J.J. Abrams Talks STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS And STAR WARS Comparisons

Abrams talks more about his anticipated Star Trek sequel, saying that both fans and non-fans of the franchise will enjoy it. He also discusses the series' comparisons to Star Wars and whether or not Into Darkness will have more influence from that saga.

By PaulRom - Apr 03, 2013 09:04 AM EST

Filed Under: Star Trek

Source: SFX

Speaking with SFX, director J.J. Abrams talks about his highly anticipated sequel Star Trek Into Darkness. He says that the film wasn't made for everybody, but he believes that both Trek fans and non-fans will find it satisfying. "Of course you can’t make this for everyone. There are going to be detractors. But I think that the important thing is this movie, at least the ambition behind it, is… if you’re a Star Trek fan, you’re going to be very happy. Because the movie acknowledges, in a big way, what has come before. If you’re not a lifelong Star Trek fan, like myself, what I think and hope is that you’ll have a great time and you’ll be gasping and shrieking and laughing and crying and all that stuff in a way you would not expect to in a Star Trek movie." He discusses the franchise's decades-long comparisons to Star Wars, which he will be tackling in Disney's Episode VII for 2015, and whether or not Into Darkness will borrow more from that series than the 2009 Trek film. "I wouldn’t say that the first movie is an absolute Star Wars derivation. The irony of course being that Star Trek came out before Star Wars. We’re inheriting Star Trek, so we’re allowed to do space stuff. Of course when Star Wars came out, people referred to Star Trek, because it was spaceships. Everything is sort of a derivation of everything else. Just the way Star Wars was of Flash Gordon and of dogfight war films in the TIE Fighter sequences. Everything has something it borrows from.

"Where this story goes, if you’re going to go to a place that’s as intense as some of the stuff is in this movie, I think you need balance. And so while there are moments that are pretty dark and crazy, those scenes just won’t matter to you – you won’t care about them – if you haven’t been laughing along the way and rooting for these characters you have to feel for. The idea is to try and balance it, not to have it be one thing or the other." For more from Abrams and on Star Trek Into Darkness, be sure to pick up the latest issue of SFX.

Star Trek Into Darkness stars Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Benedict Cumberbatch, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, Alice Eve and Anton Yelchin. The film is set to hit theaters May 17th.

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18 Comments

Effusion - 4/3/2013, 9:50 AM

Amen monkeyballs.....amen

Newbus - 4/3/2013, 9:51 AM

Spock with a gun? No!

4thDoctor - 4/3/2013, 10:05 AM

Why aren't they in their uniforms? That always ticks me off. It's a promo shot, give us the iconograpy we expect.

StarkAnthony - 4/3/2013, 10:07 AM

Spock used a gun in the 2009 film too

JR - 4/3/2013, 10:16 AM

@DarthJericho, yep this is on purpose!

Maximus101 - 4/3/2013, 10:40 AM

I'm not a star trek fan at all but the 2009 star trek was mazing and I am very much looking forward to seeing into darkness

ElDarkside - 4/3/2013, 10:56 AM

Can youuuuuu smeeeeeeellllll what the cummmmmmmmberbatch is coooooooookin?!?!?!?

Why must these mag covers always have weird poses and facial expression?

Obviously I'm a huge Star Wars fan, but I never watched one single Star Trek thing until JJ became involved. Star Trek 2009 was a great movie, even if you knew nothing about the characters prior to viewing.

Kendospawn - 4/3/2013, 2:50 PM

The bad guy is Sean Finnegan...

Scooby - 4/3/2013, 3:40 PM

Yeah, feel the difference

Live long and prosper

RexDartEskimoSpy - 4/3/2013, 8:54 PM

Yeah, Trekkers are so ugly...

Anyway, SuspenseSmith pretty much put a bullet in the head of Monkeyballs' post.

And for people complaining that Abrams isn't an old-school Trekkie, neither was Nicholas Meyer, who directed everyone's favorite Trek movies.

RexDartEskimoSpy - 4/4/2013, 1:57 PM

I like both, too. Actually, what I really like about SuspenseSmith's post is how it contrasts the terribleness of the modern Star Wars with the improvements of the modern Star Trek. Funny how things change. It's almost like there's some cosmic balance that says that Star Wars and Star Trek can't both be good at the same time...

(And yeah, as a longtime Trekkie I have some problems with Abrams' movie, but compared to garbage like the Next Gen movies and Voyager, at least the new Trek is enjoyable. Rick Berman's Trek was as unwatchable as the Star Wars prequels.)

exe - 4/4/2013, 2:28 PM

The old Trek movies are too outdated. The new ones are just the ones we need.

RexDartEskimoSpy - 4/4/2013, 7:21 PM

They're the Trek movies we deserve, not the ones we need right now?

J.J. Abrams Talks STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS And STAR WARS Comparisons

Abrams talks more about his anticipated Star Trek sequel, saying that both fans and non-fans of the franchise will enjoy it. He also discusses the series' comparisons to Star Wars and whether or not Into Darkness will have more influence from that saga.

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