WRITER/PRODUCERS ROBERTO ORCI, ALEX KURTZMAN AND DAMON LINDELOF – STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS
Director J.J. Abrams, producer Bryan Burk and writers Damon Lindelof, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman form the creative collective at the heart of the Star Trek project.
With Abrams at the helm, the team collaborated on Star Trek, the critically acclaimed origins story that introduced the adventures of Captain Kirk and the crew of the Starship Enterprise to a new generation and, at the same time, captivated existing fans of a much loved franchise that stretches back almost 50 years to when the original ground-breaking TV series, created by the late Gene Roddenberry, first aired.
After the success of the first film they all agreed not to rush out a sequel. Instead, they held countless meetings to develop ideas and hone the script for what would become Star Trek Into Darkness. Orci, Kurtzman and Lindelof are the main writers, but Abrams and Burk were closely involved in developing the story, too.
“We felt that because the first movie was such a labour of love for all of us it deserved to be given the time to breathe and to be understood in a really natural way,” explains Kurtzman.
“And that meant that even though there was a mandate to get another one out quickly, J.J. was bold enough to say, ‘we are not going to do that. We are going to take the time that we need and everyone is going to be happier for it. We are not going to rush this.’ And he didn’t.”
“When he went off to do Super 8 it actually gave us the time to really marinate the ideas, which was great and really helpful to all of us, because by the time we were doing it there had been a lot of discussion about what was going on and many roads had been travelled and many ideas rejected.”
It also gave them time to develop a script that each and every one was happy with. When they met for ideas meetings – and later, in various permutations, to write – each would have the power of veto over an idea or a storyline that they didn’t like.
“We are all very close and friendship is right at the heart of it,” says Orci. “There are times when it’s like a pressure cooker situation – and everyone gets a vote - and you can’t do that unless there is an enormous amount of affection for everybody – and a lot of trust, too.”
Lindelof adds: “We don’t just say, ‘right guys, we’re writing today.’ When we get passionate about an idea we will go to battle over it. It’s not personal like, ‘I’m going to be mad at Roberto for three days now because he didn’t agree with me.’
“But as it’s happening it feels very intense because we all care very deeply, not just about the material, but about each other. I wouldn’t want to do it if we weren’t friends.”
All of them have a history of working together on Abrams’ TV projects where writing teams are the norm. Each one, too, will often work on different projects, but come back together under the umbrella of Abrams’ production company, Bad Robot.
“We’ve all got our own things going on too and Bad Robot is the place where we gravitate and get together as a team,” explains Lindelof. “Alex and Roberto were professional writers before they worked on Alias and I first worked with J.J. on Lost and so we are all TV guys and TV guys have this collaborative spirit of working together in a room and that’s the spirit under which we write these stories.
“At any one time there is always at least two of us engaged in the process but there are so many permutations. Obviously Roberto and Alex have been writing partners for years. During the first movie, I was doing Lost simultaneously to Star Trek so Alex and Roberto did the majority of the writing and the story work and I floated in and out as I was able to.
“And J.J. was a part of the story process too, but they did the majority of the heavy lifting when it came to the actual writing. This time around Alex was directing his movie (People Like Us) so I actually got to work a lot with Roberto without Alex there, which had never happened before.
“And then Roberto went off to do a TV show and it became Alex and I. And then Alex and Roberto both weren’t available so I would go and sit with J.J. And then I wasn’t available so Roberto and J.J. would carry on. So it really was team work.”
At first skeptical, they eventually embraced the idea of using the latest 3D technology for Star Trek Into Darkness.
“At first we were all extremely resistant to 3D. There had been some movies that we felt had used it more as a gimmick than as a way of a creative means of amplifying a story,” explains Kurtzman.
“Really the only way to use it is as a totally immersive experience, and obviously the pinnacle of that was Avatar. So initially we were very hesitant and then Paramount said, ‘we’ve taken the liberty of converting (into 3D) some scenes from our first Star Trek, please just take a look.’
“At first we were kind of, ‘no, no, no.’ And then J.J., who was leading the charge against it, said, ‘OK, we should take a look.’ We sat down in the screening room with our arms crossed and watched a couple of scenes and suddenly we were bowled over by how great it did actually look. And J.J. pushed the technology for Into Darkness and the result is spectacular. We’re very happy with it.”
The young cast who appeared in Star Trek – including Chris Pine as Kirk, Zachary Quinto as Spock, Karl Urban as ‘Bones’ McCoy, Simon Pegg as Scotty and Zoe Saldana as Uhura – are reunited for the new film and joined by British actors Benedict Cumberbatch, who plays the villain, John Harrison, and Alice Eve, as Dr. Carol Marcus.
Cumberbatch is best known to UK audiences for his starring role in the acclaimed BBC TV series, Sherlock. Watching a tape – recorded on his iPhone – of Cumberbatch's first audition for Into Darkness was a eureka moment, says Lindelof.
Abrams watched the tape and then sent out a late night email to his colleagues saying that their search for the actor to play Harrison was over.
“It was a couple of days before Christmas (2011) and J.J. emailed me at 2.30 in the morning and, in essence, all he wrote was, ‘holy shit!’ with nine exclamation points,” Lindelof recalls.
“He then forwarded the audition tape to all of us and that was the end of our conversation about who was going to play this guy. We certainly didn’t discover Benedict, he had already worked with Steven (Spielberg) on War Horse and was a huge star in the UK but certainly American audiences haven’t been that familiar with him.
“Benedict is an actor who doesn’t have to worry about being typecast. And there’s no Sherlock in this performance but he brings the command and intensity that he brings to every role. But nobody has seen him do this before. We certainly hadn’t.
“And as much as we love Chris, Zach, Karl, Zoe, Simon and all the other actors, every time Benedict had a scene we wanted to be on the set because we wanted to see what he was going to make them do.
“We’ve seen them work together for two movies but dropping him on to that ship with those guys was fantastic - those actors were constantly surprised and amazed and intimidated and it introduces a new element. Chris did fantastic work on the first movie but the work he does on this movie, particularly his scenes with Benedict of which there are many, went to a different level. He upped his game, which was awesome.”
The writers are, understandably, keen to guard the plot of the new film, anxious not to spoil a host of surprises in store for the audience. But they promise a compelling stand-alone story where Kirk and his crew are pitched against a brilliant, highly intelligent and supremely dangerous adversary hell bent on destroying them and causing utter devastation.
“I think we owed the audience two things coming out of the first movie that seem to be in direct contradiction to each other,” says Lindelof. “The first is that we forge our own path and that we do something new and different that they haven’t seen before in relation to Star Trek.
“And secondly, it’s very important that we honour this great franchise that has been around for more than 40 years and has all these great characters and great stories.
“When you go and see a Rolling Stones show you want them to play Satisfaction and Sympathy For The Devil, we want that degree of familiarity and you can’t ignore it. And if you ask Star Trek fans what do you want to see in the second movie, they say ‘we want to see something entirely new that looks absolutely familiar.’ And that was the challenge and I think that somehow we pulled it off.
Q and A follows:
Q: Can we start with talking about the 3D? J.J said he was reluctant to embrace it at first. What was your view?
Alex: At first we were all extremely resistant to 3D. There had been some movies that we felt had used it more as a gimmick than as a way of a creative means of amplifying a story. And really the only way to use it is as a totally immersive experience and obviously the pinnacle of that was Avatar. So initially we were very hesitant and then Paramount said, ‘we’ve taken the liberty of converting (into 3D) some scenes from our first Star Trek, please just take a look..’ And at first we were kind of, ‘no, no, no..’ And then J.J., who was leading the charge against it, said, ‘OK, we should take a look..’ And we sat down in the screening room with our arms crossed and watched a couple of scenes and suddenly we were bowled over by how great it did actually look. And J.J. pushed the technology for Into Darkness and the result is spectacular. We’re very happy with it.
Q: Which scenes did you watch?
Damon: The first one was when the Enterprise drops out of warp. Kirk is on the bridge and he is trying to convince Pike (Bruce Greenwood) that there is a trap and they drop out of warp and there is all the wreckage of the Fleet, which has just been destroyed. And the second scene was on the Bridge with Spock in the foreground, and it’s a conversation about Nero (Eric Bana) but it really showed that the characters were on different planes. At first we were all on the same page about 3D, it was, ‘we’re not going to do that.’ The initial enthusiasm around Avatar had sort of transformed and it had felt, at times, like it was exploitative and gimmicky and it was going to be distracting. We had done fine with the first movie without being in 3D and when all these movies were being released in 3D but there was a 2D option, we were all saying that we would rather see the 2D.
Roberto: The first movie was such a labour of love for everybody that we were all highly protective of the second one and we didn’t want to do anything that made it feel like a cynical money grab. That was our biggest worry. And ultimately J.J., as the director, was saying, ‘I’m not convinced that this is the best way to tell the story.’
Q: Who went to watch those scenes that had been converted from the first film?
Damon: It was J.J., Alex, Roberto, myself and Bryan (Burk, producer).
Q: Where did you watch them?
Damon: J.J. said that they had to screen it at Bad Robot because we didn’t want to be fooled. It was like, ‘we want to control it on our own turf…’ So we watched it at Bad Robot with no Paramount executives present, so we would not be swayed.
Q: And it changed all of your minds then and there?
Alex: Yes, it was very hard to deny. So then it became a series of conversations about how to do it and ultimately the most important thing was that J.J. and Bryan were adamant that he wanted to see if we could push it even further than what had been done before. J.J. was asking the 3D guys, ‘so what is the absolute maximum we can push it to? Can we push further than that? No? OK, well we’re going to do it anyway..’ He has been pushing and pushing and they have been doing an incredible job of taking it to another level because J.J. made a conceptual decision that this is going to be an immersive experience and we were going to design the movie around it.
Q: Did you have a script at that point?
Alex: Yes, we did.
Q: So did you then have to go back to it and adapt it for 3D?
Alex: No, I don’t think you can write from that place, you can only write the story. What happens is that inevitably, once you start to understand that you are doing 3D your brain starts to calculate what would be an interesting way to use it.
Q: I’m thinking about the scene in the trailer where Kirk goes over the cliff into the sea and the audience feels like they jump with him. That’s a great 3D scene…
Damon: That was always there. We’ve seen characters jump off cliffs through a hundred years of cinema but the way that J.J. is going to execute that gag, knowing that it’s going to be in 3D, is an entirely different idea than what was on the table when we were going to shoot it in 2D. You can’t say, ‘maybe they should be throwing spears that are coming right at the audience…’ But those guys were throwing spears in that draft. So that was in the original script before the 3D. That was the thing, J.J. said ‘we’re not changing anything in the script, we’re not doing anything gimmicky, we’re using the 3D as a way of making it a much more immersive experience..’ Because if the audience is watching the movie going ‘wow, that 3D is great’ then we are bringing them out of the movie. That was the great thing about Avatar. Even if you went in a little cynical, ‘big blue people? What is this thing?’ The brilliance of what James Cameron did was he got us to have doubts about James Cameron (laughs). He got to re-position himself as the underdog. Our attitude was ‘we’re cynical about 3D, we think it’s exploitative and gimmicky, convince us otherwise..’ And we were convinced. I mean, I went to see Life of Pi in 2D because I’m against 3D and a friend of mine said, ‘you need to see it again in 3D because that’s the way Ang Lee wants you to see the movie..’ And I did and it was an entirely different experience. The movie was great but it was better in 3D. And I think that Star Trek in 2D is going to be really good because it’s a great story, the performances are great and we are very, very proud of it, but hopefully we people who see it in 3D are going to say, ‘you have to see it in 3D. You have to go over that cliff and you have to see the ship to ship sequence in 3D.’
Q: So are you all converts now?
Roberto: Honestly, it’s a case-by-case basis. There is no way to generalise whether it’s right or wrong. If a story lends itself organically to being told in 3D and the filmmaker really wants to embrace that as a way to go so that every micro decision is filtered through that lens quite literally then yes, it can be great. If it’s just ‘hey, it’s going to be bigger..’ that’s not a reason to do it.
Damon: If you ask Christopher Nolan if The Dark Knight was going to be as good if he hadn’t shot large sections of it in Imax he would say ‘no.’ But he could have shot it not in Imax but the way he wants you to experience it is in the large format and he wants to shoot on film, not digital, he is a huge advocate for that. That’s the way that those guys want to make those movies. And I feel that for Star Trek if there’s a third movie and we are all doing it together, it’s hard to imagine us not doing it in 3D. But it’s a lot harder to do it in 3D when you hold yourself to the high standards that J.J. has and it’s not just ‘oh we’ll do the conversion and increase the tickets..’ To re-conceptualise the movie in 3D is a pain in the ass but I think it’s worth it.
Q: You enjoyed great success with the first Star Trek film. Why so long before we had a sequel?
Alex: Well we took a year just to talk about it and discuss what worked about the first movie, what resonated with the audience and what didn’t. We asked what were the expectations? What were the threads that we discussed but ended up not using in the first movie that maybe are viable now? And ultimately I think we felt that because the first movie was such a labour of love for all of us it deserved to be given the time to breathe and to be understood in a really natural way. And that meant that even though there was a mandate to get another one out quickly, J.J. was bold enough to say, ‘we are not going to do that. We are going to take the time that we need and everyone is going to be happier for it. We are not going to rush this..’ And he didn’t. And when he went off to do Super 8 it actually gave us the time to really marinade the ideas and that was great and really helpful to all of us because by the time we were doing it there had been a lot of discussion about what was going on and many roads had been travelled and many ideas rejected.
Q: What can we expect from Into Darkness?
Damon: We can’t give you too much unfortunately because one of the things that we really wanted to do as storytellers and something that was important to us was that the experience of the movie was subjective and that the audience was the crew. So if the crew doesn’t know what they are about to get into we wanted the audience to also not know what’s going to happen. If the crew is saying, ‘who is that guy?’ when they are talking about Benedict’s character, John Harrison, we wanted the audience to be saying ‘who is that guy?’ at the same time. So it’s important for us to maintain that balance. But in terms of where did we want to go next? What was the second movie going to be? And that started with what is the natural evolution of these characters going to be? So it was, ‘let’s figure out the answer to those questions and find a story that supports the dramatic conflicts that are going to arise out of that.’ One of the things that we talked about during the first movie was the goalposts of the first film. The first thing that happened was ‘Kirk is born’ and the last thing that happened was ‘Kirk comes on to the Bridge in his yellow shirt and he sits down in the captain’s chair.’ That’s the arc of the first movie.
Q: That’s a big arc. Were you concerned that it was too big a story for one film?
Damon: Yes, that is a big leap. And we would be paying for that in the second movie and the price we were going to pay was, ‘did we put Kirk in the captain’s chair too early? Is he ready for it?’ OK, so let’s embrace that and let’s say that that’s the movie. Kirk basically had an incredible run saying to whoever was in the chair, ‘I’m not sure you’re making the right move. I’m questioning your decisions. Now I’m going to do it myself.’ But just because you can question the leader doesn’t necessarily mean that you should be the leader. We talked about Crimson Tide a lot, which is a movie that we love, where it’s easy for Denzel (Washington) to question Gene Hackman’s judgement but then Gene Hackman is removed from the equation everybody is coming after Denzel and it’s a question of how is he going to handle it. And we thought that was a really interesting dynamic. So we asked ourselves, ‘how could the story support that when we already kind of did the mutiny story in the first movie.’ And we didn’t want them all bickering with each other, it was really about them doubting each other a little bit but solidifying and getting confidence with one another. So talking about all of those permutations and then emotionally what was happening with the characters it was a case of how do we have a story that supports that? So we wanted to have Kirk doubting his own decision making capabilities so then we thought, ‘OK let’s put Spock in the middle of a volcano about to die’ and in order to save Spock’s life Kirk has to violate the most fundamental rule that every captain has to follow. So what will he do in that scenario? And then, more importantly, once he does it what are the consequences of it? And then if Benedict’s character is going to be the bad guy, how can he actually be a mirror, a reflection of Kirk, so that when those guys look at each other they recognise each other because those are the most interesting hero/ villain dynamics that we’re familiar with.
Q: What does Benedict bring to the character?
Alex: He is one of the most talented actors working right now and his focus on screen is extraordinary. There are very few actors that you can think of that when they are on screen they are characterised by their focus and their intelligence that radiates through their eyes and Benedict has that in spades. He also has a very unique ability to convey huge emotions through the slightest twitches and eye movements. It’s really incredible. Plus you could give him the proverbial phone book and he would make it sound beautiful. If you look at the trailer – and that’s a small fraction of what he does in the movie – you hear his voice and you just get chills.
Q: Is his character a terrorist?
Roberto: That’s an over simplification.
Damon: All I’ll say is that no terrorist would call himself a terrorist. Is that a word that others in this movie may use to describe his character? Possibly. But he certainly doesn’t look at himself that way and I think that’s one of the many things that makes him incredibly interesting and dynamic.
Q: Had you watched Sherlock and was that one of the reasons why you were interested in Benedict for the role?
Damon: We’d seen Sherlock but J.J. was aware of it but hadn’t seen it at that point. I was singing Benedict’s praises for this part and then our casting director got Benedict to tape the audition scenes. Actually, he got a friend to help him and he did his audition on his I-phone and sent it to J.J. It was a couple of days before Christmas (2011) and J.J. emailed me at 2.30 in the morning and, in essence, all he wrote was, ‘holy shit!’ with nine exclamation points. He then forwarded the audition tape to all of us and that was the end of our conversation about who was going to play this guy. We certainly didn’t discover Benedict, he had already worked with Steven (Spielberg) on War Horse and was a huge star in the UK but certainly American audiences haven’t been that familiar with him. He is an actor who doesn’t have to worry about being typecast. And there’s no Sherlock in this performance but he brings the command and intensity that he brings to every role. But nobody has seen him do this before. We certainly hadn’t. And as much as we love Chris, Zach, Karl, Zoe, Simon and all the other actors, every time Benedict had a scene we wanted to be on the set because we wanted to see what he was going to make them do. We’ve seen them work together for two movies but dropping him on to that ship with those guys was fantastic - those actors were constantly surprised and amazed and intimidated and it introduces a new element. Chris did fantastic work on the first movie but the work he does on this movie, particularly his scenes with Benedict of which there are many, went to a different level. He upped his game, which was awesome.
Q: How does the writing process work with the team?
Alex: It really is a group process with Damon, Roberto and J.J. and Bryan so co-ordinating schedules is a nightmare (laughs). And what was great was that once we started to really sit down and tackle the script together we went off to the tower in the Bad Robot building. So we locked ourselves in there and they brought us food occasionally and we just got down to it. We had laptops so that we could write but there was no Internet access and it really was ‘we’re not leaving here until we know exactly what we are doing..’ And then we would write together. And then we locked ourselves into an hotel room for three or four weeks and really started putting it down.
Damon: At any one time there is always at least two of us engaged in the process but there are so many permutations. Obviously Roberto and Alex have been writing partners for years. During the first movie, I was doing Lost simultaneously to Star Trek so Alex and Roberto did the majority of the writing and the story work and I floated in and out as I was able to. And J.J. was a part of the story process too, but they did the majority of the heavy lifting when it came to the actual writing. This time around Alex was directing his movie (People Like Us) so I actually got to work a lot of Roberto without Alex there, which had never happened before. And then Roberto went off to do a TV show and it became Alex and I. And then Alex and Roberto both weren’t available so I would go and sit with J.J. And then I wasn’t available so Roberto and J.J. would carry on. So it really was teamwork.
Q: Is it Bad Robot a creative collective?
Damon: We’ve all got our own things going on too and Bad Robot is the place where we gravitate and get together as a team. Alex and Roberto were professional writers before they worked on Alias and I first worked with J.J. on Lost and so we are all TV guys and TV guys have this collaborative spirit of working together in a room and that’s the spirit under which we write these stories.
Q: Is friendship is a big part of it too?
Roberto: We are all very close and friendship is right at the heart of it. There are times when it’s like a pressure cooker situation – and everyone gets a vote - and you can’t do that unless there is an enormous amount of affection for everybody – and a lot of trust, too.
Damon: And it gets very personal. We don’t just say, ‘right guys, we’re writing today..’ When we get passionate about an idea we will go to battle over it. But it’s not personal like, ‘I’m going to be mad at RobertoRoberto for three days now because he didn’t agree with me..’ but as it’s happening it feels very intense because we all care very deeply, not just about the material, but about each other. I wouldn’t want to do it if we weren’t friends.
Roberto: I don’t think the work would be as much fun or as satisfying if we weren’t friends. Look, anybody who is in the business of doing what we do has to be there by definition because there is nothing else you can do with your life. The odds of even getting through the door are so slim and once you are there, if you are not appreciating every second of it, something is deeply wrong. And every day you have to wake up and earn it again and again and again. And part of the fun is when you are working like that you want to be challenged by people you love who have a different point of view who make you a better writer, who open your mind and make you see story possibilities that you wouldn’t otherwise see.
Damon: And the other thing is we are all such fans of this stuff. On the night that the first movie, Star Trek, opened we all went out and sat in the back of a theatre to watch it with an audience. And as the title came up I looked over at Alex and I was like, ‘we made a Star Trek movie!’ And the fact that I could do that with someone who is a dear friend, someone I love, who had the same experience I had as a kid with these movies and be there together in that moment when all these people are watching our movie, that’s pretty wonderful.
Q: What can we expect from this film?
Damon: I think we owed the audience two things coming out of the first movie that seem to be in direct contradiction to each other. The first is that we forge our own path and that we do something new and different that they haven’t seen before in relation to Star Trek. And secondly, it’s very important that we honour this great franchise that has been around for more than 40 years and has all these great characters and great stories. When you go and see a Rolling Stones show you want them to play Satisfaction and Sympathy For The Devil, we want that degree of familiarity and you can’t ignore it. And if you ask Star Trek fans what do you want to see in the second movie, they say ‘we want to see something entirely new that looks absolutely familiar.’ And that was the challenge and I think that somehow we pulled it off.
