Hot Wheels and Secrets of 1701

Now here's some things you might not know about...

Just as a nice little additional tease, have you been onto areyouthe1701.com and /harrison? If you do then there's a hidden file just waiting to be found - a secret Starfleet file linking Admiral Marcus to the rogue Starfleet agent. Here are both the pages from the PDF if you fancy a read rather than a click through. I'm just wondering how long this has been hidden on the site - days, weeks?!

Here's a thought - when we first heard about the viral site through a hidden link in one of the trailers, we had no idea what it was for. Since then fans have been sending in photos and videos with the opportunity to win exclusive Star Trek Into Darkness goodies and tickets to IMAX performances as well as being given exclusive first viewings of featurettes, posters and even videos. For the full picture of the "history" of the site, take a click on the Are You The 1701? label at the bottom.

As a second little gem and while I was searching out pictures for the imminent novelisation review of Star Trek Into Darkness I literally stumbled over these images of some of Hot Wheels releases for the end of the year. The news that they would be slotting in new models of the USS Excelsior and the USS Kelvin is fairly "old" news but then they've given us a little extra fan love with the announcement of two more ships. I'll let you scroll down to find out which ones they are...

USS Kelvin

USS Excelsior

The Excelsior is one popular model at the moment with both Hot Wheels and Diamond Select producing their own versions of the ship from Star Trek VI although I think someone's missing a trick by not sticking NX-2000 on one of the hulls and going a bit further on the retro scale. The Kelvin is a decent reproduction in miniature scale and I'd choose this one over the Kre-O chunk anyway  Even a good effort on the display stands don't you think? However, what about these two.....

Klingon D-4 Bird of Prey

USS Vengeance

Apologies for the logo embossing as these are not easy pics to come by! The D-4 gives a much better representation of the ships we saw on Qo'noS (no comment on the Kre-O versions) and you can see the typical Klingon design pattern here with the dropped wings and bird-like posture. Whether the colouring is accurate is a question because that's not how I remember it in the film although we didn't see that solid an image. With the Vengeance though we get a much clearer idea of her lines and that incredibly unique cut-out primary hull that's not been seen on a Federation starship before. Her engines are much higher than the Enterprise and wider too. I would've liked to get a shot of the bow but I'll keep looking. 

Apparently they were scouted on Entertainment Earth however I've taken a look and they're not there. If you spot them, drop a note on here and we'll take a look. Hopefully they'll be available for pre-order soon. Likelihood is that they'll only be available in the US too which always makes me a little sad for us UK fans, 

Images of Hot Wheels ships from trekcollective.com
Screenshots from SKoST

We'll fit!!! Star Trek Into a Small Space

The onslaught of material from the new movie continues in what can only be described as the "Clips Phase" with the second in just three days.

This time it's off to Qo'nos for us to see Kirk, Spock and Uhura on their (apparent) mission to capture Harrison, chased at speed by one heck of an awesome looking Klingon Bird of Prey. That thing can sure pack a punch and looks like a true aerial predator with the some serious maneuverability to boot. It's a straight forward chase sequence and we've seen the "joke" of that little unarmed ship fitting more than once already. Cleverly it seems we'll just be getting longer clips expanded from trailer material rather than anything substantially new. However there is one thing this 61 second burst did make me ask -  I would like to know who the guy I clipped is (here, above)! Is he some sort of guide? Is it an Augment or a Starfleet commando; an associate of Harrison or even (gasp) a Klingon sans helmet?!

For those who would like to refer, here's the shot...

All that said, great to see another action sequence from the movie played out for us to enjoy (even at just over one minute). Still no sign of Harrison in these clips and once again more emphasis on the Kirk/Spock/Uhura trio that we got from the first clip - notice a theme starting to develop here already? Will it dominate the film as it is the previews? Loving the power of that Klingon ship and how it comes to a very bird-like screeching halt before getting squeezed to the size of a bar of latinum. Are those Klingon displays on the ship as everything is red rather than being sensual Starfleet blue. Also they're out of uniform so it can't be that above board and would a trip to the Klingons in this time frame be anything BUT hostile! I'm assuming they're borrowing this ship to fit in on the mission and avoid detection although it seems they're done a pretty poor job at it. The CGI is crystal clear and that's just the impression from the small screen. On a cinema screen and in 3D I can but imagine....!

Just a minor aside - I managed to get a glimpse of the Japanese third trailer thanks to http://trekmovie.com today. It's certainly heading for the more adult edge with the music and one additional line from Admiral Marcus in reference to the London bombing; ...for the sake of those we lost, we will run this bastard down... Aside from that there's not much difference apart from right at the end where we see the Vengeance falling to Earth just after a blink-and-miss shot of the Enterprise looking pretty battered. Interestingly this trailer does lean more towards this segment of the movie with even some of Harrison's dialogue seeming to be taken from scenes aboard the dreadnaught. I find it quite interesting that the Japanese trailer is ever so slightly different but the choice of music and micro-clip changes twists the focus more onto the Vengeance and the crash sequence almost from the off rather than any other aspect of the soon-to-be-released movie. In fact all the scenes in Starfleet where Harrison attacks are washed over in seconds before we focus on the chase to find the fugitive. Actually one more error as we do get one new image of a rank of assembled Klingons in battle armour looking like they're about to strike.

I'll leave you for now with this image of the stricken Enterprise taking a nose-dive. Not a metaphor for the movie I hope...Anyway, I think we'll be seeing something new every day now whether it's a photo, a clip or a poster. I have a significant media library building up on this one now!

Also managing to avoid any of those Aussie reviews. Glanced one and everything looks promising - apparently one of the great sci-fi movies of our time if it's anything to go by. Right, back off under the rock again for a bit...

You can see my thoughts on the first clip HERE and new posters as well as some musings on the USS Vengeance HERE

Images screen clipped by SKoST
Clip 2 Video from Hardy Schofield on YouTube