The showrunner behind HBO’s critically acclaimed drama/thriller/awesome ‘The Leftovers’ (And ‘LOST’), Damon Lindelof, explained in an interview with Variety that he made a mistake when it comes to ‘Star Trek: Into Darkness’.
‘There’s no reason to be mysterious for mysterious sake’ … he continued ‘…for example, we decided 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.”
I don’t think keeping the secret was a bad idea. It was all in the execution. Their flat out denials and redirecting of questions when pressed on the subject made the production team seem holier than thou to everyone.
Also, if we wanted to start a laundry list of everything that is wrong with ‘Star Trek: Into Darkness’ How about…
Magic blood that solves ALL death.
Galaxy-wide (maybe universe) capable transporting device.
Unprofessional girlfriend arguing with boyfriend on a mission.
Galaxy-wide (maybe universe) capable communicators.
Just pull any wire, it’ll work.
Mystery only pays off when the grand reveal evokes either a “hell yeah!” or a “holy ISHT” from the audience. The Khan reveal was almost universally greeted with “huh?” from people who didn’t recognize the name, and “UGH, NO” from people who did.
There’s also the problem that there are two audiences you’re reaching for with this movie:
Audience one is the long term fans who have seen ‘Wrath of Khan.’ Keeping the identity of Khan secret from them serves to cripple your attempt to market the movie on nostalgia. Better to have people know who it is so they can be excited about an updated interpretation of the character.
Audience two are the new fans who came to the series with the rebooted first movie. Keeping the identify of Khan secret from them serves no purpose because they have nothing to associate the name “Khan” to, so you’re just introducing a character and saying “whoops, nope, that’s not actually his name this is.”
So it fails the entire potential market. Ideally instead you drop the “John Harrison” isht entirely and put out two trailers, one nostalgia trailer that focuses on the parallels, one action trailer that focuses on the big set pieces. The latter runs in theaters, the former on YouTube. The audio of the nostalgia trailer should largely be from the bit they got Nimoy to record about his Enterprise’s experiences, cut in with shots of Cumberbatch doing evil Cumberbatchy things, and then close with QuintoSpock yelling “KHAAAAAAN”.
So now that ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ is upon us some are speculating that a similar bait and switch could happen yet again. According to the film’s director JJ Abrams, “it’s no accident” that Luke Skywalker doesn’t appear in trailers, posters, official photos and merchandising. So where is Luke?
In an interview with Howard Stern this past week, JJ Abrams explained further why he did not want to talk about Luke’s absence ahead of the film’s release. “Here’s the thing: I really want to make sure that we’re not ruining the movie for people, that they’re not seeing too much of it before it comes out. I hate when I go and see a trailer and think that I’ve just seen the movie in encapsulated form … I’d rather be asking questions than feel like they’d been answered for me.” What if Luke Skywalker has been in all of the trailers for ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ all along, and he was just behind a mask this whole time? What if Luke Skywalker IS Kylo Ren. I know one thing, Kylo Ren is no John Harrison. But, he most likely is a Skywalker…just not Luke.
-Dagobot
Get at me on twitter: @markdago
Like me on THE Facebook: facebook.com/markdagoraps
Download my latest EP for free: markdago.bandcamp.com
Listen to MY podcast http: http://poppundits.libsyn.com