and instead holding onto anger and violence. But James T. Kirk, a man born amidst trauma and violence, looks at his past and realizes the way to reinvent his future. Peace is not what he was born into either, but he was also born while his father saved lives, including his own, and that is the value he must carry forward.

This film asks us to look at our past trauma and confront it, to grow and change because we must, or else we will spend the rest of our lives fighting the same battles.

The Lessons We Must Continue To Learn

Some may say to forever let our stories live under the shadow of the trauma of 9/11 is tired and overdone. Yet when our real-life still have not let go of the past, when we still have not learned those lessons, then it’s important for our stories to continue to teach us how to move forward and recover who we really are.

The foundations laid in the Kelvin Timeline films are still felt in today’s modern Star Trek shows. We see it in Paul Stamets , defiant and angry that his spore drive research for exploration was co-opted for war. We see it in Michael Burnham and her crew, steadfastly holding Starfleet to its morality. We see it in Captain Christopher Pike calling out that giving up our values in the name of security is to lose the battle in advance. We see it in Jean-Luc Picard wisely reminding us that secrecy, fear, and anger is nothing against openness, compassion, empathy, and the spirit of curiosity.

The Kelvin Timeline films do not presume that trauma and violence will never reach us. Instead, they show us how unity, love, compassion, and empathy are important in the face of that traumatic violence. The world may get dark, but we can reach the light at the end of the tunnel when we hold onto our higher ideals and to each other. And with everything that is still going on in the world today, that is a valuable lesson for Star Trek to continue to teach us.

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Star Trek: The Kelvin Timeline, Explained

The latest run of Star Trek movies, starting in 2009, gave rise to a whole new timeline in the canon. Here's what that means within the franchise.

Star Trek first graced the small screen way back in the late 1960s, and since then it has been a staple in the science fiction adventure genre. Over the years it has not only come up with some of the most incredible depictions of what further lies ahead for mankind, but also influenced modern day technology . This all came to a rather disappointing stop, however, back in 2005 when the Star Trek: Enterprise went off the air, leaving a large void for the first time in years. Eager to bring Star Trek back into popular culture and re-invigorate the franchise Paramount Pictures set about creating not only a new, never seen before action adventure Star Trek film, but to create an entirely new timeline: The Kelvin Timeline.

Paramount wanted a prequel film, showing what led Captain James T. Kirk and the much loved, much memed, Spock to where audiences see them in The Original Series. Screenwriters Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci were hired to create this story, but they quickly ran into conceptual problems. Their biggest problem was that audiences already knew the story of these characters and what happens to them. Unless purely new people were watching the film, there would not be the same amount of drama or suspense, especially when they know how these characters die (and thus know that they don’t die in the new film). The other issue was that Kirk’s life before the events of The Original Series were not particularly film-worthy. That's not to say they were not interesting or exciting, but there wasn’t much canonically there to explore.

RELATED: Star Trek: The Klingon Language, Explained

Keeping to the canon was something Kurtzman and Orci were especially interested in. They had an opportunity to rewrite the story, make changes here and there that broke with the history Star Trek had established so well over the years. Instead, they decided to do something interesting, and use time travel to create a whole new timeline . With this device, they were able to incorporate new and fresh ideas and narrative, but left the original “prime” timeline in place. This is one of the main story elements of the 2009 film Star Trek , which starts in the year 2380 in, interestingly, the “prime” timeline. This is the same universe audiences know and love, the one that gave them heartbreaking moments on DS9 , and the enigmatically wonderful Captain Picard.

The Romulan sun is about to go supernova, which would destroy not only Romulus, but countless other nearby worlds. Cutting a long story short, Ambassador Spock used a red matter device to stop the disaster, but he failed to save the home world, leading him to be chased and attacked by a lone Romulan mining ship, the Narada, captained by a Romulan named Nero. This is where things start to get complicated. During the chase, the two get caught in the gravitation pull of a black hole, which flings them back in time to the year 2233, over 150 years in the past. Being a Romulan , Nero, despite his confusion, seeks out and attacks the nearest Federation ship, which just so happened to be the U.S.S. Kelvin, captained by none other than First Officer George Kirk — James T. Kirk's father. In an effort to save the countless shuttles escaping the destruction wrought by Nero, which included a shuttle containing the newborn James Kirk and his mother, George Kirk sacrifices his ship. As the Kelvin is destroyed, it sets about the start of the new timeline, named in honor of the ships' sacrifice.

From this point onwards, things follow a fairly similar chain of events to those who know the “prime” timeline, but things are all slightly different. Audiences are shown a different Kirk, one who is rebellious, and far away from the fairly conventional pre-enterprise Kirk mentioned earlier. Bar fights and stolen car joyrides are a few of his newfound hobbies, but as things progress, the old Kirk attitude comes through. Eventually he finds himself fighting alongside Starfleet (after a bit of fibbing) aboard the iconic USS Enterprise . Yet despite his similar trajectory, there are bigger differences in the wider universe. One of these, which came as a shock to many first time viewers, was that the 2009 film ended with the destruction of Vulcan by the hands of Nero as penance for the destruction of his own home world, having blamed Spock.

The similarities and differences continue into the second film Star Trek: Into Darkness where audiences are introduced (or perhaps re-introduced) to the one and only Khan Noonien Singh. In the prime timeline, Kirk is the one who awakens him from the cryogenic stasis, and starts a whole series of events that end in one of the best Star Trek films ever made, The Wrath of Khan. However, in the Kelvin timeline, it is Admiral Alexander Marcus who wakes Khan from his slumber.

After the destruction of Vulcan, Starfleet is no longer the same utopian Starfleet audiences have grown to know and love ( ignoring their problematic tendencies ) from the previous iterations into the franchise. It had adopted a much more militaristic persona, breeding warlike minds like that of Admiral Marcus. In secret, he blackmails the reawakened Khan to help develop powerful weaponry, as well as warships for the federation. Audiences are treaded to the same characters and baseline story, but from the perspective of an all new timeline.

The Kelvin timeline is rather hit-and-miss among fans of the Star Trek franchise. Some like to ignore its existence, but in a way that’s exactly what the writers wanted. They wanted to retell a story that everyone knew and do it differently, all without breaking the well-respected canon that fans have grown so attached to. Creating the Kelvin timeline was a stroke of genius in a way, and while not being directly linked to the “prime” timeline, the films have still influenced proceeding additions to the franchise. The destruction of Romulan, an event that the 2009 Star Trek states takes place ion the “prime” timeline, plays as major context to the events of 2020s Picard . The Kelvin timeline is a great example of how one small event can cause major ripples within the universe, changing events to near unrecognizable levels, all while producing four ( to count the upcoming 2023 film ) half-decent Star Trek films.

MORE: How Star Trek: The Next Generation Explored Blindness & Accessibility With Geordi LaForge

Star Trek: Mapping Out the New “Kelvin” Timeline

Star Trek superfans are sticklers for canon. Star Trek’s official lore spans centuries, from obscure millennia past to the far-flung future of the 31st century. When J.J. Abrams and his production team set out to create a new version of Star Trek in the form of the 2009 film of the same name , they knew they had to address a daunting question. How could they reinvent iconic characters like Captain Kirk , Spock , and Dr. McCoy  without trampling on decades worth of lore?

The answer to that question is the most clever conceit of the current feature film series: Rather than violate canon or create a prequel to the original show, the production team decided to create an alternate reality .

That means the new films are not a reboot of the original Star Trek. Rather, they exist in a separate yet parallel universe to the six TV shows and 10 films that came before. It may seem like a small semantic shift, but it allayed any fears Star Trek fans had that Abrams would barge his way in and obliterate 40 years of existing Trek history.

Even better, Abrams and team actually created a fictional reason for this new timeline (known now as the Kelvin Timeline) to exist, then tied it directly to events that occurred in the original timeline (aka the Prime Timeline).

So how exactly did the Kelvin Timeline come about, and what’s happened since?

Romulus Is Destroyed (Prime Year 2387)

In the year 2387, almost 20 years after the events of The Next Generation , a supernova threatened the entire galaxy. In its path was the planet Romulus , the capital of the Romulan Star Empire . Spock, whose long Vulcan lifespan allowed him to live for over 100 years after Star Trek: The Original Series , promised to help the Romulans. Armed with a substance known as red matter that could disrupt the supernova, Spock took a Vulcan ship to Romulus — but it was too late. The supernova destroyed Romulus. Spock launched the red matter anyway to stop any further destruction.

A Romulan mining ship called the Narada , commanded by a Romulan named Nero , witnessed the planet’s destruction and found Spock. Nero, enraged by the destruction of his planet and the death of his pregnant wife, blamed Spock for what happened. Both the Narada  and Spock’s ship came too close to the black hole created by the red matter. They were both sucked in, with the Narada going in first.

And that’s where the Kelvin Timeline begins…

The Narada and the Kelvin (Kelvin Year 2233)

Over 100 years earlier, in 2233, the Federation starship U.S.S. Kelvin intercepted strange readings on the Klingon border. They went to the source of the readings and found the black hole, with the Narada  emerging from it soon after. The Narada immediately attacked the Kelvin , and Nero realized that he and his entire crew had gone back in time to the 23rd century. George Kirk , the first officer aboard the Kelvin , commanded his ship after the death of his captain.

At the same time, his wife Winona gave birth to a son: James Tiberius Kirk . Only minutes after the future Captain Kirk’s birth aboard an escape shuttle, the Kelvin was destroyed, taking George Kirk with it.

It was this event that sparked the beginning of the Kelvin Timeline. The destruction of the Kelvin didn’t happen in the timeline Nero came from. George Kirk lived to old age and watched his son become captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise . By virtue of Nero’s arrival and the ripple effect it caused, history would be very different in this new universe.

Nero, meanwhile, went into exile, having calculated that because of time displacement, it would not be another 25 years until Spock arrived from the future.

Kirk and Spock Begin (Kelvin Year 2258)

The young Kirk and Spock both began their lives in a new reality. Kirk, raised without a father, became rebellious and was often in trouble with the law in Iowa. Yet he was still gifted. The half-human Spock grappled with his emotions while growing up on Vulcan. He joined Starfleet and became first officer on the Enterprise , under the command of Christopher Pike . Kirk also joined Starfleet on advice from Captain Pike.

In 2258, Nero finally captured Spock Prime. Intent on revenge, Nero used red matter to destroy Vulcan . Starfleet sent an armada, crewed largely by available cadets from Starfleet Academy, in order to find out what was happening. The Enterprise , upon which Cadet Kirk had snuck on board after he was put on academic suspension, arrived late to find the armada destroyed. Nero spared the Enterprise only because he knew the young Spock would be aboard. Pike was captured by the Romulans, but not before he placed Spock in command and appointed Kirk as first officer.

A disagreement over what to do next led Spock to abandon Kirk on a snowy world near Vulcan. Kirk met Spock Prime there and learned about what happened in the other timeline. With the help of Montgomery Scott (Scotty), who was stationed at an outpost, Kirk transported back to the Enterprise and emotionally compromised Spock, forcing him to step down as acting captain. Kirk took command and led the crew to rescue Captain Pike and destroy the Narada . Pike was promoted to Admiral, while Kirk became captain of the Enterprise .

The new crew soon set out on their mission. By that point, the other classic characters of Leonard McCoy , Nyota Uhura , Hikaru Sulu , and Pavel Chekov also joined the crew throughout the course of the mission to stop Nero.

Starfleet’s Militarization (Kelvin Years 2258-2259)

After Vulcan was destroyed, Starfleet — under the command of Admiral Alexander Marcus — began searching distant quadrants of space. Their objective was to find anything they could use to strengthen Starfleet. Not only could that prevent a future disaster like Vulcan, but Marcus also believed that war with the Klingons was imminent. He wanted that war. He wanted to win it, and he believed he was the only one who could. The militarization of Starfleet had begun.

While searching, Starfleet discovered the Botany Bay , a 20th-century spaceship from Earth that carried genetically-engineered humans. These humans, known as Augments , were led by Khan Noonien Singh . Khan and his crew had been frozen in cryosleep since the 1990s, and Marcus awoke only Khan.

Under the new identity of Commander John Harrison, Khan was forced into working for Section 31 , a covert black ops group in Starfleet, to design new weapons and ships that could benefit from Khan’s savagery. Marcus used Khan’s crew against him, but Khan eventually placed them inside the torpedoes he had built and tried to smuggle them to safety. Khan was discovered, and he was forced to flee Starfleet alone.

Khan’s Wrath (Kelvin Year 2259)

Khan believed his crew was dead, so he set out for revenge against Marcus and Starfleet. He bombed a Section 31 base in London, prompting the fleet captains and their first officers to gather in San Francisco. Among those present were Pike, Kirk, and Spock. Kirk had lost command of the Enterprise after violating the Prime Directive , and he was reassigned to be first officer under Pike, who retook command of the ship. Khan attacked the officers and killed many of them, Pike included, giving Kirk his own thirst for revenge.

Khan found refuge on the Klingon homeworld, which was where Marcus — who wanted to use this as a pretext for war — ordered Kirk to take the Enterprise to kill “John Harrison” with the torpedoes Khan had designed. Instead, Spock convinced Kirk to capture “Harrison” and return him to Earth for trial. Kirk then learned that Harrison was really Khan.

Marcus soon arrived aboard an experimental starship called the Vengeance . Never intending for Kirk to make it away from the Klingon homeworld alive, Marcus fired on the Enterprise . Kirk and Khan teamed up to space jump from the damaged Enterprise to the Vengeance , which Scotty had snuck onboard earlier and disabled. There, they could capture Marcus and rescue his daughter, Carol Marcus , a member of the Enterprise crew.

Once aboard, Khan betrayed Kirk, killed Admiral Marcus, and demanded that Spock beam the Augment-filled torpedoes to the Vengeance . Once Spock did so, Khan returned the Enterprise crew members and opened fire. The Enterprise was critically damaged, but Spock played his trump card: He detonated the torpedoes in the Vengeance launch bay, after having Dr. McCoy remove the Augments while they were still on the Enterprise. The Enterprise nearly crashed before Kirk sacrificed his life to save the ship, while Khan crashed the dying Vengeance into the heart of San Francisco.

Spock, enraged at the death of Kirk, chased Khan through San Francisco. McCoy, meanwhile, realized that Khan’s blood had regenerative properties that could return Kirk to life. Uhura transported to San Francisco, where she convinced Spock to capture Khan instead of killing him. Kirk returned to life because of the blood, while Khan was placed into cryosleep once again. One year later, the refitted Enterprise was assigned a new journey: a five-year mission to explore where no one has gone before.

The Five-Year Mission (Kelvin Year 2263)

WARNING: Major Plot Spoilers for Star Trek Beyond Follow!

After spending so much time in deep space, the crew of the Enterprise  became listless. Even Captain Kirk, always the adventurer, thought things were getting a little too routine. A stop at a space station called Yorktown , though, gave them a new mission: rescuing a crew stranded on a planet cloaked inside a nebula . The Enterprise traveled to this strange new world only to be immediately attacked and destroyed by a crew of drone ships. Kirk was the last person to depart the ship, watching the saucer of the Enterprise crash onto the surface from his escape pod.

With most of the crew captured by the leader of the drone swarm, a mysterious alien warrior named Krall , Kirk and the others who weren’t captured regrouped and find their crewmates with the help of a stranded warrior named Jaylah . They ended up boarding the crashed remains of a 22nd-century starship called the USS Franklin , that disappeared in the early 2160s and was never heard from again. The crew repaired the Franklin , which Jaylah had been working on for several years after making the ship her home, and rescued the rest of their crew.

It was then that they learned the truth: Krall was actually Balthazar Eddison, the captain of the Franklin , who had used alien technology to keep himself alive — at the cost of extreme physical mutation. And he had a beef with the Federation: He was a soldier in the Xindi War and the Earth-Romulan War , who felt he was forgotten when peace was achieved and the Federation never rescued his crew. For a century, Krall searched for an ancient artifact known as the Abronath that could power a bioweapon from the planet, and he attacked the Enterprise once he learned it was aboard.

Flying the Franklin , Kirk and his crew followed Krall to Yorktown, where Krall intended to unleash the bioweapon against millions of Federation citizens. Kirk defeated Krall, who was sucked into space and killed. Through his dealings with Krall, who had a similar identity crisis, Kirk came to remember that being a starship captain was his first, best destiny, and that he lived for the adventure with his crew. The crew was given a new starship, the USS Enterprise-A , and they resumed their five-year mission to explore where no one has gone before.

Star Trek Beyond is in theaters now.

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JJ Abrams’ statement:

We are thrilled to say that we are hard at work on a new ‘Star Trek’ film that will be shooting by the end of the year that will be featuring our original cast and some new characters that I think are going to be really fun and exciting and help take ‘Star Trek’ into areas that you’ve just never seen before. We’re thrilled about this film, we have a bunch of other stories that we’re talking about that we think will be really exciting so can’t wait for you to see what we’re cooking up. But until then, live long and prosper.

Variety’s report also added some interesting insight into the move in returning to the Kelvin Timeline; despite the long break since the last film in 2016, market research seems to indicate that there’s enough moviegoer demand for the Abrams cast to make their efforts to reunite those original starts with the effort.

Since then, insiders say the studio has done market research to determine audience interest in the rebooted cast, given the long wait period between “Beyond” — which lost money for Paramount — and a prospective new “Trek” film. Execs determined that there was still lasting audience enthusiasm for Pine, Quinto and the rest of the cast in their established roles, which allowed the studio to feel comfortable with moving forward with bringing them back.

Of course we’ve heard much of this all before, with an end to the Kelvin Timeline seeming likely after previous financial negotiations with Chris Pine fell apart in 2018 — so while this kind of thing seems like it wouldn’t be so publicly discussed if things weren’t moving back to fruition, we’ll still be waiting for formal news of contract sign-offs.

The untitled 2023  Star Trek film is set to be directed by Matt Shakman , with today’s announcement signaling an intention to bring back Chris Pine as Captain Kirk, Zachary Quinto as Spock, Karl Urban as Dr. McCoy, Zoe Saldana as Uhura, Simon Pegg as Scotty, and John Cho as Sulu.

Anton Yelchin, who played Chekov in the previous films, passed away in 2016 and his role is not expected to be recast.

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Star Trek Trilogy: The Kelvin Timeline (4K Ultra HD)

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Star Trek Trilogy: The Kelvin Timeline is a 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray / Blu-ray Disc / Digital combo triple pack, released in July 2019 , collecting the previous, 2016 4K UHD releases of Star Trek , Star Trek Into Darkness , and Star Trek Beyond .

The set was released on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the alternate reality Star Trek films launch with Star Trek in 2009. It is the second home video release after its one month earlier released Blu-ray counterpart to be endowed with the " Kelvin timeline " moniker, the Star Trek franchise settled upon in 2016 as its official designation for the alternate reality on the occasion of the release of the fourth edition of the Star Trek Encyclopedia in that year.

• ↑ Snapcase shown as included in the first edition set with the extra bonus disc. Notice absence of the "digital" option in the red band which was present on the snapcase of the prior Blu-ray standalone release .
• ↑ Notice "6-disc set" notification on reissue spine

Remarkably, the set did not debut in North America, but in Germany where it – without the digital version – was released a year earlier under the " Star Trek - 3 Movie Collection " moniker of its 2016 Blu-ray predecessor.

All discs are mounted in two standard Viva Elite cases (one containing the three 4K UHD discs and one containing the six Blu-ray discs), accompanied by a fold-out poster detailing the chronology of the alternate reality films, the whole packaged in the customary cardboard slipcover. As usual with these releases, to North-America geo-restricted redeemable codes are included to download the various digital versions.

While the official release date was slated to be 15 July 2019, several Amazon.com customers have reported to have already received their set as early as 29 June, being given preferential treatment as (original) Amazon Prime subscription members. [1]

A particular issue these customers had, was that an UHD digital version of Beyond was apparently not available, they instead having to make do with the standard HD digital version.

Released in fairly small numbers, as the 4K UHD BD format had by 2019 yet to make substantial inroads into the home video format market, the set was nonetheless reissued on 12 May 2020 , the first pressing having apparently sold out. However, just like the 2018 German source release and the subsequent 2019 UK release, that second pressing and this time packaged in a plastic Viva Elite six-disc snap-case (also like the German and UK releases), had all the special features collected on the Blu-ray disc version of each individual film, and did not include the contents of the bonus disc for Beyond , making them the inferior versions of the 2019 release.

Contents [ ]

For the disc contents, see the individual 4K UHD releases of

• Star Trek Into Darkness
• Star Trek Beyond

Extra disc [ ]

The 2019 release set had one extra Blu-ray disc included, collecting the Star Trek Beyond bonus special features, previously only available as a "retailer exclusive" for the 2016 Star Trek Beyond Blu-ray disc release as sold by retailers Target (in the US), Sainsbury's (in the UK), and JB Hi-Fi (in Australia). Nonetheless, neither disc nor its contents were included in the German source, and/or 2020 reissue releases of the set. The contents of the bonus disc included the following,

• Small World
• The Battle of Yorktown
• Properly Outfitted
• Set Phasers to Stunning
• Beats and Shouting
• Visually Effective
• Rihanna Sledgehammer Music Video

The inclusion of this disc has therefore resulted in the hitherto most complete collection of all three alternate reality films commercially available, as the individual 4K UHD releases of the first two films already contained all the bonus contents as included on the 2014 Star Trek: The Compendium Blu-ray release – though still lacking the missing contents for that release. Also physically missing on this (first-pressing) release, remains Director Justin Lin 's "Picture-in-Picture enhanced audio commentary " iTunes Store exclusive, which could be accessed by redeeming the digital codes included in prior home video format releases of the film. This code is not included on this release, nor are any for the special features for that matter beyond those for the Blu-ray disc contents, only the Paramount standard digital codes for the films themselves, as confirmed by Amazon customers.

External link [ ]

• Star Trek Trilogy: The Kelvin Timeline at TrekCore
• 2 ISS Enterprise (NCC-1701)

Star Trek movies in order: Chronological and Kelvin orders

• Explore the Star Trek universe by watching the franchise in chronological order, based on stardates.
• The original Star Trek timeline includes the TV show Enterprise and the first two seasons of Discovery.
• The original series, The Animated Series, and the first Star Trek movie are important parts of the franchise's origins.

With the Star Trek franchise rapidly expanding on Paramount+, now is the perfect time to boldly go explore the Star Trek Universe.

The universe is composed of 13 films and nine TV shows. Now, it'd be easy enough to watch them all in the order they premiered, but if you prefer to watch everything chronologically (when the events take place), we've compiled an ultimate viewing guide for you. Below, you'll find the entire franchise organized by stardates. It starts with the oldest event in the original Star Trek timeline.

Speaking of timelines, there are two in Star Trek: The original, which includes nearly all the films and TV shows; and Kelvin, an alternative timeline that kicked off with the latest three reboot films. To better understand what we're talking about, please read the guide below. Those of you who want to proceed spoiler-free, however, can scroll all the way to the bottom for the list version of this guide.

Also at the bottom, we've included another spoiler-free list. It's structured by order of release - or when each film and TV show premiered.

How to watch every Marvel movie and TV show in chronological order

The original star trek timeline.

The thing to remember about this order is that it is chronological - based entirely on the stardate time system in the Star Trek franchise. Think of stardates as years. In that case, the order below starts with the oldest events in the Star Trek Universe - but it excludes the Kelvin timeline films.

There are spoilers below.

Star Trek: E nterprise

The first to boldly go where no man has gone before, star trek: enterprise.

Stardate: 2151 to 2156

Enterprise follows the adventures of one of the first starships to explore deep space in the Star Trek Universe.

Creator Rick Berman, Brannon Braga

Starring Scott Bakula, Jolene Blalock, Connor Trinneer

Format TV series

Years aired 2001 to 2005

Rating TV-PG

Number of Episodes 98

Set right before the founding of the Federation of Planets (and about 100 years before the original Star Trek series), Star Trek: Enterprise is a TV show that follows the adventures of Captain Jack Archer, played by Scott Bakula, and the Starship Enterprise crew. This ship is the first Federation vessel to have Warp 5 capabilities, allowing its crew to be among the first deep-space explorers.

The series introduces many of the different alien species important to the Star Trek Universe, such as the Vulcans and Klingons. It also begins to lay the groundwork for the Federation of Planets, in the fourth and final season.

Star Trek: Discovery seasons 1 and 2

Discover a new type of starship, set ten years before the original series, star trek: discovery.

Stardate: 2256

The first two seasons of Discovery is set ten years before the original series as the crew of the titular ship tests an impressive new warp drive.

Creator Bryan Fuller, Alex Kurtzman

Starring Sonequa Martin-Green, Doug Jones, Anthony Rapp

Years aired 2017 to 2019

Rating TV-MA

Number of Episodes 29

Star Trek: Discovery follows Michael Burnham, played by Sonequa Martin-Green, the first officer aboard the USS Shenzhou before she is found guilty of mutineering. However, with the Federation at war with the Klingons, the captain of the new Discovery ship, Gabriel Lorca, played by Jason Isaacs, enlists Burnham to help get the ship’s experimental warp drive properly working.

Discovery's early setting in the Star Trek universe was changed with a leap through time at the end of season two, which is why we're placing the recently released third season elsewhere on our list.

Star Trek: Strange New World

A direct prequel to the original series., star trek: strange new worlds.

Stardate: 2258

Strange New Worlds follows the early adventures of the Starship Enterprise, before Kirk became its captain.

Creator Akiva Goldsman, Alex Kurtzman

Starring Anson Mount, Rebecca Romijn, Ethan Peck

Years aired 2022 to 2023

Number of Episodes 20

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds stars Anson Mount as Captain Christopher Pike.

Pike will be a familiar name to Star Trek fans, as Pike is the man who commanded the starship Enterprise before Captain Kirk. The series follows Pike doing just that, in his final five-year mission as captain of the Enterprise before he becomes Fleet Captain and hands the reigns to Captain Kirk.

This being a prequel to the original Star Trek series, there are also other recognizable names, with Ethan Peck playing Spock and Celia Rose-Gooding as Uhara. A third season is currently in production.

Star Trek: The Original Series

Where it all began.

Stardate: 2266 to 2269

The original Star Trek series follows Captain Kirk, Spock, and the rest of the crew as they boldly go where no man has gone before.

Creator Gene Roddenberry

Starring William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley

Years aired 1966 to 1969

Number of Episodes 79

This is the original Star Trek TV show. It began airing in 1966 and primarily follows the crew of the USS Enterprise, starting with them embarking on a five-year mission “to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before”.

The series introduces William Shatner’s Captain James T Kirk and Leonard Nimoy’s Spock, too.

It also gives us the basis for the universe that makes Star Trek so successful, from introducing numerous alien species like the Vulcans and Klingons to showing us the inner workings of the Federation of Planets. The origins of the Star Trek Universe wouldn’t exist without it.

*Optional* Star Trek: The Animated Series

Continue the journey with the original crew, star trek: animated.

Stardate: 2269 to 2270

Continue the adventures of the original series in this animated version that sees most of the cast return to voice their characters.

Years aired 1973 to 1974

Number of Episodes 22

After The Original Series ended, it quickly became a cult classic. Creator Gene Roddenberry then began work on an animated series that saw most of the original cast provide voice work for the animated versions of their characters. The show essentially functions as the fourth season of the original series, with the original characters navigating unexplored sections of space.

However, it was eliminated from canon by Roddenberry himself, when the rights were renegotiated following the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. So, if you want to consume every drop of Star Trek content, add this to your list.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture

The first star trek movie.

Stardate: 2273

Captain Kirk, his crew, and a newly remodeled Enterprise head out to investigate an alien entity known as V'ger.

Director Robert Wise

Writers Alan Dean Foster, Gene Roddenberry

In theaters 1979

Format Movie

Runtime 132 minutes

This is the first feature film in the Star Trek Universe. It sees Captain James T Kirk retake the helm of a renovated USS Enterprise to investigate a mysterious cloud of energy that is moving toward Earth. The energy cloud destroys a Federation monitoring station, as well as three Klingon ships, but before Kirk is able to engage it, he must learn to operate an unfamiliar USS Enterprise.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)

Star trek: the wrath of khan.

Stardate: 2285

The crew of the Enterprise faces off against it's most fearsome adversary, Khan.

Director Nicholas Meyer

Writers Jack B. Sowards, Nicholas Meyer

Starring William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Ricardo Montalbn

Run Time 113 minutes

In theaters 1982

The second Star Trek movie is perhaps the most successful entry in the franchise. It sees Captain James T Kirk taking command of a USS Enterprise staffed with untested trainees in order to track down the adversary Khan Noonien Singh and his genetically engineered super soldiers.

In the process of escaping a planet that Kirk trapped him on, Khan learns of a secret device known as Genesis, capable of re-organizing matter to terraform (make them habitable) planets. Khan tries to steal the device, but, of course, Kirk will do all he can to stop him.

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

The crew of the enterprise try to resurrect spock.

Captain Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise set out on a mission to recover Spock's body and bring him back to life.

Director Leonard Nimoy

Writers Harve Bennett

Runtime 105 minutes

In theaters 1984

Following their battle with Khan, the crew of the USS Enterprise returns home to Earth in this third feature film.

Once there, Leonard H “Bones” McCoy, played by DeForest Kelley, begins to act strangely, leading to him being detained. Captain James T Kirk, with the help of Spock’s father, Sarek, played by Mark Lenard, then learns that Spock transferred his Katra into McCoy before dying.

If nothing is done, McCoy will die from carrying Spock’s Katra. So, the crew of the USS Enterprise go back to the site of their battle with Khan - in the hopes of retrieving Spock’s body. To top it all off, they must battle with the Klingon Kruge, played by Christopher Lloyd, over control of the Genesis Device. The Search for Spock is also directed by Spock himself, Leonard Nimoy.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)

Earth is in danger and the only hope is humpback whales, star trek iv: the voyage home.

Stardate: 2286

The Enterprise travels back in time to 1986 and has to untangle a mystery involving humpback whales and an alien probe.

Writers Peter Krikes, Steve Meerson

Runtime 119

In theaters 1986

In this film, a mysterious ship begins orbiting Earth and destroys the planet's power grid. It emits strange noises, too, and the newly resurrected Spock realizes the sound is similar to the now-extinct humpback whale. Believing the strange ship is expecting to hear back the song of humpback whales, the crew goes around the Sun and travels back in time to 1986 to get a humpback whale.

Nimoy returned to direct this film, as well.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

The enterprise crew must face off with spock's brother, sybok.

Stardate: 2287

The Enterprise heads out on a mission to rescue hostages from the planet Nimbus 3.

Director William Shatner

Writers Harve Bennett, William Shatner

Runtime 107 minutes

In theaters 1989

After finishing a mission, Kirk, Spock, and Bones are enjoying a camping trip in Yosemite in this film when they are ordered to rescue hostages on the planet Nimbus III. But, once arriving on the planet, the crew realizes Spock’s half-brother, Sybok, is responsible for taking the hostages in order to lure a starship, with the hopes of reaching the mythical planet Sha Ka Ree and meeting a God.

Sybok realizes he’ll need Kirk’s expertise to navigate through the barrier at the centre of the Milky Way that leads to this mythical planet. Along the way, the Klingon Kraa decides to hunt Kirk. The Final Frontier is also the only Star Trek film directed by William Shatner.

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

The final film starring the original series cast.

Stardate: 2293

After being framed for a political assassination, Kirk and the rest of the crew of the Enterprise must unravel the conspiracy to avoid war with the Klingon Empire.

Writers Denny Martin Flinn, Nicholas Meyer

Runtime 110 minutes

In theaters 1991

In the final film of this series, we see the Klingon homeworld nearly destroyed, leading the hostile empire to engage in peace talks with the Federation. Captain James T Kirk is assigned to escort the Klingon ambassador, but is instead blamed when assassins beam aboard the Ambassador’s ship and kill him. The Klingons then sentence Kirk and McCoy to life imprisonment on a frozen asteroid.

At that point, Spock and the rest of the crew must find the true culprits behind the attack of the Klingon ship and rescue Kirk and Bones.

Star Trek: The Next Generation

The next generation takes over the uss enterprise.

Stardate: 2364 to 2370

A new crew takes over the Enterprise and heads out on a five-year mission to explore the unknown.

Starring Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, LeVar Burton

Number of Episodes 178

Years aired 1987 to 1994

Set 71 years after the USS Enterprise’s last mission with Captain James T Kirk at the helm, The Next Generation introduces us to a new USS Enterprise staffed with the next generation of Starfleet officers, led by Captain Jean Luc Picard (played by Patrick Stewart).

This TV series also shows us new species of aliens, the Cardassians and the Borgs, which replace the now-friendlier Klingons as the Federation’s primary adversaries.

The Next Generation ran for seven seasons and featured a couple of cameos from The Original Series, like Spock and Bones, among others.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Everyday life in the deepest reaches of space.

Stardate: 2369 to 2375

Set on a stationary space station instead of an exploring starship, Deep Space Nine explores what life in space is like after the exploring part is done.

Creator Rick Berman, Michael Piller

Starring Avery Brooks, Rene Auberjonois, Nana Visitor

Years aired 1993 to 1999

Number of Episodes 176

This TV show overlaps with the end of Star Trek: The Next Generation. It focuses on the former Cardassian space station, a backwood outpost that the Federation now controls and has ordered a Starfleet crew to run, with Avery Brook’s Benjamin Sisko as the commanding officer.

It's not about a starship exploring the unknown, but rather the trade disputes and political manoeuvring surrounding a crucial military hub.

Star Trek Generations

The two enterprise crews unite to take on a force with the power to destroy stars, star trek: generations.

Stardate: 2371

The first Star Trek film to feature the Next Generation crew also brought back the Enterprise crew from the original series.

Director David Carson

Runtime 118 minutes

Writers Brannon Braga, Ronald D. Moore

Starring Patrick Stewart, William Shatner, Malcolm McDowell

In theaters 1994

Star Trek Generations is the first film to feature the crew of The Next Generation while also starring some of The Original Series cast.

The plot primarily centres around an El-Aurian, named Dr Tolian Soran (played by Malcolm McDowell), as well as an energy ribbon known as the Nexus.

You see, in 2293, Soran is rescued from the Energy Ribbon by a retired Captain James T Kirk, who is attending a maiden voyage of a new USS Enterprise. Then, in 2371, while answering a distress call, Captain Jean Luc Picard finds Soran - and he has a weapon capable of destroying stars.

Star Trek: Voyager

A federation starship stranded in uncharted space.

Stardate: 2371 to 2378

Follow a Captain Janeway and her crew of the USS Voyager as they attempt to find their way home after being stranded in space.

Creator Rick Berman, Michael Piller, Jeri Taylor

Starring Kate Mulgrew, Robert Beltran, Jeri Ryan

Years aired 1995 to 2001

Number of Episodes 172

After leaving Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in search of a group of Maquis rebels, the Starship Voyager, led by Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew), is captured by an energy wave that sends it - and a ship of Maquis rebels - into the middle of the unexplored Delta Quadrant. With both ships damaged and far from home, the crews agree to join forces and begin a 75-year journey back to Earth.

Star Trek: First Contact

The crew of the enterprise travels back before the first warp drive was used.

Stardate: 2373

The Enterprise must travel back in time to prevent a Borg ship from assimilating all of Earth.

Director Jonathan Frakes

Writers Brannon Braga

Starring Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spinner

Runtime 103 minutes

In theaters 1998

In this film, the USS Enterprise tries to help defeat a Borg Cube attacking Earth, with Captain Jean Luc Picard assuming command of a fleet of starships. However, just before the Cube is destroyed, it releases a smaller ship that enters a temporal vortex. The USS Enterprise gives chase through the vortex, but in the process, realizes the Borg traveled back in time and assimilated the entire planet.

And once through the Vortex, the crew arrives in 2063. More specifically, they arrive one day before Zefram Cochrane (played by James Cromwell) uses the first warp drive system, which draws the attention of the Vulcans, leading to humanity's first contact with an alien race.

Star Trek: Insurrection

The enterprise must uncover the mystery around a nearly immortal group of people.

Stardate: 2375

The crew of the USS Enterprise uncovers a conspiracy involving the forced relocation of a peaceful alien race.

Writers Michael Piller

Starring Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, F. Murray Abraham

The action now centres around a planet with a type of unique radiation that rejuvenates its people, known as the Ba’ku. The effects of the radiation make the Ba’ku nearly immortal.

In this film, Brent Spinner’s Data is sent undercover to monitor the Ba’ku people and soon begins to malfunction, which causes Captain Jean Luc Picard and the crew of the USS Enterprise to investigate.

They uncover a conspiracy between a species, which is hostile to the Ba’ku, and Admiral Mathew Doherty, a Starfleet officer played by Anthony Zerbe. The crew of the Enterprise must stop them both in order to save the Ba’ku from being forcibly removed from their home planet.

Star Trek: Nemesis

Picard vs picard.

Stardate: 2379

Captain Picard and the crew face a new, dangerous enemy in the form of a clone of Picard himself.

Director Stuart Baird

Writers John Logan

Starring Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Tom Hardy

Rating PG-13

Run Time 116 minutes

In theaters 2002

Captain Jean Luc Picard and the USS Enterprise crew are sent on a mission to meet with the leader of the Romulans, Shinzon, played by a super young Tom Hardy. Once there, they learn that Shinzon is actually a clone of Picard, created in the hopes that he would one day be able to infiltrate the Federation. The Romulans had abandoned the plan and sent Shinzon into slavery.

He led a rebellion, however, and created his own starship, the Scimitar. Soon, the Enterprise learns Shinzon’s true plan is to use a form of radiation poisonous to all life in order to attack the Federation and destroy Earth.

Star Trek: Picard

Picard's forced out of retirement one more time

Stardate: 2399

Captain Picard's retirement is about as full of adventure as his career on the Enterprise.

Creator Kirsten Beyer, Michael Chabon, Akiva Goldsman, Alex Kurtzman

Starring Patrick Stewart, Alison Pill, Isa Briones

Format TV Show

Years aired 2020 to 2023

Number of Episodes 30

One of the most popular starship captains in the Star Trek Universe, Jean Luc Picard had retired to a life of wine-making, but a new mission set 20 years after the events of Nemesis sees Captain Jean Luc Picard return to space along with many of his old friends. The first season sees Picard struggling with the events that led to his retirement from Starfleet -- when he's forced into a conflict that sees him thrust into a captain's chair again.

The second season sees Picard transported to an alternate timeline by the interdimensional being known as Q (John De Lancie), who originally appeared in The Next Generation. The third and final season of Picard recently got a teaser and is slated to premiere in spring 2023.

Star Trek: Discovery seasons 3 and beyond

The discovery's journey picks up later than any other star trek content.

Stardate: 3188

Catch up with the rest of Discovery after a timejump shifts the story to the end of the Star Trek timeline.

Years aired 2020 to 2024

Number of episodes 26

Burnham and the crew of the Discovery make a jump through time that lands them further in the future than we've ever seen in the Star Trek Universe.

There, Burnham is separated from the rest of the crew of Discovery.

While trying to locate the ship, she learns that the United Federation of Planets has fallen following the event known as The Burn, which saw ships simultaneously explode throughout the entire galaxy. The fuel for Star Trek's ships, Dilithium, has also become extremely rare, which makes travel across wide distances of space much harder. In the fourth season, Burnham and the crew of the Discovery begin the process of rebuilding the Federation of Planets. A fifth season of Star Trek Discovery is slated to premiere in 2024.

Kelvin timeline: The alternate Star Trek timeline

These films kick off JJ Abrams' alternate Star Trek timeline. Officially called the Kelvin timeline, it's named after the USS Kelvin. If you want to watch them, you can do so either before or after Star Trek: The Original Series. We prefer you watch it after - in fact, watch it after you've finished the original Star Trek timeline, because it literally takes place in a different timeline.

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RANKED: The List of [Kelvin Timeline] Star Trek Films

A list ranking all of the films in the Kelvin Timeline series of Star Trek films.

• Movies or TV
• IMDb Rating
• In Theaters
• Release Year

1. Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

PG-13 | 132 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

After the crew of the Enterprise find an unstoppable force of terror from within their own organization, Captain Kirk leads a manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one-man weapon of mass destruction.

Director: J.J. Abrams | Stars: Chris Pine , Zachary Quinto , Zoe Saldana , Benedict Cumberbatch

Votes: 497,115 | Gross: $228.78M

2. Star Trek (2009)

PG-13 | 127 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

The brash James T. Kirk tries to live up to his father's legacy with Mr. Spock keeping him in check as a vengeful Romulan from the future creates black holes to destroy the Federation one planet at a time.

Director: J.J. Abrams | Stars: Chris Pine , Zachary Quinto , Simon Pegg , Leonard Nimoy

Votes: 620,331 | Gross: $257.73M

3. Star Trek Beyond (2016)

PG-13 | 122 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

The crew of the USS Enterprise explores the furthest reaches of uncharted space, where they encounter a new ruthless enemy, who puts them, and everything the Federation stands for, to the test.

Director: Justin Lin | Stars: Chris Pine , Zachary Quinto , Karl Urban , Zoe Saldana

Votes: 258,530 | Gross: $158.85M

4. Untitled Star Trek: Beyond Sequel

Action, Adventure, Mystery | Pre-production

Plot kept under wraps. The follow-up to Star Trek Beyond (2016).

Stars: Chris Pine , Karl Urban , Zoe Saldana , Simon Pegg

[Unreleased]

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How to Watch Every Star Trek Series (and Movie) in the Right Order

Ready for a rewatch but not sure where to start? We’ve got you covered.

Have you ever wondered what the best way is to stream Star Trek from start to finish? Look no further.

Approaching the chronological watch of a franchise that’s been on over fifty years can be daunting. Especially with a science-fiction universe that has time travel, multiple universes, concurrent shows and entirely new timelines.

Fear not, as we have created a handy binge-watch guide using the Stardate of each series and film. Here is our guide on how to watch every Star Trek series and movie in the right order.