New Star Trek Clip and News from the Surprise Austin Premiere

Published on Apr 7th, 2009
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Written by Ryan Hamelin
RyanHamelin@TheCinemaSource.com

Imagine my surprise when I woke up this morning and was greeted by a deluge of new Star Trek reviews, not from Sydney Australia, where the film officially premiered at the Sydney Opera House last night, but from Austin Texas where AintItCool’s screening of Wrath of Kahn turned into something far more interesting.

Apparently the night went something like this… After an introduction from Robert Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and David Lindelof for what they described as their all-time favorite Trek film, Star Trek II: Wrath of Kahn, fans settled in for the film. AintItCool organized the event as part of their annual FantasticFest screenings and people traveled from hundreds of miles away to see the classic film on the big screen with an all new picturesque transfer courtesy of Paramount. They were also to be privileged to ten exclusive minutes from the new film that had never been seen anywhere previously. After a few minutes of the beautiful opening titles, the Kahn print started to show lines and eventually appeared to break altogether. As the lights came back up a Paramount exec took the mike to tell everyone that he was heading back to the projection room to “kick somebody’s ass” and had the writers cover for him.

As the crowd booed and became more and more frustrated, the writers did their best to try and be entertaining. Fortunately for them, something else was soon to grab everyone’s attention. A figure in a trenchcoat and hat appeared on the stage with a baseball cap covering his face. In his hand he held a film canister, and as he whipped off the hat, Leonard Nimoy was revealed at the front of the room. Following the standing ovation, Nimoy asked Orci and Kurtzman how much of the film they had planned to show. When he heard the response, he turned to the audience and asked with a wry smile “Don’t you want to see the whole thing?” So began the world premiere of Star Trek a full three hours before the folks in Sydney would begin their own screening.

The reviews have been phenomenal, and that’s saying a lot considering the marketing team all but ensured an audience of entirely die-hard Trek fans. The fact that they even had the balls to pull a print of Wrath of Kahn, agreed to being the best of the series among most fans, to show the new movie is a testament to their confidence in what has been called the greatest franchise reboot ever made. If it was good enough to satisfy a guy who drove long distance to watch Kahn for the 11th time on a big screen, it’s good enough for me, and I couldn’t be more excited for the film.

In other news, Yahoo recently premiered a brand new clip from the film which is not only spoiler free, but highlights a performance we’ve now heard great things about but haven’t actually seen in action, that of Karl Urban as Dr. McCoy. He is channeling DeForest Kelly to such a degree in this quick clip that I already have complete confidence in what he’ll do with the rest of the film. You can check out our encode below:

Also, just for kicks, here’s the YouTube link to the footage of Nimoy’s arrival and reveal of the premiere that hit earlier today. If this doesn’t make you smile, I don’t know what will.

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