Two and a half years appears to be long enough time for filmmakers to open up about the flaws in their past work. J.J. Abrams opened up about when he worked on Star Trek Into Darkness and Super 8 that he and the rest of his team didn’t “own our story”.
But now during an interview with Variety for his new HBO show The Leftovers, writer/producer on Star Trek Into Darkness; Damon Lindelof talked about the Khan secret reveal being a mistake. Below is the full quote:
“When we did ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’ for example, we decided that we weren’t going to tell people that Benedict Cumberbatch was playing Khan. And that was a mistake, because the audience was like, ‘We know he’s playing Khan’. That was why it was a mistake. But J.J. [Abrams] is telling us nothing about the new Star Wars movie and we love it. I’ve not come across a single person who’s like, ‘I wish I knew a little bit more’. We are like, ‘Thank God he’s protecting us from all the things that will be revealed in the movie theater’”.
Long before the film’s release, avid Star Trek fans didn’t even need to theorize that Benedict Cumberbatch would be playing Khan, considering many interviews with the various members of the films production indicated a lot of inspiration was being taken from Wrath of Khan among other details. It’s a positive move for a prominent writer to reveal his misgivings as a writer, his future work will prove if he has learned from his mistakes.
#Peace.Love.DamonLindelof
