I wonder if the reason why Shyamalan's name isn't attached to the trailer is because it's an international trailer.  I suspect that we'll see his name somewhere in the U.S. version.

 Anyone else see the irony of including the Star Wars Christmas Special on a "Forgotten Christmas Special" list, considering we all remember how terrible it was?

 momitchell7,

Gary Mitchell was a character from the classic TOS pilot episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before."   In it, Mitchell and Dr. Elizabeth Dehner (another member of the Enterprise crew) came into contact with an alien force, giving them both psionic and superhuman abilities.  Dehner had managed to aid Kirk in fighting Mitchell, and ultimately Kirk was the only one left alive in their conflict.  

P.S. The episode was actually the second commissioned pilot by NBC for TOS, since the original pilot episode "The Cage" didn't have enough action in it.

Umm...wow.

Yeah, I guess we really can take the plot description about the villain detonating the fleet and wreaking devastation upon Earth quite literally.  

Completely taken off guard by that trailer.  I wasn't expecting too many scenes from the final film (I figured it'd be something much closer to the original teaser for Star Trek 2009), but this was a surprise.  

Wow.

 What irks me about that poster is that it looks like someone took a picture of it with their cell phone camera, and the lens flare is the reflection of the flash. Looks very cheap and uninspired for a film that I'm otherwise very excited about.

Love the subtle use of the Star Trek logo outlined in the wreckage.  

And despite the fact that all we have is a poster for now, I guess it's safe to say the plot description about one guy detonating the fleet is to be taken quite literally.

DarthoftheDead,

Did you really say you'd rather watch Star Trek 2009 than The Dark Knight Rises?  I hope you were joking.

I LIKED Star Trek 2009, but I would most certainly rewatch The Dark Knight Rises over it.

It's also a well-known fact that the film was heavily affected by the writers' strike, so they had to start shooting with a largely unfinished script.  I'm sure if time was a luxury everyone could afford, Abrams and co would have done significant rewrites to fix flaws within the film.  Unfortunately, they had to stick with what they had in hand.

Having said that, I agree that Star Trek needed a kick in the seat of its pants.  Abrams did that.  I recall something Jonathan Frakes said about where Star Trek should go following Insurrection, and his words were that it should be a balls to the wall action film.  He was right.  There is a time and place for epic space battles in Star Trek, and we've gotten them in a few of the films (Wrath of Khan, Undiscovered Country, Nemesis, etc).  

You're right - Star Trek was dead in the water after Nemesis and Enterprise wrapped up.  Paramount didn't know exactly where the franchise should go, except that they needed a route that would excite average filmgoers while also respecting the core fan base.  

What I'm saying - and I think Kara will agree with me on this - is that Star Trek can allow for great action and special effects, but also be about storytelling.  If it wasn't, we wouldn't have gotten Wrath of Khan, Undiscovered Country, First Contact, and all of Deep Space Nine.  That's what I want from Star Trek Into Darkness: a film with awesome action and a great story with deep characters.  I don't think I'm asking for or expecting too much.

SarcasticCaveman,

You're probably thinking of the episode Cause and Effect, which was one of the first episodes written by Brannon Braga for TNG.

On the subject of logic and reasoning in science fiction, I once read an article on Cracked that discussed the topic.  The author said audiences can suspend disbelief on almost anything, so long as the writing is consistent within itself.  A movie could feature unicorns flying around through space with roller skates on their feet, and as silly as that sounds, people will still watch it.  It only really dumbs itself down when said space unicorn is trapped in an airlock and could potentially be sucked out into space to kill it.  A movie couldn't do that because we'd already seen the unicorns flying around in space with no problem.

(Wow - I just re-read what I typed and boy do I sound like a looney toon)

The point is CONSISTENCY.  Is a movie consistent with its own logic and rules?  Terminator 2 laid out all the necessary exposition for what the T-1000 could do in a scene between John and the T-800, and the movie stuck to those rules the entire time.  The scene also adequately explained why the T-1000 didn't just try blowing John up by turning itself into a bomb, as most people would have probably asked that question.  Thus, we bought into the idea of a killing machine made out of liquid metal the rest of the way.

Star Trek isn't always consistent with itself, both in its science and its mythology.  More often than not, when the writers have put the characters into a corner, they use technobabble nonsense to resolve the situation.  This has always bothered me, because TOS and the first couple seasons of TNG didn't always rely on technobabble.  Time travel stories in particular almost never hold up to logic, which is why I wish Trek had abolished the concept a very long time ago (which is ironic, given we wouldn't have gotten Star Trek 2009 otherwise).  

I still enjoyed Star Trek 2009, despite its faulty logic and plot holes.  Admittedly, I loved it when I had first seen it, but the more I thought about its plot holes, the less I was able to enjoy the movie.  I still am excited for Star Trek Into Darkness, but I want to see a real story told that has some action in it (like what Kara had talked about) this time.

 Hey, TMP didn't have much of a story to tell at all, and it was a gigantic borefest.  But then it was followed up by Wrath of Khan, which sure proved it was possible to tell a great story and have some great space battles at the same time.  Those two examples show it can be done, even if you didn't like Star Trek 2009.  And really, if you wanted to create a simple, spoiler-free summary of Wrath of Khan, it'd probably sound something like this:

"The crew of the Enteprrise is back in action when Kirk's past comes back to haunt him.  A crazed villain bent on vengeance steals a weapon of mass destruction and is out for blood.  Kirk is once again in the captain's chair and faces his worst enemy, and also must choose between sacrificing himself or his crew in the process."

How generic does that sound?

 How literally are we supposed to take the phrase "detonated the fleet"?  Did one guy somehow figure out how to blow up every ship in the Federation except for the Enterprise?  

Also, given the description says the threat is from within Starfleet, I highly doubt this is Khan (which can only be a good thing!)..