star trek spock volcano

‘Star Trek Into Darkness’ Clip: Spock vs. the Volcano (Video)

Spock is trapped in a volcano while Capt. Kirk and his crew brainstorm how to save his life in the movies first full clip

Spock is willing to sacrifice his life on behalf of an alien civilization in the first full clip Paramount has released from "Star Trek Into Darkness."

The Vulcan ( Zachary Quinto ) refuses to allow Capt. Kirk ( Chris Pine ) or any other member of the Enterprise crew to break any rules and regulations to save him from perisihing inside the an active volcano.

Also read:   CinemaCon: 'Star Trek Into Darkness' Footage Has Kirk, John Harrison Forming Uneasy Alliance

"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of a few," Spock reminds his shipmates in footage previously shown in IMAX theaters before "The Hobbit" last December.

Spock's predicament was also showcased at CinemaCon last week as part of an 18-minute preview of the "Star Trek" sequel.

Since John Harrison ( Benedict Cumberbatch ) is the main villain, and not a volcano, it's probably a safe bet that somebody aboard the Enterprise figures out how to save Spock's day.

"Star Trek Into Darkness" beams into theaters on May 17. Here's a taste of the action to come:

Star Trek Into Darkness 'What Would Spock Do?' Clip

Your changes have been saved

Email Is sent

Please verify your email address.

You’ve reached your account maximum for followed topics.

Jurassic World 4 Plot Details Tease An Unexpected Location, Potential Title Revealed

Deadpool & wolverine star ryan reynolds calls logan the 'greatest' comic book movie ever made, mel gibson provides update on lethal weapon 5: 'i'm pretty happy with it'.

The crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise gathers to figure out a way to save Spock ( Zachary Quinto ) from the inside of an active volcano in the first clip from Star Trek Into Darkness . Watch as Spock makes the logical choice in sacfraficing himself to save others in this scene that mirrors a key moment in the original Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan .

In the wake of a shocking act of terror from within their own organization, the crew of The Enterprise is called back home to Earth. In defiance of regulations and with a personal score to settle, Captain Kirk ( Chris Pine ) leads his crew on a manhunt to capture an unstoppable force of destruction and bring those responsible to justice.

As our heroes are propelled into an epic chess game of life and death, love will be challenged, friendships will be torn apart, and sacrifices must be made for the only family Kirk has left: his crew.

• Zachary Quinto

• June 18, 2024 | Exclusive First Look At September Star Trek Comics From IDW
• June 18, 2024 | Review: The EXO-6 ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’ 1:6 Geordi Figure Is A Sight To See
• June 18, 2024 | The Sisko Enters The Realm Of The Gods In Preview Of ‘Star Trek’ #21
• June 14, 2024 | Podcast: All Access Shares Its Pain With Laurence Luckinbill From ‘Star Trek V: The Final Frontier’
• June 13, 2024 | ‘Star Trek: Section 31’ Actor Teases His “Very Intense” Character, Praises “Hero” Michelle Yeoh

The Science of Star Trek Into Darkness

| May 18, 2013 | By: Kayla Iacovino 192 comments so far

Into the Volcano The Nibiru volcano scene was revealed in the IMAX preview of STID last December. We basically saw the entire scene back then, but there are a few points that I didn’t catch the first time around that I’ll touch on here.

Spock takes a stroll in the Nibiru volcano

The look and feel of the volcano is pretty spot on For the most part, they get this part right. Speaking as a volcanologist who loves to nitpick geology scenes in movies, there is not much for me to gripe about in Into Darkness. Of course, the visual artists did dramatize the scene a bit, but for everything they got wrong there’s another detail they got right.

What was wrong visually? I can tell you from experience that the inside of an active volcano doesn’t look quite like what we saw in STID. The biggest flaw? Flames. Too much fire and brimstone. Yes, volcanoes produce hot steam, ash, and magma, but what’s depicted in STID looks more like a forest fire — embers and flames swirling around Spock. Again, this is a somewhat minor point, so it’s forgivable.

The visual details that are spot on. The geologist in me was giggling with joy when she saw Spock standing atop real lava! The ropey, black rock beneath Spock’s feet is really something that came out of a volcano: a type of lava rock called Pahoehoe. And, if one was to flash freeze molten volcanic rock as Spock’s “cold fusion device” did, it’d look a lot like what we saw on screen: jet black volcanic glass. The best part of the volcano, though, was the bubble burst. A gigantic bubble of gas rose through the lava lake and formed a huge dome of lava that loomed far above Spock’s head. The pressure built up inside the bubble until it burst open, sending bits of molten rock flying in one large catastrophic explosion. That is EXACTLY what happens in real lava lakes.

Spock in a seriously cool looking volcano

BONUS: Fumaroles on a nearby planetoid! Recall the scene where Carol Marcus and Bones shuttle down to a nearby planetoid to have a go at diffusing of the mysterious photon torpedoes. What you probably didn’t realize was that this was a “volcanic” scene, too! My eyes immediately jumped to the flat plain of lava rock (scoria, a type of basaltic volcanic rock) where Carol and Bones were fiddling with the torpedo. In the background was a beautifully rendered fumarole – a crack in the ground where volcanic gasses escape into the atmosphere. The look and feel of the scene was completely scientifically realistic. What’s even better is that it felt like a barren, vast, wasteland. No vegetation, no animal life. This made it really feel like some small volcanic moon or “planetoid”. I’ll go out on a limb here and say this is in my opinion the most realistic looking planetary body I’ve ever seen in a movie. Props to the visual artists! Below is a couple of examples of real world locations reminiscent of the torpedo disarming scene in Into Darkness.

Volcanic plains resembling the torpedo disarming scene in Into Darkness

Verdict: The visuals were great. The volcano looked more realistic than any film I’ve seen, minus the swirling embers.

The science behind the volcano: Oh so close, but not quite right We cannot take the heat, cap’n! Here’s where the volcano scene took a turn for the less believable. Both Sulu and Scotty suggest that the heat from the volcano is too much for the shuttle or the Enterprise to withstand. Huh? Let’s count the logical fallacies, shall we?

Let’s get even more sciencey. The graph below shows the temperature experienced by a Space Shuttle orbiter on reentry to Earth’s atmosphere. The hottest lava on Earth is around 2200 °F. The Space Shuttle, the first flight of which was in 1981 can withstand temperature of up to 2500 °F. Nineteen Eighty One. In 200 years, I hope we will have advanced far beyond even that!

How they could have made this right, while keeping the stakes high for Spock and the crew. Sulu has one line that I wish they’d have played up more in this scene. He mentions that the ash from the volcano is getting into the shuttle’s systems and causing all kinds of damage. THIS is extremely plausible! Volcanic ash is very corrosive, especially to electronics. And, it interferes with air intake systems in engines, which is why airplanes can’t fly through volcanic ash clouds here on Earth. This would have been the scientifically accurate reason that the shuttle was struggling, and why it’d be dangerous to take the Enterprise in. I’m not sure why anyone mentioned the heat being a problem at all.

Verdict: The heat would NOT cause any problems for a shuttle or a starship. They should have used volcanic ash as an excuse.

Spock’s Planet Saving, Volcano Stopping “Device” . Here’s where things get really hairy. Spock has some device capable of stopping a volcano. You know what? It’s the beginning of the movie, things are pretty crazy, so as a moviegoer I’m going to go ahead and accept that humans have developed the technology to somehow “render a volcano inert”. But, the geologist inside of me wouldn’t let it stand when we saw how the thing worked. As said above, the visual was very cool and quite realistic — if one were to “flash freeze” some lava, it woud turn into exactly what we saw. But, flash freezing lava in a volcanic crater would not, by any means, stop a volcano from erupting. Volcanoes are essentially surface expressions of the deep, churning earth. It’s where our planet is turning itself inside out — the very hot, very pressurized molten rock living deep in the Earth’s crust (and sometimes even below the crust) finds its way to the surface in a grand explosion of fire and light. Freezing the top layer of lava at an erupting volcano is like putting the lid on a pressure cooker turned to 11. The pressure beneath that lid is just going to build up until that volcano erupts even more explosively than it otherwise would have. Of course, sci-fi caveat, one could assume that the device somehow managed to penetrate all the way down (we’re talking 10’s of kilometers deep) to the source of the volcano and freeze it from the inside out, but I just have a very hard time believing that.

Spock, get your volcano suit on. We need you to detonate a cold fusion device inside an active volcanic crater.

The NIF Warp Core One of the aspects of the film that I really enjoyed, and not everyone will agree with me on this, was the warp core. Particularly, the shots of the outside of the warp core, which were all filmed at a real life science facility: The National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab in California. When I imagine what a starship’s engine room should look like, I certainly don’t imagine this . I imagine a massive piece of equipment that looks like something that could accelerate particles fast enough to create anti-matter. Something thats so massive and complex, it is essentially built into the ship itself. In modern facilities, instruments like particle colliders are a part of the building in which they reside — it’s not like wheeling a computer into the middle of a room. Some have argued that the NIF warp core feels too modern; that we would be miles beyond that kind of technology by the time Starfleet is around. But, I’m not so sure. Warp cores are essentially gigantic particle colliders that can store massive amounts of antimatter and use it to power the ship. Why wouldn’t a warp core of the future to some degree resemble their 21st century ancestors? Besides, maybe this scene will encourage a few kids to learn about particle physics, and that’s just fine by me. Verdict: Up for debate The NIF Target Chamber (click for super high res version)

Another of the many scenes filmed at the NIF

Transwarp Beaming: A forgivable plot device? In Star Trek (2009) , we are introduced to Scotty’s magical transwarp beaming technology. Yes, Scotty invents a way to beam from place to place across insane distances while at warp . This, if you remember, is how Kirk gets back onto the Enterprise. Okay, so it doesn’t work perfectly (Scotty ends up inside one of the water tubes in the engine room), but it works. Enter Into Darkness. Khan needs a way to get from Earth to Kronos, and he’s on the lam so he doesn’t have access to a starship. Khan is also involved in Section 31, the secret agency within Starfleet who, we’re told, confiscated Scotty’s transwarp equation. That’s how Khan was able to beam over to Kronos. Thanks, at least, for being internally consistent with the 2009 film, but I still have to point to this as a totally unrealistic plot device, which moreover makes it way too easy for our heroes to get around. What’s the point of a fleet of starships when we can simply beam across light years? It’s hard to comment on the real life science of the transwarp long-distance beaming, since to beam a person even a short distance with today’s knowledge of physics would cost unimaginable computing power, and the reassembly of a human being would require the energy input equivalent to about 3,200 suns. So, yeah, transporter technology’s not in the near future. But, this transwarp thing isn’t even good Trek science. It’s not even good writing! It just makes it far too easy. It was a forgivable plot device in the first film, but let’s just forget it ever happened and move on. Otherwise, we might as well scrap the fleet and just beam everywhere.

Verdict: A poor plot device. Not internally consistent with other Trek technology

Transwarp beaming in Star Trek (2009)

Ludicrous Speed! Travel to Kronos in minutes! This is one movie “mistake” that almost everyone I’ve talked to, scientist or not, has picked up on. Kronos (or Qo’noS), the Klingon home world, may be relatively close to Earth, but according to the pilot episode “Broken Bow” of Star Trek: Enterprise , Kronos is about 4 days away from Earth at warp 4.5. In a later Enterprise episode, “Two Days and Two Nights”, it was established that this was around 90 lightyears from Earth, as that is the farthest distance anyone had traveled up to that point. In Into Darkness, the Enterprise apparently travels at Ludicrous Speed and somehow manages to reach Kronos (and get back to Earth from Kronos) in what seems like only a few hours.

Verdict: Another poor plot device that defeats the idea of the Final Frontier .

They’ve gone to plaid…

Pointing out what’s wrong (or right!) with the science of Trek might seem like pointless nit picking. But, that’s what we Trekkies do best, and having a meticulous community with such attention to detail means that we demand a certain standard from the people who create new stories that fit within the Star Trek universe. There are volumes dedicated to establishing what is “canon” in Trek, something fairly unique to our franchise. But, the Transwarp long-distance beaming and the ability of a starship to travel at Ludicrous Speed are two things that transcend nit picking. There are multiple references in the movie about “deep space” and the upcoming five year mission of the USS Enterprise. But, if you have ships going from Earth to Kronos in a matter of minutes then there is no “Deep Space” within the galaxy. And, going back to Trek canon, it essentially wipes out the premise of Star Trek: Voyager and most of Deep Space Nine (who needs wormholes?). More to the point, these two seemingly harmless plot devices completely dismiss the idea of the Final Frontier. The Enterprise and her crew are taking a risk when they are out there exploring the unknown, days or even months from home or the closest reinforcements. It’s what makes Trek work as a “western in space”. Without that peril, that feeling of isolation, you loose one of the things so intrinsically interesting to the exploration of space: the vastness of space itself.

Follow me on Twitter: @kaylai .

You should consult for the next Star Trek movie.

I recall that there was some shooting in Iceland for this movie…and If so, I think they filmed the Torpedo Autopsy there, given the locale….so it’s not so much Kudos to the set designers, but to the location scouts

Precisely. Fans will overlook an occasional flimsy plot device to help advance the narrative, but not when the same device is used in consecutive films, then made even more absurd. The implausibility of beaming all over the galaxy becomes an unnecessary distraction.

The “instantenous travel” could have been avoided by simply adding a short “Captain’s Log” narrative along the lines of “stardate 2259.60 – we have been on our way to Kronos for 3 days”. Simple as that, isn’t it?

“Transwarp beaming” encore could have been avoided by beaming Harrison to a ship in orbit which would have taken him to Kronos.

yeah i have problems with transwarp beaming the only way out of it from a story point would be both the prime timeline and the jj timeline section 31 has it, and will not give it up to anyone, which will explain how sloan gets around,and ok you can travel to distance stars so quickley but how many planets will you miss along the way?the 5 year mission is about exploring strange new worlds and seeking out new lifeforms, so even with transwarp beaming, you will still need a slower form of travel thank you for the science for it

The Science of Star Trek after the Original Series was always more Fantasy than Science.

There a show on last night on the History channel about Star Trek and how it has been influenced by science and how it has influenced science. It was two hours but I only caught the last hour. I hope they play it again. They talked about the SETI program, and number of other things, they showed a ton of behind the scenes clips of STID. They talked about fusion power and the location where they filmed the warp core. It was great.

They’ve traveled extraordinary distances in little time in Trek before. The Final Frontier is pretty ridiculous in the time it took for the A to get to the center of the galaxy. There have been episodes where they’ve traveled further than expected in little or no time. In Unification, the Enterprise travels between Vulcan and the Romulan Neutral Zone while stopping off at the ship depot facility, implied to be rather far away from the Romulan border.

Also, Voyager, traveling as far as it did, without the various boosts they got, is rather unrealistic.

Great stuff Kayla!

When the word got out that the new movie was filming at Lawrence Livermore I was happy, it looks much better than the brewery stuff :)

@8 The History Channel repeats things ad-nasum, so don’t worry it will be on again. I have one of the repeated showings that I recorded to watch in my DVR right now.

Upcoming times: http://www.history.com/shows/star-trek-secrets-of-the-universe/episodes

I agree with all of this .. but the one thing that gets me about this whole film is… while the ships were drifting into the atmosphere, why didnt a ship tractor them back up, thus avoiding 100s of people getting dicked on the ground by a falling starship!

Good stuff Kayla…

I have to agree that the careless story-telling and implausible scenarios, what we are asked to believe about the plot and characters really detracted from what was otherwise a helluva a lot of fun by some insanely talented people who made it happen. Phil Plait (Bad Astronomer) has an interesting review on his blog at slate.com

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/05/17/bad_astronomy_review_star_trek_into_darkness.html

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/05/16/star_trek_science_mistakes.html

BTW, shooting at Lawrence Livermore was a good move; shoulda stayed out of the brewery altogether.

12. craig keith – May 18, 2013 “…why didnt a ship tractor them back up, thus avoiding 100s of people getting dicked on the ground by a falling starship!”

For the same reason they didn’t beam the crew off the falling ships to the planet or no Starfleet vessel came to the aid of either ship during the standoff.

Don’t forget the fact that they fell to the Earth from LUNAR ORBIT, and did so in a matter of MINUTES!

That whole scene was so badly written and filmed, it was painful. I literally looked away from the screen. I hope the writers and directors are properly ashamed of themselves for that whole sequence.

Funny article. It implies there was science in this movie. Obviously, there was none.

Harry Potter had more explainable science than this.

It kills me how JJ Abrahms’ Trek is still being labelled as sci-fi but some people. More and more, it’s being thrown under the “fantasy” category where it should be.

Sad. Sad. Sad.

I was hoping they could say that transwarp beaming isn’t instaneous. Harrison could have been bits of molecules for a few hours until he reached Kronos.

Not just Kronos is a few minutes away from Earth at ludicrous warp speed, but when they leave the Enterprise (which is supposedly inside the neutral zone) using Mudd’s ship, Kronos is visible by naked eye. That means the neutral zone is within the Klingon solar system! If you think about it, the plot doesn’t make any sense. Kirk agrees to go close enough to Kronos to be able to see the planet by naked eye, fire 72 torpedoes on the planet’s surface (and probably cause major damage) and get out without being noticed by the Klingons, which are as technologically advanced as the Federation. Really?

The thing is, the Trek movies have often been highly inconsistent about distances. In TUC they travel from Earth to to the Neutral Zone to Rura Penthe to Khitomer in what appears to be a few days. In Trek V they infamously travel all the way to the center of the galaxy in about an hour. In First Contact they appear to go all the way from the Neutral Zone to Earth in minutes. Given that history, I say the new team are merely keeping with tradition.

And I’ll also dissent on the Transwarp Beaming issue. Trek also has a history of introducing miraculous tech in one episode/movie and then conveniently forgetting about it in the next. I appreciated that they kept connections to the previous story and transwarp beaming wasn’t simply another macguffin of the week.

@4: But if Harrison had just beamed to a ship and then flown to Kronos how would Kirk et al know where he was?

With regard to the issue of time taken to travel between planets, as far as I can tell there’s nothing in-film which categorically precludes extra hours off camera. In the 2009 film there was the indeterminable time that Kirk was unconscious on the way to Vulcan; and plenty of opportunity for extra time on the way back to Earth while chasing the Narada as well.

The same is true of STID. We don’t know how long it took between jumping to Warp and the emergency shut-down. And they didn’t make it all the way to Kronos in any case, they travelled the last part in the freighter; again with no indication of how long they spent in that craft on the way there and back to the Enterprise.

Admittedly things get slightly more complicated once they capture Harrison. How long did it take Chekov to repair the coolant leak? Enough time for the Vengeance to warp from Earth after Starfleet was informed? And then the limited opportunities for time passage off-screen during the chase back to Earth.

But that said, even Scotty’s statement that he was only off the ship for “one day”, which I’ve seen some people use as categorical proof of the lack of time passage in the film – he could easily have been exaggerating for effect!

20. Slornie – May 18, 2013

“With regard to the issue of time taken to travel between planets, as far as I can tell there’s nothing in-film which categorically precludes extra hours off camera.”

But there is. When they hit warp again Carol races from sick bay to the bridge to warn Kirk. When she arrives they’re attacked and drop out of Warp near Earth. So the travel time is minutes unless she took a nap somewhere in between running.

19. sean – May 18, 2013

“The thing is, the Trek movies have often been highly inconsistent about distances.”

Yes, but in those movies the actual travel time is usually not given. E.g. in FC we do not know how long the battle with the Borg raged until the Enterprise arrived. In this one we can quantify the travel time from the Neutral Zone to Earth at Warp as the time it takes to get from sickbay to the bridge.

“Trek also has a history of introducing miraculous tech in one episode/movie and then conveniently forgetting about it in the next.”

True and I was ready to ignore that from ST09, but then they used it AGAIN in this movie.

as for the transwarp beaming, maybe after action reports on the Nero Attack point out the security flaw that Transwarp Beaming creates to the UFP, and Star Fleet comes up with a protocol to prevent that in the future (use of shields of some sort, perhaps a new functional use of Deflectors, etc), thus making it impossible to use TWBing… derp?

23. Pensive’s Wetness – May 18, 2013

” Star Fleet comes up with a protocol to prevent that in the future (use of shields of some sort, perhaps a new functional use of Deflectors, etc), thus making it impossible to use TWBing…”

Regular shields should already do that, but do they also put transport inhibitors on all planets and colonies? That would be a bit impractical as they would have to shut down once actually wants to transport sth.. And for exploration there’s nothing stopping them. I thought about it causing a deadly disease etc. but Spock Prime would likely not have given it to them if it did.

Kind of surprised no one has talked about the magical healing blood. That’s pretty biochemically preposterous

At the end Dr. McCoy says he’s made a serum out of it, which means it’ll be a lot tougher to have characters die without someone just whipping out the Khan-blood-serum hypospray.

That serum along with the transwarp beaming situation really is going to make it tough to avoid gaping plot holes in future stories. For example, if they’ve got transwarp beaming, why not just beam one of the fancy super-scary torpedoes to Khan’s location and let that be the end of it, as opposed to sending an entire ship a little bit closer to fire that same torpedo. I enjoyed the movie, but some of the “science” decisions have me worried long term.

This article:

A: Exists on multiple levels of awesome B: Is easy to fap to.

Would it be wrong to maybe assume that Starfleet vessels in the new timeline now travel using transwarp? The “at warp” effect does look similar to the transwarp effect in Voyager. If the reason why the Enterprise and the technology works differently is because of the Kelvin’s sensor scans of Nero’s ship, then couldn’t it be possible that Starfleet could develop transwarp travel and rewrite the warp scale to accommodate the increase in speed because of those scans?

Does the term “cold fusion” have anything at all to do with what we saw on screen, or did Orci et al just grab another science-for-millions term and paste it on “Lost In Space” style?

I totally agree that inter-planetary beaming is a huge mistake. It not only makes Starfleet obsolete, it also makes most of the oh-so-devious plots by Khan and Admr. Marcus cumbersome and foolish.

Also — anyone… Why did Khan set his personal transwarp beam to Q’on’os (or however you spell that)? Marcus wanted Khan there, but wouldn’t Khan have wanted to go directly to the Vengeance so he could crack a few heads (literally) and take over? Also, he killed a dozen top brass at Starfleet and beamed out within a few hours, right? He later says he did his killin’ while under the (wrong) impression that his augments were dead. But, in the time between killin’ and leavin’ Earth, he found time to discover his crew, redesign photon torpedoes, and put his crew in them. And again, knowing his crew was alive, he went to Klingonland (with its already-blow’d up several movies too early moon) hoping that Kirk would fire and soft land his buddies in their torpedoes??

Which part of this plan makes sense?

“It’s hard to comment on the real life science of the transwarp long-distance beaming… But this transwarp thing isn’t even good Trek science. It’s not even good writing!” Spot on.

Nice article that hits on some of the bad science. I take this flavor of Trek for what it is and don’t sweat the implausibilities too much. But as a NASA lunar scientist, I did have to shake my head when they stated the wrong distance for the Moon’s orbit!

@ “We cannot take the heat, cap’n!”

You mean they left that nonsense in? After fans alerted them about it, literally half a year ago on this very website, they couldn’t find a handful of $ to re-dub a single sentence? Respect, lost. :-P

The platelets biology and free-fall physics would still be worth a paragraph here… or the comparative pressure values of the Nibiru ocean and similar situations from other episodes ;)

On the way home from seeing STID last night, my 8-year-old son asked me why Kahn didn’t just thaw out his people when he had the chance instead of hiding them in torpedoes. With his people with him, he could’ve been more deadly and not easily been stopped.

I LOVED the new warp core! It seemed more like a reactor than the giant, glowy tubes.

I agree 100%.

I also couldn’t work out why one volcano would threaten the planet. Earth was poisoned by volcanoes and we turned out fine. Threaten the local natives, maybe. If it erupts for years I suppose it might warm the planet or disrupt global weather patterns to a small degree but I suspect that we’re pumping out way more pollution every day than one volcano can in a year.

And as I’ve said before, Uhura had no real purpose on that mission. They really should have had a volcanologist or geophysicist on board. Sulu is a physicist as well as a pilot but Uhura is a technician. I can accept that she was there as technical support for the shuttle but they still needed a scientist on the shuttle as well.

Great article. The science aspects didnt take away my enjoyment of a great film. The film series already hit rock bottom when Riker piloted the Enterprise with a joy stick, so I just ignore stuff like this and enjoy a good movie.

@Kayla on that last part of the article, namely the Transwarp beaming and the fallout for space travel, different universe. Warp drive developed differently, due in part to Nero’s incursion. What I surmise happened, is that, as the post-Nemesis novels detailed, after Nemesis Prime Starfleet began developing quantum slipstream drive, and there already was a proto-transwarp beaming in effect: In Star Trek The Next Generation, episode Bloodlines, Picard used a subspace transporter modification to beam to Bok’s ship from light years away at warp. Additionally in DS9 The Dominion had similar transport capabilities. Not to mention the fact that Nero’s ship was supposed to also be hybridized with Borg technology and an encounter with V’Ger (Countdown comics and the Nero comic series, both IDW).

It’s probable that Starfleet in Abramsverse, after deciphering the scans of Nero’s ship sent by The Kelvin before it was destroyed (which no doubt had a detailed database of the technology of the era from various powers, including Typhon Pact technology (they, in the novels, worked on their own quantum slipstream drives etc.), tried to reverse engineer the quantum slipstream technology and it resulted in a much, much faster warp drive for Starfleet. The warp effect in the Abrams films does more closely resemble Voyager Quantum Slipstream effect and Borg Transwarp effects than Prime Starfleet Warp Drive, and Spock did give the transwarp beaming equation, which Scotty probably developed AFTER his release from The Jenolen in ‘Relics’ and which was probably based on Dominion tech and Borg tech and insight derived from Seven of Nine.

As for what this means for the concept of ‘Deep Space’ and exploration: the scope of New Trek is bigger. No longer would Starfleet be limited to exploring one Quadrant of the Galaxy but the whole of The Milky Way and beyond. The Universe IS an INFINITE PLACE, full of countless galaxies.

Remember, JJ rebooted Star Trek to its base operating system. Clean slate. What we knew of the old Trek is but a guidebook, not a, pardon the pun, script.

Back to the wonder of TOS. Where we were not constricted by rigid canon. True, it can hint at later stuff, like The Cardassians, the Borg, The Ferengi, The Dominion and The Breen, The Hirogen and the Krenim and Xindi and Suliban, and more… and can move freely incorporating The Best of All Worlds into a New Paradigm, one where the Imagination and Wonder of TOS is restored, as Kirk and crew can travel now thousands of light years in the time it would have taken them to travel a couple hundred in TOS.

First Contact makes it clear the Enterprise is in the Neutral Zone, and based on what we see, there’s no way the fleet could have lasted an hour, let alone several. So either way, the time it takes the Enterprise to reach the battle is ridiculous and inconsistent with where they’ve always told us the Neutral Zone was.

“True and I was ready to ignore that from ST09, but then they used it AGAIN in this movie.”

And that was my point, they stayed consistent within their own universe. I prefer that to the old ‘Oh look at this miraculous thing we’ll forget we have next episode’.

I don’t really care. Movie have less science screw ups than other features with less sci-fi in them. in that sense ST was a great success.

37. NuWisdom – May 18, 2013

“Back to the wonder of TOS.”

The wonder of TOS was based to a large degree on the Enterprise having clearly defined limits in the vastness of space. Those limits were often based in Treknology and overcoming them was what presented the challenge. Now humans have powers similar to those of Q, which creates a huge problem for storytelling in this universe. It’s not a clean slate. Those new rules are in a way more limiting than the old canon since there are only three ways to deal with them.

A. Embrace them. Ok, so the next Star Trek will no longer feature the Enterprise. It’s become obsolete.

B. Ignore them. Which will make many people wonder about logic of the movie and take them right of it, i.e. why go to Kronos with a starship if you can beam there? I mean, if you could beam to a different continent, would you still use an airplane and fly there for hours?

C. Put a latern on them. I.e. explain in everytime why a certain technology does not work in the specific situation, which can be quite annoying.

All three of those ways are bad. If people start to wonder how sth. makes sense, they are taken right out of the moment. In ID that happens to lot of people – at least to those who don’t as a rule switch of their brains on arrival. You can say that this is a Trekkie problem – it’s not. The explanation you have given above is based on Trek canon. You know some SciFi and even Trek examples where sth. similar happened. General audiences don’t. They don’t go “they’ll explain it in a comic book” or “I’ll fix it in head-canon”. They go: WTF?

“I also couldn’t work out why one volcano would threaten the planet. Earth was poisoned by volcanoes and we turned out fine. Threaten the local natives, maybe. If it erupts for years I suppose it might warm the planet or disrupt global weather patterns to a small degree but I suspect that we’re pumping out way more pollution every day than one volcano can in a year.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supervolcano

And you would be incorrect. A volcanic eruption of sufficient magnitude can be an extinction-level event, and is far more hazardous than any co2 we might be pumping out.

38. sean – May 18, 2013

“…based on what we see, there’s no way the fleet could have lasted an hour…”

Yes, if you assume that it was just one fleet like at Wolf 359. However, this time they could have opted to have several hurdles for the Borg to cross. We also don’t see the initial size of the fleet, maybe what we do see is merely a small remnant. The point is: We don’t see it. It allows us to speculate. We can gloss over it and make it work for ourselves. STID spells it out, i.e. no room for speculation.

“…they stayed consistent within their own universe.”

They stayed consistent with something that will come to haunt them. See my response to 37. NuWisdom – May 18, 2013

How about the Enterprise ‘falling’ from the moon to earth (380,000km, though they get that figure wrong) in just a few minutes? It would take DAYS, even if it were physically possible.

And yet, unless the battle lasted a week, it still is inconsistent. Face it, the show has played fast-and-loose when a plot required it, and in that sense, the new bunch are simply upholding a fine tradition.

@43 danjonwig

How about THIS! According to sulu the Moon to Earth distance is just 237000 km:-)

This is the REAL major error in the Movie:-D

Kayla.. is the pahoehoe pretty much the same as the “Black Smokers” that Ballard discovered? Spent a few days at Woodshole a few years back awesome stuff.

Great article, Kayla! Very much appreciated!!

TOS and TNG both had science consultants that reviewed each episode for precisely the sort of stinkers that you point out and that we all noticed in the movie, whether consciously or not. With their $190 million budget, it’s unforgivable that Abrams, Orci, Kurtzman and Lindelof didn’t bother with a consultant. Again, it’s yet another example of the makers of STID going for style over substance. They could have fed us a balanced three-course meal that would have satisfied our bodies, minds and souls as well as our palates. But instead they served us birthday cake and little else.

44. sean – May 18, 2013

“Face it, the show has played fast-and-loose when a plot required it, and in that sense, the new bunch are simply upholding a fine tradition.”

I never said it didn’t. It just didn’t stare you in the face most of the time. Much of FC was very strange, e.g. why didn’t the Borg travel back in time at some other place and then warp to past Earth neatly avoiding Starfleet altogether? However, I only remember realizing that after seeing the movie – not during. This time: Ok, they go to warp. Carol starts running. Carol arrives. They’re back in the sol system. It’s so obvious, you can’t ignore it. I couldn’t care less about how long it actually takes from Klingon space to Earth, but if you portray it that way, it makes the universe small and uninteresting. It kills the fun. It kills the wonder. “Oh, wow we just went to the edge of the galaxy. Let’s go back to Earth and meet at the pub in an hour. No biggie.”

Eh, I just view it as a flub, like the flub in FC.

“Verdict: The heat would NOT cause any problems for a shuttle or a starship. They should have used volcanic ash as an excuse.”

They did, didn’t they?

Also… “cold fusion” device?

Okay, so how was the Enterprise (and Vengeance) able to be in visual sight of Kronos (and, later, Earth) for hours without being detected? This doesn’t fit known Trek science so well where positronic signals can be detected across the galaxy — but does it fit modern science?

So, they showed Praxis already blown up? And that’s why that province was abandoned? It would have to be some other reason, wouldn’t it? Hmmm.

Although, everything being super-close actually makes the prospect of real unexplored space that much more interesting — how far away would they have to be? Pretty cool.

‘Star Trek Into Darkness’ Clip Bodes Ill for Spock

• Share on Facebook
• Share on Twitter

The Enterprise crew will face its greatest enemy yet in ' Star Trek Into Darkness .' Benedict Cumberbatch 's mysterious John Harris will bring destruction and chaos to many, and now it looks like Zachary Quinto 's Spock might not make it to the end of this story either.

All the trailers and even one of the character posters teased one Spock-centric scene where he dives into an active volcano, and now we get an even better look at his mission in the first clip from 'Star Trek Into Darkness.'

In it, we see Spock after he implants a device within the volcano to render it inert, which will "render him inert." But things never go according to plan and the beloved character is trapped amidst the lava with no way out and no foreseeable way for the Enterprise to beam him out of harm's way. "The needs of the many outway the needs of the few," he says. Will the volcano take his life or will he live to fight another day? After all, Quinto did hint in the past that he might be leaving this character behind.

Check out the first 'Star Trek Into Darkness' clip below, coming courtesy of AOL Entertainment .

More From ScreenCrush

Exclusive 'Star Trek Into Darkness' Drops Spock Into The Heart Of A Volcano

Last night during " MTV First: Star Trek Into Darkness ," we gave you an exclusive sneak peek at the upcoming sci-fi adventure. If you weren't able to catch the clip when it premiered on MTV or you just want to experience the thrilling preview all over again, you can watch it now in the player below.

The clip comes from the film's action-packed opening sequences, where the crew of the Enterprise must descend into a ready-to-erupt volcano in order to save a planet's population.

When you're done checking out the clip, make sure to watch our entire 30-minute interview with J.J. Abrams, Chris Pine, Benedict Cumberbatch, Zoe Saldana, and Zachary Quinto, during which they do their best impressions of each other and Quinto talks about the perils of his volcano suit.

"Star Trek Into Darkness" opens in theaters on May 16.

Latest News

POV VMA SUBMISSION FORM

MTV Video Music Awards Will Return to New Jersey for September Show

Scream’s Ghostface Accepts Best Movie And Best Fight: ‘Movies Don’t Create Psychos’

Anthony Ramos And Dominique Fishback Ramp Up The Tension In New 'Transformers' Clip

Joseph Quinn Acknowledges The Power Of 'Stranger Things' Fans

Ariel And Prince Eric's Romantic Night Ends With A Splash In New 'Little Mermaid' Clip

• Newsletters
• Account Activating this button will toggle the display of additional content Account Sign out

What’s a Vulcan?

Two star trek virgins boldly go where they’ve never gone before..

Courtesy of Zade Rosenthal/Paramount Pictures

Slate sent two staffers who have never seen a single episode or movie in the Star Trek franchise to see J.J. Abram’s Star Trek Into Darkness . Note: Spoilers galore below, insofar as our intrepid viewers understood what was going on. Click here if you’d prefer to read Dana Stevens’ spoiler-free review .  

Aisha Harris: Well, Katy, besides having heard of Spock, Kirk, and, as a kid, hearing my dad recite the line “Beam me up, Scotty!” whenever my sister or I were irritating him and he wanted to be left alone, the Trek universe was completely foreign to me—until now. And now I know, after watching Star Trek Into Darkness , that Scotty is, in fact, a “real person.” Crazy, huh?

Katy Waldman: Hi, Aisha! I too was amazed to meet Scotty in the flesh, especially when he opened his mouth and spoke with a Scottish accent. In fact, I was distracted—in a good way—by the question of where on Earth or in the universe all these characters were from. The apprentice ship technician appeared to be Russian, and Spock was … Vulcan? Half-Vulcan? Did that have anything to do with why he was sent into a volcano at the beginning?

AH: Spock was my favorite character by far. He kind of reminded me of Abed from Community . Like Abed, Spock is very monotone, stoic, and essentially has no filter, making it difficult for him to sustain “normal” relationships with other people.

KW : Spock is infinitely logical, right? Which, I think, occasioned some of the funniest dialogue in the movie.

AH: One question I had: Why should I never trust a Vulcan? (Captain Kirk said I shouldn’t, at one point.) Is that a slur? Is being Vulcan frowned upon?

KW:  You should never trust a Vulcan, Aisha, because even after you save his life (Her life? Are there female Vulcans?), he will still report your breach of regulations to the admiral. That said, Spock was definitely my favorite character too. Can we unpack that scene with his father? Everyone in the theater started clapping! And I had no idea what was going on.

AH: What scene with his father? Do you mean the future Spock?

KW: The one who was also named Mr. Spock … oh dear … that was future Spock?

AH: Yes, I think so!

KW: Wait, how? What?

AH: I knew at least that that was Leonard Nimoy, the guy who originally played Spock. The point, I think, is that Into Darkness is a prequel. These are the younger versions of the original Star Trek series characters from the ‘60s.

KW: Present Spock didn’t know how to fight Khan, so he dialed up future Spock? He knew the whole time that he wasn’t going to die, even when Kirk was tearfully apologizing for putting everyone in danger?

AH: Right. So young Spock somehow managed to talk to future Spock, who tells him all about Khan.

KW: This is so lame. In the volcano, Spock says something like, “I am, surprisingly, alive.” Big fat surprise.

AH: Here’s what I understood: Young Spock asked future Spock whether or not Khan would be defeated. And then future Spock replied—and I wrote this down in my notes in the theater—“At great costs.” Khan’s apparently a big deal to Trekkies.

KW: Yes, when he announced his name was “Khan,” everyone in the theater gasped. And I did too, to be polite. You know, I’m kind of upset about this ghost of Spock-mas future thing, because, other than that, I was really congratulating myself on how well I had caught on to the Trekkie Verse. I scribbled “pretty accessible!!” in my notes, at one point.

AH: I also thought this movie was pretty easy to follow for newcomers, though I know there were also a lot of in-jokes and moments that may have made more sense if I was familiar with the mythology.

KW: Yes, I’m sure many Easter eggs rolled by me unnoticed. For every joke that poked fun at something visible (like Spock’s pointy ears), there was some gibberish about the Prime Directive that flew completely over my head.

AH: Oh yeah, I was completely confused by that opening scene. Spock said something along the lines of “You violated the Prime Directive,” and I couldn’t tell if that’s Trek speak, or actual military speak that I should be aware of. And those creatures at the beginning of the movie, with the white bodies and colorful body paint—I think they were these things called Klingons?

KW: No, no, they were a different type of alien! The Klingons (which makes me think of super-futuristic clingy pantyhose) were the red guys with knobs on their faces.

Can we talk about the purpose of the Federation? I sort of assumed it was military in nature, but then it seemed that they were out to “explore and observe.” And some of them were horrified at the prospect of having torpedoes aboard the Enterprise , even though they had guns and shields. Also, they certainly fought like trained soldiers.

AH : Wait, the Federation?

KW : Oh, maybe there is no Federation. I think I meant Starfleet.

AH: One other thing I was confused about was the random alien-like creatures. They were just in the background, they never said anything, but some of them wore Starfleet uniforms, and one looked like a Stegosaurus. Is it like Star Wars , where they all just cohabitate peacefully among one another?

KW: Right! Who was Scotty’s mute pal? I think they must, except for the enemy Empire of the Klingons.

Was there a rhyme or reason to the uniforms? At one point, a character in a yellow shirt was told to put on a red shirt, and that was some form of promotion? (And those poor women onboard, in the pleather miniskirts. Yeesh.)

Back to Mr. Spock for a second: Can he read minds? He was able somehow to feel a dying man’s feelings, and then he seemed to be defending himself against Khan by placing a finger on Khan’s forehead. I could be misremembering that. What are the superpowers of the Vulcans, if any?

AH: He seems to be respected by everyone, but his Vulcan-ness is also a constant source of ribbing and annoyance for everyone. And his inability to feel seemed to be linked to his Vulcan-ness as well, leading to that intense conflict with Zoe Saldana’s character.

KW: Yes, La Guerta. (I’m sure her name isn’t La Guerta, but that’s how I remember it, because Dexter .)

AH: I wonder, presuming Saldana’s character is all human, if they have kids, what will that make the child? Will it inherit any of Spock’s powers? Spock seems to be the only one on the Enterprise who actually has “powers.” Everyone else is just really skilled in whatever they do.

KW: Good question! One-quarter Vulcan, three-quarters human? (Because isn’t Spock half-human?) I was a little frustrated by La Guerta/Saldana though. She—along with the admiral’s daughter—seemed so limited by her role of “eye candy” and “romantic interest.” Did you notice that absurd, protracted butt shot, when she was negotiating with the Klingons? Glad they’re putting the magic of 3-D to good use.

AH: I don’t think any of it, except the opening sequence, needed to be 3-D. And I could see Kirk’s pores as if I were standing on them. Ridiculous! I’ve kind of given up hope a bit when it comes to these action movies and dealings with women, though. In Iron Man 3 (spoiler), the lead female character comes in at the last minute to ultimately vanquish the bad guy. But only after the male hero has already worn him down through a long, arduous fight.

KW:  I would argue that the women of the Marvel universe have more to do than the Trekkie women. I wasn’t sure how useful Saldana’s character was, even at the end.

So one preconception I had about Star Trek was that the franchise is super-cerebral, unlike Star Wars, which is all wars and explosions. I was surprised the film was so action-packed.

AH:  Yeah, you’re right. It felt less science-y than I imagined, too.

KW:  I expecting more lingo—more “raise the shields and activate the di-hydrogenated fusion projectiles.” I guess there was that business about warp speed, which as far as I can tell just means really, really fast.

AH: A final observation—I can see why the relationship between Kirk and Spock is so loved by Trek fans.

At least in this movie, they had a really good rapport.

KW: Absolutely—their warm relationship seemed like the heart of the movie. Even I could understand that.

AH: That being said, while enjoyable, I can’t say I’ll ever be convinced to watch another Star Trek episode or movie. It was a pleasant-enough experience, but Klingons and Khans and future Spocks are just not my cup of tea—though I can see how others can get absorbed into the world easily.

KW: Yes, I’m more likely to trek into the upcoming Superman flick. But as sci-fi and fantasy movies go, I enjoyed this one a lot more than The Hobbit . Katy out.

A volcano eruption on the mad planet

A volcano on Hanon IV

Picard watching a volcano on Earth in an alternate timeline

A volcano on Nibiru in the alternate reality

An artifically created volcano erupting on Corazonia

A volcano was an opening in a planet 's crust , often formed into a mountain , from which molten lava and gases were ejected in what was known as a volcanic eruption . Volcanoes produced igneous rock and pyroclastic flow.

The study of volcanoes was volcanology . ( TNG : " Pen Pals ")

One of sixty-two moons orbiting a specific gas giant had a volcanic terrain. When Commander Charles Tucker III and Arkonian pilot Zho'Kaan crash landed there in 2152 , the fact that the terrain – due to the volcanic activity – was rich in diamagnetic minerals interfered with a distress call from a makeshift transceiver Tucker set up, the minerals preventing the signal from being transmitted. ( ENT : " Dawn ")

In January 2153 , active volcanoes were created on a planet whose orbit had recently shifted, taking it between a pair of gas giants. The volcanoes came about because the gravitational pull of the gas giants caused the core of the other planet to superheat. Starfleet was able to predict the formation of the volcanoes less than a week in advance, also forecasting they would cover the planet. Commander Tucker even reckoned the "geological fireworks ... could be fun." The volcanic activity was observed by his ship, Enterprise NX-01 , using thermal scanners , and six imaging relays which had been deployed by the ship in high orbit of the erupting planet about thirty hours beforehand. Some of the eruptions from the planet got close to Enterprise , so the ship withdrew by 5,000 kilometers. The volcanic activity unearthed multiple microbial lifeforms which had henceforth been living underground, so Enterprise became aware of them for the first time. ( ENT : " Horizon ")

Janus VI had no current volcanic activity as of 2267 . ( TOS : " The Devil in the Dark ")

Ocampa had a range of several extinct volcanoes. ( VOY : " Caretaker ")

Volcanoes on Penthara IV were activated when subterranean pockets of carbon dioxide were opened by a phaser drill . The volcanoes started to erupt and produced large plumes of volcanic dust, threatening to bring another ice age on the planet. ( TNG : " A Matter Of Time ")

Ligos VII was prone to periodic volcanic activity. ( TNG : " Rascals ")

Qo'noS was composed of a subterranean series of volcanoes, with seven vents spread over its surface.( DIS : " The War Without, The War Within ", " Will You Take My Hand? ")

Volcanic vents could supply enough heat to sustain life even on rogue planets . An example of such a world was Dakala . ( ENT : " Rogue Planet ")

In the alternate reality , a supervolcano on Nibiru threatened to destroy all life on the planet, including the indigenous Nibirans . The threat was averted when Spock , wearing an especially heat-resistant environmental suit , activated a cold fusion device in the magma chamber, rendering the volcano inert. ( Star Trek Into Darkness )

In an alternate timeline , Captain Jean-Luc Picard saw an active volcano on Earth in the region of France about 3.5 billion years ago, when Q brought him there. ( TNG : " All Good Things... ")

When Vexilon , the environmental control computer of Corazonia , initiated regenesis of the Dyson ring in 2381 , an erupting volcano formed near a Federation power relay , threatening a USS Cerritos away team led by Lieutenant jg Brad Boimler . ( LD : " In the Cradle of Vexilon ")

• 1 Known volcanoes
• 2.1 Additional references
• 2.2 Background information
• 2.3 External link

Known volcanoes [ ]

• Kri'stak volcano
• Mount Tar'Hana

Appendices [ ]

Additional references [ ].

• VOY : " Basics, Part II "

Background information [ ]

Volcanoes in VOY : " Basics, Part II " were shown with matte paintings . ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 29, No. 6/7, p. 112)

In the writers' second draft script of ENT : " Breaking the Ice ", Reed remembered having once stood on an active volcano in Japan , which had melted his boot soles. He referred to it as "arguably [...] the newest piece of rock out there."

The group tasked with depicting the volcano in Star Trek Into Darkness obviously had to find a way to do so without subjecting Spock actor Zachary Quinto to the harsh conditions of an actual volcano. ( Star Trek Magazine  issue 172 , p. 48) A concept illustration of the volcano can be viewed here . Precisely how the volcano sequence would be filmed was the subject of some early discussions between Visual Effects Supervisor Roger Guyett and Cinematographer Dan Mindel . They opted against shooting the sequence indoors, Mindel then deciding that the necessary live-action footage would be captured on a night shoot. [1] Director J.J. Abrams was also involved in choosing which elements would come together to form the sequence. " As with everything J.J. does, he wanted this to look as realistic as possible, " reflected Pyro Foreperson William Aldridge , " and he wanted a good mix of practical and CG effects. " ( Star Trek Magazine  issue 174 , p. 80)

Part of the volcano in Star Trek Into Darkness was built as a physical set, outdoors in Marina del Rey, California. [2] The set was comprised of an eighty-foot-long set of volcanic rocks backed by green-screen and was located on the Playa Vista lot. ( Cinefex , No. 134, p. 78) Despite the fabricated nature of the set, the production team endeavored, for Zachary Quinto's benefit, to give the environment a realistic ambiance and a sense of feasibility, using such elements as heat, light sources and smoke to provide interaction. Related Roger Guyett, " You weren't standing on a green rock, you were standing on a textured surface and you had smoke and stuff was blowing through. " [3]

The production crew filmed the volcano sequence at night. ( Cinefex , No. 134, p. 78) Dan Mindel remarked, " We shot it all at night so we could control the lights and manipulate it so that the steam that we were making would block out the sun and give us a lot of texture. All the sparks and fire is real. " [4] The team used fire-bars and ember-generators to create the on-set pyrotechnics. ( Cinefex , No. 134, p. 78) " We had a lot of fire, and a lot of fireballs, shooting 30 feet up into the sky [....] There is something very rewarding about going to work and creating a 30-foot fireball, " William Aldridge remarked, laughing. ( Star Trek Magazine  issue 174 , p. 80) To produce the sparks, the creative staff adopted one of the oldest special effects in Hollywood, which used to commonly be employed to make campfire sparks in movies set in the Wild West; the group used a Venturi air system to inject particulate – which, to generate the sparks, had to be ground-up, organic material – into an extremely hot flame, resulting in the airflow creating embers that flew into the sky. " We went to a commercial supplier and bought very fine ground charcoal, made from burnt coconut shells, " remembered Special Effects Supervisor Burt Dalton . " We placed about a dozen blower motors around the set, with two or three weed burners per source to create heat. Then we installed Venturi devices, injected the ground charcoal into the airflow, which ignited the product, and the high-pressure airflow jettisoned massive amounts of embers into the sky. " ( Cinefex , No. 134, p. 78) William Aldridge enthusiastically recalled, " We built these really nice spark machines. They were very cool [....] We [...] built a spark machine that expelled this coconut charcoal. We put that in these little air movers and propelled it through jets of fire, so it would look like volcanic ash and substance. It was crazy to see all of that shooting around the set but, man, it looked incredible. " Aldridge was highly approving of the use of the volcano in general, describing it as "a great sequence." ( Star Trek Magazine  issue 174 , p. 80)

The full effect of the volcano relied, of course, on visual effects, courtesy of the film's VFX team. In fact, apart from the live-action footage, Roger Guyett wanted additional aspects of the volcano to be achieved with an entirely CGI approach. This was influenced by having worked on a tricky volcano sequence in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith , set on the fiery planet Mustafar and incorporating practical, miniature and digital work. Under Guyett's supervision, Industrial Light & Magic supplied digital backgrounds, lava simulations, embers, and additional smoke for the Nibiran volcano. [5] The company used a three-dimensional model of Spock's volcano suit to reflect environment projections of the vast lava-filled cavern. The visual effects artists also generated a flat plane of the environment in CGI, before digitally mapping the volcano's churning contents. Fragmenting crust – floating on the surface of the lava and layered with heat distortions – as well as magma eruptions were all depicted in lava simulations which involved approximately forty render passes. " Roger then guided us to place explosions and geysers, " continued CG Simulation Supervisor Dan Pearson . " We generated smoke by exporting particles from the sim and loaded those elements into our Zeno animation pipeline so we could see the effects interacting with the environment. " ( Cinefex , No. 134, pp. 78 & 81) Noted Guyett, " The guys worked very hard to capture the volatile nature of the lava, along with all the extra details, like the embers. " Guyett went on to say that, because Nibiru was conceived as a different planet than Earth, " It didn't have to be completely based on the physics of our world. We could push some of the boundaries a little bit. " ( Star Trek Magazine  issue 172 , p. 48)

External link [ ]

• Volcano at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• Volcano at Wikipedia
• 1 Daniels (Crewman)

Screen Rant

After star trek iii, spock’s mind was saved by…his mirror universe counterpart.

Your changes have been saved

Email Is sent

Please verify your email address.

You’ve reached your account maximum for followed topics.

Every Star Trek Series Finale Ranked Worst To Best

I forgot about captain picard day, but so did star trek, star trek confirms nog's post-dominion war fate.

• Mirror Universe Spock played a crucial role in restoring the mind of Prime Spock in Star Trek #12, benefitting both versions in a surprising turn of events.
• Leonard Nimoy almost left Star Trek due to exhaustion with Spock, but changed his mind at the last minute, leading to Spock's resurrection and continued recovery in subsequent films.
• The mind meld between Mirror Spock and Prime Spock in Star Trek #12 not only healed Spock, but also led to Mirror Spock's defection, ultimately saving the galaxy from invasion.

Spock returned to life in the third Star Trek feature film thanks to the effects of the Genesis Device, but his mind was restored by his Mirror Universe counterpart. Although Spock returned to life at the end of The Search for Spock , his mind was still in disarray, but as revealed in 1985’s Star Trek #12, his goateed Mirror Universe variant played a vital role in bringing Spock back to form.

Star Trek #12, first published by DC Comics, was written by Mike Barr and drawn by Tom Sutton and Ricardo Villagran. The Enterprise crew’s Mirror Universe counterparts have staged an invasion of the Federation . Mirror Spock seeks the Genesis Device, and travels to Vulcan to mind-meld with Prime Spock. Prime Spock’s brain patterns are still in chaos. Mirror Spock initiates the mind meld, and the Prime version uses it to return his brain patterns to normalcy.

In exchange, the Mirror Spock is “healed” and agrees to fight against the Empire and the Mirror Universe Kirk.

Mister Spock Almost Left Star Trek For Good

Spock's mind and body were rejoined--but there was still much work to do.

Leonard Nimoy, who had brought Spock to life, was growing tired of the character, and, according to legend, asked to have him killed off in Star Trek II:The Wrath of Khan . However, Nimoy changed his mind at the last minute, and thus the writers wrote an “in” to bring Spock back. They followed up on it in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock . The Genesis Device helped restore Spock’s body to life, but his soul, or “katra,” was stuck in Doctor McCoy. Spock’s mind and body are rejoined at the end of the movie.

Despite Spock being restored to life, the film made clear that there would still be a long road to recovery for him. When fans see him again in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Spock is still re-learning much of what he knew. However, Spock is sharp and mentally aware, a far cry from where he was previously. Star Trek #12 fills in the gaps, and does so in a clever and creative way. Fans had been clamoring for the return of the Mirror Universe, and its Spock variant, since their first appearances.

Mirror Spock Is The Star Trek Universe's Most Unlikely Savior

Mirror spock helped more than just spock heal.

It is ironic that Mirror Spock, who came to the Prime Star Trek universe to specifically destroy its Spock, would be the final piece of the puzzle. The mind meld between the two was a win-win situation: not only did it give Prime Spock a spark of life again, but also helped Mirror Spock move beyond the conditioning the Empire had given him. Mirror Spock’s defection helped turn the tide of the invasion, and sent the Mirror Universe invasion fleet packing. In doing the mind-meld, Spock saved not only himself, but the galaxy as well.

• More to Explore
• Series & Movies

Published May 2, 2013

Hasbro's KRE-O Star Trek Building Sets Available NOW

It’s time to beam on over to your favorite toy store or online retailer, because Hasbro’s KRE-O Star Trek Construction Sets - based on Star Trek Into Darkness - are available now. There’s something for everyone, from the Enterprise to the volcano Spock descends into, and from a transporter to a Klingon Bird-of-Prey. StarTrek.com , below, has photos and product details. KRE-O Star Trek U.S.S. Enterprise Construction Set

Use the 432 pieces to build a U.S.S. Enterprise ship that your 5 Kreon figures can "fly." Lift off the top saucer to put your Captain Kirk, Spock and Dr. McCoy Kreon figures on the bridge! This incredible set features Lighttech technology, so the deflector dish and engines glow for extra-amazing Star Trek action! Open the engine cowlings and fire the ship's missile as it blasts through "outer space." Boldly build what you haven't built before with the U.S.S. Enterprise construction set! (Includes Kirk, Spock and McCoy, as well as two Specialist Kreon figures) KRE-O Star Trek Klingon Bird-of-Prey Construction Set

Use the 236 pieces to build a Klingon Bird-of-Prey ship that your 2 Klingon Kreon figures can "fly." Will your Captain Kirk and Uhura Kreon figures be taken hostage by their Klingon enemies? This incredible set features Lighttech technology, so the ship’s cockpit not only opens but glows for extra-amazing Star Trek action! Position the wings and fire the ship’s missiles as it blasts through "outer space." Boldly build what you haven’t built before with the Klingon Bird-of-Prey construction set! (Kit includes four Kreon mini-figures and authentic movie detail. Captain Kirk, Uhura, and two Klingon figures are included) KRE-O Star Trek Spock's Volcano Mission Construction Set

Use the 141 pieces to build a volcano and a ship that your Sulu Kreon figure can "fly." The ship’s Lighttech technology makes the cockpit and bottom hatch glow for extra-amazing Star Trek action! The hatch opens and dangles a zipline so your Spock Kreon figure can lower himself into the "erupting" volcano. Boldly build what you haven’t built before with the Spock’s Volcano Mission construction set! (Sulu and Spock figures are included) KRE-O Star Trek Transporter Trouble Construction Set

Use the 65 pieces to build a transporter for your Scotty Kreon figure to transport your Klingon Kreon figure away. The transporter’s Lighttech technology makes parts of the transporter glow for extra-amazing Star Trek action! Boldly build what you haven’t built before with the Transporter Trouble construction set! (Kit includes two Kreon mini-figures and authentic movie detail. Klingon and Scotty figures are included) KRE-O Star Trek Space Dive Construction Set

Use the 36 pieces to build a ship for your Federation Special Ops Kreon figure to "fly." The ship’s Lighttech technology makes parts of it glow for extra-amazing Star Trek action! Fire the ship’s missile and open the airlock doors so your Captain Kirk Kreon figure can do a space dive in "outer space." Boldly build what you haven’t built before with the Space Dive construction set!  (Kit includes two Kreon mini-figures and authentic movie detail) KRE-O Star Trek Kreon Figure Blind Pack Collection 1

The headline says it all. Order this and you’ll receive on Star Trek Kreon figure, though you won’t know which one until you open the package!

KRE-O Star Trek U.S.S. Enterprise Construction Set

Use the 39 pieces to build a U.S.S. Enterprise spaceship. This incredible set features Lighttech technology, so parts of the ship glow for extra-amazing Star Trek action! Boldly build what you haven’t built before with the U.S.S. Enterprise construction set! KRE-O Star Trek Klingon D7 Battle Cruiser Construction Set

Use the 39 pieces to build a Klingon D7 Battle Cruiser spaceship. This incredible set features Lighttech technology, so parts of the ship glow for extra-amazing Star Trek action! Boldly build what you haven’t built before with the Klingon D7 Battle Cruiser construction set! KRE-O Star Trek U.S.S. Kelvin Construction Set

Use the 34 pieces to build a U.S.S. Kelvin spaceship. This incredible set features Lighttech technology, so parts of the ship glow for extra-amazing Star Trek action! Boldly build what you haven’t built before with the U.S.S. Kelvin construction set! KRE-O Star Trek Jellyfish Construction Set

Use the 42 pieces to build a Jellyfish spaceship. This incredible set features Lighttech technology, so parts of the ship glow for extra-amazing Star Trek

Get Updates By Email

A Famous Star Trek World Is Actually A Fancy Galactic Illusion

What astronomers thought might have been a planet in the exact location of Spock’s homeworld was actually an illusion all along.

Once upon a time, there was a real-life planet right where Star Trek put its fictional world of Vulcan — or so we thought.

Astronomers announced in 2018 that they’d discovered a planet orbiting nearby star 40 Eridani A, the fictional homeworld of Star Trek ’s Spock and Project Hail Mary ’s Rocky. They couldn’t see the planet, because it didn’t cross in front of its star at an angle visible from Earth; instead, they based their conclusions on what’s called radial velocity : the way 40 Eridani A’s light shifted, as if the star were wobbling under the faint but insistent gravitational tug of an orbiting planet. But according to a recent study, what looked like a planet at first glance turns out to be just an optical illusion created by starspots.

Astronomer Abigail Burrows, formerly of Dartmouth College, and her colleagues published their work in The Astronomical Journal .

This artist’s illustration shows what Vulcan might have looked like if it had been a real planet.

The Planet that Never Was

By breaking the light from 40 Eridani into the individual wavelengths that make it up, Burrows and her colleagues realized that the star wasn’t wobbling back and forth en masse. Instead, some patches of the star’s surface are hotter and colder than average, so they shine in different wavelengths of light. As the star rotates, those patches move in and out of view, creating the illusion that the star itself is wobbling — sort of like a flipbook animation.

We think of planets as orbiting stars — but actually, a planet and its star orbit a shared center of gravity. Because stars are thousands of times more massive than planets, the center of gravity ends up much, much closer to the star’s center than to the planet. It’s often somewhere inside the star, so the star doesn’t really orbit so much as wobble around it (picture how a person’s hips move when they’re hula-hooping, then imagine that person is actually a giant burning ball of gas). Astronomers can often see that wobble from Earth: Evidence that a star has a planet, even if we can’t see the planet itself.

This illustration from NASA explains how Doppler shift can make approaching light appear bluer and receding light appear redder.

That’s thanks to the Doppler Effect, which means that as a shining object moves toward us, the light it emits is squashed into shorter waves, which look bluer; as the object moves away, the wavelengths of its light stretch, so they look redder. Back in 2018, astronomers looking at 40 Eridani A noticed that its light turned bluer, then redder, about every 42 days, as if the star was hula-hooping under the subtle influence of an unseen planet.

Science fiction fans rejoiced, since 40 Eridani A is the home system of Star Trek ’s Vulcans , as well as Project Hail Mary ’s Eridians. The planet, formally called HD 26965 b, or 40 Eridani A b, depending on which stellar catalog you’re using, quickly got the nickname Vulcan. Based on the speed and size of the star’s wobbling, astronomers calculated that Vulcan is a planet about 8 or 9 times more massive than Earth, which orbits its star every 42 days. That would make it a steamy world a little more than half the mass of Neptune.

There’s just one problem: It doesn’t exist.

The planet Vulcan just disappeared like an Enterprise crew in the transporter, if that crew had never actually been there in the first place.

“ Messy Stellar Jitters Masquerading As a Planet”

A star’s light is made up of a whole spectrum of colors, including some with wavelengths too short or too long for human eyes to see. If 40 Eridani A really were hula-hooping in time with a planet like Vulcan, all of those colors would shift toward red or blue at the same time, and by the same amount. But when Burrows and her colleagues used an instrument called a spectrometer to split the star’s light into all of its individual wavelengths, they realized that wasn’t the case for 40 Eridani A.

The star emits different wavelengths of light from different layers of its photosphere (the outer layer of a star that light actually comes from). And each of those layers seemed to be shifting differently than the others. In other words, the whole star isn’t wobbling, but something is happening inside it, just beneath the surface.

According to Burrows and her colleagues, the most likely culprit is a patch of sunspots: cooler, darker patches on the star’s surface, surrounded by hotter, brighter areas called plages. As those bright and dark patches rotate in and out of view every 42 days, they create the illusion of a star wobbling slightly as a planet circles it. As Burrows put it in a recent statement, Vulcan was “messy stellar jitters masquerading as a planet” all along.

This isn’t the first time a planet has turned out to be an illusion; in 2014, two planets orbiting a star 20 light years away — Gliese 581d and Gliese 581g — turned out not to exist, either.

• Space Science

Planet thought to be like Spock’s Vulcan is an astronomical illusion

A planet thought to be similar to Star Trek character Spock ’s fictional home planet Vulcan is an astronomical illusion caused by the pulses and jitters of a star, a new study has found.

The discovery of a planet orbiting the star 40 Eridani A, made famous by Star Trek , drew excitement when it was first announced in 2018.

But new measurements using a Nasa instrument installed on Arizona’s Kitt Peak a few years ago have led to the conclusion that the planet does not exist.

In fact, even the study which noted the existence of planet Vulcan had cautioned that it could be messy jitters from the star masquerading as a planet.

The new research, described in The Astronomical Journal , used highly precise measurements of radial velocity, not yet available in 2018, to confirm that the caution about the discovery was justified.

Radial velocity instruments rely on the Doppler effect whereby shifts in the light spectrum of a star can reveal its wobbling motions.

Astronomers tracked small shifts in light from 40 Eridani A and measured how it “wobbled” as the gravity of an orbiting planet tugged at it.

After analysing the data, they came to the conclusion that the “planet” signal that was previously detected may have been the flickering of the star’s surface.

The signals previously recorded were likely the roiling of hotter and cooler layers beneath the star’s surface, called convection, combined with the star’s surface features similar to sunspots.

This robs star 40 Eridani A of its possible planet Vulcan, at least for now.

From news to politics, travel to sport, culture to climate – The Independent has a host of free newsletters to suit your interests. To find the stories you want to read, and more, in your inbox, click here .