Can it truly be a little over a month away before Star Trek Into Darkness finally hits theaters?
Without a doubt, the film is one of the most anticipated sequels in recent memory, and it took a lot of time for JJ Abrams to get all the elements right before he was comfortable enough to move ahead, otherwise we would have seen the sequel out several years ago already.
Nevertheless, we, the fans, are hoping it’s all been worth the wait, and if it takes more time for the sequel to be ready, we’ll wait it out, providing it really delivers on arrival. Abrams recently spoke to Collider about Darkness, and one of the biggest challenges was the logistics.
“This movie is so much bigger than the first film we did,” Abrams said. “It’s enormous in size, so really one of the biggest challenges was figuring out how to do it. I didn’t want things to be shot mostly on green screen or blue screen. Part of it was figuring out, what do we build, where do we shoot this stuff, how do we possibly realize this?”
By and large the geeks liked how Abrams reinvented Trek, yet Abrams also said, “I think there are a lot of Trek fans who embraced and loved what we did, and had a great time, and there were a lot of others who would maybe call themselves purists who felt like it was not the original series…the irony for me is if you’re a real Trek fan, it’s about ‘boldly going where no one’s gone before.’ I’m grateful for anyone who likes the movie, whether they’re an original Star Trek fan or not.”
One of Abrams’s goals with Star Trek Into Darkness was to make it a strong
stand-alone film. If you didn’t see the first Abrams Trek, it won’t keep you from enjoying Into Darkness.
“You can’t assume people know or like or relate to the characters. A lot of sequels begin assuming you already love the people. To me, it’s really important to say this is a brand new movie. If you saw the first movie, great, fantastic, but you don’t have to.”
And indeed, for many fans, myself included, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan was the first Trek movie we saw, because the first one had a reputation for being deadly dull. Thankfully Abrams really delivered with his first Trek, and here’s hoping the next one will make a great one-two punch, and set the bar even higher for the third Trek, whoever will be directing it down the road.
Abrams of course will be heading off to the Star Wars universe, a Herculean cinematic challenge that will make reinventing Trek look like a walk in the park. We’re sure he’s relishing the challenge, and can’t wait to take over the empire…
