Apparently there was some sort of Press day for the cool kids hosted by Paramount Pictures to talk all things “Star Trek Into Darkness” along with the director of the film J.J. Abrams. Abrams is almost as good as politicians with his ability to respond to questions with non-answers and had plenty of opportunity to exercise his skill at the event by carefully dodging and deflecting questions about the plot, villain, and overwhelming secrecy surrounding the project. It’s being reported that the MTV staff outright pressed Abrams about the identity of Benedict Cumberbatch’s character in the film and forced him to provide some elaboration:
… Since everyone has been geeking out at the supposedly-hidden shot of the two hands in the Japanese teaser for Into Darkness, Horowitz straight up asked him about that shot – and that they’re smart enough to put that in to mean something. Abrams’ reply is vague, but interesting nonetheless.
At first, J.J. deflects the answer of what that shot means by explaining that Into Darkness “was not made for ‘Star Trek’ fans; it was made for movie fans. But if you’re a ‘Star Trek’ fan, I think you’ll be really happy, there’s a lot of stuff in here for you, but we couldn’t just make the movie only for fans of ‘Star Trek.'” He also adds that “we tried to treat this as a movie that works on its own. Certainly it’s a sequel, certainly if you saw the first movie, great. You don’t have to have seen the first film. This movie is its own thing,” but that’s when he also confirms: “there are definitely nods to prior ‘Trek’ lore in the film.” Of course there will be nods.
Horowitz followed up with a question about the name of Benedict Cumberbatch’s villain character, John Harrison, being a “Space Seed” episode reference. His doesn’t actually answer, but instead provides a few more hints about the power of the character, and essentially says stop speculating, just enjoy Cumberbatch.
“Rather than answer anything that would give away the fun of the movie, I would say that the character that Benedict plays, he brings such an incredible power to it. His voice alone, I actually as a joke should have had him read the lunch menu,” Abrams said, deftly dodging the question with a laugh. “He makes anything sound great and brings such a force to it that hopefully when you see the movie, this character, all speculation aside, will be really compelling, not because of any connection to anything past, but because ofwho he is and what he brings to it.”
He’s then asked if we know, upfront, who this Harrison guy is or if it is a mystery the whole movie:
“The whole thing, not just his backstory, but his agenda, his plan, his secret, all that is what, for me at least, makes him such a frightening and cool villain,” Abrams said. “Also, the real villains — when they’re not just two-dimensional, angry vengeful types — don’t see themselves as the bad guy. They are the good guy and have complete rationale and motivation. So true to form, the character that Benedict plays has an absolute sense of right and wrong, and he’s on the right side.”
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This really doesn’t confirm or deny anything that wasn’t already assessed from the “announcement video” , (don’t call it a trailer), for the film. I like his excitement but it’s also the same old schtick I’ve seen of Abrams with just about every film he’s directed and I’m not a complete fan of the whole “keep it secret, keep it safe” thing that he likes to do far too often. It’s annoying and makes me lose interest in a lot of his projects. That said I guess we didn’t miss much at the press event and life can go on. Whoever Cumberbatch’s character is, whether he’s Khan or not, he will be Khan like and will likely end with me comparing this film to Skyfall due to their seemingly similar premise.
That’s all for now…
Via: First Showing
