Trekkies, perk up your ears, both pointy and regular: we are about to reveal how it all started.

Director and producer J.J. Abrams visited the Eternal City yesterday to give a sneak peek of the early years of Captain James T. Kirk and the other characters who warp around the galaxy in the upcoming Star Trek movie.

The prequel, set to open worldwide in May 2009, explores how the starship Enterprise and its iconic crew set out on their interstellar journey, adding a good dose of space battles and dastardly aliens.

"My goal was to make a movie about the emotional lives of these characters," Abrams told reporters. "We've seen a million ships fly by the camera, but nobody is going to care about the ship if they don't care about the people inside."

Abrams hopes the movie, which is aimed at revitalizing the 42-year-old franchise, will appeal not only to diehard fans, but to people who didn't follow the original 1960s adventures of Kirk, the logical alien Spock and their fellow explorers.

"I want fans of Star Trek to come watch it, but the truth is I made the movie for future fans," Abrams said at the presentation in a Rome theatre. He and his footage made similar appearances across Europe this week.

Star Trek fans -- and they're legion -- have been eagerly anticipating the movie for more than a year.

The preview and four Star Trek scenes were strictly controlled, with security keeping out cameras and other recording devices.

This much we can say: the brash and womanizing Kirk had a less than glorious start to his career, since the film introduces him as a bar-brawling biker in 23rd-century Iowa.

The movie follows the young troublemaker, played by actor Chris Pine, as he meets up with his future crew, getting off to a rocky start with most of them, including Zachary Quinto's edgy and hostile Spock.

The peek given yesterday also featured plenty of action sequences, including a hair-raising space dive and a sword duel at high altitude above an alien planet as the crew battle the villains led by Eric Bana.

The movie is also likely to enthrall fans with inside jokes, including a scene that pokes fun at the accent of Russian character Chekov, as well as a cameo by Leonard Nimoy, who reprises his original role appearing as an aging, time-travelling Spock.

The original Kirk, Canadian actor William Shatner, will not appear in the movie.

In its first incarnation, Star Trek ran from 1966 to 1969 before it was cancelled. An animated series was made in the 1970s, followed by four sequel series between 1987 and 2005.

The original cast reunited for six feature films between 1979 and 1991 before yielding the big screen to the younger cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation. But popularity waned, and no Trek feature film has been released since 2002.

Online: startrekmovie.com