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Damon Lindelof Teases 'Star Trek 2' Villain & Massive Enterprise Set

by Alex Billington
June 4, 2012
Source: Collider

From one sci-fi to the next! With Ridley Scott's Prometheus soon arriving in theaters, many websites have been interviewing co-writer Damon Lindelof. Of course, interviews drift into future development territory and a few of them really got into it on Star Trek 2, which J.J. Abrams is still shooting. Damon talked with Collider about a couple of different topics which, while are really just the writer hyping up the good aspects of it, but they all sound pretty damn good anyway. Especially the size and scope of the USS Enterprise this time, and a rather preemptive claim on how "iconic" of a performance Benedict Cumberbatch is giving.

We haven't seen or heard too much since Abrams started shooting Star Trek 2 earlier this year, still without an official title, but that means they're keeping everything under very tight wraps. However, with Damon out talking to press, he seems kind of excited to chat about it anyway, and gets into it with Collider. He comments on the reunion: "When you see all the actors again, and Kirk in his yellow—which we only really see at the very, very end of the first movie—and start playing those interactions between he and Bones, he and Scotty, Spock and Bones, etc. And then bringing in some new blood, Alice Eve is awesome." He also talks enthusiastically about another actor, Benedict Cumberbatch, who seems to be impressing everyone.

"Benedict Cumberbatch, I can already say with a certain degree of confidence that he is gonna give an iconic film performance and one of the best sci-fi performances that I've ever seen. And not even having seen the movie yet, just sitting there in video village with the headphones on. So I'm really psyched."

I am, too. Even though we just barely heard a rumor a few weeks ago that Cumbertbatch is indeed playing Khan, there's no official confirmation yet and Lindelof doesn't drop any hints either way — just this buzz. However, he does also tease some other exciting details regarding the size of the Starship Enterprise they're shooting on this time around. If I'm accurately reading between the lines here, they built a near-scale model completely connected of the inside rooms of the USS Enterprise, to shoot this? Awesome. Lindelof explains:

"It was incredible, and I think that Trek 2—there's certainly an instinct to just go bigger in the second movie and one of the things that we did was we connected all the sets, so you can just basically follow the actors off the bridge, into a turbo lift, down, walking through a plaza, into the med bay as opposed to [having to] cut every time you do that, because when we were shooting on the Paramount stages we just didn't have the money to connect all the sets. So the first day that I actually walked on the Enterprise, you walked through the Enterprise and it's a very insular experience of like, 'Wow I'm actually on a starcraft.'"

Oh how I wish I could've set foot on that set. But I'm sure we'll get some incredible shots of it — hopefully in IMAX, wink wink — of that journey through the Enterprise when this comes out in the summer of 2013 next year. In the meantime, can we expect to actually see anything soon? Maybe at Comic-Con coming up this July, perhaps? In Lindelof's interview with TrekMovie, he states: "We need to put our best foot forward. We just wrapped principal photography as you know and Comic-Con is in mid-July so it is an aggressive timetable. If we are going to go we are going to go big or not go at all." Let's hope they go real big, right?!

We suggest you watch the full interview on Collider with Damon Lindelof, as well as the TrekMovie update. I don't expect Damon to reveal much in the way of plot at all, but I'm glad to hear some hype in the way this sequel is getting bigger and better. We'll continue to keep you updated on all things Abrams' Star Trek 2.

Filed under Hype, Movie News, SciFi

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