As someone whose only firsthand experience with the Star Trek franchise comes by virtue of J.J. Abrams‘ two Trek films, I know I’m in over my head when the topic presents itself. When you mention Trek, you’re referencing (either directly or indirectly) a rich legacy filled with peaks and valleys, genre-defining characters and moments, and an international fanbase that rivals any of pop-culture’s most enduring titles. And yet here I am, with two films under my belt (both of which I enjoyed), talking about it. Obviously, I have nothing at stake with regards to Star Trek Into Darkness. Whether you like it or dislike it is of no consequence to me. My only aim today is to extend a humble word of caution to the Trek fans who have years of equity built-up in their beloved franchise: be careful not to dismiss or begrudge it solely because it’s trying to appeal to the largest possible audience. Abrams’ Trek films aren’t above reproach, but they also aren’t void of redeeming qualities. Try to at least acknowledge some of those qualities when tearing into them or risk coming off as someone whose real issue is that a bunch of people now enjoy this thing that you once considered yourself unique for liking.

All preachiness aside, this week’s Top 5 includes several interviews from Star Trek Into Darkness, rumors surrounding Christopher Nolan being approached to direct James Bond 24, the first trailers for Marvel’s new ABC series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., a new trailer for Guillermo Del Toro‘s Pacific Rim, and new photos and a video from the set of director Jose Padilha‘s RoboCop remake. If I haven’t lost you yet, a brief recap and link to each of the above can be found after the jump.

Star Trek is not iconography.  There are plenty of iconic moments, inside jokes, winks, nods, and more, but it all stems from an original story starring fleshed-out characters who answered the call of duty and the call of adventure in equal and enthusiastic measure.  Director J.J. Abrams only sees iconography, but it was enough to get him through 2009′s reboot.  The story was barely patched together, still filled with holes, and wrapped in coincidences, but Abrams’ talent as a director managed to bring the story and characters to life in a way that felt fresh and exciting.  Much like his take on Captain Kirk, it was slapdash, occasionally clever, frantic, and charming.  Unfortunately, a flashy smile and big set pieces can’t save Abrams a second time as his follow-up, Star Trek Into Darkness, amplifies the shortcomings of his original effort, and removes the joy as the picture stumbles around looking for character arcs, themes, and a compelling, well-constructed plot.  But its greatest embarrassment is in trying to steal classic Star Trek moments without having a clue as to why those moments had meaning.

We’re just days away from the US release of J.J. Abrams’ sequel Star Trek Into Darkness, and to mark the occasion Paramount has released a batch of high-resolution images from the film.  By now, you probably already know whether you’ll be seeking this one out or not, but if you’re a fan of Trek and just can’t wait another 24 hours before seeing the film, this image gallery should appease you for now.  We’ve seen some of these images before, but a few of them are new and all of them are in glorious high-resolution.  If you missed Steve’s spoiler-free video blog review of the film, click here.

Hit the jump to check out the images.  The film stars Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Benedict Cumberbatch, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, Anton Yelchin, Alice Eve, John Cho, and Bruce Greenwood.  Star Trek Into Darkness opens in IMAX 3D tomorrow, and in both 2D and 3D in traditional theaters on May 16th.

With Star Trek Into Darkness opening soon around the world, our partners at Omelete recently sat down with Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto.  During the interview, they talked about what kind of personal challenges did the sequel bring to them both as actors and to their characters, do they now feel beloved by the Trek community, what’s the sequel about, and a lot more.  Hit the jump to watch.

Star Trek Into Darkness also stars Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, Anton Yelchin, John Cho, Bruce Greenwood, Peter Weller, and Alice Eve.  The film opens in IMAX 3D on May 15th and in 2D and 3D on May 17th.

The release of Star Trek Into Darkness is now a little over a week away given this morning’s news that the release date has been bumped up a day, and in anticipation of the J.J. Abrams-directed sequel, Audi has produced a new commercial that features the Spocks of young and old.  In the nearly 3-minute spot, Zachary Quinto and Leonard Nimoy challenge each other to a race from one destination to another, but Quinto has the leg up as he’s driving the new Audi S7.  It’s a bit of shameless advertising, but the interplay between the two and especially Nimoy’s performance make it well worth watching.

Hit the jump to catch the commercial.  Star Trek Into Darkness opens in IMAX 3D on May 15th and in 2D and 3D on May 16th.

Paramount Pictures has released six clips from director J.J. Abrams’ upcoming sequel Star Trek Into Darkness.  We’ve seen these clips individually before, but now they’re all together in one convenient place.  If you missed any of our recent coverage, be sure to watch Steve’s spoiler-free video blog review of the film, the 3D trailer, three new TV spots that unveil an unmasked Klingon, and the final poster for the film.

Hit the jump to watch all the clips.  The film stars Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, Anton Yelchin, John Cho, Alice Eve, and Benedict Cumberbatch. Star Trek Into Darkness opens in IMAX 3D on May 15th and in 2D and 3D in traditional theaters on May 17th.

Paramount Pictures has released a new 3D trailer for director J.J. Abrams’ sequel Star Trek Into Darkness.  If you happen to have a pair of red/blue 3D glasses handy, then you’re in luck.  If not, well I hope you like slightly blurry images.  This trailer is simply the latest theatrical trailer only refashioned in kinda-3D.  I say kinda-3D because this is far from the quality 3D you’d see in a theater.  Nevertheless, if you happen to have a pair of 3D glasses nearby, go nuts.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer.  The film stars Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, Karl Urban, Anton Yelchin, John Cho, Alice Eve, and Benedict Cumberbatch. Star Trek Into Darkness opens in IMAX 3D on May 15th and in 2D and 3D in traditional theaters on May 17th.

The Star Trek Into Darkness marketing blitz rolls on with three more TV spots for the upcoming sequel.  A couple of the TV spots hammer home the same plot points we’ve seen before: Kirk (Chris Pine) needs to be responsible, the villain “John Harrison” (Benedict Cumberbatch) is really sinister, etc.  But the third spot is an interesting evaluation of Uhura (Zoe Saldana) by Harrison.  We saw this kind of evaluation before with Spock (Zachary Quinto), but the evaluation of Uhura sneaks in a couple frames of an unmasked Klingon.  I’m not exactly sure why they needed masks in the first place, but as far as the design goes, it’s fairly subdued.  However, in the TV series, the Klingons (from TNG onwards, which is when they got their distinctive foreheads) have different craniums.  They have ridges, but the ridges vary from Klingon to Klingon, so we don’t know if that will be the case with Abrams’ film or if he’s gone for a uniform design.

Hit the jump to check out the TV spots and first image of an unmasked Klingon.  The film also stars Simon Pegg, Karl Urban, Anton Yelchin, John Cho, and Alice Eve.  Star Trek Into Darkness opens in IMAX 3D on May 15th and in 3D and 2D on May 17th.

This week has been nothing but great for Trekkies everywhere who are anxiously awaiting the release of J.J. Abrams’ sequel Star Trek Into Darkness.  And Paramount has now made available a new Spock promo featuring Zachary Quinto and Benedict Cumberbatch, as well as two new character posters for Simon Pegg’s Scotty and Anton Yelchin’s Chekov.  The promo is a combination of various Spock scenes with images of Cumberbatch’s menacing antagonist.  It’s perfectly laced together with the villain’s voice as he threatens to use Spock’s uniqueness and feelings of alienation against him.  Meanwhile, the character posters show some intense moments as both Scotty and Chekov seem to be in two very different perilous situations.  Scotty is seen running at mighty speed to avoid sparks and possible falling debris, while Chekov looks like he’s being faced with an extremely difficult task.

Hit the jump to watch the promo and view the new character posters.  The film also stars Chris Pine, Zoe Saldana, Alice Eve, Karl Urban, and John Cho.  Star Trek Into Darkness opens in IMAX 3D on May 15th and in 2D and 3D on May 17th.

A new clip for the highly-anticipated sequel Star Trek Into Darkness, from sci-fi extraordinaire director J.J. Abrams, has been released.  The clip features three of the main stars of the film – Chris Pine’s Captain Kirk, Zachary Quinto’s Spock and Zoe Saldana’s Uhura – as they become the target of a ship pursuit and race through treacherous paths in an attempt to escape the firing blasts of their enemy.  Compared to the first clip, this one is saturated with fast-paced thrills, showcasing what’s likely to be one of the movie’s most fascinating action sequences.

Hit the jump to watch the clip.  The film also stars Benedict Cumberbatch, Alive Eve, Simon Pegg, John Cho, Anton Yelchin, and Karl Urban.  Star Trek Into Darkness is slated for a May 15th IMAX 3D release and a 2D and 3D release on May 17th.

Some new U.K. character posters for J.J. Abrams’ upcoming sequel Star Trek Into Darkness have made their way online.  We previously saw a few domestic character posters for Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, and Benedict Cumberbatch, but in this grouping we see Alice Eve, John Cho, and Karl Urban get their own one-sheets alongside new posters for the aforementioned actors.  The lack of Anton Yelchin’s Chekov in most of the marketing, though, is starting to become glaring, and I’m beginning to wonder about his character’s fate.  Also, where’s Scotty’s poster?  Surely Simon Pegg deserves a one-sheet of his own, especially as part of the U.K.’s marketing materials.

Hit the jump to check out the posters.  Star Trek Into Darkness opens in the U.K. on May 9th, in IMAX 3D in the U.S. on May 15th, and in traditional U.S. theaters on May 17th.

Paramount Pictures has released the first clip from director J.J. Abrams’ sequel Star Trek Into Darkness.  This clip, I believe, comes from a scene towards the very beginning of the movie, so fans needn’t worry about any major spoilers.  We see Chris Pine’s Captain Kirk and the Enterprise crew (in some fairly skin-tight outfits, natch) discussing how to proceed when faced with a rather precarious situation that involves Zachary Quinto’s Spock.  It’s an interesting choice for a premiere clip, as it’s not an action-heavy scene and doesn’t feature much humor (save for a great reaction from Simon Pegg’s Scotty).  Instead, the clip focuses on the heart of Star Trek, which is its characters.

Hit the jump to watch the clip.  The film also stars Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Anton Yelchin, John Cho, Bruce Greenwood, Benedict Cumberbatch, Alice Eve, and Peter Weller.  Star Trek Into Darkness opens on in IMAX 3D on May 15th and in 2D and 3D on May 17th.

A few minutes before the Star Trek Into Darkness cast hit the CinemaCon stage yesterday in Las Vegas, I landed a video interview with Zachary Quinto on the red carpet.  While J.J. Abrams and Paramount have slowly been releasing more images and footage from the Star Trek sequel (click here to watch the new trailer), the cast is still very careful about saying anything specific about the anxiously awaited sequel.  Knowing this before the interview started, I made sure to only ask Quinto questions he could answer like what it was like to film the bridge sequences first, working with the IMAX cameras, whether he’s seen a rough cut yet (the entire cast sees the film for the first time this Friday before leaving for Sydney), and more.  In addition, he also talked about why he thinks Star Trek Into Darkness being in 3D is a good thing.  Hit the jump to watch.

Since the film is only a month away, Paramount has released what will presumably be the final major trailer for Star Trek Into Darkness.  If you want your Trek movie epic and deadly serious, then it looks like J.J. Abrams has you covered.  I’m glad this new trailer finally turns the attention to Kirk (Chris Pine) rather than Cumberbatch’s villain.  The trailer also hits home that the Enterprise is going to get destroyed, and when you factor in the destruction it already suffered in Search for Spock and again in Generations, the impact for Into Darkness feels somewhat diminished.

Hit the jump to check out the trailer along with the character poster for Kirk, and click on the respective links for the posters for Spock, Uhura, and “John Harrison”.  The film also stars Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, Anton Yelchin, John Cho, Bruce Greenwood, Alice Eve, and Peter Weller.  Star Trek Into Darkness opens in IMAX 3D on May 15th, and in 2D and 3D on May 17th.

You could always use some more Star Trek Into Darkness marketing in your life, so Paramount has released a new sneak peek as well as a character poster for Spock (Zachary Quinto).  Yesterday, we got a poster for Uhura (Zoe Saldana), and I’m curious to see if the upcoming character posters will be for anyone other than Kirk (Chris Pine) and “John Harrison” (Benedict Cumberbatch).  In the meantime, we can watch Spock bathe in sweet, hot lava.  As for the sneak peek, it’s basically a TV spot, although I don’t know if it will play like any other commercial.  It’s debuted on MTV’s website, so perhaps there might be something longer on the MTV Movie Awards later tonight.

Hit the jump to check out the sneak peek and poster.  The film also stars Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, Anton Yelchin, John Cho, Bruce Greenwood, and Peter Weller.  Star Trek Into Darkness opens on May 17th.