Star Trek Into Darkness: JJ Abrams on where it went wrong

JJ Abrams is now busy promoting Star Wars: The Force Awakens (read our review here), but that hasn’t stopped people asking about Star Trek into Darkness; the film the director worked on prior to switching “Star” franchises.

He assured the fans that there is more to the movie than the trailer. Into Darkness also introduced the ability to teleport anywhere in the universe, something that also doesn’t really fit the Star Trek universe, so that got ignored, too.

Topbilled by Idris Elba, Chris Pine, Simon Pegg, Zach Quinto, Zoe Saldana, John Cho, Anton Yelchin, and Karl Urban, Star Trek Beyond will land in cinemas worldwide on July 22, 2016.

“[Co-writers] Simon [Pegg] and Doug [Jung] and I have spent some time on that”. Considering most fans’ take on those two particular details from Into Darkness, that’s probably a smart move. The first episode of the original Star Trek TV series aired on September 8, 1966, so the film’s release roughly coincides with the sci-fi franchise’s 50th anniversary.

The reveal that Benedict Cumberbatch’s character was actually famed Star Trek villain Khan was one Abrams admitted in hindsight was bungled. His answer to a question regarding that wasn’t very clear on their fate as a couple. “But with trailers you’re putting a two-hour movie into a minute and a half, and the one thing I wanted to make sure is that it hopefully represents that we are trying to be bold and take risks, whether we are successful or not, I don’t know”.

Meanwhile, the first Star Trek Beyond trailer landed earlier this week, much to the chagrin of fans and others, including Star Trek’s George Takei and The Next Generation’s Wil Wheaton.

“We pick the crew up about two and a half years after ‘Into Darkness.’ There were many iterations where we did go and explore [Carol Marcus], but we figured it was two and a half years…”

Justin Lin sat down for an interview at Paramount Studios to discuss Star Trek Beyond as part of a roundtable for which Collider was present.

“I don’t know if we’re leaving it behind, and [we] definitely have spent some time on that”.