No, Abrams didn’t revive Flash Gordon — though, I really wish he would. Instead, these retro-futuristic propaganda posters feature the his reimagined Trek, captured brilliantly with an art deco approach. Of course, the designs already lent themselves to it, but that doesn’t make them any less cool. Lucky for me, I can’t really pick a favorite which is why it’s probably a good thing that ThinkGeek is forcing us to buy the lot of them rather than selling these individually. Unfortunately, if you do have a favorite, that might pose a bit of a problem. The set of four will run you roughly $30. My suggestion? Buy them, take one and sell the rest on ebay. Piece of cake, right?

Tim is a pro-blogger and freelance writer out of San Diego, California. In addition to Fanboy.com, he contributes to the ModernMethod Network of sites as the Features and Reviews Editor for the Japanese culture and entertainment blog, Japanator. He’s also an Assocaite Editor for their popular gaming blog, Destructoid, and the collectible toy culture blog, Tomopop. For more information, follow him on twitter, or check out TimSheehy.com.

This little video might spoil J.J. Abram’s Star Trek for you, but if you haven’t seen the film, you deserve to have it spoiled by now. While I was reading Simon Pegg’s (Scotty) tweets, I stumbled upon a link to this hilarious, albeit short, spoof of the 2009 sci-fi blockbuster. Push It Films, known on YouTube for their various low-budget spoofs, really went all out with this one — though I have to admit I a bit disappointed by the lack of lens flare, because if anything about has yet to be spoofed to death, it’s that.

I’m really not even sure which part of this entertains me most, the a capella soundtrack, shoddy prop ships, or that impression of Eric Bana’s Nero. All of them are just so perfect, I just about died of laughter before the clip even finished. While I wish I could say I enjoyed more of Push It’s spoofs, I’ve yet to come across one as good as this, but if you’re interested, check out their YouTube channel here.

Tim is a pro-blogger and freelance writer out of San Diego, California. In addition to Fanboy.com, he contributes to the ModernMethod Network of sites as an Associate Editor for the Japanese culture and entertainment blog, Japanator, as well as the collectible toy culture blog, Tomopop. For more information, follow him on twitter, or check out TimSheehy.com

Rather than exploring strange new worlds or civilizations, Seagate and Paramount have recently teamed up to offer a strange new deal for film and portable hard drive enthusiasts. In what they claim is an industry first — I’ve yet to find evidence to the contrary — Seagate will be selling a selection of their 500 GB Free Agent Go portable hard drives pre-loaded with a selection of 20 Paramount films, including a free copy of J.J. Abram’s Star Trek.

The other films will remain locked, requiring a code which can be purchased for $10 to $15 a piece  in order to view.  I’m not really in the market for a digital copy of Nacho Libre, or G.I. Joe for that matter, but I kind of like idea of having a number of feature films readily available. On the other hand, they will take up roughly 50 GBs of hard drive space and I can imagine you might end up having to format the drive in order to remove them, potentially making this more trouble than it’s worth.

Still, a free copy of one of the best Trek films of all time might make it worth your while. It also helps that Seagate is currently selling the drives for a mere $99, when it retails for closer to $150 without the films included. If you ask me that’s a steal. For a full list of the titles that will be included, check out the official press release here.

Tim is a pro-blogger and freelance writer out of San Diego, California. In addition to Fanboy.com, he contributes to the ModernMethod Network of sites as an Associate Editor for the Japanese culture and entertainment blog, Japanator, as well as the collectible toy culture blog, Tomopop. For more information, follow him on twitter, or check out TimSheehy.com

You can spend so much time and cash on cosplay, but at the $10 each these Starfleet badges are the best way to pass yourself as an Enterprise crew member on a low budget! Each badge includes a pin back so you can wear them — and then just make sure that you have a colored t-shirt handy and black jeans for the full effect. Shown above is the command division badge replica, and below are the badges for the science division, engineering division and medical division:

Over the last year or two I’ve noticed that sneakers have upstages t-shirts as a self expressive fashion item, and these limited edition Star Trek sneakers are proof of my theory. The sneakers are designed by jeffstaple and are known as the “Enterprise Edition”. They’ll be on sale at jeffstaple’s retail shop Reed Space which is located in SoHo, NYC and will set you back $80 (but only $60 fora kids pair). Of course if you’re a real fanboy that will be $160 as you’ll need to own a mint pair and one for actual wearing. Here’s the official description:

“The shoe’s design channels the Starship Enterprise with its rough silver and gray distressed upper. The silver sneakers sport the iconic Enterprise badge as well as the famous craft’s ship number. Only 160 pairs have been constructed, 110 in men’s sizes 7 to 12 and 50 pairs in children’s sizes 1-6. Each pair will be numbered, designating them as an original in the limited edition.”

ANd if you’d like to view to footwear at a larger size just click on the images below:

Burger King is running a funny series of ads to promote their tie in into Star Trek — these spots feature the Kingons who are a parody of the Klingons. The Kingons strike fear into the hearts of burger loving humans who like Star Trek collectables:

This spot is pushing the kids meals so it’s a little bit less hipster oriented:

By the way if you go to the special viral website (the Burger King Kingon Defense Academy) it also has links these very silly training videos:

There was only one way to buy a Star Trek ticket (aside from getting on a physical line at a movie theater) and that’s to purchase it through Fandango. But having a relationship with Fandango isn’t my idea of “fun” — my goals when using this type of site is to get in and to get out, it’s a utility and anything that gets in my way is just a hassle. However some marketing dudes at Fandango somehow think that they’re Yelp! and want to push their lame attempt at a “community” by including reviews of films. Now I don’t mind that, but what I do mind is that their way of building a “community” is to spam those who purchased a ticket but never asked for any marketing emails to come their way:

First off the notion of Fandango having a review based community is dumb idea to begin with because people who want to be first in line to see a film don’t give a crap about a Fandango review, they’re first on line because they already read about the film from a trusted source like a blog, in a magazine, by word-of-mouth or may even have illegally downloaded it but still want to see it on the big screen.

In fact I’ve rarely ever met anybody who didn’t know what film they’d want to see who would then think to buy a ticket in advance — those sorts of people (example: two people on a date) will see what’s playing at the theater and buy their ticket on the spot. And frankly if you’re on a date the choice of a film may not even be the point.

But speaking of relationships back to my point: Fandango is a utility and my goal with this type of site is to spend as little time with it. So when I purchased my tickets for Star Trek I made it a point not to become “a customer” but to use their express lane online and just purchase the damn tickets. Not only that but I made it a point to take my time and to read all of the fine print so they so they wouldn’t send me any spam.

But the passive-aggressive folks at Fandango don’t care about that — so they sent me spam asking me to rate and review Star Trek which I never asked to be sent. This pissed me off for a number of reasons:

• When I signed up I never opted-in to get spam.

• Fandango knows this because no where on their spam do they give you an opportunity to opt-out.

• You can tell they know it’s spam too because at the top of the email they even ask you to add their email address on their white list.

• The email claims to be a “thank you” note for your purchase, but it was sent well after I watched the film. To me as a consumer there’s no point to that…

• Your reward for a review? Some lame thank you reward that’s never described (maybe it’s more spam?)

• And then to punish you further they even suggest that you sign up for more spam.

• Of course if you reply to the email they won’t be able to respond — how convenient!

• They list their website, but that’s useless because there’s no easy to find place on that site to complain to them. In fact their site is so filled with crap and clutter it reminds you why you didn’t want to sign up with them in the first place.

• They list their physical address, but not their phone number because they know most people won’t stop to have a chat with their Chief Marketing Officer Ted Hong, Chief Technology Officer Shane O’Neill or CEO Chuck Davis.

So sadly while Fandango wants my Star Trek review I’m left with the feeling that they don’t give a crap about me as a customer on any level. Yes they’d love to know what I think of the film, but they don’t care what I think about them so they can improve their service. Of course if they cared my guess is that they wouldn’t have sent the spam in the first place. It’s an example of a company that reads all of those articles about social networking, but doesn’t get it — and worst of maybe doesn’t want to get it. And they knew what they were doing as wrong because the email is designed with that in mind.

Chuck Davis if you’re reading this and you’ve decided to chance this policy of passive-aggressive “community building” please let me know and I’ll gladly write up a love note that you’ve listened to a lowly fanboy. But until then I’ll have to view your service as a necessary evil for my film going habits…

Update on Monday Afternoon: Well Fandango doesn’t give a damn as they just sent me a second spam with no clear opt-out just to drive their point home:

Well after a long wait I made my pilgrimage to see Star Trek open today which was filled with the usual rituals of waiting on line and hanging out with old friends. Given how cynical I’ve become over the years at seeing the franchise abused it was quite rewarding to see what they did with this film. The first thing that I liked about this film is that they stayed true to the original series. Not to Next Generation, not to Deep Space Nine, not to Voyager — but to the original flavor, the real thing.

You see this is important to me because over the years Star Trek has been a bit less bold, with characters turning into long winded talking heads. The essence of Star Trek was that it was a western set in outer space, yet somehow the franchise became less about the action and more of a soap opera over the years. Yes at points here and there they’d get something right, but after a while it was as if they somehow painted themselves into a corner.

In fact while I’m not a fan of time travel plot devices (which are central to this film) I think in this case it was a great idea as it gave them a free hand to start with a fresh canvas to piant their tale. And what I liked about that is that by doing that they still pulled off making everything more true to Star Trek than if they had a million continuity experts nitpicking every detail. This also gives the fans a chance to let go and rediscover Star Trek.

While the actual plot of the film was weak I could even forgive that because they were using the story more a background to reintroduce the characters one-by-one which is no small task. Everyone has grown up with these characters and they’re a huge part of pop culture at this point, so I think they made a wide choice to focus on the characters over a specific story (besides you can always do that in the next film).

This brings me to the acting — at first my fear was that we’d get a Muppet Babies version of Star Trek, or a 90210 meets Starfleet Academy effect: But because the first half of the film has a parallel focus on Kirk and Spock they successfully avoided that trap by giving them a chip on their shoulders — which in turn serves as a great motivational device. And then by introducing each new character one at a time served the audience well. The actors did a great job of owning the roles of each character and making it their own. And the story did a good job of allowing each crew member to steal at least one scene, which was a nice touch.

Were there things I hated? Of course! But anything I hated was a small enough detail that it didn’t get in the way of enjoying the film itself. And while there were details I wasn’t crazy about (example: the design of the Enterprise) that was over come by just how much they got right. There was a great deal of high quality craftsmanship on this film which included some A+ work in sound design, editing, music, art direction, prop design, etc. In fact one of things like enjoyed the most was that the pacing was just right — there wasn’t a dead spot in the film that you gelt like they were killing time with.

When I was done watching the film I walked with the feeling that I had a good time, and was already looking ahead to the next film or TV series that they come up with. I think my only regret is given how important that Nimoy was in the film I still wish they gave something to Shatner, even if was just him doing a voice over, given how much this film is about Kirk that left me a bit cold. But all in all I’d say that this film is fanboy approved and a worthy reboot for a well loved show.

For our first ever Fanboy.com giveaway the kind folks at Intel and Lenovo have given us a Star Trek laptop bag to bestow on a lucky fanboy or fangurl in our audience. So here’s what you have to do to have a chance to walk away with this geeky goodie bag:

On Twitter send a tweet to @michaelpinto (hint: it would be nice if you friended me on Twitter) with your first reaction to the Star Trek XI film. This can be a mini-review, snarky comment, cliched catch phrase or lament at the lack of Shatner. The deadline will be this Sunday, May 10th at midnight.

I’ll then pick a lucky winner based on my unscientific opinion of who posts the most clever fanboy comment (i.e. personality is everything in a fanboy beauty contest). The second runner up will receive my unopened reviewers copy of Star Wars: The Clone Wars which includes a bonus digital copy in addition to the DVD. And third place will get you a copy of Pride and Prejudice and ZOMBIES by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith:

This is an informal giveaway and NOT a contest or sweepstakes – please don’t sue us…

Editor’s Note: In this column film critic Joe Strike gives us his first impressions on Star Trek XI. Warning this might contain a few spoilers and ruin a maximum virgin film watching experience:

Heavy, heavy, HEAVY ST logo– looks like it was carved out of highly polished dwarf star material, probably weighs about the same… music is pretty heavy too: Giacchino wants us to know this is an intense movie…

We see Kirk’s birth on a starship under attack by the biggest (and pointiest) Romulan ship ever made. (Born on the battlefield – just like Conan the Barbarian!) A console screen display is projected across the captain’s face – big-time cheat (does your computer screen project onto your face?), but it looks cool; in fact it looked cool when Kubrick did it in 2001… Why are the guts of a starship filled with huge pipes with steering wheel-size valve controls on them? The whole place very much resembles the inside of a power plant dressed up with a few Starfleet computer terminals – but nahh, this is a big budget movie, they wouldn’t do that, would they?

10-year old Kirk drives a 20^th century sports car off a cliff, jumping out just in time to hang onto the edge by his fingernails (I’m sure the DVD’s deleted scenes will explain where and how he got the car, not to mention why he drives it off a cliff (Thelma and Louise fan?), or who the voice chewing him out on the radio belongs to)… meanwhile, ultra-logical Vulcan bullies are giving child-Spock a hard-time… the gals on Vulcan wear dresses that look like teacups, and educate their kids in teacup-shaped holes in the floor…

Teenage Kirk is one tough sonuvabitch wise-ass trouble-maker – he deserves to get his ass kicked by those cadets he’s smirking at. (Boy, those punch sound effects could kill a T-Rex)… the humongously huge Starfleet base in Iowa is glimpsed waaay in the distant mist, its silhouette barely visible as a slightly darker shade of blue/grey – reminds me of a mid-1960’s sci-fi paperback cover…

Space cadet Kirk is doing the nasty dance with a hot, green-skinned babe: let’s hear it for a classic ST:TOS meme… every character’s personality has been ramped up to 11: Chekhov’s wery, wery Russian accent (how come Quinto is a ringer for Nimoy but Anton Yelchin looks nothing like Koenig? Just asking), McCoy’s misanthropism (he’s my favorite ringer for one of the originals – he even gets the voice right), Scotty’s gung-ho love of engineering has turned downright giddy… gee, it sure was lucky Sulu brought along his magic folding sword to do battle atop that blasting platform… JJ seems to enjoy leaving James T hanging on by his fingertips over bottomless chasms; if it happens one more time in this movie, I’m outta here.

SPOILER YOU’VE PROBABLY ALREADY HEARD ABOUT: Nimoy shows up as Future Spock, doing a little past-meddling to make sure Kirk & his younger self become buddies (Butt buddies? The glances between these two guys are hot – I bet the slash fanfic is being posted even as I write)… in fact, the whole movie revolves around Nimoy/Old Spock’s presence.

Aha, I’ve figured it out: the point of this movie is to reboot TOS’s universe, just like a DC Infinite Crisis or Marvel Secret Wars mini-series: a few planets & characters go bye-bye & the remaining ones now have new, improved pasts (not to mention new improved actors), thanks to a convenient time-tunneling black hole. (That ‘Red Matter’ is potent stuff!) Along the way a lot of stuff blows up, the music is loud, the effects are cool and everything ends happily; Pike even winds up piloting a much better-looking wheelchair.

Joe is an occasional animation scripter and freelance NYC writer covering animation and sci-fi/fantasy entertainment. His work has appeared in the NY Daily News, Newsday, the New York Press and, as they used to say on Rocky and Bullwinkle, ‘a host of others.’ He is a regular contributor to the animation industry website awn.com, but it’s much easier to visit joestrike.com to see what he’s been up to lately.

So I guess the torch has been passed? This video from April 25th shows a meeting between William Shatner and Chris Pine. The clip is from Shatner and he looks very cool about the whole thing, but it still makes me just a tad sad that he won’t have some sort of bit part in this film. My own theory more and more is that Paramount was too cheap.

Of course the above meeting shouldn’t be confused with the original episode What are Little Girls Made of? which featured Kirk meeting a robot Kirk:

Directed by Dan Meth this clever parody film Trek Yourself hits the spot — in a strange way his take on having the new film be a sort of Revenge of the Nerds is almost as appealing to me as seeing spaceships blow up.

Found via a tip from Atom films on Twitter.

The latest Star Trek XI spots are out — not much new footage but plenty of quotes from the likes of Newsweek, Rolling Stone and Film.com? To be honest I’m more likely to trust a review from Ain’t It Cool News rather than a dead tree publication at this point, but then again I am a fanboy…

By the way in case you forgot here’s J.J. Abrams here to remind you to make sure you see the film in IMAX:

Not much of a hard sell going on in that spot…

The upcoming Star Trek DAC game (for the Xbox 360, PlayStation3, PC) is all about battles between the Federation and the Romulans. From my understanding it’s a multiplayer game so there isn’t much of a plot to it, but the video above and the screenshots look pretty impressive:

I’m a vegetarian, but this exclusive preview of the Star Trek XI toys make me want to visit Burger King to get my hands on these totally rad trinkets. In a sad way they sort of remind me of the Muppet Babies which was my first reaction to seeing trailers of the show — but with any luck there will be spaceships and enough things blowing up to make up for that…

This is some amazing new footage (posted with permission) which shows J.J. Abrams in action directing the new Star Trek XI film. I like the little touch in the bar scene of having the poster of Neil Armstrong on the moon, and there are also a few new details of the Starfleet Academy that I hadn’t seen before. Also worth looking at is this interview with a few of the folks working on the film from about a month ago:

Watching this video is painful to me — William Shatner is a class act in this case, but there’s something cruel about not having him in this film. It would be one thing if Nimoy didn’t have a cameo because then you could argue that “we just couldn’t make it work with the script”. But sadly my bet is that while this may been about ego, it most likely had more to do with money (which may not be unrelated to ego). Shame on Paramount for letting this happen this way.

At the end of the day Star Trek became a classic due to the work of many folks, not just the actors but people you never see on the screen from scriptwriters to designers. But the actors were a big part of this show, and it wouldn’t have been Star Trek without Shatner. And as imperfect as he is Shatner deserves some sort of tribute — the guy is 78 years old and won’t be with us forever.

I’m getting excited by this film! This new trailer has a bit of new footage, but nothing that adds much more to our understanding of the film. By the way I’m starting to see a great a great deal of advertising all over the place — here’s an ad I spotted in the NYC subway system:

I haven’t seen this film yet, but I know one thing for certain: J.J. Abrams really knows how to promote a film! I’ve now seen him pushing this film every where from Australia to Wired magazine — and I like the fact that he’s not taking his audience for granted. He seems to understand that this isn’t just about making a film, but rescuing a franchise that could fade away. Of course at the end of the day this film has to be damn good, but the amount of work I see him doing is a good indication.

No this isn’t real, it’s just a fan made video! But wouldn’t it be nice if it was real?

FIRE EVERYTHING! It’s hard to go wrong with a line like that? This latest trailer starts to flesh out the story — clearly it’s a coming of age tale ala the first Star Wars movie which would be an ironic but a good reboot for one of my favorite space opera franchises. This new trailer has all sorts of new footage that looks cool like bar fights (this brings me back to what made the original series cool — no drinking Earl Gray tea!) and some cooling looking Starfleet cadet training exercises that involve doing space jumps in orbit above Mars. But I’d say the most interesting thing is that we see Kirk taking the helm of the Enterprise.

Here are some of the more interesting shots from this new trailer:

You only see it for a brief bit, but I loved this shot of San Francisco in the future.

This shot opens up with a shot of all the new kids on the block who have signed up to be Starfleet cadets…

…and then the shot pans to James T. Kirk with Spock taunting him!

Of course being a Starfleet cadet isn’t dull and includes making space jumps to space stations that are orbiting around Mars — sign me up!

But here’s the important shot: After something happens to previous Captain, we’ve got Kirk stepping up to the plate and taking over the helm of the Enterprise.

The new Star Trek film will be hitting theaters in May, but early signs of merchandising are already appearing. Playmates has just introduced a line of toys which will be hitting the streets this month. So far we’ve only seen a trailer for this film, but these toys give us a first real glimpse into the look-and-feel of the film. It’s important to remember that the original Star Trek series was a real breakthrough in terms of production art — a spacecraft no longer had to look like a rocket or a flying saucer, so there’s a real tradition that’s at stake here. That and frankly if Paramount wants to reinvent the franchise they’ll have to top the amazing work Lucas has been doing these past couple of years with Star Wars.

Our critique starts with the Star Trek Movie Enterprise Vehicle shown above. The industrial design reminds me a bit too much of the first Star Trek movie from 1979 which wasn’t my favorite version of the ship but does show that they’re staying true to form. My only complaint warp engines feel a little bit heavy on the front, although it’s hard to tell if this has been exaggerated for the toy. So my grade for the new Enterprise is a C+.

Next up we have the Star Trek Movie Enterprise Bridge Playset. At first look it’s a bit of an eclectic mix, but I think it sort of works. There’s a nice mixture of old and new as the chairs look like something from the original series but the viewing screen seems like something from Star Trek: The Next Generation. I wish I could get a better look at the captain’s command chair, but the control panels that I do see bring me back to the old show — so my grade here is A-.

On the Star Trek Movie Electronic Phaser we’re at a bit of a disadvantage because we can only see the side view. My problem with this phaser is that it looks a little bit too retro from the 50s color choices to the Buck Rogers grill. In fact the design looks like two toys kitbashed together and feels more like something wed see out of a Duck Dodgers cartoon than “space the final frontier”. I’ll have to see what they use in the film, but frankly this phaser is a failure to me so I’d give it an F.

I hate the top gap in the flip panel on this Star Trek Movie Electronic Communicator — if the top of the communicator is exposed why even have a flip open mechanism? Also the Federation decal looks a bit corny too, but I’ll give them some benefit of the doubt on this one so I’ll go with a C+.

This Star Trek Movie Electronic Tricorder reminds me a little bit too much of the first iMacs from ten years ago! It lacks a certain amount of detail, but it’s hard to tell if that’s just a bad toy design or reflects a lack of attention to detail in the film. To me it’s essential that a Tricorder have some sort of small video screen and here we just seem to have a bunch of blinking lights. It’s not a total failure, but it’s not a success either so I’d go with a C-.

This Star Trek Movie Transporter Room Playset looks like a disaster — if I was a kid I wouldn’t want this under my Christmas tree! The bottom of the transporter looks fine, but the top looks goofy. Now this might be the fault of the toy design and may not reflect of the show, however until I see better I’m not impressed so the transporter is awarded an F.

No I know you’re thinking that I’m being too critical — but it’s not good enough for these toys to be just good enough. The franchise is at a weak point and this is the time to win over a new generation of fans. These toys need to be cooler than any Star Wars toys that you’d come across and frankly these don’t do the trick. Mind you that Playmates is aimed at a younger audience, but that audience is going to even be pickier than old fanboys because the toys have to work as toys first and then compliment the show.

Land of the Lost Superbowl Spot

Update: We also had the trailers for Star Trek and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen but the legal department at Paramount had the trailers yanked from our YouTube source. In our humble opinion this was a dumb marketing move as many fanboys (and fangurls) might not want to watch an annual jock ritual.

You know even if he doesn’t have an overpaid one minute cameo in Star Trek XI William Shatner is doing a brilliant job of promoting himself lately while pushing his talk show into the spotlight in the process. The above video is an example of this Shatnermnaia in the wild from thinkhero.com. And you want to know something? Oprah look out because the real Captain James T. Kirk is no slacker!

According to Variety it looks like Majel Barrett-Roddenberry will be returning to Star Trek XI to resume her role as the voice of the Enterprise computer system! Although I wish they gave her an on screen cameo relating to her original role as Nurse Chapel, however to me this is a sign that J.J. Abrams is getting things right.