So - how did nuSpock know about the Jellyfish. Him and Kirk seem to already have a plan when they board the Narada, but there's nothing in the flim that I can see that explains how nuSpock knew about the Jellyfish, allowing him to take it, blast the drill, them come back and ram into the Narada.
Did I miss something?
Well, yeah. A lot of those questions are answered in the Star Trek: Countdown comics paperback, which was produced by IDW Publishing and scripted by the two writers of the movie..
Here's a very boiled down recap: Spock (who is now a full citizen of Romulus) discovers that a sun was starting to go supernova and put on his best Jor-El face to warn the planet's leaders of impending doom. Of course, they called him a kook and went on like nothing was happening.
But Nero (a miner who used long cables to dig into the crust of a planet to find out what minerals were there) believed Spock and used his ship and crew to get Spock to Vulcan, where they expected a more "logical" response.
Sadly, the Vulcans turned Spock down since he was now a Romulan. As it happened, the new ambassador to Vulcan, Jean-Luc Picard (and yes, Kirk apparently wasted his breath and his time in Generations telling Picard to stay in the center seat). Picard contacted Geordi LaForge and had him bring a new kind of ship to handle the danger, and Geordi arranged it to respond to Spock's DNA.
Meanwhile, Nero and company arrived in the Romulan system just in time to see it get destroyed. That sent Nero and his crew into a rage, especially when, in really bad timing, a number of Federation ships arrived to offer medical assistance.
Intead, Nero sent bombs to the other ships, which all blew up. It was then that nero and his crew shaved their heads and had tattoos put on, which was a sign of a Romulan seeking revenge.
Before any more planets could be destroyed, Spock and his Jellyfish arrived and sent a container of "red matter" into the phenomenon, causing it to implode. Danger averted.
Still, Nero blamed Starfleet and especially Spock (who had promised Nero he would prevent the planet from being destroyed, and started chasing the Jellyfish. I don't remember exactly how it happened but it might have been some red matter that caught both ships and hurled them to the past.
I've left some details out, and I agree that we shouldn't have to read something somewhere else to appreciate the movie, but so far, it doesn't seem to have hurt the box office.
If you want to get the Countdown, your best bet would be to contact your local comics shop or go to Borders or Barnes & Noble and ask for it.
Hope this helps.
