My brief thoughts on the image below.

Here are my thoughts:

Someone I read online said that this hull looks exactly like the movie Enterprises - that's not exactly true. I've built computer models of the TOS and TMP Enterprises, so I know whereof I speak. The section between the two crane arms looks like an enlarged version of the shape of the TMP bridge section (Deck A), but from the inner superstructure, it appears to encompass two decks. The flattened section below that looks to contain one deck. This structure perhaps corresponds to what makes up Decks B and C on the TMP Enterprise, but it's much, much wider in circumference, and only one deck thick. Below that is the main curve of the saucer, which looks fairly comparable to the TMP E. The hull has visible phaser banks, but much lower on the hull (closer to the edge) than on the TMP E. The hull plating pattern itself looks a lot like the TMP E. The font on the hull is a modified version of the Starfleet Bold Extended typeface that is on the TMP ship, in that it lacks the red outline that the TMP font features. That makes it kind of midway between the TOS and TMP hull markings.

The warp nacelles look VERY different from the TMP E - a lot closer to the TOS E, in fact. Rounded bussard collectors (the glowy, red parts on the front end) with a fan-shaped structure inside, cylindrical cross-section, all very TOS. But there is an enlarged structure just aft of the bussards that looks a lot like the rubber grip on modern-day ballpoint pens. I used a structure much like that on a starship I designed a few years ago, the Massachusett Class Scout Vessel. The fins at the aft end of the nacelles seem to be smoothly integrated into the nacelle body, rather than emerging at right angles from it.

It's a cool image, and one that gives me hope for the production design element of this film.

FWIW, pictures of my Massachusett Class Scout Vessel:







And yes, the tagline on my background SHOULD sound familiar...

Very cool, CrimsonLine.

Me, I can't help wondering if they would have painted the name and insignia on the saucer before they had even finished constructing it.

Teaser trailer is posted at the official site:

http://www.paramount.com/startrek

After you watch the trailer, click on the red dot to the right of "under construction" down below.

It sent shivers up me spine when I saw it in front of Cloverfield, and it still does.

Perfectly restrained, but it was disappointing not to see ANY of the principal characters.

Yet another principal cast member lets slip a possible spoiler.

Well, it was clearly done for marketing the film to us, but, in the spirit of the thing: Perhaps it wasn't painted at all but instead created on the parts of the hull when they were manufactured. Yeah, that's it!

Kewl. Werry Kewl.

The Young Kirks: Actors Cast To Play Young Jim and George Kirk
It has already been reported that the new Star Trek movie will feature a young/adolescent Spock in addition to the two adult Spocks (Quinto and Nimoy). But it appears the movie will also feature a young James T. Kirk, as well as a young version of his older brother. TrekMovie.com has learned that George Samuel Kirk, Jr. will be played by 15-year-old actor Spencer Daniels, while ComingSoon.net is reporting that the younger James T. Kirk will be played by (almost) 12 year-old actor Jimmy Bennett.
TrekMovie.com, January 29

TrekBabies ™!

I'm kind of impressed, actually, that they've remembered that Kirk had a brother. William Shatner seemed to have forgotten that fact when he co-wrote and directed ST5:TFF. There is a scene near the end, after Spock's long-lost half-brother Sybok has died, where Kirk says to Spock and McCoy, "I lost a brother once. I was lucky. I got him back." So when Kirk refers to his "brother" there, he is referring to the death and resurrection of Spock in ST2:TWOK and ST3:TSFS. Peter David, in his comic-book adaptation of ST5:TFF, revised this bit of dialogue so that Kirk -- standing in front of a window that seems to reflect his brother Sam's face back at him -- now said something like, "I've lost two brothers. I was lucky. I got one of them back."

I guess the question NOW is whether any of the Spock-related flashback material in ST5:TFF will take Spock's half-brother Sybok into account!

There will be ... Klingons?

J.J. Abrams has said: "It won't suffer from the problem that traditional prequels suffer from: that you know all the characters will live." I assume this is simply a reference to the branching timelines -- in other words, once you start off on a new timeline, you no longer need to ensure that continuity is maintained for any of the other timelines -- but who knows...?

'Star Trek' pushed back to 2009
Paramount is pushing back the release of J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek" from Dec. 25 to May 8, 2009, saying the pic's gross potential is greater as a summer tentpole.
Move was part of a major reshuffling to the studio's release calendar, as well as to DreamWorks' release sked. . . .
Like Par, many of the majors are likely to revisit their release skeds in the wake of the writers' strike as they try to balance out their 2008 and 2009 calendars.
"Star Trek" has no competition in its new slot -- at least not so far, although it opens one week after 20th Century Fox bows "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" and one week before Sony is slated to bow sequel "Angels and Demons." . . .
Variety, February 13

Noooooooooooooo!

I have to wait for four-plus months LONGER to see this film? Augh!

This is disappointing. All the same, I can see the point; Star Trek feels more like a summer franchise than a winter one--to me, anyway.

NBooth wrote:
: This is disappointing. All the same, I can see the point; Star Trek feels more like a summer franchise than a winter one--to me, anyway.

That's interesting, because only three of the ten movies to date have come out in the summer. And one of them, ST5:TFF, was the second-biggest flop in the franchise to date. And the top-grossing film in the entire franchise was released at Thanksgiving 1986 (I remember going to see it the second or third or fourth time with my cousins after a Christmas family gathering). And for what it's worth, the second-highest grossing film -- before adjusting for inflation -- was released at Thanksgiving 1996.

• Star Trek: The Motion Picture -- Dec 7, 1979
• Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan -- June 4, 1982
• Star Trek III: The Search for Spock -- June 1, 1984
• Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home -- November 26, 1986
• Star Trek V: The Final Frontier -- June 9, 1989
• Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country -- December 6, 1991
• Star Trek: Generations -- November 18, 1994
• Star Trek: First Contact -- November 22, 1996
• Star Trek: Insurrection -- December 11, 1998
• Star Trek: Nemesis -- December 13, 2002

Incidentally, by the time J.J. Abrams' film comes out, it will have been almost six-and-a-half years since the last Star Trek movie. The biggest gap before that was the four years between ST:I and ST:N. And the biggest gap before THAT was the almost three years between ST6:TUC and ST:G -- between the two generations, as it were. All the other films have come out at intervals of two or two-and-a-half years.

I remember coming out from seeing The Wrath of Khan at the small theater in the town where we lived (Country Cinemas in Watertown, CT) with tears in my eyes (spoiler: Because Spock dies ) into the warm night air, and the group from my church that went together deciding to have a milkshake at the greasy spoon restaurant next door. It was the only time I ever went to that joint, but the shakes were good, and they sort of made up for the sorrow in my stomach. I was just younger than ten years old, and from that moment on, TWOK was my favorite movie of all time.

[sigh] that's what I get for commenting from the gut, without consulting IMDB first. Ah, well, at least I gave Peter a chance to do his thing. .

Incidentally, will be the first Star Trek film I bother to see in theaters--the last one came out when I was fifteen, and I wasn't much into newer movies.

Tee hee!

That's funny--this is one of the first movies I remember seeing (Bambi and ESB only come before it--edit, oh and Raiders! My parents had a high tolerance for letting their kids see violence). I was in Connecticut, and after the torpedo tube landed on the Genesis planet, my seven year old mind came up with, "I guess Vulcans never die".

NBooth wrote:
: [sigh] that's what I get for commenting from the gut, without consulting IMDB first. Ah, well, at least I gave Peter a chance to do his thing. .

Where would my bonnet be without your bees?

But seriously, as one who grew up with the franchise -- indeed, as one who can almost mark the stages of my life by which Star Trek movie was in theatres at the time -- your comment just kind of caught my eye, because I have generally associated the Star Trek movies with the winter season, or with the pre-winter season (since technically winter doesn't begin until the solstica c. December 21, and seven of the films came out between mid-November and mid-December, BEFORE the solstice). I have tended to associate those films with Christmas gatherings, with dark nights outside the theatre (rather than the long, bright nights one gets during the summer), and with the TV shows dropping big hints about the upcoming movies (which would not be possible during the summer, when the TV shows are on hiatus), etc.

But, um, there I go, doing my "thing" again. Oops.

Meet Little Spock
In early January Leonard Nimoy revealed that the new Star Trek movie will not only have two Spocks (himself and Zachary Quinto), but three Spocks. TrekMovie.com has identified this third Spock as twelve-year-old actor Jacob Kogan, who will be appearing as the adolescent version of our favorite half-human half-Vulcan. As a child actor, Kogan has few credits to his name, but he did feature in the title role of the 2007 horror film Joshua, starring Sam Rockwell. . . .
TrekMovie.com, February 27

- - -

This is Kogan, followed by the two previous versions of Young Spock that we have seen (in 1984's ST3:TSFS and a 1973 episode of the animated series):

Principal photography has wrapped. And speaking of photography ...

Yeah I saw those spy photos yesterday. My reaction was - not bad, not stellar, could go either way. They look Trek-ish to me, but I have to see them under studio lighting, in action, in service to a script to really judge the design of the film.

And of course, the key thing is - how does the Enterprise look, exterior and interior? That's the key piece of design, and everything will rise and fall on the big E.

4 posters in EW. Put them together, and whaddaya know...

I had to double take on Quinto...that resemblance is uncanny.

And that's Eric Bana in the upper left. Sheesh!

Yeah! I turned the poster and all four quadrants individually into "Pieces of Flair" on facebook. VERY cool!

More posters, with more cast members (there are higher-rez, low-glare versions at the link):

For those who like to speculate about how much monkeying with alternate realities this movie will do, note how Quinto answers, around the 3:25 mark, when he is asked how his performance as the young Spock was informed by his knowledge of what the character would become in the existing TV shows and movies:

Photos popping up all over the web! Well, on something like six websites, at any rate.

The Enterprise bridge crew! (UGO.com)

Kirk emerging from the snow pod! (IGN.com)

Kirk in the command chair, with McCoy at his side! (MTV Movies Blog)

Spock pinching Kirk! (Ain't It Cool News)

The villainous Nero! (JoBlo.com)

The USS Kelvin under attack! (TrekMovie.com)

Oh, and lest we forget: the Entertainment Weekly cover! (TrekMovie.com)

In the meantime: will this reboot be only two hours long?

A friend pointed me to those pictures last night, and I slept a joyful sleep. The uniforms are amazing, and the characters look awesome. The bridge - um - looks like an Apple Store. But there's a cool movie that's going to take place there, so I'm still optimistic. Happy, Happy Denes.

At least one picture at the Entertainment Weekly story that went up today. (Among its declarations: "More ambitiously, the movie subversively plays with Trek lore — and those who know it. The opening sequence, for example, is an emotionally wrenching passage that culminates with a mythic climax sure to leave zealots howling 'Heresy!' But revisionism anxiety is the point. 'The movie,' Lindelof says, 'is about the act of changing what you know.'" Oh, also this: "Nimoy's first scene in the film, screened for EW, is goose-bumpingly cool.")

They also say that the introduction of the Enterprise is awe-inspiring. As it should be, laddie.

Empire magazine has new pictures.

Cool viewscreen shot, and Uhura pic.

They have released a picture that gives us a complete look at the Enterprise, so naturally I had to do screen-caps of the four other versions of the original-series Enterprise that are out there (the 1964 pilot-episode version, the 1966-1969 series version, the 1996 Deep Space Nine time-travel episode version, and the 2007 "remastered" high-def version).

Suffice it to say that all those other versions have a fair bit more in common with each other, I think, than the new version has with any of them. I really don't understand how EW and Cinematical etc. can claim that the new ship looks JUST like the old one.

Sigh. I'm not sure how I feel about it. I like the nacelles, and the primary hull saucer looks okay, but the secondary hull, the cylinder slung under the saucer, looks awkward and ungainly. I'll need to see it in motion and from more angles to know better.

Do you think this film will suffer from Phantom Menace syndrome, meaning that even though it is set long before the previous installments in the series, it's plot will somehow include technology more advanced than that which supposedly "comes later"?

I am not sure this is really set fully in prior continuity. It is a reboot, is it not? If it is a reboot, it is not constricted by what came later.

They are not using the word reboot - in fact, they are avoiding and rejecting the word.

Of course, whatever its faults, Phantom Menace was setting up what Obi-Wan called that "elegant...more civilized age", and the fall into ruin that the Clone Wars precipitated.

While this film seems to be retaking us to places we've already been, but through different eyes and different aesthetic sensibilities, so I don't think the comparison really holds.

Rationale? What distinction do they mean to cut?

Jeff wrote:
: Do you think this film will suffer from Phantom Menace syndrome, meaning that even though it is set long before the previous installments in the series, it's plot will somehow include technology more advanced than that which supposedly "comes later"?

I think the franchise has already had to deal with something like that when they produced the Star Trek: Enterprise series, which takes place about a hundred years prior to the original series.

Nezpop wrote:
: I am not sure this is really set fully in prior continuity. It is a reboot, is it not?

Well, that depends. If people from the 24th century go back in time and cause changes to the 23rd century (and/or earlier), then is that a "reboot", or is it "in continuity" with what has come before?

(Matters are complicated by the fact that certain things HAVE to happen in the future in order for the past to be what it was. I think, for example, of how, in Star Trek: First Contact, Picard and the Borg had to come back from the 24th century to the 21st century so that Zefram Cochrane's launch could happen the way that it did, and so that the Borg survivors who are thawed out in the 22nd century, in Star Trek: Enterprise, could send a signal across the galaxy that would lure the rest of the Borg towards the Federation in Picard's time. If the new movie changes the timeline so that the 24th century as we know it might never happen, then what becomes of the 24th century's effect on the 21st and 22nd centuries...?)

Supposedly, all the changes between the original-series ship and the new-movie ship can be explained within the existing "canon" -- but the exact nature of that explanation has not been revealed yet, of course.

I just noticed the main villain of the movie is named Nero?

And Kirk's middle name is Tiberius.

Tiberius was considered one of Rome's greatest generals, and Nero of course was one Rome's most depraved rulers. I wonder if that was intentional.

See Peter's explanation. It involves time travel.

Personally, from what I've seen and heard, I think it's best to think of this as a reboot. It involves fewer headaches or heartburns for Star Trek canon fanatics like - oh, like me. But the filmmakers are saying that it firmly honors all canon, to the minutest detail.

The Baptist Death Ray wrote:
: I just noticed the main villain of the movie is named Nero?
: And Kirk's middle name is Tiberius.
: Tiberius was considered one of Rome's greatest generals, and Nero of course was one Rome's most depraved rulers. I wonder if that was intentional.

I think Nero's name owes more to the fact that he's a Romulan, from the twin-planet system of Romulus and Remus.