Abrams: Star Trek Into Darkness Problems
2 min read
Another person has come forward to talk about the shortcomings of Star Trek into Darkness, this time J.J. Abrams.
His comments come after the recent ones from Damon Lindelof regarding the secrecy around Benedict Cumberbatch‘s Khan character.
Abrams admitted that there were unresolved issues even when Into Darkness began filming. “I take full responsibility for this — I was encouraging the writers in certain directions, and we were working on the script and putting it together,” he said. “But by the time we started shooting, and this was literally at the very beginning of the shoot, there were certain things I was unsure of.
“Any movie, any story has a fundamental conversation happening during it. There’s a fundamental argument; there’s a central question. And I didn’t have it.”
“I felt like, in a weird way, it was a little bit of a collection of scenes that were written by my friends — brilliantly talented writers — who I somehow misled in trying to do certain things. And yet, I found myself frustrated by my choices, and unable to hang my hat on an undeniable thread of the main story. So then I found myself on that movie basically tap-dancing as well as I could to try and make the sequences as entertaining as possible.
“Thank god I had the cast that we have, who are so unbelievably fun to watch. And an incredible new villain in Benedict Cumberbatch…I would never say that I don’t think that the movie ended up working. But I feel like it didn’t work as well as it could have had I made some better decisions before we started shooting.”
Speaking of Khan, Abrams agrees that keeping his identity a secret might have been a mistake. “At the end of the day…[while] withholding the Khan thing ended up seeming like we were lying to people, I was trying to preserve the fun for the audience, and not just tell them something that the characters don’t learn for forty-five minutes into the movie, so the audience wouldn’t be so ahead of it,” he said.
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Dick. Burn in hell.
I think Cumberbatch would have made an excellent bad guy.nnJust not Khan.
In other words, had not Star Wars been done the injustice it went through with Jar Jar; He would have seen to it in this new Star Wars movie.
Yeah, pretty much this. Cumberpatch was a horrible Khan, but could have been great in another bad guy role. He just made no sense as Khan. nAs for the secrecy about Khan, I don’t think anyone would have cared about that if the movie had been good, which it wasn’t. And that was the problem.
“…thereu2019s a central question. And I didnu2019t have it.” While I may not appreciate what Mr. Abrams has done with Star Trek since 2009, at least I can respect him for owning up to his mistakes. I don’t know any creative — myself included — who hasn’t been pushed into producing less-than-stellar work today because a client was unwilling to wait for something truly inspired tomorrow. This sounds very much like the case with Into Darkness. The studio wanted Trek back on the screen, and it was Mr. Abrams’ job to put it there come Hell or high water.nnIt reminds me of the Herb Lubalin quote…nn”We have three divisions: a sensational division, a mediocre division, and a rotten division. The sensational division is on the top floor … There aren’t too many clients who want to operate in that rarefied atmosphere. In the mediocre division, we have clients who compromise: Put in some sensational ingredients, some rotten ones, and you have the opportunity to do mediocre work. The rotten division is where the bulk of the work is — and the reason it’s rotten is that clients determine the product.”nn
Every time I see one of these apology tour articles, I think of raving bores like BillJ and Dennis on the forums posting thousands of times to defend utter drivel the creators apologize for while pretending to just “Want a good time” or something. Right, because average Joes spend years of their lives defending the output of hacks online. Nice job fellas! Good thing they have a mod that encourages their idiocy.
Seriously, unless someone has a time machine to stop these films from ever being made, what does it matter at this point? The damage is done.
I like how Abrams is basically just shitting on Star Trek to ensure everyone fondly remembers him for Star Wars.
Everything he did right on Star Trek 11, he did wrong on Into Darkness.