J.J. Abrams: 'Star Trek Into Darkness' Had 'Fundamental Story Problems

[Khan 2.0]

JJ Abrams: 'Star Trek Into Darkness' Had 'Fundamental Story Problems'

As Star Wars: The Force Awakens draws ever closer, director J.J. Abrams wants sci-fi fans to know that he got it right this time. In an interview for the December issue of Wired, Abrams said that he and co-screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan (who also co-wrote The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi) focused heavily on storytelling, a luxury he didn’t have with previous films like Star Trek Into Darkness.
“I didn’t want to enter into making a movie where we didn’t really own our story. I feel like I’ve done that a couple of times in my career,” Abrams told Wired. “That’s not to say I’m not proud of my work, but the fact is I remember starting to shoot Super 8 and Star Trek Into Darkness and feeling like I hadn’t really solved some fundamental story problems.”
The sequel to Abrams’s mega-successful 2009 Star Trek reboot, Into Darkness premiered in 2013 to good box office and decent reviews. However, the sequel failed to generate the excitement or revenue of the first movie, and many longtime Star Trek fans took issue with its convoluted plot (which heavily borrowed from 1982’s Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan).
Film fans were also annoyed at the film’s marketing, which withheld the identity of Benedict Cumberbatch’s villain — even though it was fairly obvious all along. Judging from the Wired interview, that’s another mistake Abrams hopes to avoid with The Force Awakens. “There’s a really positive side to keeping quiet. You can protect the audience from spoilers or certain moments that, in a way, obviate the movie experience,” Abrams told the magazine. “But on the other hand, you risk being seen as coy or as a withholding s—head. That’s never my intent.”
https://www.yahoo.com/movies/jj-abrams-star-trek-into-darkness-161708900.html

Sounds abit similar to comments made by Spielberg after Crystal Skull:
http://www.hitfix.com/articles/steven-spielberg-admits-that-crystal-skull-was-kind-of-lame

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Re: J.J. Abrams: 'Star Trek Into Darkness' Had 'Fundamental Story Prob

Its good that he's admitting something audiences realized, but in your referencing Spielberg regarding the horrible IJ4, its too easy to recognize problems after the crash, but what were his media statements during production / point of release? as he so insightful at either point?

 

[JoeZhang]

Re: J.J. Abrams: 'Star Trek Into Darkness' Had 'Fundamental Story Prob

Hold on hold on - he doesn't say he doesn't think he solved them, he's saying he didn't feel like they were solved when they started shooting

 

[ancient]

Re: J.J. Abrams: 'Star Trek Into Darkness' Had 'Fundamental Story Prob

Yeah, Khan was probably the biggest problem. I think that Khan came across as pretty weak, he spends the entire movie in an almost continuous state of being defeated. Admiral Bad Guy was the stronger antagonist, but he's barely in the movie.

 

[Mudd]

Re: J.J. Abrams: 'Star Trek Into Darkness' Had 'Fundamental Story Prob

Khan only spends most of STID near defeat because PineKirk is so much more awesome than ShatKirk.

 

[ancient]

Re: J.J. Abrams: 'Star Trek Into Darkness' Had 'Fundamental Story Prob

Khan thought he was talking to Shatner-Kirk in that one scene when he revealed his name.

Pine-Kirk of course had to look up in an Almanac to find out that Khan was an advanced superman who fled Earth in the distant future year of 1996.

 

[BillJ]

Re: J.J. Abrams: 'Star Trek Into Darkness' Had 'Fundamental Story Prob

I enjoyed Into Darkness more than Star Trek (2009).

So I'm okay if Abrams comes back and makes more Star Trek with "fundamental story problems".

 

[Franklin]

Re: J.J. Abrams: 'Star Trek Into Darkness' Had 'Fundamental Story Prob

[sarcasm] STID was my favorite Trek movie. So apparently, I know what real "Star Trek" is better than Abrams does. Well, that's what you get when you put a "Star Wars" person in charge. WE KNEW YOU HATED TREK, ABRAMS! Now you disparage Trek as part of promoting your true love! I wanted to believe you liked us! [/sarcasm]

 

[Dales]

Re: J.J. Abrams: 'Star Trek Into Darkness' Had 'Fundamental Story Prob

It was clear that JJ Abrams was not into the script. usually a JJ script would have been better than what lindelof, orci and alex wrote

 

[Dukhat]

Re: JJ Abrams: 'Star Trek Into Darkness' Had 'Fundamental Story Proble

Film fans were also annoyed at the film’s marketing, which withheld the identity of Benedict Cumberbatch’s villain — even though it was fairly obvious all along. Judging from the Wired interview, that’s another mistake Abrams hopes to avoid with The Force Awakens.

Huh? TFA premieres in one month, and we still don't know who Kylo Ren is. How is that any different than the identity of Cumberbatch's character?

 

[ancient]

Re: JJ Abrams: 'Star Trek Into Darkness' Had 'Fundamental Story Proble

Film fans were also annoyed at the film’s marketing, which withheld the identity of Benedict Cumberbatch’s villain — even though it was fairly obvious all along. Judging from the Wired interview, that’s another mistake Abrams hopes to avoid with The Force Awakens.

Huh? TFA premieres in one month, and we still don't know who Kylo Ren is. How is that any different than the identity of Cumberbatch's character?

Kylo is a new character, I'm pretty sure he isn't Lando in disguise. Or is he? What a twist!

 

[Dales]

Re: JJ Abrams: 'Star Trek Into Darkness' Had 'Fundamental Story Proble

welcome to world of JJ Abrams and his secrects. sometimes the mystery box is usually empty. the bigger secrecy is how we have not even seen Luke at all.

 

[Dukhat]

Re: JJ Abrams: 'Star Trek Into Darkness' Had 'Fundamental Story Proble

Kylo is a new character, I'm pretty sure he isn't Lando in disguise. Or is he? What a twist

The fact that he wears a mask means something, or he obviously wouldn't be wearing it.

 

[BillJ]

Re: JJ Abrams: 'Star Trek Into Darkness' Had 'Fundamental Story Proble

Kylo is a new character, I'm pretty sure he isn't Lando in disguise. Or is he? What a twist

The fact that he wears a mask means something, or he obviously wouldn't be wearing it.

Vader fetish?

 

[Ryan8bit]

Re: J.J. Abrams: 'Star Trek Into Darkness' Had 'Fundamental Story Prob

It's not really surprising that an artist would be critical of their own work, or that they could see the potential for things being better. Nothing is without flaws.

It's a pretty big jump to compare Into Darkness to the likes of Indy 4 though.

 

[Trekkin]

Re: J.J. Abrams: 'Star Trek Into Darkness' Had 'Fundamental Story Prob

Especially when all he says was that a) he didn't feel confident when he started the shoot, and b) he felt the same thing for Super 8, which was distinctly Khan-less.

 

[Romulan_spy]

Re: J.J. Abrams: 'Star Trek Into Darkness' Had 'Fundamental Story Prob

The problem with Into Darkness was that it tries to do two different things: it tries to tell a unique story and tell a story about Khan at the same time. Khan feels completely shoehorned into a story that does not need him. The first half of the movie is great, telling a story about terrorism and an admiral who is conspiring to start a war and then suddenly out of the blue, one of the characters goes "hey, guess what? I'm KHAN!!" And really, the only reason the movie has Khan in it, is because the producers thought that the movie would appeal more to die hard fans if it featured a classic villain from Star Trek. But I think the movie would have been much better off, leaving Khan out of it and just being a story about Admiral Marcus trying to start a war with the Klingons. You could still have had Harrison in the movie, but just make him one of Marcus' agents. not Khan.

 

[BigJake]

Re: JJ Abrams: 'Star Trek Into Darkness' Had 'Fundamental Story Proble

“I didn’t want to enter into making a movie where we didn’t really own our story. I feel like I’ve done that a couple of times in my career,” Abrams told Wired. “

"Didn't really own our story." WTF does that even mean. How much more can you "own the story" of a freaking movie than being its director and producer? That makes no sense. (I mean yes, double-J, it's obvious enough that you were a hired gun and didn't feel any real connection with the material. You don't have to keep dancing around it.)

That’s not to say I’m not proud of my work, but the fact is I remember starting to shoot Super 8 and Star Trek Into Darkness and feeling like I hadn’t really solved some fundamental story problems.”

Yeah, not exactly the most shocking of revelations.

 

[Gepard]

Re: JJ Abrams: 'Star Trek Into Darkness' Had 'Fundamental Story Proble

The more positive aspect of all this is, he sure does sound excited and engaged about Star Wars. It's no secret I'm not a huge fan of his prior movies but he's saying all the right stuff here. (I do enjoy that his bits about not putting in stuff just to sell toys. Yes, we all disliked the prequels didn't we JJ?)

 

[JWPlatt]

Re: J.J. Abrams: 'Star Trek Into Darkness' Had 'Fundamental Story Prob

I like JJ's candor here, both about the story and his awareness about the damage being coy can cause. Any time someone extracts themselves from the depths of their denial and demonstrates some wisdom, I like them and their product just a little bit more. It lets me be more forgiving and forget about the faults. I also liked when he admitted in a previous interview that, yeah, he knew there was too much lens flare when his wife mentioned it and when ILM had to go in and remove it.