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Here’s the First Star Trek Into Darkness Trailers


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Good morning! What better way to kick off a dull Thursday than with your first, long-awaited look at Star Trek Into Darkness?

Here you go:

This is full of epic epicness, including distraught looking characters, explosions aplenty, what appears to be the Enterprise crashing into the sea, more angst than the poetry section of a Morrissey fanzine, and, of course, Benedict Cumberbatch being suitably sinister. Make no mistake, it is eye-popping, attention-grabbing spectacle all the way through. That said, other than the fact that we know Cumberbatch is seeking revenge against Starfleet’s finest, there isn’t very much plot on display here. I’m weirdly okay with this though, as this teaser gives us a taste of the tone of the flick. As for the longer international version of this trailer, well, that makes things a bit more complicated. Hit the jump to see what I mean.

So along with the standard U.S. trailer, this was also unleashed upon the Internet in the pre-dawn hours:

Here’s where things get crazy. At the 1:01 point we see characters separated by glass, while someone, presumably Spock, makes the Vulcan hand gesture. This is clearly a visual echo of Spock’s death scene at the end of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. (Spoiler alert).

So is our favorite Vulcan once again doomed?

Badass Digest and Cinema Blend have thoughtful posts up regarding the relationship between this brief shot and the rumors about whether or not Cumberbatch is indeed playing Khan in the film.

Honestly, I don’t much care much either way. I suspect that Cumberbatch will be terrific regardless of whom he portrays. Ultimately what worries is me most is that these sequels will just be riffs or weird cover versions of what we have seen before. If Star Trek Into Darkness is just a variation on the Khan story in which Spock dies at the end, will the following film be a rehash of Star Trek III?

This doesn’t interest me at all. Part of the appeal of the first Abrams Trek is that it gave these characters a clean slate. I want to see them, er, boldy go into new stories that will enhance the Trek mythos and bring new possibilities to the franchise. I’m probably being way to idealistic here due to my love of Star Trek, but I just can’t believe that we will be going down the Spock dies path again.

My instincts tell me that because J.J. Abrams is a master showman, this is all misdirection designed to get nerds like myself in a tizzy. The full trailer hits on December 17th. That coupled with the first nine minutes of the film being shown with the midnight debut of The Hobbit in IMAX next week should finally clear some of these questions up.

Although probably not.