Watching the new, rebooted “Star Trek” on the IMAX screen at Navy Pier got me thinking about movies.

For instance, I’m always surprised when I see a really bad movie, especially a big summer action blockbuster. How hard is it to make a good action movie? After having spent twenty years with action movies serving as my third parent, I’m positive that it’s beyond easy.

You just take a wise-cracking hero, a generic bad guy, mix in a few cuss words and moments of comic relief, and then add explosions.

There. Done. I just made a better movie than “Wolverine” (Oh, sorry, I guess the full title is something like “X-Men Origins: Wolverine: The Prequel: To Those Other X-Men Movies”).

If you haven’t seen it yet, “Star Trek” is pretty badass. You got your wise-cracking, frat boy hero in Captain Kirk, your basic friend-foe foil in Spock, your eye candy in a short skirt in Uhura, and a great generic villain in Eric Bana, who plays a crazy Romulan from the future with a mining ship and “red matter.”

What’s even better is that all the ensuing explosions actually make a bit of narrative sense–in that by the end of the movie, you can remember why the “red matter” and the mining ship and Spock From the Future are all on screen doing things. Plus, a bunch of stuff blows up and there are loud sounds and cool lights.

Making a good summer action movie should not be as difficult as the Kobayashi Maru (nerdy Star Trek reference!). Maybe George Lucas should let ”Trek” auteur J.J. Abrams redo those garbage “Star Wars” prequels.

(Photo by: Industrial Light & Magic)