Timeframe: When the cast of Star Trek Beyond were beamed down to Dubai

The city was heavily featured in the 2016 sci-fi film, standing in as a metropolis in deep space

From left, Star Trek Beyond director Justin Lin with stars Chris Pine and Simon Pegg during the film's press conference at Burj Al Arab in 2015. Jeffrey E Biteng / The National

In September 2015, the cast and crew of Star Trek Beyond arrived in Dubai to shoot parts of the film in the city. A press conference was held at Burj Al Arab before the shooting process. “We came searching for the future and we found it in Dubai,” US producer Jeffrey Chernov said.

Chernov had wanted to find a “vertical city” to serve as a basis for Starbase Yorktown, a metropolis within the Star Trek universe that lies in deep space. Dubai, with its lofty towers, was an obvious choice.

Chernov was joined at the press conference by the film’s director, Justin Lin, and its stars Chris Pine (Captain Kirk), Zachary Quinto (Spock), Karl Urban (Doctor McCoy), Simon Pegg (Scotty), Anton Yelchin (Checkov) and Idris Elba (Krall), and Douglas Jung, who co-wrote the film with Pegg.

The crew of Star Trek Beyond spent nearly three weeks in Dubai, filming across multiple locations in the city. In October 2015, at Jumeirah Lakes Towers, a helicopter hovered up and down along a building as a film crew hung from its side. Security had cordoned off the area and signposts informed residents that shooting was under way for a new film, called "Washington".

Five days later, a set had sprung up in the Dubai International Finance Centre, finally proving that the mysterious structures that had been erected days prior were attached to the film.

“Hordes of cast and extras could be seen milling around the set – the scale of which, and of the apparently crashed spaceship, can now be truly understood with people around,” Chris Newbould wrote for The National in 2015.

“Many are dressed in the distinctive Star Fleet uniform [red for engineering, blue for medical and science] while others are dressed as a variety of weird and wonderful aliens. A huge Star Fleet insignia sits at the edge of the set to quell any lingering doubts.”

Besides using Dubai’s urban landscape, the crew also filmed extensively at Dubio Studio City’s soundstages, as well as on a vast set at Meydan. The film was released almost a year later, in July 2016. Concrete locations may have been difficult to pinpoint in the film due to the post-production involved, but a few towers, as well as the metro station, are unmistakably Dubai.

While several large-scale productions have been filmed in Dubai before and since, few of them have managed to take advantage of the city’s futuristic urban landscape as effectively as Star Trek Beyond.