My disappointment, so far, is that I originally assumed that Dubai would be the set for a new never explored before planet with a new civilization. Instead it seems to be just a starfleet outpost where the prominence of humans compared to aliens might be a clue that we're still in earth.
So far from what it seems I don't get why they needed to go in Dubai, at all. But we will see...
Depends on how much of the movie is really spent there. The one thing we don't seem to see are any more aliens that look like Boutella's. Not sure if that means anything. We also have no idea about Elba's character (human or not). So there still could be some "strange new worlds," or at least people, involved.
To be honest, a lot of TOS took place in "familiar" space, but they still ran into a lot of interesting things.
If they filmed it all in a Jack In the Box in Encino, I'd be fine with it as long as the concept was interesting.
so far we're only seeing the extras there (beside the picture with Pine in that room) so it's hard to tell why the whole cast but Zoe Saldana is even needed there. Like you, I too have noticed there aren't any characters there who look like Boutella's race either.
I might have accidentally made the mistake, though, to assume that the alien planet the enterprise is supposed to visit is Boutella character's planet. Maybe it's not and maybe she's the only character of that race that we will see in the movie. She might be just a space pirate with her own ship that Kirk&Co meet on some planet
however, I still find it weird that basically the whole cast is there including Keenser.. but Zoe Saldana apparently is not needed. She had implied over her facebook page that she wasn't really done with filming (but Quinto said, yesterday, that they wrap filming in Dubai so unless she joins them last minute, then she finished her shot in vancouver)
What kind of scene(s) would require the whole cast including the two new characters and Scotty's pet.. but not Uhura?
Is Uhura injured, perhaps?
Her staying on the ship alone while not unrealistic from an in universe perspective, it seems implausible to me narrative-vise that every single male character of the crew left the ship and Uhura is the only one apparently required to stay behind.
admittedly, editing can do miracles so it's still possible that Zoe will be 'there' in some indoor scene even if the actress wasn't in Dubai. But then I cannot understand what's the utility of having the whole cast there ..
(a friend of mine even suggested me that maybe not all the characters will be in those scenes but most of the actors were still asked to go to promote them filming in Dubai, and also to make it more vague which characters are really involved in those scenes in case spoiler images came out and people started to put things together. If JJ was still the director I'd find that idea more plausible
- anyway if that was the case and some of the cast went there just to visit, so to speak, I could see Zoe possibly being unavailable since she has two babies to take care of and there is enough time for trek promotion later)
There are 4 different filming locations: Squamish, Kent Hangar, Pitt River Quarries and Dubai, but does not need to be the same planet.
We know nothing concerning the plot.
According to the Star Trek Encyclopedia, there were over five hundred starbases located throughout Federation space and beyond.
USS Enterprise could have changed its course to the nearest base, why not?
In the original series, we saw a lot of it.
Calm down, Malaika.
I guess some of us kind of automatically assumed that Dubai was the set for some new mysterious planet (persuaded by the initial rumors) so seeing the new pictures where it seems to be 'just' a starfleet outpost might be a bit disappointing, but probably it's more in terms of having to reconcile with a wrong assumption than anything else. But it's only related to Dubai and me kind of seeing that location as a good choice for an alien city, but really even if that location is not a new alien planet it doesn't mean there will be no new alien planet showed in the movie. I never said that.
Also, thinking about it even if it's a starfleet outpost or something like that, it can still be on a planet that is not earth and it can still make sense to choose Dubai whose 'landscape' is pretty futuristic.
