The U.S.S. Enterprise flies over a futuristic city — low enough to buzz a few skyscrapers — in this clip which reader Skater Thorax sent to us. This is either a leaked piece of footage from J.J. Abrams' new Star Trek movie, or a well-done fake. The handheld-style zoom halfway through, and the lack of bling around the Enterprise, makes me think it might actually be real. What do you think? Update: Overwhelming consensus is, it's a fake. Sorry.
First Clip Of The New Enterprise In Flight?
2:01 AM on Sat Mar 22 2008
By Charlie Jane Anders
27,360 views
76 comments









The U.S.S. Enterprise flies over a futuristic city — low enough to buzz a few skyscrapers — in this clip which reader Skater Thorax sent to us. This is either a leaked piece of footage from J.J. Abrams' new Star Trek movie, or a well-done fake. The handheld-style zoom halfway through, and the lack of bling around the Enterprise, makes me think it might actually be real. What do you think? Update: Overwhelming consensus is, it's a fake. Sorry.



Comments
You are kidding right? Not only is this fake, it is also horrible quality. Any freshman student of a 3d animation package can do a much better job than that.
Hell, I can do a much better job myself and I'm just an animation hobbyist!
Not even as good as the bit in Voyager where they buzz L.A. so I'm hoping it's just a fake/fan clip and not from the movie.
I don't necessarily think that it's a fake... perhaps it is a test shot.
Without a doubt, it's fake. It's probably not even 3d animation. This is a 2D work done with a video effects app like AfterEffects. The enterprise there is just a static image being moved between two static cityscape mattes with some color-keyed video of rustling branches in the foreground.
besides the scale is all wrong
Its got the Industrial Light and Magic(ILM) logo and title in the corner, and ILM is handling the VFX for the film, so my guess is that it is a previs/animatic shot for the movie. Might be used in a the edit for the time being as a proxy for the final vfx shot when it gets done.
Ummmm, none of the big starships in Trek are designed for atmospheric flight.
Kinda why they're not aerodynamic at all.
That's what always impressed me about TOS - the Enterprise wasn't shaped like a torpedo, with pointy nose & tailfins, like all the ships that'd gone previously in Sci-Fi.
I don't know if it's real. Battle Star G's. style makes looks things look as if someone is using a cell phone to record events. Maybe this is Breaking News, and we just don't hear the voice over of the News Monsters: "This new Earth ship greatly amuses me! We will enjoy destroying it! Then we will enslave all of you!"
God help the Federation if they're floating their ships over population centers like this! It just wouldn't happen unless there was some kind of horrible emergency. It still looks really cool. I love the Enterprise.
I also noticed that the saucer's port and starboard beacons aren't flashing. Not that I can see.
Can they fly over Washington DC when they eject the warp core?
it's obviously a horrid fake, but so help me, if Abrams ends up making, essentially, Clovertrek, why I'll.. I'll..
shit. Have to go see it anyway.
JJ Abrams taking new clients?
Maybe it's a pre-viz mockup for the VFX department. There are a couple of small vehicles flying about in the shot as well.
Couldn't it be one of those animatics? They use just to get a fell for how shots look?
Haha, wow. The fanboys erupt in righteous fury!
@zeppelined: The certainty by which "Interstellar" will soar is 100%.
Fake
I'm just shocked that we get a post on Saturday. Does this mean there is a chance of a review of last nights Torchwood before Monday?
It's a faaaaaaake.
But I'm such a geek, I still liked it.
It looks so fake.
1- If we are to believe the enterprise is flying, away from us at a 3/4 view. Then why can't we see only one engine? Both should be tword us as it's flying away.
2-I'm late for work, and Just noticed I have 15 minutes to get there. Damn this interesting debate.
3-It's a static picture of the enterprise fom the front click and dragged, if the new movie has "effects" like this, I don't want to see it.
While not a real effects shot, it's possible that this is still leaked footage. Could be that this is part of a visual breakdown used to block out the real effects shots. Think moving storyboard.
@ginocoolowski: Um...it seems pretty obvious that it's coming closer. The second engine is just slightly visible hidden by the main decks.
It also seems pretty obvious that it must be fake..
@cljohnston108: my memoy's faded, and I'm pretty sure you're right...but just in case...didn't the Enterprise break atmo in Star Trek IV at some point? I have memories of a scene with the Enterprise and the Golden Gate Bridge, but that's probably a poster or promo item of some sort.
It doesn't have landing gear, so it would have to remain in flight if it did.
P.S.: It's Shatner's birthday.
Are we to believe that the Enterprise has been shrunk down to the point where it's only slightly larger than your average skyscraper? (Heck, that thing in the foreground isn't even a proper skyscraper, it's a medium-sized apartment building.) No way. Unless they really *did* shrink it. "Pocket Spock" might be an interesting action-figure tie-in...
Erm...That is the original 1701 from the show, looks NOTHING like the one we've already seen in the trailer...
I thought the Enterprise(s) was built in an orbital Space Dock.
I assumed that the teaser trailer was not a actual part of the movie for that reason.
What's next? Stopping at hte EXXON for a fill-up?
"Check the warp plasma, mister?"
Also, power lines in the 23rd Century?
This looks like it was shot back in the Burbs of Knoxville, TN. It can't be actual film footage.
"New Voyages" looks better than this.
@@darcymcgee: That was a Klingon ship in ST IV. The Enterprise had been destroyed in ST III. We see 1701A at the END of IV.
@cljohnston108:
"Ummmm, none of the big starships in Trek are designed for atmospheric flight.
Kinda why they're not aerodynamic at all."
Hate to pull geek rank, but you're just assuming. The enterprise comfortably sustained atmospheric flight in the original series. It flew low enough that it was buzzed by 1960's fighter jets.
Shuttlecraft aren't really aerodynamic ether. we have to assume that if all systems are nominal, atmospheric flight is possible.
@grimmtooth: Ah yes. Of course. Totally forgot about that. It's been so long since I've seen the films.
I think I'm going to watch 2001 tonight...it's been a while since that one too.
@capntim: You didn't hate that one bit. I can see the smile on your face all the way from here...
You didn't cite the episode though, nor its significant and memorable quotes and a plat summary.
Maybe the power lines are part of the time travel back to the 21st Century? There the Big E would just be a UFO! HA!
Maybe the power lines are part of the time travel back to the 21st Century, and the Big E would just be a UFO then. HA!
Obviously fan made. I can't believe you gave this guy 15 minutes of fame.
I heard the new movie was supposed to be about time travel.
Maybe they break the temporal prime directive and
buzz a few buildings, but then slingshot around the sun before it happened and erase everyone's memory of it!
God I love Star Trek. :)
Has anyone figured out what all the stuff around the edges is?
@darcymcgee: p.p.s. yesterday was bach's.
i'll be bach =)
@Zantor:
Excatly! What the heck are power lines/phone lines doing there?
Fake, fake, fake.
Fake, but on the other hand, a weekend post.
I'll take it.
@Huxleyhobbes: Ha, thanks! Well, at 2 AM on a Saturday morning, it looked like it might be real to me. And I figured I'd see what our army of debunkers thought. And indeed, it was debunked.
I was thinking that in the Trek ep, Assignment Earth (as said above), the ship seems okay in air. But these things were never routinley landed. Although, Voyager had landing gear and used it. At the time I just didn't think that was a logical effect.
I was strangely happy to watch this fake. We should have a "fake enterprise shot" contest to see who can make the best fake enterprise movie.
@Charlie Jane Anders: Sorry, didn't intend to be so snappish about it xD I've fallen for things that others saw through no problem, often a good deal more obvious than this. Heck, the power lines thing didn't occur to me at all until I saw others mention it!
It's fake. What's really disturbing is that someone who gets paid to blog about science fiction thought it might be real...
@ Smithereens
Dude, lighten up. People make mistakes. Not everyone is perfect like you...
Off topic, does anyone know how Charlie Rose got a black eye?
@Smithereens: Well you have to figure that if we're being paid to be nerds, we're about 400 thousand times nerdier than you. And that means we're 400 thousand times more likely to freak out geekishly over a movie we think has the Enterprise in it. In a strange way, I am trying to say we are better than you.
You just keep getting things wrong, don't you?
"In a strange way, I am trying to say we are better than you."
Spoken like a true posthuman!
@MaxTwice: Stepped in a pothole and opted to smash his face rather than his new Mac Uber-Thin whatsis.
Could be some animatics, that'll get well rendered later and will get some layers and masks in compositing after that...could be!
@capntim: "The enterprise comfortably sustained atmospheric flight in the original series. It flew low enough that it was buzzed by 1960's fighter jets."
Ohhhh, there was no comfort there!
In "Tomorrow is Yesterday", the Enterprise got dumped into Earth's upper stratosphere with most systems out...
Spock: We're too low in the atmosphere to retain this orbit.
Engineering reports we have sufficient impulse power to achieve escape velocity.
Kirk: Give us some altitude, Sulu.
Transcript: [www.voyager.cz]
@MaxTwice: Bach wasn't Canadian...no way I can make that a national holiday up here.
Hell of a composer though. Dude had some talent.
@cljohnston108: Nice work, my man. Nice work. I knew you had it in you. :)
While this looks like a fake, the teaser clearly shows the ship being assembled on the surface, so it would likely have to fly itself into orbit.
@Sylook: Either way, it's going to be hard to find parking in New York.
@Benjo: take the subway!
Roddenberry originally wanted the Enterprise to be able to land on planets. Small budgets prohibited it. Make of this what you will.
And I suppose there's a difference between "gliding" slowly through the atmosphere like this, and coming in from space full tilt like a bat out of hell.
vioaltion of canon, reference original series episode when starship enterprise was sent back in time due to warp engine malfunction. sceince officer spock reports to capt. that emergency action nessisary to exit atmosphere due to frame bucling caused by aerodynamic drag forces. in short, vessel not designed for entry into gravity well,no provision made for such action.
@fwi1298: Dude...you're about six hours behind her. At least read teh whole discussion, and give props to ma nizzle @cljohnston108 and originally here @capntim:
@darcymcgee: i am six hours behind,i make one comment i hope is relivant, because the responce time is so slow,it is like holding a confrence call with someone on the moon
@fwi1298: C'est vrai, mon ami. Je suis désolé.
A bientot.
Well, in the Franz Joseph TOS Tech Manual, there is another option- Starfleet has a big Space Dock, y'see, that can be pressurized to hold a spacecraft that's being worked on- big enough to hold 2 or 3 at the same time, with artificial gravity and atmosphere. IIRC, we don't actually see dirt in the teaser, do we?
It's clearly a real video, and hence not a fake in that sense. Given the apparent quality of the Enterprise in the clip (the non-blinking beacons, etc.), I doubt if it's intended to be in the final film (setting aside the question of whether the NCC-1701 could operate within an atmosphere. A powerful enough gravity field along the lines of the internal artificial gravity plating might allow this, though I wouldn't want to stand below it).
In conclusion, it's either a fun little bit of animation by an amateur, or an early test by the film's computer animation guys. Or perhaps it's part of the viral marketing campaign, you know, reports of a mysterious spacecraft seen over our cities. Clovertrek indeed.
well then...
I can't wait for Clovertrek: The Next Generation,
Clovertrek: Deep Space 9 and Clovertrek Voyager