Nazneen Contractor may not yet be a household name, but trust us, she's heading for stardom at warp speed.

A veteran of stage and screen, as well as a formidable dancer, the actress is familiar from her performances on television series such as Rules of Engagement, The Border, and Last Resort.  She is perhaps best known, however, for her more-than-meets-the-eye role as Kayla Hassan on the eighth season of Fox's 24.

With Star Trek Into Darkness, Contractor is making her debut appearance in a massive franchise blockbuster.  Now playing in 2D, 3D, and IMAX 3D nationwide, the follow-up to the 2009 reboot returns director J.J. Abrams to the series.  The secretive story finds an act of terrorism rocking the Federation from within Starfleet itself.  When the U.S.S. Enterprise is tasked with capturing the culprit, it's a quest that will test Captain Kirk and potentially cost him his crew.

Opening in theaters on May 17th is the highly anticipated new film Star Trek Into Darkness, which is a sequel to 2009's Star Trek - a reboot of the classic science fiction franchise. The movie is once again helmed by visionary director J.J. Abrams (Super 8) and features returning cast members Chris Pine (People Like Us) as Captain James T. Kirk, Zachary Quinto (Margin Call) as Spock, Karl Urban (Dredd) as Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy, Zoe Saldana (The Words) as Uhura, Anton Yelchin (Like Crazy) as Pavel Chekov, John Cho (A Very Harold & Kumar 3D) as Hikaru Sulu, Simon Pegg (The Adventures of Tintin) as Montgomery "Scotty" Scott, and Bruce Greenwood (Flight) as Christopher Pike, as well as new cast members Alice Eve (The Raven) as Dr. Carol Marcus, Peter Weller (Robocop) as Admiral Alexander Marcus, and Benedict Cumberbatch (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) as Commander John Harrison.

IAR's very own Guest Correspondent Katherine Tulich recently had a chance to travel to London, England and sit down with Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto to talk about their work on Star Trek Into Darkness. The two popular actors discussed the new movie, its homage to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Spock's fight scenes, why the Vulcan is angrier in this sequel, Quinto's relationship with the legendary Leonard Nimoy, and Pine's experience acting opposite the film's mysterious villain, who is played by Benedict Cumberbatch. Also, be sure to keep an eye out for a special Easter Egg at the end of the video featuring Pine singing a line from the classic Bon Jovi song "Wanted Dead or Alive."

A week out from the twelfth Star Trek's theatrical release, we have yet another shuttlecraft-sized haul of goodies from Star Trek Into Darkness.

This time, we have an action-packed official clip from early in the film, a behind the scenes featurette showcasing Karl Urban as Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy, and even the news that once-in-a-lifetime director Edgar Wright contributed a single shot to JJ Abrams's sequel.

This summer, let Star Trek Into Darkness take you on a vacation to exotic outer space. 

With your family, you can experience the beautiful vistas, retro-futuristic costumes, vengeful space-terrorists, vertigo, and, of course, disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence.

Allow these two new official photos and behind the scenes featurettes act as a brochure, a handy guild to the possibilities of a space-cation.

Okay, we've got too many too many treats from Star Trek Into Darkness to fit them all into one succinct headline.

First off, it's the latest action-packed clip from the sequel hitting theaters on May 17th (May 15th in IMAX 3D).  Then, there's one of those character profiles narrated by Benedict Cumberbatch, this one focused on Lieutenant Uhura.  But that little featurette contains a gem of a reveal: a good look at the face of a rebooted Klingon, of which we also have a still.  Finally, there's an image of the fearsome U.S.S. Vengeance, commanded by Cumberbatch's "John Harrison."

It looks like Michael Giacchino will be spared the immense challenge of following the aural footsteps of John Williams, because it looks as though the legendary composer will probably return to the franchise for Star Wars: Episode VII.

Between domestic and international one sheets, we've already seen somewhere in the range of twenty posters for Star Trek Into Darkness.

So what's one more?

And while we're at it, we also have a new international behind the scenes featurette focused squarely on Simon Pegg as Montgomery Scott, who finally says what we've been thinking for months by incredulously asking, "Do you have any idea how ridiculous it is to hide a starship on the bottom of the ocean?"

You want some official Star Trek Into Darkness promotional goodies?

You got 'em, as Paramount has unveiled a brand new clip that doesn't exactly give a whole lot away, but reinforces that the twelfth Star Trek does have a heavy element of Starfleet conspiracy.  And that's not all, as we also have two very different new posters, one featuring Alice Eve as Carol Marcus and another reserved just for early IMAX attendees.

If you're not yet suffering from Star Trek Into Darkness poster fatigue, then two new character posters might just push you over the line. 

Either way, you're in luck, because with addition of domestic posters featuring Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy and Hikaru Sulu round out the core crew of the USS Enterprise.  So perhaps this is the end of the posterization for some time.

So far, we've seen roughly 1,492 domestic and international posters for Star Trek Into Darkness, but nary a one has prominently featured two absolutely essentially Enterprise crewmembers, Scotty and Chekov.  That changes today, as Simon Pegg and Anton Yelchin finally grace their own character posters.

Oh and the centerpiece of the marketing effort so far, Benedict Cumberbatch's villainous John Harrison, narrates a new video featurette psychologically summing up Mr. Spock, played once again by Zachary Quinto.