A five-second sizzle reel of a ship smacking in from warp, two people kissing, and a captain raising a gun. Pounding drums, of course – where would we be without those? The trailer "STARTS NOW."

So that's when it starts. Important to specify when it starts if it isn't going to start at the start, I suppose. And if it doesn't start at the start, goodness knows we've got to specify when it does start, if only because it didn't start at the start for this segment designed to tell us when it would start.

More insistent, driving, distortion-summoning synths. A shot of stars? No, comet dust. But what's critical is that the camera is spinning. Gotta know the craft.

Do you believe this crew can produce a papaya from thin air five seconds ago?

Whoa, this is fiction? How did the writers do it? Did they somehow osmose the elusive essence of Spock from Roddenberry himself?

Pike is bobbin' his head back and forth, like he's just riffin', man. The officer's eyebrows are raised, and she's nodding almost frantically. Evidently, this first contact sequence – one of the cornerstones of actual Star Trek – was intended as a joke. Based on this creative team's track record, it must have been a tremor-inducing exercise in restraint to keep the f-word out of this trailer, but depicting a crew two centuries detached from today's colloquialisms and body language? Wow, let's not get crazy. We don't want the leadership to move from hyperventilation to a full-blown conniption.

A number of documentaries and retrospectives now document the extensive precautiousness and care taken before even launching the first Star Trek movie, let alone The Next Generation. There was a whole second series in the works which was never launched.

The post-2005 faction has tried to reboot the original Star Trek how many times, now? How many times do they have to try this, and how much more good will from lifelong viewers do they have to lose, before they realize the problem is profoundly more fundamental?

• The trailer.