Note: I am going off my personal recollection of the film so some small details and the order of events may be wrong.

The film opens in 2233 with the USS Kelvin investigating a lightning storm in a distant sector. The Romulan vessel “Narada” emerges from the storm and badly damage the Kelvin in battle. Before destroying the Kelvin the Narada hails them and orders the Kelvin’s Captain to come over in a shuttle, leaving George Kirk in command.

On the Narada Captain Robau is interrogated about Ambassador Spock and if he recognises a ship shown in a holographic projection. When the Romulan captain Nero discovers the stardate is 2233.04, he  kills Robau and relaunches his assault on the USS Kelvin. In response George Kirk orders an immediate evacuation, including that of his wife who is in the middle of labour. George Kirk is unable leave due to needing to cover the escape craft and dies when crashing the Kelvin into the Narada and naming his son Jim.

There are then a few brief scenes of James Kirk and Spock as they grow up on Earth and Vulcan and we see Spock and Kirks entry into Starfleet Academy, and Kirks first meeting with Uhura and Leonard “Bones” McCoy

There is then a time skip of a couple of years and we see Kirk and McCoy the day before Kirk is going to take the Kobayashi Maru no-win scenario test for the third time. Around this time we go back to the Narada and see it capture the craft shown in the holographic projection which emerges from a similar lighting storm to the one which the Narada emerged from.

A little later we see things getting steamy between Kirk and an Orion but things are interrupted when her roommate (Uhura) arrives back early so he is ordered to hide under the bed. As Uhura tells her roommate of the destruction of 47 klingon ships after the appearance of a lightning storm. Uhura then Kirk is hiding under her roommates bed and he is “escorted” out as he tries to find out more from Uhura about the Klingons and the storm.

In the Kobayashi Maru test Kirk acts extremely casual as he has reprogrammed the test to make all the opponents killable in a single shot. After winninf the test the scenarios designer Commander Spock investigates to find out what happened.  As a result of this Kirk is brought before a board of inquiry but the inquiry is left unfinished since an urgent request for help from Vulcan is received and due to much of the fleet being at a build up in the Laurasia (?) system, the board order all the cadets at the inquiry to be dispatched to help crew undermanned ships that are currently orbiting Earth that will then set off to Vulcan.

In the shuttle bay, everyone is sent to various ships, and McCoy is sent to the Enterprise, Kirk due to being suspended due to the cheating allegation is left on Earth, McCoy helps Kirk by faking an illness with a vaccine so he can use medical regulations to get Kirk on the Enterprise. Uhura has been dispatched to a ship other than the Enterprise which she wanted as Spock says he did not want to show favoritism but he relents and changes her assignment.

On the Enterprise when Kirk hears of a lightning storm being reported near Vulcan, despite having more severe side-effects that usual to the faked illness goes to find Uhura to confirm that the Klingons she mentioned were destroyed by the Romulans. When this is confirmed he heads to the bridge and after initial difficulty when Spock backs up his argument he convinces Captain Pike that the ship is heading into a trap.

Due to only being minutes from Vulcan, the Enterprise is unable to warn the rest of the fleet and comes out in the middle of wreckage from the 7 ships that arrived before them. After navigating the wreckage, they spot a mining beam boring into Vulcan and are spotted by the Narada, who attack. When Nero recognises the ship as the Enterprise, he stops the attack hails it and after telling Spock that he wants him to see something, invites Captain Pike over. Despite knowing it is a trap, Pike agrees since transporters and long range communications are down as he wants to use the opportunity to get men onto the rig through a low orbital drop from the shuttle.

Sulu and a Redshirt volunteer and Pike volunteers Kirk for the task. Pike then promotes Spock to acting Captain and Kirk to First Officer and orders them to rescue him if things go wrong once they have disabled the mining rig. Kirk, Sulu and Redshirt then drop down to the Rig with the Red Shirt getting incinerated in the rigs beam after deploying his schute too late. Kirk and Sulu manage to defeat a couple of Romulans guarding the rig, then disable it.

On the Narada, Nero prepares things by taking a smal ball of red matter (about tennis ball size) from a much larger sphere in the captured vessel seen earlier, then orders the launch of red matter in a missile, and orders the rigs retraction. Around the same time he informs Captain Pike of the destruction of Romulus in the future, and asks him for Earths defense codes. When Pike refuses, Nero forces a Centaurian Eel (?) into his mouth as it will latch onto his brain stem and release chemicals that make him vulnerable to suggestion (I think it is meant to be the creature Khan utilises in Star Trek 2)

Back on the platform as the rig starts to retract Sulu falls off, as Kirk dives after him due to Sulu’s parachute being damaged and Kirk catches him but Kirks chute breaks as well leading them to go into freefall, but are saved by Chekov beaming them up just before they hit the ground. Concurrent with this, the missile impacts into Vulcan causing the creation of an artificial black hole that will destroy Vulcan in minutes.

Spock beams down to Vulcan to retrieve the Vulcan high council and his parents.  Spock manages to get several of the council and his mother to a ledge where they can be beamed from, but as they are beamed up the ledge collapses causing the death of his mother. A few minutes later Vulcan is completely destroyed and Spock estimates there are probably only 10 000 Vulcans left from the 6 billion on Vulcan.

Back on the bridge, despite the Narada heading for Earth, Spock insists that the Enterprise join up with the rest of the fleet at the build up in the Laurasian system. When Kirk refuses to back down from this and an angry Spocks has him thrown off the ship in an escape pod, which lands in the hazardous frozen wasteland of Delta Vega.

On Delta Vega when Kirk wakes up, rather than wait to be picked up by people from the Federation outpost he decides to head there on foot. This soon proves to be a big mistake as he is chased by various carnivorous creatures into a frozen cave where he is rescued by a much older Spock, from the same future Nero came from. After introductions Spock mind melds with Kirk and shows him how both he and Nero got thrown back in time and blames Spock for Romulus’ destruction as Spock had promised and failed to save Romulus. Rather than kill Spock after his capture Nero marooned him on Delta Vega so he could witness the death of Vulcan.

Spock tells Kirk that he must take command of the Enterprise, and to use a starfleet regulation about emotionally compromised officers to relieve young Spock of command and to not tell the younger Spock about his existence. Spock and Kirk then leave the cave and head to the outpost. When they reach the Outpost they find Montgomery Scott who has been exiled there due to a failed transwarp transporter experiment that involved Admiral Archers pet Beagle. Spock is pleased to find Scotty as he can use him to set up a transwarp transport onto the Enterprise using equations for it, that Scotty perfected in the future.

Scotty and Kirk are beamed onto the Enterprise but Scotty ends up materialising in the ships water sytem, Kirk manages to rescue Scotty but they are then caught by Security and taken to the bridge. On the Bridge, Kirk manages to get Spock to lose his temper and Spock relieves himself of command leaving Kirk in charge. Kirk then orders the Enterprise to Earth and they come up with a plan to use Titan and Saturn to hide Enterprise from Narada’s sensors.

When they arrive at Saturn, they find that the Narada has already deployed its mining rig, and Kirk and a now calmed Spock are beamed into what Scotty thinks will be an empty Cargo bay, but instead is a room filled with Romulans. After a brief battle Spock manages to board and launch the ship which he discovers is from the future and recognises his voice print and face. He then uses it to destroy the Mining Rig and then goes into Warp causing Nero to follow.

On the Narada, Kirk is about to be killed by Nero but Spocks actions save him as Nero leaves him for his attendant to finish, who fails when Kirk grabs his gun and shoots him. Kirk then goes and frees Captain Pike.

When the Narada catches up with Spock a battle ensues and it looks like Spocks ship is about to be destroyed, until the Enterprise intervenes. The Enterprise then beam Spock, Kirk and Pike back to the ship, while Spocks ship crashes into the Narada, leading to the creation of a black hole through the release of the Red Matter centered on the Narada. Kirk offers to help Nero and his crew, but his offer is vehemently refused, leading to Kirk ordering the Enterprise to help the Narada on its way. The Enterprise then manages to escape the black holes pull and it returns to Earth.

On Earth we see Kirk receiving a commendation and the Captaincy of Enterprise from Admiral Pike. The Spocks meet with elder Spock telling the younger one to remain in Starfleet, rather than help rebuild the Vulcan race as he can now be in two places at once. We then see Spock being given the post of First Officer on the Enterprise from Kirk as it starts it’s journey.