Damon-LindelofLast night, at the premiere of Star Trek Into Darkness, we spoke to writer/producer Damon Lindelof. It was, by the standards of press line interviews, pretty in depth, but it started out with the question:

Without getting into anything too specific, at what point in the development process did the ideas that made this film come about.

And the response:

“Very early on, I think the fundamental ‘this is what the plot is going to be’, ‘this is who the bad guy is’, ‘this is what they’re up against’, that came very, very early. Even while we were working on the first movie, I think we had plans for the second one.“

With that in mind, we followed up:

So presumably, based on that logic, you guys have some plans for the third one then.

“I think that is a reasonable conclusion. You should always know where you’ve been, you should always know where you are, but most importantly, and I learned this from Lost, you should know where you’re going.”

And a little more prodding led to:

“You can never see enough Klingons, and I think in this film we’ve given the audience a little taste, but there’s also a promise that there’s a larger conflict on the horizon, and that would be fun to see.”

So that’s the basis for the next film then?

“Draw your own conclusions my friend. I confirm nothing and deny all.”

On something of a roll, we kept pushing:

Star Trek Into Darkness - UK Film PremiereWill we see Benedict Cumberbatch return in future films?

“To answer that question would be to determine whether or not he actually survives this movie, but if he survives this movie, I think that we would be incredibly stupid to not use him again.”

When I was speaking to Bob [Orci] and Alex [Kurtzman] earlier, they did mention they’d like to bring The Borg and Q into this universe. Have they mentioned that to you?

“You can’t talk about Trek and not talk about the Borg, and certainly about Q. Very iconic adversaries from The Next Generation which is, outside of the original cast films, was my entry way into Star Trek, so I wouldn’t mind getting – towards the end of our run on Star Trek, maybe baby Picard could be born. There has to be some sort of crossover we’re not thinking of.”

And finally, a little note on spoliers:

At what stage do you think it will be appropriate for people to openly discuss this film and all the twists and turns?

“I would want to wait about two weeks, and let everybody who really wants to see the movie, see the movie, before I personally started assuming everyone had seen it. But I think the people who are seeing it are all excited about keeping the secret, now we’re all throwing the surprise party together.”

———————–

Star Trek Into Darkness is released in UK cinemas May 9th. You can see all our coverage including our review and many more interviews right here.