Now that we're a few years removed from it, J.J. Abrams is opening up about some of the failings of Star Trek Into Darkness.
In a new interview with Buzzfeed about all of his films so far, Abrams said he takes full responsibility for some of the issues and the fact that the sequel wasn't as good as it could have been. He noted that one problem was that they began shooting while Abrams was still unsure about certain things in the script. Namely, the first movie had a strong story about two orphans, Kirk and Spock, who are at odds and end up working together, but the central theme of Into Darkness was more vague to Abrams.
"What was their issue? What was their dynamic? What was their problem? And it wasn’t really clear," the director noted.
Ultimately, the movie focused on Kirk being disappointed that Spock didn't find their friendship as meaningful as he did, but Abrams says that this was "a little bit lightweight."
He also reflected on the decision to withhold from the public that Benedict Cumberbatch was playing Khan, which writer Damon Lindelof recently said was a mistake. Abrams agreed with Lindelof that being so secretive ultimately made fans feel like they were being lied to. At the same time though, he didn't want viewers to know something that the characters don't know for 45 minutes.
“I would never say that I don’t think that the movie ended up working,” Abrams concluded. “But I feel like it didn’t work as well as it could have had I made some better decisions before we started shooting.”