Star Trek Into Darkness Gets Updated Official Synopsis

The folks over at Trek Movie have noticed a tweak to the official synopsis available from Paramount Pictures for their upcoming J.J. Abrams-directed sequel, Star Trek Into Darkness.The new synopsis reads:

 In Summer 2013, director J.J. Abrams will deliver an explosive action thriller that takes Star Trek Into Darkness.

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 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.

The original synopsis was a bit different. Check it out here:

In Summer 2013, pioneering director J.J. Abrams will deliver an explosive action thriller that takesStar Trek Into Darkness.When the crew of the Enterprise is called back home, they find an unstoppable force of terror from within their own organization has detonated the fleet and everything it stands for, leaving our world in a state of crisis.With a personal score to settle, Captain Kirk leads a manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one man weapon of mass destruction.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.Star Trek Into Darkness, starring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, John Cho, Bruce Greenwood, Simon Pegg, Anton Yelchin, Benedict Cumberbatch, Alice Eve and Peter Weller, arrives on May 17th, 2013.

That’s a bit more text, isn’t it? Not necessarily more information, though. There’s a bit of combining and some tweaks to the language that actually tell us a bit more about the movie this second time around.Rather than us reiterate the same points and call it original, we’ll quote Trek Movie on the differences:

• Added how Kirk is “In defiance to regulations…” (But hey, what else is new for Kirk? In any timeline/universe)
• Now specifies “called back home to Earth“
• Timeline of how the crew is called back was changed from “when crew of the Enterprise is called back, they find…” to “in the wake of a shocking act of terror from within…” which implies that the Enterprise is called back after (and possibly because) some kind of terrorist attack. Presumably the crew is called back following their mission on Niburu (featured in the first 9 minutes of the film which can currently be seen with special IMAX previews with The Hobbit)
• Removed description of how the act of terror “detonated the fleet and everything it stands for, leaving our world in a state of crisis” (possibly for brevity and/or clarity)
• Removed description (presumably of the villain John Harrison) as a “one man weapon of mass destruction” (again possibly for brevity and/or clarity)
• Changed “unstoppable force of terror” to “unstoppable force of destruction” (possibly to limit number of times “terror” is used)
• Removed reference to manhunt leading to a “war-zone world” (last week’s Bad Robot visit identified the Klingon home world Qo’noS as the location of the fight scenes with Harrison, Klingons and Kirk, so this could be the world mentioned in the original synopsis)
• Added “bring those responsible to justice” to Kirk’s mission. Note it says “those” implying John Harrison is not acting alone

As they note in their take, much of this is likely for clarity, and/or for brevity, which is its own virtue considering that the hardcore fans and the fan press treat these summaries as news in and of itself, it comes out of the PR office and is intended for moviegoers and reporters who know little or nothing about the movie.