SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT
Get the picture? If you haven’t seen “Star Trek Into Darkness” yet, read no further – we mean it.
And now, Damon Lindelof discusses a few of the SPOILER-y plot developments from the J.J. Abrams sequel in a recent email exchange with MTV’s Josh Horowitz. Highlights below.
On the decision to write Benedict Cumberbatch’s villain John Harrison as Khan: “It was never really a ‘Should we or shouldn’t we?’ as much as it was ‘We really have to do this but if we don’t get it right people are going to kill us’…I think that character is so iconic – he has such an intense gravity in the Trek universe, we likely would have expended more energy NOT putting him in this movie than the other way around.”
On the reversal of the climactic death scene from “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan,” with Kirk sacrificing himself instead of Spock: “We were ever wary of the line between ‘reimagined homage’ and ‘direct ripoff’ and erred on the side of the former…”
On whether they ever considered leaving Kirk dead at the end of the film instead of having him revived: “We never considered leaving Kirk dead at the end of this movie.”
On the decision to insert another Spock Prime (Leonard Nimoy) cameo: “We continue to feel blessed that we get to carry the Trek torch and the best way of expressing that in story is to acknowledge the parallel world we are deviating from – a world whose sole ambassador just happens to be Mr Spock. It would have been hubris for us to represent to the uninitiated that Khan was our idea and there was no one better to pop in briefly and say – ‘Hey, these guys are just doing their own spin on a bad guy that was around a long time before they came along.’ The minute we stop honoring, acknowledging and representing the original Trek, we are bound to lose sight of the enormous gift we have been given in sustaining it.”
On why weapons expert Carol Marcus (Alice Eve) strips down to her skivvies in front of Kirk: “Why is Alice Eve in her underwear, gratuitously and unnecessarily, without any real effort made as to why in God’s name she would undress in that circumstance? Well there’s a very good answer for that. But I’m not telling you what it is. Because… uh… MYSTERY?”
Thoughts on any of the above quotes from Lindelof? Sound off in the comments.