JJ Abrams is getting a lot of shit for the way he lit and shot his Star Trek movie, particularly the scenes in the interior of the Enterprise, in which virtually every close-up is marred by lens flares. It was only a matter of time before some intrepid YouTube user asked and answered the question, “What if the original Star Trek TV series looked like that?” See above.

In speaking of Star Trek, JJ Abrams’ origin story prequel designed to sex up the venerable brand and relaunch it as again-viable film franchise, I can’t speak for the fans, and I probably shouldn’t risk inciting their wrath by regurgitating the plot. Suffice it to say, all the familiar characters are rendered here as 20-something and absurdly attractive; they all end up on the Enterprise, from which they fight a Romulan who blows up a planet; there’s some time travel mumbo-jumbo that complicates things just enough to allow for a cameo from Leonard Nimoy; and the sexual tension between Young Kirk (Chris Pine) and Young Spock (Zachary Quinto) is the stuff that viral video makers in the “1 + 1 = GAY = LOL” mold dream of.

Fans and critic-fans will be predisposed to liking this film more than I, because they have more invested. Though I have a working familiarity with both the original TV series and The Next Generation, I didn’t walk into the film with opinions as to how something like the Kobayashi Maru test should have been handled, and I didn’t walk out anymore convinced that it matters one way or another. I can only offer the perspective of a viewer who walked in not really giving a shit about Star Trek, and from that perspective, Abrams has done a sufficient job. After all, the reason Star Trek exists is to support the theory that more Star Trek films should exist, and in painlessly demonstrating how the motley, almost incredibly diverse crew of the Enterprise fits together, in convincing that it wouldn’t be unpleasant to watch these seven space soldiers take on further missions, and in setting up a soapy workplace love triangle that will mandate sequels to resolve, Star Trek does that job. I walked out still not giving much of a shit about Star Trek, but at least I didn’t resent the expenditure of time, and though the central mythology of the series still fails to get a rise out of me, the pretty faces assigned to mobilize that myth offer their own rewards.

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The new action film sequel Crank: High Voltage is being advertised with the tagline “He was dead…But he got better.” Aside from sort of ruining the ending to the first Crank for those of us who haven’t seen it, this copy from the posters has been receiving a lot of attention for how ridiculous it sounds. Fans of the original have to disagree with the tagline, because they know Chev Chelios (Jason Statham) was not dead; in fact it is clear from the final scene that he miraculously survived that fall from the helicopter. Meanwhile, people less familiar with the movie simply find the idea of a dead character being resurrected for the benefit of a sequel to be laughably unacceptable, as if such an idea is unheard of in Hollywood.

But even if Chelios had been officially declared dead at the end of Crank, the sequel certainly wouldn’t be the first to revive a main character for a follow-up. Obviously horror films do it all the time, and it’s not exactly uncommon in sci-fi, fantasy, action and comic book genres, either. Even while ignoring the invincibility convention of contemporary slasher films, we were able to select six sequels in which a deceased (or presumed deceased) character returns.

Warning: Spoilers may be found after the jump.
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Last year’s 2007 Comic-Con featured a massive Paramount Pictures panel, which did everything from give us a live broadcast from the set of Indiana Jones (where we found out Marion Ravenwood was in the picture), to introduce both Leonard Nimoy and Zachary Quinto as Spock in the new Trek film. However, Paramount’s only presence this year was a Tropic Thunder screening outside the Con, and some freebie Trek posters on the show floor. Where was the most cinematic representation of the Comic-Con audience to be found?

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