I just watched it again.
I'm not sure if I'd put it ahead of Wrath of Khan, but I'm pretty sure I'd rank it ahead of the other movies.
Even though the writers seem to have overestimated the power of a supernova while underestimating the power of a black hole, but I guess it just wouldn't be Star Trek if the science weren't a little silly.
I'm not sure whether to be relieved or disappointed that Chris Pine didn't imitate Shatner as closely as Karl Urban imitated DeForest Kelley. However, I know I'm relieved to see that Zoe Saldana is as hot as the new Uhura as Nichelle Nichols was as the old one.
For those who haven't seen it yet, there's a comic whose story connects the Next Generation movies with this one.
http://www.sendspace.com/file/bvkyofFor those who want to watch the movie but don't consider themselves nerdy enough to read a comic book, there follows a spoiler-filled summary:
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A mining ship in Romulan space is looking for "decalithium" when the planet's star goes supernova. For some reason, this supernova gets stronger with everything it destroys, to the point where it could, for some reason, destroy the entire galaxy.
Spock, who, because Vulcans have long lifespans is still alive in Next Generation time, seems to be the only one who sees this as a threat. He tries to warn the Romulan senate that this supernova will keep expanding at an unusual rate, but they don't believe him, even though Nero, the captain of the Romulan mining vessel confirms his story.
Spock and Nero agree to help each other, but their plan hinges upon a new Vulcan technology called "red matter," which coincidentally hinges upon decalithium.
Along the way to Vulcan, their ship is intercepted by Reman pirates. Just when all seems lost, the Enterprise happens along, commanded by Captain Data, who seems to have erased his retarded brother's mind to take control of his body after the events of Nemesis. By an even more amazing coincidence, the Reman pirates happen to have been stealing more Decalithium.
While this is happening, the Romulan senate finally recognizes the threat and decides to begin evacuation of their home world.
When they reach Vulcan, they happen to meet up with Jean-Luc Picard, who is now the Federation's ambassador to Vulcan. While en route to Vulcan, Nero happens to study the history of all Starfleet vessels called Enterprise, learning about Kirk and Spock.
Despite his and Spock's best efforts, they fail to convince the Vulcan high council to help the Romulans as old prejudices hold sway.
Nero decides to entrust his supply of decalithium to Spock and friends as he attempts to return to Romulas to rescue his pregnant wife.
Unfortunately, they arrived too late, as the supernova somehow managed to expand largely enough and quickly enough to destroy a star system light years away, killing everyone who couldn't evacuate from Romulas, including Nero's wife.
Nero, driven insane with grief, assumes that the Federation did this intentionally, and destroys the medical ships sent to assist in the evacuation of Romulas.
After this, the Romulan ruling council reveals that they managed to escape the destruction. Nero responds to this by killing them too, and therefor he assumes control of what's left of the Romulan Empire.
Only after the destruction of Romulas did the Vulcan high council recognize the threat caused by the unusually powerful supernova. The only problem was that they had no ship capable of deploying their red matter technology close enough to the center of the explosion to prevent further destruction.
While these discussions were going on, Nero took his mining ship to the coordinates the Romulan senators had revealed. They found there a secret military base that outfitted their mining ship with reverse-engineered Borg technology, making it the most powerful ship in the galaxy.
Meanwhile Geordi LaForge, who had retired from Starfleet engineering to design his own ships, arrived with his latest design, called the Jellyfish, which was strong and fast enough to get inside the supernova to deliver the red matter. Even though a tiny amount of red matter is enough to finish the job, Spock for some reason decides to take a whole bunch of it along with him to stop the supernova.
While this was going on, Nero was using his newly upgraded ship to kill anyone he came across, Federation, Cardassian, Klingon, and anyone else.
Spock volunteered to take the fancy new ship and destroy the supernova, believing it to be a suicide mission.
But while he was preparing for that, a huge Klingon fleet, let by General Worf, attacked Nero's ship. Unfortunately for them, his upgraded ship was more powerful than their entire fleet, and they were all destroyed, leaving Worf critically injured.
But while that was happening, the Jellyfish was upgraded and adapted to respond only to Spock's commands. He took off, leaving the Enterprise to confront Nero and his seemingly invincible ship.
The Enterprise managed to rescue Worf in time, but only after taking heavy damage, making them unable to pursue Nero as he follows Spock.
Spock manages to deploy the red matter in time to stop the supernova from somehow destroying the entire galaxy, but he and Nero are caught in the black hole, leading up to the events of the movie.[/bgcolor]