What's funny is that someone pointed me to a GAME they made, called Starfleet Academy...and the crew they introduced was more interesting than any in the recent series! They all had stories, all eager sorts.
That's one thing I actually liked about the first movie. Even II and VI did some of it. (Nick Meyer wasn't a bad director, he even said he was going for "Hornblower in Space").
It also made you curious. Every one of those portholes could have had a story behind it, all the ensigns carrying in their dufflebags and finding their bunks, all the excitement of a ship about to set sail.
And that's what they did, then. They used music and good filmmaking to give the image of a tall ship clearing its moorings and raising sails, heading for the horizon.
They have never done that since.
And, of course, the respect for physics helped. Someone with a bulky suit and MMU backpack, departing from a large airlock complex shown open to space on the underside, that's also something they've never bothered to make believable since in any film. First Contact tried...and failed. It was so obviously a set with people on wires, the camera angles so failed to make anything look "big"...
That's one thing Abrams has to bring as a director, at least he knows camera angles. Cinematography classes actually make fun of the horrible, bland camerawork done in all the recent Trek series. Long shot, twofer, face one, face two, twofer. Compare that with, say, the opening following shot of Serenity, where the audience meets the entire crew in one completely uncut shot.
