Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 3 Blu-ray Out Today; Season Four Teases

Today brings Star Trek: The Next Generation Season Three Blu-ray and The Best of Both Worlds "movie" to stores everywhere. So far it seems Amazon has the cheapest price at $59.99 for season set and $14.99 for BOBW. The promos for the sets are here, the full details are here. AICN provides a video review of the set and some of the highlights from the "Inside the Writer's Room", "Resistence is Futile" and other special features of the set which can be found here.

Star Trek Into Darkness Berlin Premiere and Interview Videos

Over the weekend, Star Trek Into Darkness cast was in Berlin, Germany for the Star Trek Into Darkness premiere. On hand for the premiere was Alice Eve (sporting some uber-bangs), Simon Pegg, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Chris Pine, and JJ Abrams. You can find pictures from the premiere here and here.

In addition TrekMovie has found a few video interviews worth checking out that includes an interview by "Spock" (not Quinto) from Starfleet HR, cast interviews from the Australia premiere, and an hour long "master class" (aka Q&A) with JJ Abrams that is held in French so hard to here his answers over the translator. You can find those videos here.

Star Trek Into Darkness Clip #3

A new clip from Star Trek Into Darkness has been posted by Paramount. In the clip, Kirk yells at John Harrison who plays it cool while in the Enterprise brig. Not entirely sure what the last line about 72 reasons means. His operatives on the ship? Ship has a skeleton crew of 72 that is in danger? STID is out on May 9th in most of Europe and May 17th in North America. (Clip 1 | Clip 2)

Three More Character Posters for Into Darkness

Today Paramount has released three more (and maybe final) character posters for Star Trek Into Darkness. These three of Sulu, McCoy and Marcus join the previously released six images that depict each of the major Enterprise crew members and bad guy. All of them can be found below.

Lindelof, Pine, Quinto Talk STID; Moscow Premiere

In new articles from the LA Times and i09, Star Trek Into Darkness leads Chris Pine (Kirk) and Zachary Quinto (Spock) comment on their characters while writer Damon Lindelof spoke about some of the challenges they had in writing the script. Below are the highlights. The io9.com has video of interviews with Quinto and Lindelof while Hero Complex has few more still images from the movie. In addition the Russian premiere of the movie was held Thursday in Moscow with JJ Abrams, Pine, Quinto and Alice Eve in attendance. Click here to check out a gallery of photos from the red carpet.

Highlights

Star Trek Into Darkness Kirk Featurette and Latin America TV Spot

Below are two new videos for Star Trek Into Darkness. The first is a character profile on James T Kirk with prev comments from Chris Pine and JJ Abrams while the second video is a TV spot for the film from Latin America that includes new scenes. A translation and shot by shot analysis of that trailer can be found at TrekMovie.

Message for Spock Video and More STID Posters

Joining the previous "Message from John Harrison" analyzing Kirk is a new one that focuses on Spock (below). In the video is a few new scenes from the movie including Spock having a not really very Vulcan reaction to something. In addition two new posters have been released for Chekov and Scotty. There are really two sets of character posters. The first is the colorful version (below) that is toned to each color and the other is a gold hued set.

Star Trek Into Darkness Japanese Trailer

TrekMovie.com has posted the Japanese trailer for Star Trek Into Darkness that is chock full of new scenes. Enough that they have created a shot-by-shot analysis that you can find here. Of note is what looks like a new warp effect for the Enterprise. A new CGI design for warp is a standard for the movies and TV shows as each one had a slightly different version then the one before with the distant star flash being the most known version. A video showing them all is also below.

Star Trek Into Darkness' USS Vengeance Images

The Star Trek App latest mission has revealed the name and look of the mysterious and very large black ship that is shown dwarfing and blasting the Enterprise in the trailers. The USS Vengeance is a Dreadnought-class ship that apparently was built for war with a name to prove it. This also explains why the Russian name of the movie is Star Trek: Vengeance. While I think the name seems more appropriate for a Klingon ship, TrekMovie points out it has been used before in two Trek video games for Starfleet ships.

Star Trek Into Darkness Clip #2 and New Posters

A new Star Trek Into Darkness clip has been released online. Like the previous one, this one expands on a segment from the trailers that show an Enterprise shuttle trying to escape an unknown enemy. In addition 7 new character posters have been released. Four are re-use of previous images while the other three feature Sulu, Chekov and Marcus characters. They can be found here.

Star Trek Into Darkness World Premiere Pics and Video

Early this morning, US time, the world premiere of Star Trek Into Darkness was held in Sydney, Australia with JJ Abrams, Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto and Karl Urban representing the cast and crew. For the rest 10 days or so members of the cast will be popping up in various cities around the world for that country's premiere as Paramount is determined to try and get the Star Trek franchise the international audience it really has not had before. Images from the premiere can be found here. A CBS report from the premiere is here with more below.

Star Trek The Video Game Launch Trailer

Star Trek The Video Game is now officially released for PS3, 360 and XBox. The game tracks the Enterprise's mission against the Gorn and if the launch trailer below is any indication, it looks like fun.

Star Trek Into Darkness Volcano Clip

The first clip from Star Trek Into Darkness has premiered online. The scene is from the first 15 minute or so of the film when Spock is trying to save the local civilization from a volcano eruption while Kirk has to decide how the try to save Spock.

Star Trek The Video Game First Look and Interview

Star Trek The Video Game will be hitting stores this Tuesday for the PS3, 360 and PC. Featuring the voices of the cast set before the upcoming movie, it depicts a mission where the Enterprise has to stop an invasion by the Gorn as players control the ship, Kirk and Spock. TrekMovie was able to get a first look at the game and interview game producer Brian Miller. Click here to see their full impressions plus videos of game play footage and click here for the full interview with Brian Miller.

Star Trek Into Darkness TV Spot, Video Message, Tour of the Bridge and Tickets On Sale

A few bits of promotional material has been released online for Star Trek Into Darkness. We have a new "Message from John Harrison" that really is the villain version of the Christopher Pike "Humility" speech that was part of the trailers, a new TV spot with a few new scenes, and a tour of the bridge of the Enterprise. The two videos are below and the hi-res images of the bridge are at i09.com. Last, tickets are now online for the May 17th North American release of the movie. You can hit up the official website or your favorite theater site or location to purchase them.

Star Trek The Video Game - Making the Game Part 4 Story

With Star Trek The Video Game now just days away from its Tuesday release, Namco has released the next part of series on making the game. This one focuses on developing the story of the game and some of the new characters for the film.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Star Trek The Video Game - Making the Game Part 3

Namco-Bandai has released their next video that looks behind the scenes of making Star Trek The Video Game that is coming out on April 23rd. The first two parts (one | two) were released in previous months. While this one is labeled Part 4, I have not been able to find part 3 online so this is probably it. Any case this edition focuses on the sound design, music and voice cast for the game which uses all the actors from the game. The mostly first person shooter has the crew take on the Gorn.

Star Trek Into Darkness is Locked

According to TrekMovie, as of Wednesday, April 17th, Star Trek Into Darkness is a completely finished film and ready for its world premiere on April 23rd in Australia. The final components to put into place were the sound effects and sound mix after ILM had completed their special effects about two weeks ago and compose Michael Giacchino recorded his 100+ minutes of music for the film. The final film took over 4 years to reach a finish, mostly due to a "lost" two years due to other projects by Abrams and the writers. Principle photography had started on January 12th, 2012, wrapped on May 8, 2012 and from then on it was all about a final tally of 11 months of post-production. Congrats to the cast and crew on finishing the arduous task of getting a new Star Trek film to theaters.

Into Darkness Cast Discuss Movie at CinemaCon

While at CinemaCon being held in Las Vegas, various cast members of Star Trek Into Darkness and writer Damon Lindelof discussed the film before and after an 18 minute preview of the film. Highlights from the videos are below which can be found here here. In a separate video, John Cho (Sulu) discussed the film with Collider. You can find that video here.

Highlights:
- Zachary Quinto: "It is an erroneous notion that [Spock] doesn’t have an emotional life. "Spock’s journey in this film is learning how to honor that emotional life."
- Chris Pine on Kirk: "He is a man who has to learn to censor himself at times and our bad guy–John Harrison–basically levels this mirror in front of Kirk in which he sees all of his vulnerabilities and his fallibility and everything that is wrong with the way he leads his men and women into battle–and he brings him to his knees."

Star Trek Into Darkness Theatrical Trailer #3

Paramount has released the final theatrical trailer (below) for Star Trek Into Darkness as their marketing machine preps for the May 9th (Europe) and May 17th (North America) release of the movie. The trailer does have a decent amount of new scenes but a lot of it is from the previous trailers and TV spots. You can also find the trailer at Apple Trailers. A shot by shot breakdown of it can be found here.

Star Trek Into Darkness CinemaCon Footage Description

Monday was the beginning of CinemaCon, a convention of theater owners in Las Vegas that has the Hollywood studios previewing their summer movies and future plans. Star Trek Into Darkness got its presentation done on the first day as two scenes from the movie were shown after being introduced by film stars Chris Pine, John Cho, Alice Eve, and Zachary Quinto. A summary is below with the full description at TrekMovie.

- Little more of the opening nine minutes shown that details more on how Kirk violates the Prime Directive, resulting in the Nibiru natives praying to the Enterprise.
- In second scene is Kirk confronting Harrison in Sickbay about a larger Dreadnaught Class starship (that is Federation built but not controlled) off the Enterprise's bow.
- Kirk and Harrison perform a space jump to reach the other ship, where Scotty is already on board trying to get the airlock opened.
- Space jump sequence (as teased in trailers) has the tension ratcheted up by Scotty dealing with opening the airlock while not being sucked while a large security guard confronts him while the Kirk's spacesuit face plate begins to crack putting a clock on everything.

New Star Trek Into Darkness Clip and Four Character Posters

Below is a new clip from Star Trek Into Darkness that aired during the MTV Movie Awards. It depicts about 15 seconds of a star ship crash (not the Enterprise). A screenshot breakdown of the clip can be found here. In addition, there are four new character posters for the movie. The Pine one is temporary until Apple Trailers releases the English version tomorrow.

Star Trek Into Darkness MTV Movie Awards Spot

Sunday the MTV Movie Awards aired to help promote this summer's slate of movies. On had to present something was Zachary Quinto, Chris Pine and Zoe Saldana. It also means a new TV spot with a few new scenes (Alice Eve speaks).

Star Trek: Live to Projection Concert Clips

On Friday night in Switzerland's KKL Luzem Concert Hall, Star Trek composer Michael Giacchino was on hand as conductor Ludwig Wicki and the 21st Century Symphony performed the score to 2009's Star Trek as the movie played behind them. This is a kind of thing done for The Lord of the Rings movies among others but a first for Star Trek. Below are clips from the performance thanks to Kai Engelbrecht on behalf of TrekMovie and Giacchino himself. The clips include some of the best music cues from the film while to last is from the upcoming film. If interested in reading more about Giacchino's take on scoring both Trek films, click here to read a bunch more.

Star Trek Into Darkness Enterprise Crashing, Character Posters

Paramount has released two new posters to promote Star Trek Into Darkness. The first poster is an image of the damaged Enterprise falling through Earth's atmosphere. The crashing piece is probably the first great poster I have seen so far for this film since the others have been the generic pose combinations which is what the second one is. Update: Added "Iron Man Into Darkness" mash-up since STID was clearly inspired by the former tweeted by _RyanTurek.

IDW July 2013 Star Trek Comics

IDW Publishing has released their publishing plans for July 2013. There is one comic and one trade coming out. Not sure what IDW is planning for the future of the franchise but doesn't seem much. Seems like they are marking time until the Trek contract with CBS Entertainment or Paramount expires. For the full details of IDW's other books including GI Joe, TMNT, Transformers, Locke & Key and more click here.

Star Trek Into Darkness UK TV Spot, Promotions

A new TV spot has aired in the United Kingdom to promote Star Trek Into Darkness that is just a touch under a month from being released there. I would estimate a good 50% seems to be new scenes so worth a look. On a related note, Best Buy is holding a contest for their Reward Zone members for chance to win different Trek stuff with the grand prize being a trip to the May 14th US premiere of the movie in Hollywood. Details for that are here. Also JJ Abrams is running his own "contest", in this case the winner being those who get their questions picked for the STID director to answer. The chance to submit questions ends on Monday April 15th for the interview that will be posted on April 30th. To submit questions either head to the XBox Facebook page or submit question via twitter with hashtag #StarTrekonXbox. (via TrekMovie)

New Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 3 Promos

Paramount has released new commercials to promote the April 30th release of Star Trek: The Next Generation Season Three on Blu-ray and the The Best of Both Worlds movie. Also don't forget Fathom Events theater screening of Best of Both Worlds on April 25th. The full details on the two sets can be found here, commercials are below.

Star Trek Into Darkness US Premiere Details, Motion Poster and New Trailer Next Week

TrekMovie.com has posted new details on the marketing plans by Paramount to promote Star Trek Into Darkness in the United States. The plans include a May 14th US premiere in Hollywood, a new poster (not the one below), a new trailer with Oblivion and more. I am sure more is coming when consider Paramount has around a 10 person main cast, plus JJ Abrams, plus writers that can be used to promote the movie in various locations around the world at the same time.

As for the new trailer, it is expected to be released on April 19th with the Tom Cruise movie Oblivion. Since theaters have discretion on what trailers they attach to what movies, that can be hit and miss (my local theater never does for instance). No details on if it will contain new content but the estimated length is 2 minutes and 25 seconds. With the new trailer will be the final domestic poster for the movie. There is no indication on when that new trailer will debut online. Before all that, the main leads of the movie will be at the MTV Movie Awards presenting an award. Since the award show mostly exists to raise awareness of summer movies for the tween to 20s crowd that advertisers desire, something has to be in the works for the show, even if its just a new TV spot. Below is a timeline to keep straight the current known plans.

Last but not least is the new motion poster that is more or less a 9 window animated gif built from scenes in the most recent international trailer.

Abrams Talks Trek Characters

The characters of Star Trek Into Darkness are the central discussion as JJ Abrams talks about the movie in a five minute interview from Collider. Video and highlights below.

Highlights:
- Abrams: "Into Darkness is about this now family being tested in a way they never had before. In the first film he gets the captain’s chair and in this film he earns it. It is really about this group being thrust into crazy intense adventure that takes them not only elsewhere but also takes place very much on Earth."
- While JJ Abrams didn't grow up on Trek so didn't feel like "sacrilege ...to play in this sandbox." Grateful for chance to play in it.
- He gets why die hard fans do not like the changes but figures fans should be able to still enjoy a continuations of Roddenberry's creation and let their imagination go.
- Even though a sequel, doesn't assume everyone had seen the first so tries to reintroduce all the characters and provide them with a "critical role in the movie."
- He attempts at keeping secrets is to kind of return to how movies were seen in pre-Internet age when the audience really didn't know much of anything about the movie beside the basics revealed through a trailer or two.

Star Trek Phaser Sells for $231,000

A one of a kind phaser prop used in the Star Trek The Original Series episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before" sold for $231,000 at Julien's Auction. This is the second highest price a Trek prop received, the first being a captain's chair for $304,750. With most televisions series, especially the older ones, once a show got cancelled pretty much everything related to the show from sets, to props, to costumes, where destroyed. If any props existed it was either because they were taken as souvenirs or by happenstance if mislabeled boxes or other events that would lead them to be lost (and later found) in storage. In this case the phaser, built by Reuben Klamer, was used by Kirk to stop his friend Gary Mitchell from using his growing telepathic powers from killing the Enterprise crew and using the ship to harm other civilizations. If remember right the phaser didn't harm Mitchell but was useful in causing a large rock to land on him. The rifle version of the phaser was replaced with the hand model used in all other episodes of the series. A video showing off the prop can be seen below.

Star Trek Countdown To Darkness #4 Preview

The final issue of Star Trek: Countdown to Darkness mini-series hits stores Wednesday. The issue is a prequel to the movie but exactly what the connective tissue is remains unclear. I am starting to suspect its not a specific character or event but a theme around the Prime Directive. This directive is more or less defined as observe and do not interfere for any civilization that does not have warp technology.

New Star Trek International Poster and Images

Today Paramount has released a new poster (below) for the international release of the movie and once again the focus is all on Benedict Cumberbatch's character. It is very similar to last year's poster, only instead of his back to the audience with a destroyed city in the background, now its him walking towards the audience. In addition, click here for 12 hi-res images from the movie. They are images that had first been published in various magazines over the last few weeks.

Star Trek Into Darkness Premieres Start in Australia

According to TrekMovie, one of the premieres of Star Trek Into Darkness is set for April 23rd at the George Street Event Cinema in Sydney, Australia. I am not sure if this is considered the "world premiere" (first time final movie shown to general audiences or at least local celebs) or just the Australian one. The word "premiere" is actually an overused term to help promote a movie with the cast who spend the day fielding questions from the various news agencies in that particular city. Star Trek is no different in the practice with a mini-world tour of premiere's planned. The Moscow, Russia premiere is set for April 25th, Berlin, Germany on April 29th, and London, United Kingdom on May 2nd. No date set for the US premiere but since we are getting the movie a week after the rest of the world and the cast will be making the TV talk show circuit, I assume it will be sometime in the May 9 to 13th range. Considering the Abrams' cone of silence, the premieres and the interviews that come with them will at least provide a somewhat entertaining exercise in watching how many different ways they can answer the same 10 or so questions while giving different sounding answers that reveal nothing about the movie. For any Australian readers, Empire is offering a contest to win 25 double passes to the Austrlian premiere. Click here for details.

Four Star Trek Into Darkness Soundtrack Clips

Star Trek Into Darkness composer Michael Giacchino was in the recording studio with his orchestra, chorus and JJ Abrams recording the soundtrack for Star Trek Into Darkness. While doing that, he live tweeted video clips and images from as the end credits were being recorded. I imagine he wasn't allowed to provide visuals of previous recordings as often they are done along with particular scenes of the movie playing to make sure things get synced correctly. With the end credits, it an issue of length, not timing for particular moments so no visuals needed. Any case if many of the music cues sound familiar it is because many of them are modified versions of those developed for Star Trek (2009) along with more of Alexander Courage's them for Star Trek: The Original Series. I can't help but wonder if he uses some of the music cues created for the first 8 Trek movies. Any case, take a moment and enjoy the beautiful music below (I am such a sucker for music with a large chorus working in harmony). The four music vids are below.

More Big Bad Talk, New Images for Star Trek Into Darkness

Yep, more Khan talk. Now Shockya.com is saying they have sources confirming that the Star Trek Into Darkness big bad is really Khan, the real name of the John Harrison character that Benedict Cumberbatch is playing. This joins multiple other website having reported the same thing over the last year. At this point the trailers make it clear that this movie is so different from any previous Trek flick that the name of the villain no longer matters as there is no relationship between the two even if had identical names. Which is fine and probably a key goal when writing the film but it also means the continued "is he or isn't he Khan" really just isn't worth talking about anymore.