star_trek_beyond_posterIt is the final day of San Diego Comic-Con… which we were not able to attend. So, to make up for the fact that we were unable to report from the biggest comics event of the year, we distracted ourselves by catching up on some of the bigger recent announcements from the convention, and by seeing Star Trek Beyond, which is the third movie in the Bad Robot-produced reboot of the series, and not that fanfic movie that Universal Studios is suing like Rob thought it was until about three weeks ago.

It feels like the Star Trek franchise has lost some attention since J. J. Abrams left to direct a little indie film, and certainly our personal enthusiasms have been at different levels, as our relationships with the property have waxed and / or waned since our childhoods. And that differing excitement comes across as we discuss the movie: one of us finds it to be a fun popcorn flick with solid themes of making your own family, while the other thinks it has the crappiest Star Trek villain in 25 years and the worst film photography outside of an amusement park virtual reality attraction.

We also discuss:

  • Justice League #1, written by Bryan Hitch with art by Tony S. Daniel, and:
  • The Hellblazer #1, written by Simon Oliver with art by Moritat!

And the usual disclaimers:

  • This show contains spoilers. Numerically not as many spoilers as the actual Star Trek Beyond trailer, but if you want to avoid knowing plot points smaller than the destruction of the U.S.S. REDACTED, consider yourself warned.
  • This show contains adult, profane language, and is therefore not safe for work. We speak extensively about the sexual connotations of a clown suit on a mannequin. If you don’t want those connotations read back to you during your annual performance review, get some earphones.

Note: During the show, we speculate that Star Trek Beyond director Justin Lin was scheduled to direct The Flash. That was incorrect. We were thinking of James Wan, who also directed one of the Fast and Furious movies. And who, it turns out, won’t be directing The Flash.

Thanks for listening, suckers!

The folks over at Slacktory, who have previously released Derp Editions of trailers for Die Hard and The Avengers using blooper reel footage, uploaded a new trailer for the rebooted Star Trek. Watch as Spock acts uncharacteristically humorous, Kirk is even more of a goof and Bones, well, he still acts like Bones.

It amazes me that even the blooper scenes somehow still manage to have lens flare. J.J. Abrams, what kind of a monster are you?

star_trek_renegades_posterWe don’t pay a whole hell of a lot of attention to fan fiction here at Crisis On Infinite Midlives, because while there is some good stuff out there, in order to find it, you need to sift through a whole bunch of crap. And frankly, the only time I should be subjected to the image of Angel fucking Spike is three seconds before I wake up screaming.

With that said, sometimes the bigger, more well-produced projects do get our attention, and this is one of them. It’s a Star Trek fan film, set in the original, pre-Abrams reboot universe, called Renegades. And while you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a Trek fan film with cardboard sets that make 70s Doctor Who episodes look like Pacific Rim, it is rare to find one serious enough to being in primary actors not only from Star Trek Voyager, but from the original series as well.

And it also features Sean Young and Edward Furlong! So you know the budget isn’t that big! Or else someone lost a bet!

star_trek_into_darkness_poster_1I’m afraid it’s a busy morning at the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office  – the coffee is barely latching onto my neurotransmitters, and we need to pack up and head to Worcester (The Heroin Capital of Massachusetts!) on a mission of parental mercy involving helping with computers. Which means that by noon I will be filled with my recommended daily allowance of hatred and rage, and will thus be in poor shape to write about comics.

So instead, with the limited time I have available this morning, I am pleased to offer this exclusive, never-before-seen Star Trek footage, which you can find after the jump.

khanshirtSay it with me: KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!

Ever want the massive, gleaming chest sported by Ricardo Montalban in Star Trek II – The Wrath Of Khan, but can’t commit to diet, exercise, or silicone prosthetics? Well, pine because of your puny, flat physique no more. The fine people at SuperHeroStuff have just the t-shirt for you. For just under 40 American dollars, you too can achieve the look of a man who has been placed on ice for a lengthy stretch of his wretched life and then spent 15 years in exile with nothing to do but hate Kirk, plot revenge, and push ups.

So, don’t put down that can of Pringles, my friend. Throw this shirt on, pop your Star Trek II DVD in the player, and eat up. And know that when Shatner yells that immortal line, he’s really yelling for you.

Via Fashionably Geek.

star_trek_into_darkness_poster_1A cocky starship captain with a problem with authority yells at his partner to stop complaining about the fact that they’re being chased. Then he pilots a largely saucer-shaped spaceship, again, while being pursued, and escapes by turning the ship on its side and shooting a narrow gap. And then he snarls at his co-pilot to, “punch it!”

Yup, J. J. Abrams sure is the guy to direct Star Wars… unfortunately, these are all elements from the latest trailer for Star Trek Into Darkness.

Which I am okay with – as far as I’m concerned, the Star Wars-style elements in the first Star Trek showed he’d be a good guy to drive Star Wars: Episode VII – but then again, I am not the biggest Star Trek fan in the world. Based on some of the chatter at my local comic store, where they know me by name and ask me not to offer to show my dilithium crystals to the paying clientele, there are people out there who own the technical manual for the Enterprise and can use the word “nacelle” in a sentence that isn’t, “What the fuck is a nacelle?”, who are looking at this new trailer and losing their shit.

And you can watch the trailer and lose your shit, right after the jump.

star_trek_into_darkness_poster_1It has been a busy week here at the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office; our neighbors seem to have decided to leave Boston for the winter to avoid the stretch of zero-degree weather we had the last week. They also apparently decided to save themselves a big gas bill by leaving their heat off, which is something that all plumbing enjoys during zero degree weather. So we have been plagued with inspections for water damage and potential burgeoning Black Mold by firefighters and building managers, all who whom espoused concern about our health while nervously eyeing the office stashes of whiskey and cigarettes.

We have a tentative All Clear call, so hopefully our posting schedule will return more to normal soon. But we only have time this morning to provide you with the latest hype video for J. J. Abrams’s Star Trek Into Darkness… which is basically a replay of the original trailer with a bunch of people involved in the movie waxing orgasmically over the experience of working on the film. Which you can check out after the jump.

There’s nothing like the holiday season, and its attendant shopping, travel, insufferable parties, rotten fruitcake, family gatherings, family arguments, family recriminations, family embarrassment, and, well, family, that makes the heart yearn for summer blockbuster movie season.

And Hollywood knows this. This is why they spend millions on new Christmas movies (not that I begrudge Tim Allen a living), on funnelling It’s A Wonderful Life onto every second-rate expanded cable channel in America from Thanksgiving until about Valentine’s Day, and its why your local oldies radio station alternates playing Paul McCartney’s Wonderful Christmastime and Bing Crosby’s White Christmas from the day after Halloween until the smile on the face of the clerk at your local convenience store begins looking suspiciously like a silent prayer for the sweet release of death.

They want you to feel that level of despair so that, when they give you a tease of the big, explodey action of the summer flicks, you become disproportionately excited over the idea of big sun, long days, and starship captains blowing up bad guys.

And in that spirit, the first teaser trailer for Star Trek Into Darkness has been released… along with a little something extra for people in a country where Christmas is a time you spend with your boss instead of your family. Those lucky motherfuckers.

It’s getting to be the end of 2012, which means two things. First, it’s the time of year to get ripped to the tits on egg nog and try to convince the local constabulary that I just got some bad Boston Cream Pie, and second: it’s time for next summer’s genre movies to start dropping teaser posters.

And yesterday gave a wealth of still-framed, Photoshopped, Public Relations Department approved brain candy that starts the geek glands a-drooling while showing us absolutely nothing of concrete value. And in that spirit, we at Crisis On Infinite Midlives are happy to present two new teaser posters, both after the jump.

So last night, J. J. Abrams was on Conan. And he announced that principal photography on the next Star Trek movie, Star Trek Into Darkness, was wrapping up in anticipation of its May 17, 2013 release date… and that he’d brought a clip of the flick to show. So the first footage from a movie that I am personally really looking forward to (sure, the real Trekkers complained that Abrams’s 2009 Star Trek was a little too much like Star Wars, but so what? Star Wars is fucking cool) debuted last night…

The problem is that “footage” is probably too strong a word, as it implies there was more than one foot. In fact, the clip was exactly three frames long. And considering standard film runs at 24 frames per second, well, you get the idea.

But this is a Web site focused on geek culture, so this is technically news, so the video clip (sorry about the opening advertisement; the clip is from the Conan Web site, and those guys would monetize sunlight if they could get it behind a paywall) appears after the jump… along with a screen grab of one of those three frames. I sat here for probably five minutes, pressing “pause” and “rewind” to get a clear image for you… and have spent the ten minutes since questioning the poor choices I have made in life that brought me to this place, where I am doing these things.