With J.J. Abrams’ ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’ flying into theaters in almost exactly one month’s time, we’ve been getting quite a bit of promotion for the film. In less than a week, we’ve gotten a nifty cinemosaic poster and a new international television spot. Now, because of CinemaCon, which is currently going on in Las Vegas, we have even more insight into what we can see in the follow-up to the 2009 movie.
Coming Soon has a pretty detailed description of what happens in the latest footage that Paramount has shown off. Since Abrams is still hard at work on making sure the film is where it should be, Damon Lindelof joined Enterprise crewmembers Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Alice Eve, and John Cho to introduce eighteen minutes of ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’.
From here on, there will be spoilers about the film, so if you want to go into ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’ cold, then you might not want to read the rest of this post.
The first bit of footage that was shown was the IMAX prologue that was shown in selected theaters back in December, however, it excluded the part in the hospital that featured the introduction of Benedict Cumberbatch’s John Harrison.
The next piece of footage shown involves the crew of the Enterprise breaking the Prime Directive, which dictates that there can be no interference with the internal development of alien civilizations. Here’s the description of that scene:
“We see the Enterprise rise from the water of Nibiru so that it can position itself above the volcano and beam out Mr. Spock. He’s met on the transporter pad by Kirk and McCoy and, while everyone else is relieved that he has survived, Spock sternly reminds Kirk that, by letting the Nibiru people see the Enterprise, he’s broken the Prime Directive. Kirk tells him that everything’s fine, but we cut to the planet where the Nibiru villagers have already drawn the starship in the sand and have begun to pray to it.”
Finally, the last bit of footage features a conversation between Captain Kirk and Harrison in the sickbay of the Enterprise in which the captain is seeking help from the mysterious stranger. They exchange some dialogue that goes a little something like this:
“You said you’d do anything for your crew,” Kirk says, though it’s unclear exactly what crew he’s referring to. “I can promise they’ll be safe.”
“Captain,” Harrison smiles. “You can’t even guarantee the safety of your own crew.”
Despite the interaction, Harrison agrees to Kirk’s plan. We see that the Enterprise is recovering from a fight with a Dreadnought-class Starfleet ship that was specifically built for combat. The Dreadnought ship seems to be recuperating faster though, because they note that their weapons will be back online soon. From there, here’s how the rest of the scene plays out:
Scotty, for some reason, is already over on the Dreadnought ship, keeping hidden. The plan is for Kirk and Harrison to eject themselves from a trash chute on the Enterprise, shoot through space debris and then have Scotty open an airlock just as they arrive at the other ship.
“That’s like jumping from a moving car and trying to land in a shotglass,” Scotty whispers into his communicator, not wanting to be overheard by whoever is in control of the other ship. He also refers to Harrison as “whoever you are,” making it appear that whatever the true identity of Cumberbatch’s character is, we’re not going to learn it early on and that the mystery will even play as a minor joke within the film.
Kirk and Harrison wind up shooting out across the debris field, but Kirk’s spacesuit is hit by wreckage and his faceplate begins to crack. Scotty, meanwhile, is apprehended by a massive security guard (a hugely muscular Starfleet officer) who demands to know what he’s doing. Scotty tries to stall, but ultimately just apologizes to the guard, blasting open the hatch and sucking the guard into space just as Kirk and Harrison enter and skid across the airlock floor.
I picture that last bit being influenced by Indiana Jones a little bit and I dig that. As for the footage as a whole, one thing is for sure and that is that we haven’t gotten any closer to figuring out who Benedict Cumberbatch’s character is in the movie. But what we do have here appears to be a pretty cool sampling of the action and humor that we’ll be seeing in this sequel. It’s uncertain whether or not the general public will have access to this footage before the movie hits theaters, but it’s not like they’ll have to wait very long anyway. The month will fly by and ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’ will be in theaters before you know it.
Until we get to see the footage or, more likely, the whole film, what do you think of the description of Paramount’s ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’ presentation at CinemaCon? Does it make you more excited for the upcoming sequel? And after finding out what this footage showed off, do you have any new theories as to who Benedict Cumberbatch’s John Harrison really is? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
‘Star Trek Into Darkness’ beams into IMAX theaters on May 15th and in regular 2D and 3D on May 17th.
