Star Trek 2 trailer!

Three thoughts:

1. Looks damned good.
2. The trailer makes it look like a straight-up action movie with sci-fi backdrops.
3. Maybe they're so cagey about calling him Khan because it's a British actor in a classic minority role?

Speaking of that particular semiotic snarl, did anyone notice the first time around that Vulcans are now a predominantly British entity, whereas in earlier Star Treks they were Jewish American? Given what happens to Vulcan itself in the rebooted franchise, I wonder if to JJ Abrams, it just didn't seem right to cast Jewish people--and Jewish culture--in the role of "friendly but vaguely sinister aliens."

Whereas that is a technically accurate description of the British.

• [David Evans]

  *Splooooooooooo! (Spits out tea)* I say, steady on there!

• [Christopher]

  I have a feeling James Bond, for one, will take issue with that whole sex-only-once-every-seven-years thing.

  • [welcomeabored]

    Whereas, Sherlock would find it no tribble at all.  Sorry… had to obey my muse.

    I may have to take back every scathing thing I said about the first one (when I could stop laughing), and go see this one for no other reason than Cumberbatch.  Woof.

• [Levi Breederland]

  Right now, it’s got 302 views and 3400 likes. What now?

  • [Frederik]

    Youtube procceses likes and views on a delay, 302 is the placeholder number.

    • [Zyr]

      Almost: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIkhgagvrjI

    • [Levi Breederland]

      Interesting.

      • [retepslluerb]

        I think you mean “fascinating”.

• [Arduenn]

  Star Trek “2″? I think I lost count here.

  • [Dan Huby]

    There’s a 1 missing – it’s the twelfth film, but it seems they aren’t numbering the rebooted films.

• [Leo Rumfitt]

  Thank you for the most succinct description of my nationality I’ve even seen. I may petition for it to be made official.

• [David Hathaway]

  Awesome! However your technically accurate description of the British people – ‘friendly but vaguely sinister’ is full of Cumberbatch. I may be vaguely sinister but never friendly.

  • [Matthew Petty]

    I still struggle with the friendly, myself

• [Ms. Anne Thrope]

  Quien es mas Macho? So this is my first look at Cumberbatch as Khan.  Even as a Cumberbitch, I must say I miss Montalban, because he is and ever shall be my ideal of Khan.  However, my personal pick for a new Khan would have been Shahrukh Khan:  http://missannethropesblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/khan.html

  • [Jim Saul]

    Nestor Carbonell would have made a great casting choice if they wanted to type-match Montalban.

    • [2overwrought]

       Oh, that’s a freaking beautiful idea. Those eyes!

• [quori]

   No one has said he is playing Khan yet. And honestly given his otherworldly like powers and a very real look-a-like Dr Dehner in the trailer…I think he is Gary Mitchell.

  • [RedShirt77]

     Interesting, Could be, but Gary was a member of the Enterprise crew.  I seem to be seeing some non star fleet uniforms and a ship that isn’t the enterprise. 

    • [tdjukic]

      He’s got a Star Fleet insignia on his uniform.

      https://www.sugarsync.com/pf/D7392395_4195301_6215851

      • [RedShirt77]

         Yeah, and the Ship has NCC…

  • [liquidstar]

     It s fun to speculate.  I was thinking Col. Greene, but I guess he s way before Kirk’s time:  so maybe Garth (former famous starship capt.) from “Who the God’s Would Destroy”?

• [Michael Rosefield]

  I’m reworking my CV right now. ‘Friendly but vaguely sinister’  has a nice ring to it….

  • [RedShirt77]

     Lucas used the same tone for the empirical officers in Star wars.  Who were patterned after Nazi.  Which really begs the question of why Science fiction movie makes want to put the English on the wrong side of the holocaust.

    • [GawainLavers]

      Ah, but what did he pattern the theoretical officers in Star Wars on?  That’s what I want to know.

      • [Matthew Petty]

        wow

      • [RedShirt77]

         Too soon, even for pedantry

• [Christopher]

  Actually in my experience “”friendly but vaguely sinister” doesn’t so much describe the British in general, but is an excellent description of the Welsh. 

  • [GawainLavers]

    No, no, that would be “sinister, but vaguely friendly”.

    • [David Cox]

      I’ve always thought friendly but vaguely sinister better applied to Californians, especially the Silicon Valley, ” entrepreneur” types. And I say this as a Briton.

      • [Al Billings]

        But Star Fleet is based on San Francisco as an outgrowth of Silicon Valley. We, Californians, can only embody one militaristic (potentially fascist) group at a time.

      • [lishevita]

        What Al said, but also, also, those Silicon Valley entrepreneur types aren’t, for the most part, real Californians. They’re transplants from other places. 

        Real, native Californians freak other people out because when we say “Have a nice day” we actually mean it.

        • [Donald Petersen]

          We have no shortage of them, and are happy to share.  As a native San Diegan, I expect 330 days of sunshine a year as my birthright.  I can always afford to offer some to strangers.

        • [Antinous / Moderator]

          330? How do you live? 355 here. And that generally means all sunshine from horizon to horizon all day. It’s actually kind of psychotogenic.

        • [Donald Petersen]

          Y’all need to import some marine layer.  It’s what passes for our “winter” out here on June Saturdays and the week after New Year’s.  Helps us even out our carcinomas while we reflect on lost loves and missed opportunities during solitary walks on empty beaches.  

        • [Antinous / Moderator]

          Funnily enough, every time that I’ve been to SD, the weather’s been HORRIBLE. Years ago, I went down from SF for a four day weekend with a friend, and it was 39° and pouring the whole time. The trip to the Safari Park was slightly less enjoyable than the internment camp in Cairo or getting bayoneted in Kathmandu.

        • [Donald Petersen]

          If you were a pretty young fella at the time, I’d be tempted to guess that that particular trip might have occurred during the winter of ’79-’80.  The rains that winter were heavy enough to wash out the only road in or out of the canyon I grew up in, and caused a lot of nasty flooding.  Hasn’t rained nearly that hard since.

          Some day you should arrange another trip so SD can redeem itself.  A sunny afternoon in Balboa Park is about as splendid an experience as a modern human can find.

        • [Antinous / Moderator]

          That sounds about right for the year.

          My last visit to SD was in 2001 to take my RE exam. I went with a friend, and after I finished the exam and we wanted to hang out around town, we spent an extraordinary amount of time trying to find a temporary parking space so that one of us could run into a bank to get a roll of coins so that we could get a less temporary parking space.

        • [Donald Petersen]

          That’s a bummer.  I moved to L.A. in 1991, and the biggest adjustments were the lack of free parking, and the lack of left-turn arrows at controlled intersections (except at Sunset and La Brea, for some reason).  San Diego used to be awfully car-friendly.  Even the beach parking was free.

          I miss the place, but though I went down there every weekend for over ten years, I haven’t been down there in ages now.  I don’t expect it’s changed for the better, alas, when it comes to bureaucratic and overcrowding-based effects on the quality of life.

    • [eldritch]

      Oh yes, those sinister Welsh! Just look at their national history! All those conquests and betrayals and alliances of convenience and acts of empire building! All that plotting and scheming and the constant power plays and warfare and…

      Oh wait, no. Sorry. Still talking about Britain. *winks*

      • [GawainLavers]

        Oh, the Welsh do all of that, the primary difference between us and the English is our success rate.

        • [Christopher]

          I know we’re all kidding, but I do want to mention that I met several extremely nice people on my travels through Wales. The only vaguely sinister experience I had was when I walked into a very crowded, noisy pub and everyone got quiet as soon as I entered.

          If you’re familiar with the early scene in American Werewolf in London…yeah, it was exactly like that.

        • [jimh]

          Stay off the moors, boy…

• [Slobodan Tabakovich]

  OK, what’s really funny here is that us, humans, seem to be perpetually hung on the racial/cultural issues. The painful lengths at which we go to “differentiate” ourselves from “others” during the process of “self-determination” would be quite comical if it weren’t so damn deadly and sinister. If aliens seeded the humans on Earth eons ago for giggles, the whole “let’s make it a variety, some different colors…and stuff” joke they made just keeps on giving. Bravo!

• [Missy Pants]

  Everyone needs to watch the Japanese subtitled trailer. It’s 15 seconds longer, has extra lines, and an extra scene at the end that reminds me way too much of … somethingsomething…

  http://trailers.apple.com/movies/paramount/startrekintodarkness/startrekintodarkness-jp-subjj60sneak_h720p.mov

  • [Jim Saul]

    Well, indeed, that image is pretty hard to take any other way.

  • [Agrippa]

    Really? A download instead of a link? What is this? 1995?

    • [Matthew Petty]

      AND it’s in a proprietary format – oh wait…

    • [Logolepsy]

      Here’s the YouTube link:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrHlQUXFzfw&hd=1

    • [joe blough]

      plays okay right in the browser… as long as your browser is safari :)

  • [OtherMichael]

    It reminds me way too much of the dress uniforms they are wearing in the beginning of the film, as opposed to all the other clothing they are wearing at other points of the film.

    OTOH, this is from JJ Abrams — there’s no way he’d try to be teasingly mis-leading in a trailer!

• [Simon Bradshaw]

  Ah, the Portentous Parps of Doom are back from their time on the Prometheus trailer…

• [Schuyler Colfax]

  Hey everyone!  A bad guy who wants vengeance!  They already did that with ST1. Remember when Sci-Fi was more than bad guys and horror stories with aliens?

  Having said that, Wrath of Kahn is my favorite movie of all-time, so what do I know.

  • [nowimnothing]

    What is the Star Trek canon about the ability of enterprise-class ships operating in a gravity well much less under the pressure of water?

    • [Dan Hibiki]

      Farnsworth: Good Lord! That’s over 5000 atmospheres of pressure!
      Fry: How many atmospheres can the ship withstand?
      Farnsworth: Well, it was built for space travel, so anywhere between zero and one.

    • [Halloween_Jack]

      The canon is that the central fact of reboot continuity centers around almost everything being different from the moment that the Narada (the huge 24th century Romulan mining ship) came back in time and destroyed the Kelvin, the ship that Kirk’s dad and mom were on. The current Enterprise is much larger than that of the original series and the interiors are obviously much different; this is probably due to Starfleet’s R&D process dealing with the knowledge that a much more techically-advanced ship than anything that they had was running around the galaxy somewhere, as far as they knew. So, maybe it can withstand the stress of operating in a gravity well; it was built in an Earthbound dry dock, after all.

      • [nowimnothing]

        True, I forgot about the image of the ship on the surface in the beginning of the new movie. So I guess that means that the technological advancement at the start of new Kirk’s life of even further along than it was by the end of old Kirk’s life. The Narada pushed technology at least 100 years forward.

        Still seems a flimsy design for operating in a gravity well. It would have to come with some major advancements in materials science.

        • [Halloween_Jack]

          My guess is that they beefed up the structural integrity field (the sort of internal force field that keeps the ship from tearing itself apart while maneuvering at high speeds) and inertial dampening field (the application of artificial gravity that keeps the ship’s crew from being smashed to a paste against a bulkhead during those same high-speed turns). You’re right about things getting pushed forward a century or so; Voyager, which was about as long as the original Constitution-class Enterprise, could land on a planet surface.

• [Russell Cavanagh]

  “English” please, not “British” …

• [crosberg]

  Haven’t they repeatedly said that he is NOT Khan? Over and over again?  I know that they might be trying to keep it hush-hush or whatever but I sincerely doubt that both Simon Pegg and Benedict Cumberbatch would deny it so outright and so repeatedly if it wasn’t false.  Personal opinion, of course.

  • [Jim Saul]

    Yeah, they have kept on saying that. But it’s J.J. Abrams, and they also said Lost wasn’t going to turn out to be some kind of new-age purgatory.

    And if you were doing a reboot of Star Trek, would you pass up the chance to revisit Khan?

    • [crosberg]

      I wouldn’t pass it up, but I also think Abrams is more likely to set people up to THINK it’s Khan and then deliver something else.  He has a habit of teasing you with one thing and handing over something very different.  Again, personal opinion, but I think that Khan is SO iconic that it’s a really fine line to tread, and one that the studio may have wanted to steer away from. That, and the blond chick really looks like the female doctor from the original series whose name escapes me at the moment.

      • [Jim Saul]

        Dr. Carol Marcus? I thought the same, but that would add to the Khan theory/misdirect.

        But perhaps you mean Nurse Chapel? The one with the huge crush on Spock?

        • [crosberg]

          Man, I just got sucked down into a wiki hole WAY too fast.  Dr Elizabeth Dehner:  http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Dehner

        • [Jim Saul]

          Hot Lips!

          I totally forgot about her. Hmmmm. Now I’m remembering more about the Mitchell episode… he kept telling Kirk he owed Mitchell for fixing him up with “that little blonde cadet” that Kirk almost married. Which I’m now thinking was Carol Marcus…

          Could it be possible that Abrams merged the story lines? That would be interesting.

      • [GawainLavers]

        I think you’re confusing Nurse Chapel with the love interest in the episode Where No Man Has Gone Before, which is the reputed base for this movie.

        • [crosberg]

          I was actually thinking of Dr Dehner, but I’ll admit it’s been a long time since I watched any of the stuff that involved Mitchell/Dehner and my memory is shaky at best.

• [kitfisk]

  Gray Mitchell, not Khan!

  • [Jim Saul]

    I know that having fistfights with gods is kind of a Star Trek tradition, but would Gary Mitchell need to carry around a big gun? Or maybe that’s not a gun, but something else.

    • [GawainLavers]

      He’s just happy to see you.

      • [Jim Saul]

        Nice. I walked right into that one.

        I was thinking of a mechanical mental powers enhancement… like the cerebroenergetic armor in Julian May’s books, or Prof. X’s trippy brain sphere in Marvel.

    • [Halloween_Jack]

      He was beaten by a big gun in the second TOS pilot. Maybe he grabbed it from Kirk here and just likes to lug it around.

• [Daisy Cooper]

  As a friendly but vaguely sinister Brit I would take exception to this were it not for the fact that our self-effacing and effete charm is the very thing allowing us to regain control of the US through it’s entertainment industry. Now where’s my cup of Earl Grey?

  • [Lemoutan]

     Earl Grey is a Tea best served cold.

• [Amorette]

  I don’t like straight up action adventure.  I became a Star Trek fan as a child in the sixties for the thinkie stuff, the Science Fiction.  Blowing stuff up in CGI has been so overdone, there is no point in doing any more of it.  I was so-so on the first reboot.  I am definitely skipping this version, even if I like vaguely sinister English bad guys.

• [silkox]

  1. Whole lotta fallin’ goin’ on there.
  2. No climate change in that future?

  • [GawainLavers]

    It’s a nod to realism.  Two mutually incompatible options:
    1) We continue to obsess over who has the largest personal conveyence device.
    2) Our species lasts long enough to develop intersteller travel.

    • [Michael Smith]

      2) Our species lasts long enough to develop intersteller travel.

      Just waiting for Voyager 1 to leave the solar system in the next few years.

      • [GawainLavers]

        Oh yeah, that’ll end well.

• [Jim Saul]

  Khan? Mitchell?

  No, I think it is pretty clear that the villain is the guy from the Assassin’s Creed trailers.

• [Droo]

  Wait, I thought the Ferengi were the jews of the Star Trek universe…and whatever Watto was in the Star Wars universe.
  /beanie hat, hooked nose, grizzled beard, penny pinching, haggling, I mean, c’mon!

  • [cdh1971]

    According to the writers, Riker (in the NG episode in which they first appeared) and Armin Shimerman, the Ferengi are _not_ meant to resemble Jews. The Ferengi were patterned after the American Yankee traders…Wall Street on Earth is kept as a museum because of the Ferengi tourist business.

    (Of course, Armin, who’s stage speciality is Shylock, injects a bit of that character into Quark.)

    As for the Watto creature in SW — I think he was a generic Middle-Eastern stereotype that is equally offensive to Middle-Eastern Jews, Muslims and Christians — really any Arab (and yes…there are indeed Jewish Arabs…believe me, I know this.)

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    The Ferengi in DS9 were meant to represent 20th Century humans.

    • [cdh1971]

      Yes, this too…good point. thx

      • [Antinous / Moderator]

        It’s on one of the special features for the series. I think that it was Brannon Braga talking about it.

        • [cdh1971]

          Thanks for the lead, I’ll check it out. 

          (The special features and other extras…this is one of the reasons I still buy the physical media of that which I find important.)

• [Friar Zero]

  It’s a shame they don’t make Star Trek movies anymore. I’d really like to see one. Ah, well.

• [Ramone]

  Rob, I totally didn’t follow that bit about Vulcans being British (or is that English?). Is Cumberbatch supposed to be Vulcan? I feel so out of the loop!

  • [Rob Beschizza]

    I don’t think he is–just talking in general about the original star trek vs modern ones. I suppose the Ferenghi are a more obvious and dumber jewish stereotype, but the first season of TNG was exceedingly obvious and dumb anyway, and they made the best of that mistake in later seasons.

    • [Jim Saul]

      The Ferenghi are straight out of an anti-semitic nightmare.

      On the plus side, though, I thought Guinan was the Enterprise’s Rabbi.

      • [cdh1971]

        I disagree with your first point, and enthusiastically agree with your second. 

        Guinan certainly was the Enterprise’s Rabbi. I’ve tried to apply a single good label to her function, but couldn’t before. Rabbi though – nails it spot-on.

      • [Antinous / Moderator]

        You don’t think that the fact that the Ferengi are played by Armin Shimerman and Max Grodenchik might have colored your view? Or Guinan being played by Whoopi Goldberg.

        • [Jim Saul]

          I love Star Trek in all its iterations, and TNG most of all, so don’t take this as condemnation of Roddenberry or any one else involved, but all that’s doing is pushing the question back onto the casting choices.

          By DS9 they had certainly converted the Ferenghi into Ayn Rand style amoral parasites, but echoes of Shylock are pretty hard to ignore.

          Whoopi’s last name didn’t occur to me until you pointed it out though. I was more thinking of her calm, long-view mentoring role, combined with her “one of the last survivors of genocide” back story.

        • [cdh1971]

          Armin Shimerman specialized in playing Shylock on stage (not in WikiP ftw, but I _know_ he was.)

          Hi injected a bit of Shylock into Quark, but he injected the lesser known decent part of Shylock that is driven by justice and what is right – he brought just a Smidge of Shylock to the role — and I’m glad he did. I’ve always liked Shylock (and I think Shakespeare liked him too.) 

          Recall — Quark always helped the underdog*, the desperate, the needy and he did so in such a way that the recipient of his charity didn’t really know that they had just received charity — indeed, they thought that they just got the better part of the deal — they outsmarted Quark — and they leave with their dignity intact. 

          This principle – the giving of charity anonymously, or in such a way that the recipient’s dignity is intact ’cause they thought they got the better deal — this is the highest form of charity in Judaism. In this sense, Quark a very good Jew, and I believe, based on other episodes, this is an aspect of Ferenghi culture, despite their cut-throat Randian bravado. 

          http://www.aish.com/tp/b/ll/48957066.html

          Oh…just remembered, in the NG episode in which Ferenghi take over the Enterprise and the Command Officers are turned into children – the Ferenghi could not deny any of their requests, especially when they started to whine. This rings some bells with me in my own life.

          *recall how Quark supported the Bajoran resistance and refused to take any profit — and in the mirror universe, did the same for the enslaved Terrans — was discovered and paid for this with his life.

    • [Dv Revolutionary]

      The Ferenghi started out as lawless arms merchants with whips in TNG. Really was a misstep the audience laughed at them as bad guys!

      They became a demented business race with some personality. A lot of that personality came form the actors.

      Like earlier star track a lot of the jewish character came from the actors and jewish actors have dominated the better star trek series, even if they are doing heavy sthick like Quark and co.

    • [cdh1971]

      As I mentioned in my other comment, I don’t really see much of a Jewish stereotype in the Ferenghi. The Ferenghi were patterned after the American Yankee traders, and their world-view is certainly more consistent with the Yankee traders.

      *********(btw)*******
      I am a Jew, and, my 2nd undergrad major was Rel. Studies, with emphasis in Judaic Studies. I was an undergrad when DS9 was still airing new episodes and we discussed Ferenghis in a couple of classes and also informally at the Hillel House.

      While there were Jews who thought it was a stereotype, most of my peeps who knew the series well did not find Ferenghis to be a particularly Jewish stereotype. Interestingly, most of the people offering the opinion that it was a Jewish stereotype during class studies were either not Jewish, or were Jewish but with little to non-existent knowledge about Judaism.

      This being said, I’m not saying I’m necessarily right, and I am certainly not the voice of authority. It’s just my opinion. What’s the old saying?…..Two Jews, Three Opinions.

• [hyph3n]

  So is this now the future of Star Trek… Michael Baying old plot lines and villains. Who wants to bet the next film will feature Harry Mud or M-5?

  • [cdh1971]

    Yes — Mudd. Harcourt Fenton “Harry” Mudd. And His Women. And His Passion. Sans Creepy Androids. 

    Perhaps a nice NSFW webisode featuring this plotline:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mudd%27s_Passion

• [sharkzombie]

  ORANGE AND CYAN STRIKE AGAIN

  • [Felton / Moderator]

    Star Trek II – The Wrath of Cyan

    • [bill_mcgonigle]

       That is so perfect.

      • [cdh1971]

        I don’t know about you but I take comfort in that.

• [rewhu]

  This already looks awesome, just based on the absence of any Tyler Perry cameos.

• [Jeff Parks]

  My 10-year old immediately pointed out the lack of “flying around in SPACE in SPACESHIPS .. what is this, Earth Trek?” lol

• [Adam L. Cox]

  Well, it’s sure a trailer, but I missed the Star Trek part. Are you sure this isn’t the Superman movie?

  • [headcode]

    No, it’s official.  Science fiction is dead.

• [GawainLavers]

  Let’s see: unnamed, non-descript villian promises revenge in painfully cliched terms, stuff blows up, people will jump off a cliff and primary protagonist will be bloodied but defiant.

  So, it’s basically every trailer ever without one single distinct identifying mark.  They could literally have used this trailer for the previous Star Trek movie and I probably wouldn’t have spotted the difference.  And probably for the next one too.

  At least it’s not, “In a world where…” and “…one man must…”.  But I guess that guy died.

• [Thorzdad]

  Hmmm…Lots of explosions. Villain returning for vengeance. Ominous puntuating drumbeats. More explosions.

  Yaaaawwwwwwwnnnnnn.

• [AwesomeRobot]

  Wait, is a Vulcan seeking revenge for planet Vulcan being destroyed by someone who was seeking revenge?

• [sdmikev]

  British or not, I think all Vulcans keep kosher.

  • [eldritch]

    But does that make Vulcans THEMSELVES kosher? Because I’m told they’re good eattin’.

    • [GawainLavers]

      Does this help?

      “Every flying insect that uses four legs for walking shall be avoided by you. The only flying insects with four walking legs you may eat are those with knees extending above their feet, [using these longer legs] to hop on the ground. Among these you may only eat members of the red locust family, the yellow locust family, the spotted gray locust family and the white locust family. All other flying insects with four feet [for walking] must be avoided by you.”[

• [jbond]

  I, for one,

  try to be friendly
  but just end up being vaguely sinister and alien.

• [Joshua Craig]

  Eric Bana as a less than believable Romulan and now B.C as the cuddliest Khan ever. Wait, aren’t both these movies about someone returning to have his revenge? Time to stretch a bit and start casting Tribbles for the 3rd installment.

  • [Ramone]

    He’s not Khan. Rumor is he’s one of Khan’s underlings/worshipers. Khan is supposely Peter Weller (who doesn’t appear in the trailer).

• [Matthew Petty]

  This looks very action-y. I was hoping there would be 2 hours of courtroom drama about whether an android had a soul or not. That would make a good movie.

  • [heng]

     Going by most trailers nowadays, that’s pretty much all the action for the film. Spread out over 2 hours, that’s not too bad.

  • [Tom Hiles]

    Oh man, I just choked on ice cream. Thank you.

• [Timothy Krause]

  Star Trek Into Darkest Fandom Where Fanboys Don’t Realize That Some Trailers Appeal To Audiences Other Than Themselves Because Trek Fans Would Listen To Majel Barrett-Roddenberry Read The Telephone Book Without Realizing What’s Wrong With That Situation And Get Upset By Explosions And Action And Want To See Really Long Discussions About Faded 1960s Utopian Claptrap

  • [jandrese]

    I feel like if someone wants to make an action movie with a Sci-Fi setting they should go ahead and do that.  I want Star Trek movies to be an alternative to that! 

    • [Timothy Krause]

      Right. It’s a trailer to appeal to others whose tastes differ from yours. The ones who aren’t the franchise core, but without whom you’d not be seeing the film at all, because, you know, money. I’m sure that the remaining footage you didn’t see during the less-than-two-minute trailer will have plenty of time for tedious humanistic one-world philosophizing.

      And for all ToS films that did what you wanted, which would you point to as successes . . . as films, that is, as good films that make appropriate use of the medium’s strengths without tying it down in all the radioplay talky talk that mars ToS on teevee. Which, really? The one with the whales? The one with Uhura dancing and something about Russians and Nixon? Them other ones about them other things? NO YOU REMEMBER THE ONE WITH EXPLOSIONS AND RICARDO MONTALBAN.

• [tw1515tw]

  Vulcans – intelligent, superior, the good guys, tired of all the war mongering, stronger, faster, longer-lived, surpressing emotions, mating only once every seven years. 

  Yes – sounds like the British.

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    …intelligent, superior, the good guys, tired of all the war mongering…

    I guess you don’t read the British press.

• [itsgene]

  All this talk about the villian being a) Khan and b) out for revenge really confuses me.
  Revenge, by definition, requires there to have first been something to revenge. In this rebooted universe, Kirk has only just left the academy and is at the beginning of his career. How could Khan figure into this, in terms of storytelling? Either they’d have to have a long sequence of exposition showing Kirk’ first meeting with Khan and whatever he did with him, or… well, I guess there’s no “or.”
  Gary Mitchell does sound more doable, but as I recall there was no “revenge” involved in the character’s original story. A reinvention of Mitchell and a small amount of backstory exposition could fix this, I suppose.

  As for Majel Barrett reading the phone book… yes. I would buy that CD. I consider it a monumental wasted opportunity that Apple didn’t digitize her voice for Siri before she left us.

  • [Timothy Krause]

    You still buy CDs, or imagine media as still being disseminated thereby? Set phasers for LOLWHUT. :P

    Joking, I’d listen to those hypothetical phonebook-readings too. But I’m more than happy to enjoy the visual medium of film and its explosions and bright colors. Glad the movie’s director, J. J. Abrams, understands this too.

    • [itsgene]

      CD is the new Vinyl. :)

• [johnyaya]

  I don’t understand, is the Enterprise a submarine now? Will any of this movie take place in space?

  • [bill_mcgonigle]

    Rumor has it the new Bones gets rip-roaring drunk and lashes a humpback whale to each warp nacelle.

• [lishevita]

  “ I wonder if to JJ Abrams, it just didn’t seem right to cast Jewish people–and Jewish culture–in the role of ‘friendly but vaguely sinister aliens.’
  “Whereas that is a technically accurate description of the British.”

  Oh, SNAP! I just laughed SO HARD.  

  Aside from that, squee!!! I’m really looking forward to this movie. 

• [Avram Grumer]

  Do we know for certain that he’s Khan? Or is that just a widely-believed rumor? 

  I’ve seen some plausible speculation that Cumberbatch’s villain will be Garth of Izar. 

  On the other hand, that scene at the end of the Japanese trailer, well, unless that’s one spectacular fake out, pretty much settles it. 

• [Editz]

  I don’t really follow ST, but has Abrams stated just how closely he’s going to match the TOS storylines?  Let us suppose it’s Khan returning to reclaim Earth in the SS Botany Bay, which has brought its crew out of hibernation unassisted and that winds up being the first encounter between Kirk and Khan.  Maybe the movie ends with Khan and crew being sentenced and marooned on Ceti Alpha V?

• [Antinous / Moderator]

  Will.  Everyone.  Be.  Speaking.  Like.  This?  Or.  Just.  The.  Villain?

  • [OtherMichael]

    It would be a certain kind of awesome to have William Shatner as a ST:JJA villain

• [liquidstar]

  Actually, given Abrams love of other dimensional scenarios (and the current timeline is itsefl an alternate timeline now, so in a way he s done in the first reboot) I now find myself wondering if we are looking at an incursion from the evil federation dimension.  Might explain some of the scenes in the trailer and the lack of space combat (they go to the evil federation capital homeworld, earth).

  • [Matthew Petty]

    What would Evil Starfleet Headquarters look like? Modern-day San Francisco would be my bet.

    • [johnyaya]

      You’ll be able to recognize Evil Starfleet HQ by the lack of lens flares. 

      • [Avram Grumer]

        Or negative lens flares, little patches of darkness. 

        • [Matthew Petty]

          Or just The Tenderloin

        • [John G]

          Hey, careful now! I live in the Tenderloin! In our (admittedly questionable) corner of San Francisco, we pay homage to Star Trek by following our own variation on the Prime Directive, i.e., Don’t Snitch.

  • [OtherMichael]

    And that weird red space temple? That’s what, Saskatchewan with mutant kudzu?

• [Kurt Thomas]

  The guy with the hood is lifted from Assasin’s Creed and all that lava stuff from Star Wars III, and the September 11 stuff from the Star Trek: Enterprise series, and all the colorful foliage from Christopher Doyle… isn’t it?

• [Jim Christian ]

  What if it’s not Khan, but in fact Garth of Izar? http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Garth_of_Izar

  Edit: Whoops, someone beat me to it.

• [Sam Pourasghar]

  “These English are not so stupid as they look…” – Italian Job

  I don’t care what happens in the film, I just need to hear KHAAAAAAAANNNNN!!!!

  • [Matthew Petty]

    Or judging by the comments about ST’s representations of race, “COHENNNNNNNN!!!”