J.J. Abrams and Alex Kurtzman talk Star Trek Into Darkness

After the recent teaser trailer set excitement levels hurtling through the roof, questions have been asked as to how Benedict Cumberbatch’s character will fit into the general plot of Star Trek Into Darkness .

All we really know so far is that he’s named “Harrison”, that he used to be part of Starfleet and that he shares a history with the crew. Now, some of the creative team have dropped a few hints as to what we might expect, but predictably, it’s all fairly vague.

“Well without revealing too much,” begins screenwriter Alex Kurtzman, “what I can tell you is that in the same spirit as 'can the Enterprise be under water? What does that mean? How are we going to justify this? How are we going to explain it?’ We went back and we talked a lot about things that made us want to make the first movie in the first place as fans.

“And what do we feel was successful for the fans. A lot of that had to do with honoring the history - honoring the show. But we also want to come up with a way to make the stories feel fresh and unpredictable. So without revealing too much, we applied the same thinking to Harrison.”

Hmm, that certainly doesn’t reveal too much, does it? Director J.J. Abrams was similarly cagey, although his comments did succeed in cranking our anticipation levels up even further…

“The whole thing, not just his backstory, but his agenda, his plan, his secret…” explains Abrams, “all that is what, for me at least, makes him such a frightening and cool villain.”