See The R2-D2 Cameo In 'Star Trek Into Darkness'

Episode VII will be J.J. Abrams' first time directing a Star Wars movie, but technically it won't be his first time working with a Star Wars character. The self-admitted Star Wars fanboy slipped an R2-D2 cameo into 2009's Star Trek, and we've now learned that the droid made a return appearance in Star Trek Into Darkness. Hit the jump to see his blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo.

Reader Rafael Oca passed along this screen shot, from somewhere around the one hour, 17-minute mark. After the Vengeance fires on the Enterprise while the ships are in warp, poor R2 gets sucked out of the ship with other members of the crew.

If you failed to notice R2 in Star Trek Into Darkness, don't feel bad. As you can see in the screencap below, he appears only briefly in the background.

Since his debut in the original Star Wars, the intrepid little droid has popped up in a number of unexpected places. He can be spotted on the underside of the mothership in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, in hieroglyphic form (with C-3PO) in Raiders of the Lost Ark, and as part of background debris in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

Now that Abrams has jumped ship for Star Wars, do you think he'll stick a Star Trek Easter egg in there?