Star Trek Into Darkness is finally out across UK cinemas this weekend, and to mark the occasion Digital Spy sat down to discuss the finer details of JJ Abrams's eagerly-awaited blockbuster.

Movies editor Simon Reynolds, entertainment reporter Emma Dibdin and movies contributor Ben Rawson-Jones beamed down from the bridge of the Enterprise (the latter pair even dressing for the occasion!) to go over the hot talking points surrounding the Star Trek sequel.

What a fantastic week for new movie trailers - we've seen Oprah Winfrey come back to acting in The Butler, George Clooney and Sandra Bullock get lost in space for Gravity, and an all-star British cast reunite for The World's End.

Digital Spy looks at the top five trailers from the past week below...

The World's End trailer: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost embark on pub crawl
This is the first trailer released from The World's End, the final instalment in the Three Flavours Cornetto series and long-awaited reunion between Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Edgar Wright. The film follows five mates trying to complete a pub crawl they couldn't finish 20 years ago - 12 pints each in 12 pubs. The movie also stars Rosamund Pike, Martin Freeman and Rafe Spall, and will be released on July 19.

The campaign for JJ Abrams' Star Trek Into Darkness has leaned so heavily on Benedict Cumberbatch's mysterious villain John Harrison that it's easy to forget he's still largely unknown in the US.

But while Trek fever will have died down by autumn, Cumberbatch fever is unlikely to follow suit: he's got a spectacularly awards-baiting trio lined up with Julian Assange biopic The Fifth Estate, Steven McQueen's Twelve Years A Slave and Meryl Streep/George Clooney drama August: Osage County.

With that bright future in mind, Digital Spy takes a look back over Cumberbatch's five most memorable roles to date.

Hawking (2004)
Cumberbatch earned his first BAFTA nomination for playing physicist Stephen Hawking in the BBC's bio-drama, which begins with Hawking's diagnosis with motor neurone disease at the age of 21 and follows him throughout his doctoral years at Cambridge. It's a remarkably physical performance from Cumberbatch, who tracks Hawking's gradual deterioration in painstaking detail without making the mistake of getting bogged down in tics. While Peter Moffat's script seems at times to be taking dramatic shortcuts, this is nonetheless a moving dramatisation and stands out as Cumberbatch's first really significant turn.

When Leonard Nimoy raised his hand, parted his fingers and uttered the words "live long and prosper" in Star Trek's 1967 episode 'Amok Time', few could have predicted that the Vulcan salute would go on to become one of sci-fi's most iconic images.

The gesture requires a bit of dexterity - something even William Shatner struggles with - but that hasn't stopped a host of famous faces from replicating Spock's greeting.

From US President Barack Obama to Reese Witherspoon and Stephen Fry, Digital Spy takes a look back through our picture archives to see which famous faces are proud Trekkies.

> 'Star Trek Into Darkness' premiere interviews: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto
> 'Star Trek Into Darkness' cast gather at London premiere
> Digital Spy's 'Star Trek Into Darkness' review

Photo gallery - Celebrities do the Vulcan salute:

Star Trek Into Darkness opens in UK cinemas on May 9.

Looking back on the varied career of action hero and go-to romantic lead Gerard Butler, you'd never guess that it all began with this audition for Dracula 2001.

With his latest romantic comedy Playing For Keeps out on DVD and Blu-ray later this month, Digital Spy takes a look back over Butler's screen roles, from "SPARRRRTA!" to Coriolanus.

Take a trip down Butler memory lane through our gallery below, and make sure to vote for your favourite film in the poll.

James Tiberius Kirk. Captain of the starship USS Enterprise. Courageous explorer of the cosmos. Intergalactic love machine. Throughout William Shatner's three-decade reign as Captain Kirk, one thing is clear: his devilish charm works wonders with the ladies, both human and alien.

JJ Abrams has carried this through in Chris Pine's incarnation of the character, hooking Kirk up with a green-skinned Orion Starfleet officer in 2009's Star Trek and two cat-like aliens in Star Trek Into Darkness.

To mark the return of Kirk to the big screen, Digital Spy takes a look at 5 of the cosmic lothario's most memorable love interests from The Original Series.

Shahna in 'The Gamesters of Triskelion'
Angelique Pettyjohn's green-haired drill thrall encountered the Star Trek crew on her homeworld of Triskelion, where she was tasked with training Kirk for gladiatorial battle. Naturally, Shahna was unable to resist the Captain's charm, but at the close of the episode found herself ditched by Kirk when she asks to fly away with him on the Enterprise.

What's the number one fact we all know about Vulcans? Yep, that's right: they're logical. And as is evidenced by the enduring friendship between Captain Kirk and Spock, we humans could stand to learn a few things from their level-headed approach to life.

But since most of us don't have our own half-breed companion to offer us sage wisdom, the next best thing is to trawl back through the Star Trek canon and pinpoint Spock's finest moments. You might even want to keep them with you in a tiny notebook for easy reference, because one thing we learned from this exercise is that there is a Spock quote for every occasion.

Digital Spy takes a look at the world according to Spock, in the form of 20 thought-provoking quotes. Read them and prosper.

Only one week to go until Star Trek Into Darkness is finally here. With the cast and crew descending on the red carpet for the UK premiere last night (May 2), fans of the hit sci-fi series can barely contain themselves as JJ Abrams's sequel to the 2009 reboot sees the Enterprise crew deal with a terrorist threat within their own ranks.

With Sherlock's Benedict Cumberbatch playing bad-guy John Harrison, British star Alice Eve getting her kit off and stars Zachary Quinto and Chris Pine returning, the new movie promises to keep fans on the edge of their seats.

Can't wait till next week for the release? Thankfully Digital Spy has five top Star Trek Into Darkness clips to tease you with...

Star Trek stars talk to Digital Spy at UK premiere
With the cast and crew, along with director JJ Abrams hitting the red carpet in London's Leicester Square last night, we caught up with the films' stars including Chris Pine, Simon Pegg and Zachary Quinto, with Quinto saying he was "really satisfied" with the storyline from the second movie.

Fanfiction is an integral part of Star Trek history. Most people will tell you that Kirk and Spock were the first ever 'slash pairing' - for the uninitiated, that's a fan-imagined romance between two characters of the same sex - although others reckon this stuff goes back as far as the Bible.

(We don't recommend dwelling on that last thought for too long, by the way.)

And while the likes of EL James haven't done much to improve its unsavoury rep, fanfiction in its place is a fine and admirable creative pursuit, allowing young writers to develop their technique within an established universe and take an active role in the fandoms they love.

A lot of it's also much better written than the soul-destroying novelisations that film studios pay half-rate writers to churn out. We're all for fanfiction at Digital Spy, make no mistake. That being said, there is some very, very weird stuff out there in the Trek fandom. We've selected nine of the best examples - a mix of story summaries and actual extracts – to prove our point.



1) "Spock knocked you up?" Bones asked quietly, eyes wide, lips pulled back in a grin. "That robot got it up and put a telepathic bun in your oven?" He held a hand up. "I need a moment."
"Can we get back to the matter at hand, Dr. McCoy?" Jim hissed, pressing chilled hands to his face to fight the blush threatening to overtake it.

Yep.