First off, the general consensus seems to be a very positive one, and I haven't heard from anyone who wasn't thoroughly impressed by what they saw. By all accounts the 3D/IMAX experience went over very well, and there was a surprisingly light tone to the footage screened, as Abrams wanted to assure fans that there would still be a sense of fun to the film despite the title, and the pretty gloomy announcement teaser we saw the other day. Another thing to note is that the identity of Benedict Cumberbatch's villain is still unknown, despite appearing in the prologue and actually being asked outright who he is by another character. Anyway, the most revealing breakdown I've seen came from the guys at Cinemablend, so have a look at what they had to say..
"The first half of the footage begins with Noel Clarke and Kayla Hassan as parents visiting their sick child – who appears to be losing her hair – in the hospital. We see Cumberbatch come up from behind Clarke while he is standing on a terrace grieving and the mystery man says, “I can save her. I can save your daughter.” As an extra tease, Clarke actually asks Cumberbatch who he is, but instead of getting an answer we just get a slow zoom on the Sherlock actor’s face. So we know that his character has some kind of healing ability – whether he’s a doctor or it’s something supernatural – but we remain in the dark about his actual name.
That part takes up all of two minutes, leaving the rest of the footage to focus on the crew of the Enterprise – Abrams’ really living up to his word in that respect. As seen in the trailer that was released this past week, Kirk (Chris Pine) and Bones (Karl Urban) are down on a strange planet with weird red plants running for their life while Uhura (Zoe Saldana), Sulu (John Cho) and Spock (Zachary Quinto) are flying around on a hovercraft somewhere else on the same world dealing with an erupting volcano that threatens to destroy everything on the planet (this also happens to be the scene where Spock is wearing the volcano suit that we got to see not only in on-set photos but also the three-frame clip that Abrams brought to Conan last month). It’s an interesting way to re-introduce the characters, as they are seemingly three-quarters through a mission we know very little about, but it’s definitely thrilling and by the end the stakes are so high that you become immediately engaged with what’s going on."
Thoughts? We don't know if this footage will be officially released anytime soon, but we can expect a full trailer for the movie this week.