Seven minutes of Star Trek XI glimpsed

From aicn [excerpt], That’s when JJ had his “EUREKA” moment – he didn’t actually say “EUREKA” – but he knew what he wanted to show. He went over to the big Editing computer thingamabob and was trying to get something up, he pulled up a scene that looked like it was shot in an enormous hanger – There looked to be well over a hundred Starfleet graduates standing in the center of the room – with a couple of shuttlecrafts (old school) that looked like they were ready for boarding… the voice over was basically assigning cadets to the ship they would be serving on. The shot was huge, but oddly sparse… that’s when the editor said they had a newer version of the scene and then worked with JJ to pull it up.

Oh Wow.

The newer version was much much grander. It feels as though some Intergalactic Pearl Harbor has happened and all the cadets are anxious to get underway. You’d see cadets running to meet their shuttles – and as shuttles filled up, they took off to take their crews to their respective starships. They hold on the long shot – we hear Leonard McCoy being assigned to the Enterprise – You catch Uhura being assigned to a place… not the Enterprise. You see Chris Pine as Kirk demanding to know why his name wasn’t called out – apparently Kirk is in trouble. You remember that Kobayashi Maru thing he got a commendation for creative thinking for? Well, he isn’t smiling about it here. It seems his entire future career in Starfleet is in jeopardy – and he might miss out on whatever is going on. In a way it plays like the reality of legend. The truth behind the mythology of Kirk’s youth. How is Chris Pine? He’s young. The scene I saw wasn’t a strong KIRK scene, but a proto-KIRK scene. To see a character called Kirk that isn’t comfortably calling all the shots is a bit strange, but welcomed at the same time. I can’t wait to see how JJ takes the character and thrusts him into “greatness” – which has to happen in this film.

But then there’s McCoy – when you see McCoy… you’ll realize how metaphysically perfect Karl Urban was for the casting of the character. He’s got that right cantankerous, best buddy, ethical, but anything for his friend type of doc attitude – and he has it down pat. He’s helping Jim to get onto a ship, but in a million years I wouldn’t spoil that. It’s funny, without being ridiculous. And it begins to exhibit the early kernels of a classic Bones/Kirk interaction. Best friends with a history – and perhaps this moment is a key moment of that history. The favor that launched a career? Perhaps that is what I saw.

We see Uhura confront Spock regarding her assignment to NOT the Enterprise. Zoe Saldana doesn’t look like the Uhura we knew – she looks young and hungry, confident and determined. And Spock… perfect.

It all ended with characters arriving on the bridge, under the command of Captain Pike. Sulu was at the helm – and the bridge. And the uniforms… Classic Trek. Nice. Then for the first time in the history of Star Trek, it looked amazingly functional. It echoes that classic Trek look – but imagine if you handed that design to the folks at APPLE and said… Make it really work. I instantly believed in the functionality of everything. That’s hard to quantify, but it is true. Remember when you saw the war room underground on Hoth in EMPIRE STRIKES BACK? How it just felt functional – that’s what this looked. And it looked Star Trek, without looking as cheap as Star Trek. It was a tech-fetishists wet dream.

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