STAR TREK : INTO DARKNESS – 10 spoilers to get you excited

Movies.ie had a sneak peak at the new JJ Abrams movie today, here are our thoughts… *WARNING : CONTAINS SPOILERS*

Today Movies.ie went boldly where no man has gone before… to London on the Starship Aer Lingus, for an exclusive STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS presentation at the colossal BFI IMAX screen in Waterloo.JJ Abram’s kicked off the day with a specially recorded intro, apologizing for his absence and his hair he then handed us over to Producer Bryan Burk who claimed to dislike the original Star Trek series so much that it made him the perfect man to turn something he disliked into something he could like.

The first piece of exciting news is that the UK and Irish release date has been brought forward to May 8th, meaning we’ll get it a week before American cinemas.

Journalists present were treated to the first 30 minutes of the upcoming movie, followed by two scenes from later on in the film. Burk said that JJ Abrams didn’t want to show any footage and they thought long and hard about what they were going to show today.

If you are avoiding the below spoilers, rest assured that the footage we seen today is as good as anything seen in the previous movie, if not better. This is certainly one to watch this summer.

WARNING SPOILERS FOLLOW _ READ AT YOUR PERIL

Below is just a few snippets from today’s preview, look away now to avoid spoilers.

1/ Before Christmas, many of us saw the first 9 minutes before ‘The Hobbit’ but that has now been heavily edited and is now slightly shorter, the Noel Clarke/Benedict Cumberbatch scene no longer opens the movie, instead the first scene is the volcanic eruption on the primitive planet Nibiru.

2/ The scene ends with Kirk raising the Enterprise from its seabed hiding-place to rescue Spock from the volcano, in turn violating the prime directive by shocking the primitive natives, who begin to record the encounter in the muddy ground with sticks. Their primitive drawing merges with a shot of the Enterprise flying through space, which begins the title sequence. 

3/ The next scene is set inside a futuristic London hospital, with Benedict Cumberbatch’s John Harrison offering to save the dying daughter of Noel Clarke. We still don’t know exactly who Benedict Cumberbatch is playing, he’s only identified as John Harrison but we’re sure there has to be more to him than just a rogue Starfleet officer.

3/ The next scene shows Kirk in bed with two cat-like women… tails and all. Me-ow! 
Then he’s off to face the music for his actions on the planet Nibiru, where he is stripped of his position as captain of the Enterprise. “You don’t respect the chair,” he’s told, “because you’re not ready for it.”

4/ Spock is transferred to the USS Bradbury, which was previously seen in Patrick Stewart’s ‘Next Generation’ series. Definitely a sly reference for the die-hard fans. 

5/ Next is the first shock moment of the movie, it turns out that in exchange for curing his daughter Starfleet employee Noel Clarke has offered to go on a suicide mission, which involves the planting of a massive bomb, which wreaks havoc at Starfleet in London, blowing up a large chunk of the city.

6/ An emergency meeting of Starfleet captain’s ends in chaos when John Harrison turns up in a futuristic laser equipped helicopter and takes out almost the entire Starfleet until he stopped by Kirk and his clever use of a water hose.

7/ The next scene introduced by producer Brian Burk was one of a battle-scarred Enterprise plummeting through space towards earth. The inside scenes are edge-of-your-seat exciting, with Kirk and Scotty racing through a 360 degrees spinning spaceship, resembling the topsy-turvy corridor scene from Inception in parts.

8/ The final scene previewed today see’s the Enterprise crash-land to a futuristic city in earth, crashing through sky-scrapers in an impressive scene that had the chairs in the cinema shake with the booming sound system.

9/ Spock emerges from the wreckage and takes chase after John Harrison in scene’s that wouldn’t feel out place in a Die Hard movie, they smash their way through glass doors, and jump from one flying car to another. I can’t recall such nail biting scenes in any recent sci-fi film.

10/ And that was that… the footage ended on a high and left everyone wanting more, it really has set itself up to be one of the most fun films of 2013.

STAR TREK : INTO DARKNESS opens in Ireland on May 8th 2013