In the opening scene of Star Trek Into Darkness, Spock almost gets baked alive as he ventures into the maw of a volcano that's about to erupt on planet Nibiru. Perched on a giant crag and surrounded by sheets of ember and flame, the famed Vulcan-Human hybrid at one point seems resigned to his fate, stretching his arms out wide as he looks skyward.
"All of the stuff that took place in the volcano was one night, and it was pretty exciting, actually, I have to say, because you could tell how incredible it's going to look," Spock's Zachary Quinto says about the shooting of the scene in an exclusive behind-the-scenes clip unveiled today by Rolling Stone. "What they were able to do in-camera on that particular sequence was mind-blowing to me."
Star Trek Into Darkness will be released on Blu-ray, Blu-ray 3D, DVD and On Demand on September 10 (a digital release comes out on August 20), and the Blu-ray/DVD combo packs come with a lot of behind the scenes footage. In fact, director J.J. Abrams had his crew at his Bad Robot Productions chronicle the making of the film using top-notch Red Epic cameras.
Aside from this clip, other goodies include a behind-the-scenes look at villain Khan's calamitous ambush on Starfleet Headquarters; commentary from Quinto and actor Benedict Cumberbatch – who played Khan – about their epic fight scene at the end of the movie; and insights into how the filmmakers revamped those historic Star Trek antagonists, the Klingons, and created their home planet, Kronos.
The film was shot in California, and in this exclusive clip, a Spock stunt double looks to be in safe hands as he descends on a cable to the top of a flame-spewing cliff built on wood supports in a sound studio. Still, apparently it felt quite realistic to be there. Asked what the experience was like, he says with a chuckle, "It felt like falling into a volcano at high speed."
