I completely disagree with you there. Enterprise season 4 had some great episodes. At least they try new things and different directions. Unlike Orci/Kurtzman, in the 09 movie Nero is a bad copy of Shinzon and the movie is held together by improbable coincidences and STD is a bad rehash of of WoK.
And then Enterprise whizzed it right down their leg with "these are the voyages". I would say season 4 had some ok episodes but they're not remotely that great they're certainly not all that ambitious. I think the whole season is still undone by the terrible cast and the characters. I just can't see how anybody can compare Nero with Shinzon other than being Romulans, I guess, they're just not the same character. Star Trek is for me about the characters and at least Star Trek 2009 and Star Trek into darkness gave us great stories for these characters and honestly I think that's what Star Trek is all about. it's all about the characters and how they feel together as family, dealing with life and death, and that's what's most important to me. The new movies as opposed to the TNG ones engross you on a genuinely organic level. With TNG movies and Enterprise I always got the sense that any emotional involvement was on a purely forced and artificial level.
Star Trek was an exciting space adventure showing us how the characters we already know had the requisite guts and cunning to save the universe. That's all I want out of a Star Trek movie, no more, no less. When you ask for too much intellectualism in a film you get something like Star Trek The Motion Picture and that's something nobody wants. I'm sure I don't need to remind you but(especially these days) studios will never go out on a limb purely for artistic reasons. Is that an excuse? Of course not. But I am more than happy to have something that breathes life into the characters I love and gives them exciting adventures to go on. I thought Star Trek 2009 was the perfect balance. Intellectualism is fine in the right context(2001 for instance), and it's much easier to stomach the thought of a script like Star Trek '09 versus 2001 a Space Odyssey. I am trying not to come off as an apologist but I'm afraid that's how I'm sounding right now.
Star Trek Into Darkness might arguably be a sloppy homage, but at least it was a decent homage. The actors as those characters made me believe it, whereas with anyone else directing it might have come off laughable. Star Trek Nemesis was completely sloppy in that it lacked vision, ambition, and all the elements that make a Star Trek movie totally exciting(Dune buggy chase anyone?). Nemesis really wanted you to believe it was 100% it's own original story. At least with Into Darkness, all the homages are clear and obvious, and I respect that. It doesn't try to hide what it is. Unlike Nemesis, I actually care about the Enterprise A crew and whether or not they live or die by the end. With Nemesis, I knew it was going to be the last movie and it moved so slow and it was so plodding and boring that I was like "Who cares?" upon the first viewing. Into Darkness even tackled subject matter that I thought was interesting. Just like The undiscovered country, it tackled the issue that in the future, fear and hatred will not be things of the past. As sad as it may seem, we'll always have that emotional baggage with us and we'll just need to learn to deal with it. I liked that message, and I thought it made for a wonderful conclusion because it was so deep and thought-provoking.
I think it's fair to say that each of the movies basically has what the other doesn't. The first one was a gripping, fast paced and exciting character oriented space adventure, and the second was an intense, thought-provoking drama, character-driven, science fiction think piece.
After saying all this though, I have to consider the question: am I just so jaded I love those movies for the wrong reasons? Or do I just love them because there's something seriously wrong with me?