Merrick here...


Just because J.J. Abrams didn't drag any STAR TREK footage to Comic-Con? Doesn't mean footage from Abrams' STAR TREK wasn't seen. And just because so many AICN folks are at Comic-Con? Doesn't mean our operatives aren't elsewhere as well. Watching...waiting...

Case in point: this message from Mr. Atoz, who recently got a look at a two sequences from Abrams' new TREK movie.

Mr. Atoz refers to the "captain" in command of Enterprise several times. This is undoubtedly Bruce Greenwood's Christopher Pike. Pike commanded the ship before Kirk, and features prominently in this film.

Let's cut to the chase. Here's Atoz...

SPOILERS AHEAD!

The first scene starts out with this massive convoy of freighters (may be refugees?), each towing 2 or 3 even bigger cargo looking crates behind them with tractor beams. They look big and slow-moving. Sort of trapezoid shaped with the narrow end being the front. They're brown in case you were wondering. I'd say there were about 12-15 on screen in a sort of non-general formation. The Enterprise is near the rear as what I assume is an escort. They all make the jump to warp.

I can't emphasise how real they look. They all use models, no super shiny pure CGI like in Nemesis. There's a lot of white light surrounding the ships as they make the jump to warp and then it cuts to the interior of the Enterprise's bridge with the camera pointing at the view screen. The view screen is much bigger, and much closer to the Captain's chair and forward consoles.

The view is of the warp jump. It looks like the stuff from the TMP era, with streams of mainly white light with a slight rainbow hue forming a tunnel and the view shaking a bit to show the ship is rocketing along. Definitely doesn't seem like the nice smooth cruise from the TNG series.

Then it jumps back to space where all of a sudden there are these red streaks of light tearing right through the unshielded freighters and sending several of them up in flames. Everyone lurches out of warp.

View of the bridge, with everyone reacting in confusion and trying to find out what's going on. Looks like everyone's in cadet uniform except for the guy in the captain's chair who looks about late 30s, early 40s.

Some tech talk about the scanner readings being blocked by the explosions. Some frantic chatter about detecting a signal from the "Yorktown". On screen command given, and another Constitution class ship appears on screen except it's completely destroyed (really doesn't seem all that different from the old movie Constitution class). Gasps all round.

Now this is one shot I have to single out for praise. It looks so real and harrowing, like seeing the remains of a collapsed skyscraper. The viewscreen POV is of the side of the Yorktown, with saucer section on the left side. The nacelles and most of the top half of the secondary hull is just gone, blown off, with thick black smoke billowing out every which way. The viewscreen suddenly changes to show the face of what looks most definitely like a (rather human-looking) bad guy smirking in triumph. Footage ends abruptly before he can speak.

Now comes the next scene which looks to be slightly later, with the first full battle sequence.

The captain is still the captain (no sign of Kirk yet, I think he was on the bridge as just another cadet) and he's exchanging barbs with the villain over an audio link as their ships engage each other.

The captain's saying how the bad guy's ship (the Sunfire? Sunflower?) can't protect him.

Cut to exterior shot of the ship in question stationary. It's long and pointy, like a Vulcan ship but it has a tri-nacelle configuration, with these sort of loops joining them to one another. It looks a bit like the Planet Express ship except it's much longer and is, well, orange coloured.

I'd say it's about the same mass as the Enterprise, maybe more, but it's much longer and more space is taken up by the engines.

We then cut to the Enterprise moving in slowly and firing a torpedo. Now these torpedoes are bright red and look just like the normal ones from the TMP movies, except it's really BIG. Like twice the size and homes in slowly but directly to the Sunfire.

It doesn't actually strike the ship, but explodes once it gets within range, and once again the result is BIG.

There's a small initial explosion and at the centre is this sort of double-ended cyclone of fire, which is spinning from the outset and increases in speed to generate this massive flare.

The resulting explosion is the size of the Enterprise. This takes about 3 seconds in total. The Enterprise then fires a phaser beam that strikes the Sunfire and makes the ship visibly shake. Again big, rather thick but this time it's the yellowy-orange of the TNG era phaser.

The Sunfire then fires off torpedoes every which way and two strike the Enterprise.

During this exchange you can see the shields of both ships flashing bright white electrical-like when the weapons hit, like when a bulb blows. Very quick or you'll miss it. You get the impression that either ship could be destroyed by just a handful of hits with these weapons.

Interior of the birdge and the thing is shaking all over from the frist torpedo hit. Cadets are sprawling all over the floor (very few seats on the bridge, only Captain and the 2 forward consoles, maybe the science console as well has one). And the scene ends.

Sorry I couldn't note down the dialogue but the footage must have been less than a minute in total. The whole thing took me by surprise and I didn't get a second viewing. But, man, what I did notice just stuck in my head for days like any cool mind-blowing scene like the plane crash in Final Destination or the B2 bombing the Cloverfield creature. I can't emphasise enough just how real and how enormously big everything seemed.