J.J. Abrams talks Star Trek into Darkness. Getting J.J. Abrams to discuss “Star Trek Into Darkness” hasn’t been easy during the past year, but the director recently talked about the upcoming sequel, even going so far as to discuss the film’s villain.
While many fans are speculating that “John Harrison” is merely a pseudonym for Benedict Cumberbatch’s character, Abrams is sticking with the story and insists that “he is sort of an average-that is what makes him so scary-he is just an average guy who works in an organization called Starfleet, and he turns against the group because he has got this back-story and this kind of amazing secret agenda.”
He even reveals that Harrison will set off not one, but two devastating attacks on Earth when he attacks both London (as glimpsed in the trailer) and the United States. As a result, the Enterprise crew will be charged with tracking him down, a task that turns out to be “a far more complicated and difficult thing then they ever anticipated.”
Abrams also promises that the title won’t completely live up to its name. While he insists that the film will “certainly go into darkness,” he says he’d be the wrong director “if it was about the characters staying there.”
Instead, he says “this is very much a movie about hope, about love, about romance, and about facing something that is truly terrifying and finding a way through the connection of your family and surviving and being stronger afterwards.”
Furthermore, when discussing the film’s plot, Empire makes some curious revisions to the official synopsis by revealing that “Kirk is this time forced into a rash decision that breaks a critical Starfleet command, puts his crew in danger, and costs him his captain’s chair.” He and his crew are then forced “out of uniform and dressed down in space civvies of black leather jackets and boots” as they “separate” from the Enterprise to rectify Kirk’s mistake.
If this plot description holds up, it sounds like Abrams is attempting to “Nolan-ize” the Trek-verse a bit by grounding it and stripping it down to its bare essentials. Hopefully he makes good on his word not to keep it that way for too long; after all, his first “Star Trek” provided a fantastic counterbalance to the “grim and gritty” sensibilities that have plagued modern blockbusters in the wake of “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight.”
Related Link: View the Full Production Notes for Star Trek Into the Darkness
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