25 Things You Didn't Know About the Making of "Star Trek Into Darkness"

A few facts to impress your Trekkie friends.

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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Star Trek Into Darkness is the most anticipated blockbuster of the season. Between the expected hysteria from the franchise's cult following to the hype generated by the mere presence of director J.J. Abrams, the film has been utterly ubiquitous for the past few months.

However, despite all the media attention, there are still some fun facts the eager audience members don't know about the surefire hit. Which is why we bring you: 25 Things You Didn't Know About the Making of Star Trek Into Darkness.

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The film's composer Michael Giacchino snuck in music from the TV show after a fan tweeted him, "Can you please use one of the themes from one of the old series in the new movie?"

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According to costume designer Michael Kaplan, Alice Eve was deliberately shot in her underwear. Kaplan explained, "Last time, Zoe needed to wear underwear, and this time it was Alice Eve's turn. You know, it's a rather large male fanbase, and J.J. wanted to appeal to that."

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To perfect Spock's Vulcan eyebrows, the makeup team would shave Zachary Quinto's eyebrows off and plug in indvidual hairs.

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Sick of repeating the same things over and over, J.J. Abrams challenged the cast to say each one of the 50 ridiculous words on the vocabularly list he specifically created for the press day. Zachary Quinto used the the most.

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Each of the film's international trailers has a hidden bit.ly link that led to that country's specialized Star Trek Into Darkness poster.

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When it came to the look of "future Earth," set designers tried to make it look like a natural evolution of a city's growth.

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According to Zoe Saldana, J.J. Abrams had magicians, beatboxers, and other performers come on set to entertain the cast and crew.

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With the help of the props department, Simon Pegg tricked Benedict Cumberbatch into thinking that there was an "ambient radiation" on set and that he had to apply neutron cream. Convinced, Cumberbatch even blamed a bad take on the "ions in the air."

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Edgar Wright filmed one shot of the movie.

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There's no colon in the title because, according to Damon Lindelof, "Everything people are turned off about when it comes to Trek is represented by that colon."

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When advanced tickets went on sale in the UK, London's IMAX website crashed due to customer demand.

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Christopher Doohan, the son of the original Montgomery Scott, makes a cameo as a Transport Officer alongside the current Scotty, Simon Pegg.

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John Harrison gives James T. Kirk the space coordinates 23174611, which are the same coordinates from the Star Trek series episode "Space Seed."

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The movie's Delta Vega scenes were shot in Iceland, which made it the first time any Star Trek shots were filmed outside of the U.S.

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The screenwriters turned to sci-fi novels by Arthur C. Clarke and Larry Niven for inspiration.

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Michael Dorn, who had played the Klingon Starfleet Lieutenant Worf, was asked to make a cameo in the movie, but the filmmakers decided to cut him out because "they didn't want to mix the old with the new."

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On an e-mail thread about the final title for the movie, the film's screenwriter Damon Lindelof joked that he preferred Star Trek: Transformers 4 best.

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RoboCop's Peter Weller has been in two Star Trek features. The first as John Frederick Paxton in Star Trek: Enterprise and the second as Admiral Marcus in Star Trek Into Darkness.

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Star Trek Into Darkness is the first movie in history to be filmed in IMAX format and then converted into 3D in post-production.

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Benicio Del Toro was in talks for the role of John Harrison, but dropped out because of monetary issues. Demián Bichir, Édgar Ramírez and Jordi Mollà were also considered, but it eventually went to Benedict Cumberbatch.

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Hayley Atwell and Teresa Palmer auditioned for the role of Carol Marcus. It went to Alice Eve.

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According to J.J. Abrams, the time travel-alternate reality concept used in the first movie was meant to provide a clear path to rebooting the franchise: "The idea, now that we are in an independent timeline, allows us to use any of the ingredients from the past, or come up with brand-new ones, to make potential stories."

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For the plot of the sequel, the film's screenwriters, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, explained that they had to decide whether to introduce another villain, or to have an "exploration sci-fi plot where the unknown and nature itself is somehow an adversary."

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Steven Spielberg, who directed Benedict Cumberbatch in War Horse, recommended the British actor to his Super 8 co-producer J.J. Abrams.

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Benedict Cumberbatch filmed his screen test in his best friend's kitchen on an iPhone.

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