We will get our first glimpse at Star Trek Into Darkness when The Hobbit comes out

When The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey hits theaters on December 14, moviegoers will be treated to an unexpected preview. (Well, I guess it's not unexpected anymore, what with it being...announced.) Paramount broke the news this morning that the first nine minute of the highly-anticipated, stupidly-titled Star Trek Into Darkness will be shown on around 500 IMAX 3D screens across the United States. That makes it the first preview footage to ever be screened in IMAX 3D, and it almost makes up for the dumbass title! (I'm kidding. It doesn't.) But it is said to be "absolutely incredible," according to IMAX chairman and president Greg Foster, and it is nine brand new fancy minutes of J.J. Abrams' new Star Trek movie that we get to see before it comes out next May. So, get ready to head to the Shire, fellow Trekkies! (via Deadline)

Fan-created poster found on Tumblr

• [Christopher Russo]

  As a fan of Trek, I do not consider JJ Trek to be part of the same franchise.  It’s more like Galaxy Quest: The Next Generation.

  • [Florian Bösch]

    I absolutely love the new JJ Trek (including lens-flare and dirty camera and all). I agree that it’s not the same franchise. But it’s like, TNG wasn’t the same franchise as TOS and so on. Besides, various Trek franchises (while having some fan following) just didn’t appeal to me. I couldn’t watch voyager more than a season, the Jar Jar Binks effect was too strong. And Deep Space nine… well. I think Babylon 5 was better. If only they could release it sometime with better CG.

    • [jandrese]

      DS9 and Babylon 5 diverged enough after the first season that I wouldn’t even try to compare them.  Both are quite good too, with DS9 being probably the most consistently good Trek series and B5 being generally quite good after the first season. 

    • [rtb61]

      It’s not even a franchise any more Jerk Jerk A, is just hiding behind star trek history to release some really dumb down Sci Fi, that people watch as empty action and soon forget.
      Jerk Jerk hiding behind very powerful family connections, turning Star Trek into, meh, who cares.
      Star Trek franchise, they kill one Vulcan Spock and the fans go nuts demanding his resurrection. Jerk Jerk A’s failure, he blows up the whole planet Vulcan, essential to the whole Star Trek story and franchise, meh, nobody gives a crap.
      Jerk Jerk is hopeless at generating true long term interest in anything, a strict one of dumb down action movie assembler, no real story, just a string of empty action sequences.

• [Michael Langford]

  I think JJ Abrams series is breathing new life, and most importantly new ideas into what is essentially a 1960′s idea of a troubled Utopia with a 1980′s idea of one layered on top.

  • [spejic]

    The problem is that the breath was Star Wars, a retread of the old serials hero worship where the day is won by incredible luck, destiny, and emotion over intellect. It is Star Wars in every way that matters. They even had a fight on catwalks with no safety rails over a bottomless pit. You can’t get more Star Wars than that.

• [Timothy Krause]

  Apparently they capitalize prepositions in the twentieth-whatever century, or perhaps its the new barbarism unleashed following the destruction of Vulcan and nobody cares about proper grammar anymore. Oooo, I can hear Zoe Saldana intoning, “It’s like we were all living an alternative life . . . in which we were all completely stupid about proper capitalization and typographical norms, like those disastrous lackwits of the twenty-first century. At least we have our blasters, and our gender norms are still intact, hooray!”

  • [Ian Anthony]

    Calm down and breathe into this paper bag. Everything is going to be alright.

    • [Timothy Krause]

      ‘Twas a joke, Ian Anthony. Hope you yourself are resting calmly.

      But wait, what’s in that bag from which I’m to breathe? Am curious.

      • [allium]

         Red matter.

        • [Timothy Krause]

          Warp Five, then. Engage!

        • [rtb61]

           I’m waiting for yellow polka dot matter http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQN0zcGWpcg, as in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bikini_atoll. Blow up earth and put us all out of ‘his’ misery.

• [LintMan]

  “The Hobbit: An Unexpected and Cynically Long Journey” is my favorite way I’ve seen the movie titled.

  As for the new Trek, the JJ Abrams film just didn’t do it for me.  They need to revitalize Star Trek, but I’d much rather have had brand new characters in the same continuity than rewritten old characters in a new continuity.  After all the episodes and movies with these characters (and all the other trek series building up the trek universe), there is a mountain of history and characterization there, and the JJ Abrams film throws all of that away.  This isn’t the Bond series where the films are mostly standalone and the lead changes every few years.   It feels pointless, and dismissive of all the original material; you might as well just call it something else besides Star Trek at this point.

• [jandrese]

  I have to admit that this was me after seeing the JJ Abrams Star Trek movie:  http://www.theonion.com/video/trekkies-bash-new-star-trek-film-as-fun-watchable,14333/

  Fluffy dumb action movies aren’t Star Trek dammit, not even if they’re set in space and have pointy ears. 

  That said, I didn’t like most of the TNG Trek movies either, and only maybe half of the original Trek movies, so it’s not exactly a disaster for someone to go in a new direction. 

• [Matthew Holloway]

  3D!  So the cyclopeans among us will have to wait until it’s up on Youtube.  Bah, dirty binoculists!

  Anyone taking wagers on whether there will be a gay character this time around?

• [Ian Anthony]

  Just so we’re all clear, when we get upset about the original material being ruined, we’re all talking about this, right? 

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1eFdUSnaQM

  Just clarifying.

  • [Timothy Krause]

    I see your Gorn, and raise you . . . Spock’s mother. Just scarifying. ;D

• [mindysan33]

  I think I had mixed feelings about the JJ Abrams Trek…  I am interested to see Cumberbatch in the new film… CUMBERBATCH…. that might be the best name ever.

  Sort of off-topic, but we have been watching the Star Trek series in order, and we came across the TNG episode, 3rd season, named “Transfiguration” which had almost the same plot as the Mutants story of Doctor Who, pertwee era, or at least a major element – a people who are on a evolutionary journey and are being attacked and feared because of it.  In this case (TNG) it was the guy’s people who are out to suppress him, and in the other (Doctor Who) it was colonizers of his planet who are out to eliminate the “threat”.  It was weird that the stories are so similar and I wonder if the writer of the TNG story was a Who fan?

  • [Hanglyman]

     If I remember correctly, there were quite a few Dr. Who references in TNG, though usually pretty subtle, like lists of names on a screen or the name of a planet.

• [avraamov]

  ‘…it almost makes up for the dumbass title! (I’m kidding. It doesn’t.)’
  …like ‘Star trek’ isn’t a rubbish name in itself.

• [Aaron Cole]

  I want a new ST TV series perhaps something as rumored by Michael Dorn (Worf). 

  The pilot episode can revolve around fixing the egregious error caused by JJ Trek. Once they fix the timeline/alternate universe ..whatever JJ Trek is back to Star Trek Worf’s final line can be “That was close”.

  http://screenrant.com/star-trek-captain-worf-tv-show-michael-dorn/

  One more thing, JJ Trek gave me Lens Flair  PTSD, every time I see it I’m forced to scream at the top of my lungs LLLEEENNNSSSS FFFLLLAAAIIIIRRR!!!! while I convulse uncontrollably. And really, why does the bridge of the Enterprise look like an Apple store while the rest of the ship looks like it was filmed at the Shell refinery down the street?

• [Avram Grumer]

  I’m kinda hoping this is a Star Trek version of Heart of Darkness/Apocalypse Now. Can’t you just see Spock launching into a monologue about “the conflict in every heart, between the rational and the irrational”? 

  • [Timothy Krause]

    Mistah Kirk, he dead.

• [NelC]

  A nine-minute preview? Will there be any point in seeing the full-length version of STID?

• [margaretpoa]

  As far as I’m concerned, the JJ Abrams Star Trek is a mixed bag. I liked the story alright, Star Trek has explored alternate universes since the original series but that whole thing about putting Uhura among stainless steel beer tanks was absurd. That was too obviously a brewery. I hope they manage to make it look more like a, you know, star ship next time. On the other hand, I won’t know the story do he can’t ruin it for me like Peter Jackson is going to ruin The Hobbit.

• [Halloween_Jack]

  People said the same crap about TNG when it came out–the same.damn.crap–and about the subsequent spinoff series when they came out, especially after their favorite series (TNG, DS9, etc.) ended. It’s tiresome. (And, if you’re wondering what my creds are, I’m old enough to remember TOS when it was originally broadcast.)

  • [IronEdithKidd]

    You are so correct.  I’m younger than you, but I clearly recall all the whinging TOS fans when TNG started “ruining” Star Trek.   

• [feetleet]

  Remember when Kirk died while helping PIcard save the universe from the Nexus? Neither do I. We must be thinking of an alternate universe. Cue the inevitable Shatner cameo…