From producer/director J.J. Abrams ("Mission: Impossible III, "Lost" and "Alias") comes a new vision of the greatest space adventure of all time. Star Trek XI, scheduled for release on May 8, features a young, new crew going boldly where no one has gone before.

The original Star Trek series hit the airwaves in 1966 and was canceled after just three seasons. But viewers clamored for more. What made the show unique in it's day was that it's creator, Gene Roddenberry implicitly intended the show to have a progressive, almost radical political agenda reflective of the emerging sexualized counter-culture of the youth movement.

But it wasn't easy. Instead of battling aliens, he had to battle network executives who wanted to steer clear of programs with a message.

Star Trek showed mankind what it might develop into, if only it would learn from the lessons of the past. The message hit home. The Star Trek franchise spun off five other TV series. But since the 1990s, in the words of Entertainment Weekly's Jeff Jensen, it "devolved into a near-irrelevant cultural joke, likely to inspire giggles and unprintable curses from even its most ardent supporters."

Even Leonard Nimoy said the franchise "had run its course".

To get the Enterprise back on course, drastic measures were necessary. Who would be capable of reviving what was once the pride of the fleet? None other than Abrams. But even he was worried about how far things have sunk, lamenting that "people [may not] even understand what Star Trek means anymore"

Even on the set of the new film, Abrams said he felt nervous "with all these tattooed faces and pointy ears, bizarre weaponry and Romulan linguists, with dialogue about 'Neutral Zones' and 'Starfleet'".

The new movie is actual a prequel to the original series. Are you ready for a "Trek" film that is engaging, energized and stylish? This might be it.

And we're not the only ones who think so. The new trailer for the movie was downloaded 1.8 million times in its first 24 hours as an iTunes offering and 5 million times since it hit YouTube on March 6. That's quite a bit of pent-up interest.

Not only is this film expected to revive the franchise, some believe it will crack the top-five grossing films of 2009.

Check out the trailer and see what you think!

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