Yahoo! News! caught up with J.J. Abrams, who recently wrapped principle photography on the upcoming origin film Star Trek. They asked him why he took on this particular challenge.

The director stated, "It was an opportunity to take what I think has been a maligned world - to sound crass, a franchise - and treat it in a way that made it something that I wanted to see. To take the characters, the thoughtfulness, the personalities, the sense of adventure, the idea of humanity working together, the sense of social commentary and innovation, all that stuff. To take it and apply it in a way that felt genuinely thrilling."

Abrams claims that he was never a rabid fan of the Star Trek series, explaining, "The whole point was to try to make this movie for fans of movies, not fans of Star Trek, necessarily. If you're a fan, we've got one of the writers who's a devout Trekker, so we were able to make sure we were serving the people who are completely enamored with Star Trek. But we are not making the movie for that contingent alone."

He continued, saying, "You can't really make a movie for them. As soon as you start to guess what you think they are going to want to see, you're in trouble. You have to make the movie in many ways for what you want to see yourself, make a movie you believe in. Then you're not second-guessing an audience you don't really have an understanding of."

Star Trek opens May 8th, 2009.