The past two weeks have brought us a veritable bonanza of Star Trek Into Darkness promotional material since Paramount Pictures officially set the film’s marketing campaign to warp 9, starting off with the release of a killer teaser poster. A few days later a minute-long announcement trailer hit the web. This past weekend a 9-minute preview begin showing in front of IMAX 3D screenings of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey while standard 2D and 3D screenings of Peter Jackson’s latest fantasy epic got a snazzy new trailer that features even more footage from one of 2013’s most anticipated tentpole blockbusters. Today that trailer has surfaced online courtesy of iTunes.

You can watch the trailer here below.

Yesterday we reported that Benedict Cumberbatch‘s role in Star Trek Into Darkness had been revealed as John Harrison by Paramount Pictures via the release of a new official still, a revelation that revealed next to nothing about his actual character. Thus the fan speculation continued: he’s really playing Khan….or Gary Mitchell….or Spock’s brother Sybok….and so on and and so on….

Early reports from screenings of the 9-minute preview of the film that will begin playing this weekend before select IMAX 3D screening of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (full list of IMAX theaters here) have claimed that a selection of Michael Giacchino‘s score for Into Darkness quotes from music composed by James Horner for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, particularly the theme for the movie’s titular villain (played in the 1982 movie and the original series episode “Space Seed” by the late Ricardo Montalban). Today comes the news, courtesy of Silas Lesnick at Coming Soon, that the new character being played by Alice Eve has been confirmed, and it is a name fans of the Star Trek franchise will be very familiar with.

Spock may not think the merging of Shatner and Metal to be a logical one — but at this point in 2011, William Shatner is becoming more metal than ever. And even at his age of 80, there seems to be no stopping the once Captain of the USS Enterprise, for this year he will be releasing a metal album, as we reported on several weeks ago. To acknowledge his efforts not only towards his current album project, entitled Seeking Major Tom, but also for his entire epic career, William Shatner will next month be awarded the Honorary Headbanger Award at the annual Revolver Awards.

The Revolver Golden Gods is an awards ceremony to recognize all metal, held every year. The Honorary Headbanger Award is handed out to someone who is not necessarily seen as being in the metal community, but embodies the spirit of metal. With his upcoming album featuring collaborative efforts with numerous metal artists, and his long career in Star Trek and acting in other roles over the years, Shatner is an artist of determination who continually breaks down the doors of what people think he should do (or if people just think it to be… odd).

Kevin David Anderson, author of Night Of The Living Trekkies, sent us a fun greeting for St. Patrick’s Day which mashes up the evil Leprechaun from the Leprechaun horror movies, with Star Trek‘s beloved Captain James T. Kirk in “Leprekhhhaaaaaan!!!”

If you don’t get this reference, I implore you to immediately watch one of the greatest movies ever, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

Happy St. Patty’s Day, everyone!

Space Shuttle Discovery is finishing up its final mission, a 13-day visit to the International Space Station. The ship will make its final landing at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Friday after which it will be retired. For those of us who have grown up with Discovery, it’s a little sad to see it retire.

Each morning, a special song usually picked by their families awakens the astronauts on board. For this last mission NASA decided to hold an online contest to allow fans to pick the songs. Nearly 2.5 million votes were cast between August 20, 2010 and November 1, 2010 Alexander Courage‘s theme song to the original Star Trek television series was the second most popular song of the ones available getting 671,133 votes or 27.2% of the total votes.

Amazon is offering up Star Trek VII: Generations for purchase for only $3.99 through their Video On Demand service.

This digital deal is only for today, Thursday, October 14 until midnight PST, so grab it while you can. The digital version is regularly $9.99, and the 24-hour rental is $2.99.

Visit the Star Trek VII: Generations product page to purchase the film.

Released in 1994, Generations is the seventh film in the Star Trek franchise and was an effort to bring together the original members of the Enterprise crew, including James T. Kirk (William Shatner) with the full cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation, captained by Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart). While not brilliantly executed, the film but it does have a few elements worth watching for like the android Data getting an emotion chip, and the two captains meeting up to battle a new foe (Dr. Soran played by Malcolm McDowell). There’s also something that happens in this movie that has and still does anger fans.

Synopsis: Capt. Picard, with the help of supposedly dead Capt. Kirk, must stop a madman willing to murder on a planetary scale in order to enter a space matrix.

Amazon is offering up Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home for purchase for only $3.99 through their Video On Demand service.

This digital deal is only for today, Thursday, September 23, beginning at midnight PST and runs for 24 hours, so grab it while you can. The digital version is regularly $9.99, and the 24-hour rental is $2.99.

Visit the Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home product page to purchase the film.

Released in 1986, in this fourth film in the franchise, which was directed by Leonard Nimoy (who also stars as Spock), James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and the crew of the Enterprise go back in time to the year 1986 in an effort to save the Earth! People, there be whales in this movie!

To save Earth from an alien probe, Kirk and his crew go back in time to retrieve the only beings who can communicate with it, humpback whales.

It is with great pleasure that I notify all of you Neflix users that several Star Trek movies have been added today to Netflix Instant!

Right now, the following movies are up at Netflix Instant, so if you’re already a subscriber, head on over and watch! If you’re not a subscriber, now would be the time to join. I joined recently just so that I could watch all the Instant movies — totally worth the $9 a month.

Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan
Star Trek III: The Search For Spock
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
Star Trek VIII: First Contact

Also, Star Trek VII: Generations is available to watch for FREE in the United States over at Hulu (no sign-up required for this viewing). You can watch it in full right here below.

If you’re not familiar with these Star Trek movies [*gasp*], let me quickly break it down for you…

A few months ago, William Shatner made an appearance on The Tonight Show to recite Sarah Palin’s tweets after the Alaska governor’s resignation.

Now, for the past two evenings, Shatner returned to the late night talk show to poetically recite the tweets of Levi Johnston, Palin’s teenager daughter’s baby daddy. In last night’s episode, host Conan O’Brien revealed that the first set of tweets was actually from Levi “imposter” account, therefore Shatner was brought back on to do a set of Levi’s quote that were verified.

Check out the videos here below of Shatner, accompanied by bass and bongos.

Also on the Shatner front, the actor best known as Captain James T. Kirk of Star Trek fame, unveiled his new Captain Kirk wax figure at Madame Tussaud’s on Hollywood Blvd in California on November 4, 2009. Check out the video of the event here below.

The figure is of the Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan Admiral Kirk character, which, according to a source obtained by Trek Movie, was the preference of CBS Paramount. Visit TrekMovie to view more pictures and read more details from the event.

Imagine that the world of Star Trek was real and was where we all lived. Naturally, in this crazy high-technology world, advertisements would be produced and shown to market various products. Thankfully, now we know what one might look like: someone decided to put together a little Mentos commercial starring a one Captain James T. Kirk in one of his epic alien battles.

Either that, or maybe William Shatner is still just a little on the bitter side about not having a part in the current king of the box office: J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek.

I only saw this video for the first time earlier yesterday on Attack of the Show, but when I went to get the video on YouTube, it appeared to have been uploaded two years ago. So while this may be old news to some of you, it will be one of those “If I haven’t seen it, then it’s new to me!” deals.

Click over to the other side to check it out.