Now that STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS has been released and fans have learned the twists in the story, it is time for the filmmakers to defend their choices in the marketing and creation of the film. While it seems that most audiences truly enjoyed the movie, like IRON MAN 3 there are detractors who are not happy with the creative choices made by J.J. Abrams, Bryan Burk, and Damon Lindelof. But, in a very interesting breakdown over at Slash Film, they explain why they did what they did.
This will be the one and only warning regarding *SPOILERS* for STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS, people. If you have not seen the movie, stop reading now. This article will reveal the identity of Benedict Cumberbatch‘s character as well as elements from the end of the movie. Turn back now. Oh, and no whining about spoilers in the talk backs. Now, shall we begin?
The primary defense employed by Lindelof and Burk is that the common movie fan does not know about the origins of the Khan character from the original series episode “Space Seed”. Sure, Trekkies and fans like us pretty much deduced the secret months ago, but even we were never quite sure that we had the right answer. Lindelof says that knowing the answer before the characters is a detriment to viewing the movie:
The characters believe he is one person: John Harrison. If everything you know going into the movie is “It’s a guy named Khan,” even if you don’t even know who Khan is, you know that you’re watching a film where for forty-five minutes or an hour of the movie you are ahead of the characters. So you’re just kind of waiting for them to catch up with what you already know, that he is not who he says he is. So there’s the general idea of going to see a movie and allowing it to unfold as it normally does.
Along with editing the footage revealed in front of THE HOBBIT back in December so that it would not match the final cut of the movie to better hide Khan’s identity was also used. Several of you are likely crying liar at Lindelof and the rest of those involved, but this is another part of the reason why J.J. Abrams and Bad Robot have been as successful as they have. Yes, they tricked us as an audience, but this also helped preserve a secret longer than the vast majority of movies that hit theaters. IRON MAN 3 and STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS were able to prevent spoiler alerts for 99% of fans and that is something we have not had since the advent of the Internet.
STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS is now playing everywhere.