Speaking with Japanese site
GyaO! (many thanks to
Trek Movie for the transcription), J.J. Abrams offers a surprising amount of new details concerning the plot and themes for his highly anticipated sequel
Star Trek Into Darkness, dropping some mild
spoilers for the film. He says that you don't have to see the 2009
Trek film to understand this one, and he also comments on the villainous John Harrison's (Benedict Cumerbatch) role in the movie as well as the attacks he makes before Capt. Kirk and his crew pursue him. Additionally, he re-iterates that, despite being a darker film than its predecessor,
Into Darkness is ultimately about hope, love, etc.
"So this movie doesn’t require you have seen the first movie," says Abrams.
"The characters are a group of people who have recently come together and find themselves up against this incredibly terrifying force. His name is John Harrison and 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. After two very violent attacks, one in London and one in the US, our characters have to go after this guy and apprehend him. And it is a far more complicated and difficult thing then they ever anticipated. "Into Darkness" is very much about how intense it gets and really what they are up against.
"I love movies that are big and unabashedly a huge fan of big pop mass appeal movies. I do love that. I love being in a theater packed with people and everyone gasping at the same time and having that communal experience. I don’t like going to the movies to feel bad. I don’t like going to the movies to feel depressed and feel diminished. The reason you go to the movies is to feel bigger and stronger and happier. So this is a movie that they certainly go ‘Into Darkness,’ but I would be the wrong director if it was about characters staying there. 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." Abrams also discusses working with 3D for the first time, again re-iterating prior comments on the post-conversion process and filming in IMAX.
"I had never done anything in 3D and frankly it was a format that scared me a little bit because I really loved the sort of purity of the 2D, but I have to say – especially because we filmed in IMAX – doing a conversion to 3D with some new techniques with people who have done amazing conversion work on movies like Titanic, has actually opened up some doors to some really creative and really fun moments. So I am becoming a little bit of a convert to it." Additionally, he defends his use of lens flares and comments on how it works in the conversion.
"When we made the first Star Trek we never added lens flares, it was always ‘in camera.’ And I do love them and I know I get beaten up some times because of it. But it actually works pretty well in conversion." Star Trek Into Darkness stars Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Benedict Cumberbatch, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, Alice Eve and Anton Yelchin. The film is set to hit theaters May 17th, 2013.
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