I'm a huge Trekkie and I liked the reboots for what they were: the only way Paramount can make a shitfuckpiss of money off the Star Trek copyright.
It's simple-minded action and adventure set in the future. The only thing science fiction about it is the future technology and aliens.
Science-fiction is a way to critique modern history using methaphors, or a vision of a utopian future that outlines a new system, a new form of government, or a new paradigm that has never been tried before, but just might lead to paradise on Earth.
JJ Abrams did neither of those. What was the critique of modern history in the new Trek movies? If that was a part of the theme at all, it was just a minor part.
What I want is to step back from a movie and think "Gee, maybe infinite NSA wiretapping is a shitty idea", or "Wow, maybe creating the TSA and the USA PATRIOT ACT was not a proper response to 9/11", or "We shouldn't sit by and let North Korea enslave people in labor camps because we're afraid of the economic reprocussions".
There should be some kind of humanist message behind the plot that is a metaphor for something that has gone wrong in modern society and how we can fix it.
All I got was Vulcan is now exploded and awesome fight scenes and amazing CG effects. For fucks sake, the Uhura kiss was the first interracial kiss aired on television. I'm not sure if you people realize just how huge that was. A blind starship pilot. A Russian on the bridge. A BLACK FEMALE officer.
These things about TOS were enormous and do not translate to modern times. All you get in new Trek is college kids having sex, a young protagonist who is invincible, and a bad guy who seemingly has the upper hand, then gets defeated by the ingenuity of the protagonist in a twist.
None of that is profound enough to bear the Star Trek name. You could easily have ditched the names, changed the alien makeup and gotten rid of the saucer and dual nacelle model ship, called the movie "2033" and nobody would even think it was a Trek movies besides a cheezy Nemoy cameo and some quotes.