Friday night’s Star Trek Fan Day revealed new Star Trek Beyond footage, premiere details and more!
Star Trek Beyond hits the big screen in two months and almost everything about it has been kept under wraps. So far, there has just been a single teaser and a few stills to tide over hungry Star Trek fans. That all changed tonight, however, with a special 50th Anniversary Star Trek Fan Event held on the Paramount Pictures lot in Los Angeles, California. ComingSoon.net was honored to be in attendance at a multi-tiered celebration that both teased the new film and celebrated the franchise as a whole. If you follow us on Facebook, you might have been following our live feed from the event. If not, check out the Star Trek Fan Event live feed video replays at the bottom of this page. Read on for a summary of the evening, including details on the film’s premiere and descriptions of some new Star Trek Beyond event screened exclusively for Star Trek fans in attendance.
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A crowd of Star Trek fans (among whom we spotted legendary Trekkie heroes like Bjo Trimble and Larry Nemecek) were lead through a special Star Trek set constructed on Stage 31. That’s the exact space where, nearly five decades ago, William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley and the rest of the crew stood, filming three seasons of the original Star Trek. From there, two well known Star Trek fans — namely Mythbusters‘ Adam Savage and Access Hollywood‘s Scott Mantz — chatted with Star Trek Beyond director Justin Lin, producer J.J. Abrams and stars Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto and Karl Urban. The night also included video messages from actors that couldn’t be in attendance, such as Simon Pegg and Zoe Saldana, as well as many a celebrity Star Trek fan, including Stephen Colbert. On that original stage, every Star Trek fan in attendance was treated to Q&A sessions, trivia games and a special tribute to Leonard Nimoy while behind the scenes images from Star Trek Beyond‘s production played on various monitors, revealing a few of the all new alien designs that we’re going to see appear in the new film. One of the ways Star Trek Beyond plans to further the property’s notion of exploring “strange new worlds” is with the inclusion of 50 completely new alien species which appear to come in all shapes and sizes.
Two major announcements were made at the beginning of the night, including that all litigation against the Star Trek fan film Axanar has been resolved. Apparently, director Justin Lin was the one who stressed to Paramount the importance of cooperation with the Star Trek fan community. The second was that Lin’s Star Trek Beyond will have its premiere at Comic-Con International: San Diego in July at special outdoor IMAX screening, complete with a live musical performance by the San Diego Symphony orchestra.
The Star Trek Fan Event continued as guests were then lead from Stage 31 to a special outdoor ceremony wherein Paramount Pictures officially renamed the road outside the legendary stage to “Leonard Nimoy Way”.
Not only was each and every Star Trek fan in attendance invited to attend the Star Trek Beyond premiere, but they were presented with a special new Beyond poster that pays homage to Bob Peak‘s iconic Star Trek: The Motion Picture design. Check it out in the gallery viewer below!
The crowd was then taken to the adjacent Stage 32. There, in a room surrounded by a black curtain, the Star Trek fan crowd watched the new Beyond trailer and, as a special surprise, were treated to a few additional scenes from the July 22 release!
We open with Chris Pine’s Captain James T. Kirk recording a Captain’s Log (Stardate 2263.45, for those keeping track). As we cut to different locations around the Enterprise, Kirk’s log is heard, explaining how the crew has made it three years into the Enterprise’s five year mission and that being in space so long has created some interesting challenges. We see three male crew members eyeing a female officer, another couple making out and second couple having a fight. The Federation, at this point, has now expanded to more than 200 different worlds and changes have taken place in the lives of the crew. On the bridge, we see Jon Cho‘s Hikaru Sulu has a photograph of his baby daughter placed in the upper left corner of the helm. (A great nod to the original timeline’s future Enterprise B helmsman, Damora Sulu). Meanwhile, Kirk stares into a closet full of nothing but the same gold command tunic, as he records that has been “episodic”.
We’re next with Kirk and Karl Urban’s Dr. Leonard McCoy. It’s Kirk’s birthday and he’s sitting in his quarters with a bottle of Saurian Brandy. Bones, however, has a stolen a bottle of Glenlivet that he says he stole Chekov’s locker.
“You’d think he would drink–,” Kirk begins.
“Vodka?” Bones nods. “Right?”
Kirk and McCoy begin to talk. McCoy knows that Kirk hates celebrating his birthday on the day because it’s the day that Kirk lost his dad (as we saw back in the opening scene of J.J. Abrams’ first Star Trek). Kirk is now one year older than his father ever was. He’s beginning to wonder if he really joined Starfleet because it’s who he is or if it’s because he wants to live up to the legacy of his dad. Together, the friends clink their Scotch against a third glass in memory of George Kirk.
From there, it was more footage of the attack that looks like it’s going to decimate the NCC-1701. There are thousands of tiny alien ships that, like projectile piranha, rip the Enterprise to pieces. We see the nacelles destroyed completely and the saucer completely severed from the rest of the ship. Kirk gives the order to evacuate the ship and the crew eject in individual pods to the planet below. Kirk winds up with Chekov (Anton Yelchin) and and a female crewmember of an undetermined species (She looks somewhere between an Alien Nation Newcomer and Galaxy Quest‘s Dr. Lazarus).
From there, the footage jumped to a lot of quick shots of action on the planet, ending with a final moment between Kirk and Zachary Quinto’s Commander Spock in a turbolift (seemingly pre-disaster).
“I think we make a good team,” Kirk tells his first officer.
In a perfectly Vulcan way, Spock betrays no emotion whatsoever and yet, in a perfectly Spock way, we can still tell that he’s pretty happy about the Captain’s comment.
“I believe we do,” he says.
A Paramount Pictures and Skydance Productions film, Star Trek Beyond is set to feature the return of Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, Anton Yelchin and John Cho along with new roles for Idris Elba, Sofia Boutella and Joe Taslim. J.J. Abrams, who directed the last two films, is producing the third film in the rebooted franchise. Lin is directing from a script by Simon Pegg and Doug Jung.
Check out our Facebook Live videos from the Star Trek Fan Event in the players below: