JJ Abrams was in high spirits as he introduced four scenes from Star Trek to the assembled journalists at London’s Vue West End. Judging by the footage that we saw Abrams has got every reason to be so bouncy – it looked fabulous.

Of course, the entire point of showing extended footage like this to journos is so that we’ll go away and say things like “it looked fabulous”, and with a current release date of 8 May 2009 (in the US and UK) it’s obviously important for Paramount to keep the momentum going until then.

But the scenes really did suggest that this will be the perfect reboot the franchise needs after the deeply underwhelming Insurrection and Nemesis – and a reboot that should please fans and non-fans alike.

“I was never a huge fan,” Abrams recalled as he strolled around in front of the screen, admitting that he didn’t know why he said ‘yes’ to the project originally. He said he remembered being surprised when he learnt how many Star Trek movies had already been made. “There were 10?! I couldn’t believe it!”

Yet being a non-Trekker gave Abrams an opportunity to come at the show from a very different perspective than some of the previous movie directors (after all, several of the earlier films were helmed by cast members, including Leonard Nimoy, William Shatner and Jonathan Frakes). He said that to him Star Trek always held “a promise of adventure, but rarely an adventure” – whereas his movie would give viewers an action-packed adventure that felt grounded in reality.

The latest trailer was revealed (heavy on action and silhouetted sex), before we were shown the four very different scenes – scenes which still cleverly managed to disguise the exact plot.

The first scene saw a youthful Kirk (Christopher Pine) attempting to chat up Uhura (Zoe Saldana) and becoming involved in a bloody brawl, before Captain Pike (Bruce Greenwood) imparts some wise words to the future hero.

In the second, McCoy (Karl Urban) is treating Kirk in the sick bay – before Kirk realises that a Romulan attack is underway. Despite being hindered by swollen hands and a numb tongue, Kirk rushes to the bridge to try to convince Pike what is taking place.

Before we were shown the third scene, Abrams introduced Simon Pegg, who sprung up from the front row to enthuse that he was “pant-wettingly excited to be in this movie.” The scene itself featured Kirk and a future Spock (played, of course, by Leonard Nimoy) coming across an isolated Scotty (Pegg) and his little alien companion.

The final sequence that we saw turned out to be a big action scene in which Kirk and Sulu (John Cho) have to skydive onto a giant mining drill on Vulcan. The duo end up sword-fighting with Romulans before plunging towards a man-made black hole.

So to sum up then: ridiculously thrilling action; chuckles aplenty; and a cast that, we’re relieved to report, actually look like they fit their roles. The morning certainly did the trick in making us even more excited about the movie. Of course, the frustrating thing about seeing just 20 minutes is it left us desperate for more...

Star Trek is released in UK and US cinemas on 8 May 2009.