Star Trek... "Under construction"

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As the Paramount/Bad Robot Productions' "Cloverfield" opened here today, Thursday 17th - and Australia's a day ahead of USA (which doesn't get the film until Friday 18th) - I've now already seen...

... the JJ Abrams' "Star Trek" teaser trailer!

A group of four friends and I went off to see the 7.20pm screening of "Cloverfield", partly because the movie sounded rather cool, but also because we hoped that Australia would be getting the Star Trek XI teaser trailer attached to the front.

There were several other trailers first, interspersed with local cinema advertisements but then... on came the latest, flashy Paramount logo, plus Bad Robot's logo screen. (This is it, this is it, this is it...)

Then a familiar, old NASA countdown: "30 seconds and counting."

We see a man in safety goggles, welding something, sparks flying in the dark. The googles are removed and the camera glides back to slowly start revealing his location.

Then we hear a line from an archival President Kennedy speech: "... the eyes of the world now look to space...", and another NASA voice ("God speed, John Glenn!"), as more tiny people are shown walking carefully around a huge, partially-revealed, section of metal saucer.

Another familiar voiceover: "The Eagle has landed."

Now we see more of the scaffolding, and more of the saucer. A title reads, "The future begins".

Astronaut Neil Armstrong's voice adds, "... one small step for (a) man..." and we see revealed... even more saucer.

Leonard Nimoy (as the voice of... Spock!) says: “Space... the final frontier..." and now we hear the very familiar opening strains of the "Star Trek" 60s television theme music.

The shot now reveals the presence of large black lettering on the top of the saucer: "U.S.S. Enterprise", the now-famous delta shield, and then another title card, "Under construction".

Wow! Roll on Christmas 2008!


Under construction

Oh, and "Cloverfield" was fun, too. If you survived shaky cam on "The Blair Witch Project", and are happy to spend the first ten minutes or so of the movie getting used to the annoying movement long enough to get intrigued by the film's appealing young characters and their interrelationships... it's a great (and scary) film!

I think what made it particularly spooky was that many of the landmarks of Manhattan used in the movie were places I'd actually been to, such as the Statue of Liberty, and the quaint stone bridge in Central Park - not to mention that several scenes of destruction were (purposely) way too reminiscent of 9/11, and the fate that befell the twin towers of the World Trade Center.

Highly recommended, although it definitely helps if you've already seen my brother Brian's first attempts at using a video camera during his vacation in Perth, circa 1992.