Two weeks ago TrekMovie took a closer look at an ‘other Starship’ from Star Trek Into Darkness. Last night MTV showed a clip from the movie that included a tiny bit of new footage that revealed more detail of the ship crashing into San Francisco Bay. So today we re-analyze the analysis. Take a deep dive below.
MTV gives best look yet at ship crashing into SF
First off here is the short clip of Star Trek Into Darkness.
At first glance it looks like footage seen in various trailers and commercials however there are tiny bits of extra footage. Notably you get your first good look at the ship, right as it crashes into San Francisco Bay.
This is not the USS Enterprise – but this Federation-style ship is in deep trouble (note widely spaced nacelle struts)
While the sequence gives the impression that the ship falling from space is also the ship crashing, it is now clearer than ever that the ship falling into San Francisco Bay is not the USS Enterprise. Any subscriber to Nacelles Monthly would be able to tell you there are a number of key differences, notably the nacelles are a different shape than those of the USS Enterprise. And even more apparent is how the nacelle struts are very widely spaced, as opposed to the Enterprise which has the struts much closer together. And the above ship’s saucer has more of a tapered knife-edge as opposed to the Enterprise’s more flat blunt edge. Just compare the above to the picture of the Enterprise from the MTV clip (below).
The USS Enterprise falls towards Earth and has taken serious damage (note nacelle struts are close together)
UPDATE: Here is another comparison image of the two shots with the crashing ship on top and the Enterprise below (rotated to match orientation).
Crashing ship above with USS Enterprise below – these are not from the same ship
Last week the new domestic one sheet poster showing the Enterprise falling towards Earth caused lots of buzz on the internet. Even though the ship crashing into the water isn’t the Enterprise, the clip last night gave an even better look at the damage the ship has taken. The above image shows some of that and the below image shows that a hole has been blown through the saucer (in addition to big chucks taken out of the edges. It is fair guess that there are going to be some casualties in Star Trek Into Darkness.
The Enterprise saucer has a hole worthy of the Borg (not a spoiler…just saying)
Is the crashing ship the ‘other starship’
Two weeks ago TrekMovie did an analysis of an ‘other Starship.’ This is the ship which features its own bridge and even crew uniforms.
We have also seen the exterior of a different ship both in the space jump sequence and the fall to San Francisco Bay.
Let’s take a closer look…
Ship from space jump sequence
Ship from crashing in SF Bay scene
It is clear these images are not the USS Enterprise. Either they are both from the same Federation-style ship (and possibly the ship we also have seen on the inside). Or they could be two different Federation-style ships.
We will find out when Star Trek Into Darkness opens.
Thanks to Salvor Hardin for YouTube clip.
Still wonder if this is April’s Enterprise referenced in Countdown… In a month, we’ll all know!
I have said for months that it’s not the Enterprise crashing into the bay, and people didn’t believe me. I know my starship design damn it!
Why does the E’s hull catch on fire from entry into the atmosphere – when it’s a thousand miles up!?
@ 0.16 in the preview.
I’m telling you, the ship crashing into the bay is a refit version of the NX-01. Given the Archer references in the last one, I bet the NX-01 is a museum in space that is hijacked and crashed into SF.
@ #5 Robert McLaws
No.
It’s must be Robert April’s Enterprise. The “areyouthe1701” viral campaign probably has something to do with the two Enterprises.
#5. Yes, that’d make the most sense. They’ll bring back a ship from a series that hardly anyone watched and got cancelled after 4 seasons. That’s exactly the kind of approach Abrams seems to want to take — make critically important elements of the movies’ plots be based upon stuff only Trekkies care about.
If Harrison “detonates the fleet” using this hidden code from the countdown to darkness comic…and this code exists on the old enterprise, assuming the “other ship” is the old Enterprise, I guess that if they executed something that ran code on all ships that had it, that would include the old Enterprise.
Though why Harrison would want to scuttle his own ship (assuming it was intentional) is somewhat a mystery, unless he meant to use it as some sort of weapon. who knows.
At this point I’ve given up trying to guess who Harrison is and what he’s up to
@ #8
Ha ha, exactly what I was thinking, but you put it into words. Thanks!
I would like the idea if this is the USS.Reliant, maybe attacking the Enterprise and then crashing into the SF-Bay. It would fit together well with a kind of a “Khan-story”.
But wait….what if it IS the Enterprise, and the CGI guys got the wrong ship pulled up andfigured that no one would pay much attention?
If so, they’re in for one nice little riot on the 17th *LOL*
Please stop with the Nacelles Monthly gag…
But thanks for another wallpaper for my desktop though! :-D
12. Ha!
“I can’t fix it now, I’m leaving on vacation. Just go heavy on the lens flares and nobody will notice…”
#9
Thanks for reminding me of the phrase “detonating the Fleet”… I knew there was some reference to destroying multiple ships (or something along those lines).
This ship may be April’s ship, or Harrison’s, or another one altogether, if our villain’s goal is to take them all out.
Along with the Enterprise, it’s looking like there are going to be plenty of “starship casualties” in this film…
Is anybody else getting 404 errors when clicking on the pictures?
@5. I’m not sure about it being the NX-01. The only Archer reference I remember from the last movie was from a throwaway joke line (Scotty using Archer’s “prized beagle” for a transporter test) but more importantly it makes no sense to hijack the NX-01.
I can totally buy the idea that the NX-01 is a museum ship. In fact, I’d even go so far as to call that likely. But a museum ship is a horrible choice for commanding terrorist attacks from:
1. Museum ships very often go through a “preserving” process that includes permanently de-fueling and deactivating all of their major systems. I can only assume the same would hold true for a ST starship – it would take way too much time and effort to refuel/reactivate the warp core, reactivate/replace all the weapons, reactivate/replace all the navigation systems, etc etc…. And even if you did you would be stuck with…
2. A severely outdated platform. Museum ships are, by definition, antiquated. That’s why they are no longer in active service, after all. The NX-01 in particular would be 100+ years old by the time of this movie. Why would you want to choose that ship to stand up to a hardened modern flotilla? It would be like hijacking the RMS Olympic to face off against the modern day royal navy.
3. Museum ships are famous. Only notable and well known ships are chosen to be preserved as museums. If Harrison attacked with the NX-01 he’d be at an immediate disadvantage because the enemy (Starfleet) already knows every last bit and bolt on that ship, including all her weaknesses, potential override codes, etc… Even if Harrison made special modifications/additions himself it would still be largely the same ship, or at least similar enough to needlessly give SF a tactical advantage.
4. You generally don’t refit museum ships, since the whole point of them is to preserve them in their original state.
For what it’s worth, my money is on the “other ship” being “April’s Enterprise” from the comics. True it runs into a few of the same problems I described above, but it is more modern than the NX-01, matches the images we’ve seen better, and as far as we know hasn’t been mothballed/hardcore deactivated like a museum ship would be.
I guess it could simply be an earth vessel but not starfleet. There could be other earth based space organisations in this universe.
@5. No, Way too big to be an NX.
As cool looking it is to see the ship being destroyed in graphic detail, the plausibility of such a thing happening begs a reality check. One would think that there are sufficient defense measures like shielding, if not planetary..a few ships could create a deflector net to ‘steer’ a crashing ship away from a a populated area like SF…to an unpopulated area like the ocean, or into space away from earth. Heck..tractor beams anyone? They’ve got em. Use ’em.
If you freeze frame the shot of it hitting Alcatraz and look at the bridge, its predominantly black and has hard angles – It’s a stealth ship, used by the covert shady evil element of Starfleet that Harrison/Khan is railing against.
Pause on 2 seconds it’s quite clearly the NCC-1701 USS Enterprise…
…it’s the same ship. Just by the time it crashes, they’ve locked s-foils into attack position…
Re: Museum ships.
Galacitca
/drops mic
It’s quite obvious the Enterprise is either up for a refit after this movie or completely destroyed. I’m wondering if the next Enterprise will be a bit closer to TOS. If they follow the 007 pattern it actually might! They had the old MI5 headquarters destroyed in Skyfall, only to make use of the old 60s style sets towards the end of the film. It would be awesome if we get a much-closer-to-TOS-type set towards the end of the film or for the next one… It doesn’t have to be 1:1, only a tad closer…
If hope the other ship that crashes (the one commandeered by Harrison / Khan?) will be called Reliant…just for old lang syne as Scotty might be tempted to say.
A bit off-topic for this post, but I just saw a link to a tweet from what looks to be the official Twitter for Paramount Pictures UK:
“Prepare to pick a side.”
https://twitter.com/ParamountUK/status/323772922730786819
Section 31 ship.
My theory is that it’s the USS Bradbury, the ship that Spock gets temporarily reassigned during the course of the movie’s events (according to the IMAX footage reviews) that smashes into the bay.
I also think that Spock’s quick thinking saves the lives of a lot of the Bradbury crew (if not those in San Fransico who get crushed), and leads up with him teaming with Kirk and Urhura to go after Harrison on Quo’nos.
The Enterprise won’t play as big a part in the climax of the movie as we are accustiomed to in a Star Trek movie, but I think we’ll have a little postscript scene set a few months later where she’s refitted and ready to go back on the beat !!
On the other hand…maybe that ship that crashes is a prototype created from future 24th century technology. Maybe Section 31 has actually tortured Spock Prime to obtain intell from the future (a forced mind-meld would do)…because thise ship here looks definitely closer to 24th century designs… okay, maybe a bit far-fetched…but it’s less than a month to come up with theories like that :-)
@23. Starman
Galactica wasn’t quite a museum ship. It was about to become one but then an emergency pressed it to remain in active service. With that in mind let’s see how it stands up to my original points.
1. It was not fully deactivated. They had shut off a few nonessential systems but all the big stuff like propulsion, power supply, weapons etc. were still operational. Again, the Galactica was only a planned museum ship but she didn’t make it to that point.
2. Yes, the Galactica was an outdated platform, a point that was pointed out and addressed countless times during the course of that show.
3. Yup, she was famous too. However this point isn’t applicable in the Galactica scenario – she wasn’t hijacked to be used against her builders, which is what #5 was positing for the NX-01. Galactica remained under human control the entire time so her enemy (the cylons) didn’t get any special knowledge about her.
4. Again, Galactica never made it to the point of actually becoming a museum ship.
I think it’s the Enterprise, and the nacelle struts have just broken as it has fallen through the atmosphere, hence being further apart… either that or indeed, they’re doing a very good job at deceiving us, given we clearly see the enterprise in a very bad shape and falling through the atmosphere preceding the crash,=.
Actually, it’s pretty obvious that this is the ship that Khan/John is using and it’s also the ship in the spacejump scene background. Clearly, this is from the end of the movie when the ship is finally defeated.
And the 1701 burning up is probably from some silly dream sequence and doesn’t actually happen. No one is stupid enough to write a script featuring two seperate ships crashing to Earth in the same movie.
All though this is JJ Abrahms and he doesn’t really seem to care if it means flashy action scenes…
And besides all that, who cares what ship it is? JJ Abrahms let the franchise burn up in the atmosphere three years ago so this is just gravy.
Hmm…things are falling (pun intended?) into place now (or are they?). I don’t yet know if Harrison wll actually have a so-called ‘true, hidden identity’ and how it will somehow pay homage to Trek lore (remember, his identity is still apparently ‘canon’) but I will not take a stab at the overall plot.
With all the talk in the trailers/synopses of Kirk failing the prime directive and the UFP ‘comitting grave and unforgivable mistakes’, is Harrison truly just such a veteran Federation black ops agent who is finally fed up with the UFP covertly meddling in pre-space/warp faring civilizations all these years and has now eventually become a disillusioned ‘enemy within’ terrorist seeking to ‘detonate the (Star)fleet’ by hijacking the fleet’s ships and crashing them back down to earth, and therefore ushering the Earth back ‘Into Darkness’ of pre-space/warp affairs because Harrison no longer believes that humanity is yet mature enough to share itself with other alien civilizations, considering that it continues to disrespect the prime directive no matter what its intentions are.
Maybe?
Edit “but I will NOW take a stab at the overall plot”
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.
I don’t care about Harrison but I NEED to know about the “other” Federation starship!
Is it Khan’s Reliant, April’s Enterprise, the nuExcelsior or a Section 31 black-ops ship?
And you’re telling me that the “space-jump” starship may be a different ship than the “Alcatraz-crashing” starship?!
I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE IT/THEM!
The more Federation blueprints/schematics/orthos and models/toys I collect the better!
Forget your books and comics guys. They have nothing to do with what’s seen on screen.
Slightly different uniforms and different ship with a lot of evil. Looks like the famous and popular mirror universe to me.
Could we see two Enterprises going at it that causes one or both to fall to Earth? One is commanded by Kirk and the other commanded by John Harrison, perhaps?
I am wondering if he does a “World Trade Center” crash with a starship.. I don’t think this happens near the end..
@32. Tim
lolz
@33 Space Odyssey:
I could totally see that being the plot, it ties in really well with what we’ve seen so far.
Some of these comments are unbelievably ridiculous.
Thanks Anthony for doing these close-up analysis. But with that kind of damage to the Enterprise, can she even be salvaged?
Can anyone actually read? Look at the pic with the “hole worthy of the Borg,” whatever the hell that means. It very clearly says 1701. Fanboys are sad.
I have a theory.
In the trailer, it seem that kirk space jumps through rumble near the Moon or something.
So this obviously is Harrison’s “ship” which kirk himself will confront harrison on (also in several trailers, the standoff with harrison in the command chair). Somehow the starship will be very damaged and disabled and will fall to earth.
#41
Ridiculous comments? On a Star Trek comment section? Perish the thought!
Wacked-out theories and nitpicky disagreements are what we’re here for, amirite?? That’s what makes it fun. I, for one, love reading the various theories, even when I disagree or whatever. It’s all part of the fun!
:)
RE: Hole worthy of Borg
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Cutting_beam
Alternate universe’s “The Great Project” aka Excelsior? Hmm…
Harrison must be some terrorist. An inside man? Creating havoc into Starfleet’s infrastructure!!
Doug Drexler’s Enterprise NX-01 refit?
Okay… okay
I’ll get my coat. :-\
NX01 has no secundary hull, its deflector dish is on the front of the main hull. It is not a serious candidate for the “other ship” in my mind.