Trivia / Star Trek Into Darkness

• California Doubling:
  • Part of the movie is set in London, despite not being filmed there.
  • Locations in Los Angeles double for San Francisco, notably the Getty Museum as Starfleet HQ.
• Cast the Expert: Four of the Honor Guards were played by real-life veterans.
• Celebrity Voice Actor: In the Japanese dub of the film, Uhura is voiced by Chiaki Kuriyama (Gogo Yubari) and John Harrison by TV actor Satoshi Mikami.
• Creator Backlash:
  • Minor example; Damon Lindelof apologized on his Twitter for including a Lingerie Scene of Carol Marcus, feeling it had little to do with the plot and was demeaning. Both he and J. J. Abrams pointed out, though, that Kirk is also seen in his underwear earlier in the film and there was a cut "Shower of Evil" scene planned for Harrison.◊ Meanwhile, Carol's actress, Alice Eve says that she did not feel exploited when making the scene.
  • Abrams also later turned against keeping Khan's identity secret in the advertising, deciding they should have admitted it from the beginning.
  • In an interview with Buzzfeed two years after the film's release, J. J. Abrams addressed some of the film's shortcomings. He thought that the dynamic for Kirk and Spock's relationship in the film "wasn’t really clear." For keeping the identity of Khan a secret prior to the film's release, Abrams felt he "was trying to preserve the fun for the audience, and not just tell them something that the characters don’t learn for 45 minutes into the movie, so the audience wouldn’t be so ahead of it." In the end, Abrams recognized that "there were certain things I was unsure of.... Any movie...has a fundamental conversation happening during it. And [for Into Darkness,] I didn’t have it.... [The problems with the plot] was not anyone’s fault but mine, or, frankly, anyone’s problem but mine. [The script] was a little bit of a collection of scenes that were written by my friends.... And yet, I found myself frustrated by my choices, and unable to hang my hat on an undeniable thread of the main story. So then I found myself on that movie basically tap-dancing as well as I could to try and make the sequences as entertaining as possible.... I would never say that I don’t think that the movie ended up working. But I feel like it didn’t work as well as it could have had I made some better decisions before we started shooting."
  • Karl Urban was disappointed by the fact that the film attempted too hard to emulate The Wrath of Khan, saying that the third movie should have a more original story.
• The Danza: Joseph Gatt's character was originally called GATT2000, although by the time of the film's release, the character's name was changed to Science Officer 0718.
• Dear Negative Reader: Roberto Orci's general attitude to articles critical of the film was to dismiss them on perceived stylistic grounds and make snide remarks about how there's a reason he gets paid to make movies and the critics don't.
• Deleted Scene:
  • Kirk recording his captain's log, falsifying the events on Nibiru.
  • Alexander Marcus watching news reports in his office.
  • An alternate take of the office scene between Kirk and Pike.
  • A scene on Kronos in which Uhura's ruse is interrupted when Kirk decides to exit the K'normian ship and attack the Klingons with his crew members. The fight halts when two Klingons hold Kirk to the ground and put a rifle to his head. As Kirk's crew comes out from behind cover, the Klingon commander shouts an order and a redshirt is shot in the chest. The commander also orders Kirk to be killed, but the Klingons are shot by Harrison as he appears.
  • John Harrison having a shower scene in the brig. This would have countered Alice Eve's lingerie scene.
  • Carol Marcus mentions to Kirk she was raised by her mother in England.
  • An extended scene of Scotty trying to justify his presence at the secret Io Facility.
  • An extended dialogue scene between Carol and her father.
  • Kirk meeting Rima and Lucille Harewood at the memorial service at the film's conclusion.
• Development Gag: Carol Marcus initially joins the crew under her mother's maiden name, Wallace. In the early drafts of what became Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, the role that eventually became Carol was taken by Dr. Janet Wallace from "The Deadly Years".
• DVD Commentary: An "enhanced" commentary, which was originally an iTunes exclusive, later included on the "Compendium" box set of the first two J. J. Abrams Star Trek films.
• Fake Nationality:
  • Khan is supposed to be North Indian, but is played by a Caucasian Brit. This is hand-waved in the comic book tie-in Khan, which shows that Admiral Marcus, in his attempt to control Khan, subjected an unconscious Khan to Magic Plastic Surgery. Unfortunately, it just adds to Khan's anger when he figures it out.
  • McCoy, born in the "Deep South" region of North America, is portrayed by New Zealander Karl Urban.
• Lying Creator:
  • J. J. Abrams and the film's writers said they didn't feel comfortable tackling an updated version of Khan. They lied. Likewise, Benedict Cumberbatch swore up and down that his character in the movie was original; and until his character was officially named John Harrison, the entire cast vehemently denied he was playing Khan whenever they were asked about it.
  • Leonard Nimoy said he had nothing to do with this film. He lied, as he had a cameo.
• Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition:
  • A lot of different retailers have been offering different editions of the film on video, like Amazon offering a version that comes with a Phaser or Walmart having a set that includes a steelbook with Harrison on the cover and a replica of the USS Vengeance.
  • Depending on the retailer, much of the special feature content on the discs is also completely different, angering many fans, who see it a bald-faced attempt by Paramount to get them to buy multiple copies of the film to collect it all.
• Reality Subtext: The central plot, involving Admiral Marcus's plan to make Starfleet more militaristic, is largely a reflection of the fandom's response to the 2009 revival; though it revitalized the Star Trek franchise for a new generation, quite a few longtime fans criticized it for emphasizing action and conflict at the expense of creative storytelling, and for trying to take a famously optimistic franchise in a Darker and Edgier direction. Fittingly, the final battle pits the Enterprise against the Vengeance, the first Starfleet ship ever designed expressly for combat, and the ending has Kirk delivering a speech about the importance of Starfleet staying true to its original mission of peacekeeping and exploration.
• Refitted for Sequel:
  • The designs and whatnot for the Klingons were originally created for scenes cut out of the 2009 film.
  • Chris Pine recites the "Space, the final frontier" monologue before the end credits. For the 2009 film, Abrams considered having Pine recite the monologue before letting Leonard Nimoy do it as a Passing the Torch moment.
  • It's subtle, but the model of the Enterprise is altered at the end of the movie with swept-back nacelle pylons and a changed impulse engine. This modification would be taken far further in Star Trek Beyond, the final appearance of this Enterprise.
  • Following the release of Star Trek: Insurrection, Patrick Stewart commented in an interview that he thought that the next film should follow up on the "corrupt Admiral" subplot with a story in which the TNG crew had to confront massive corruption in Starfleet. Given Picard's established reaction to Starfleet officers who betray the ideals of the Federation, it is difficult to see how such a movie could have been anything other than awesome. This film contains some elements of Stewart's idea.
• Trolling Creator:
  • A URL for a new poster was hidden in one of the trailers, but the frame where it was hidden in was a shot of Alice Eve in her underwear, where few would be likely to notice it.
  • Some fans were no doubt rolling their eyes when Abrams seems to setup a monster chase scene early in the film. The creature is instantly stunned and never seen again. Adding to the humor, it turned out that the monster was actually Kirk's ride, intended to help him escape from the horde of angry tribals pursuing him.
• What Could Have Been: See the page
• Working Title: The title of the film was going to be Star Trek: Vengeance, but Abrams went against it because of the Ghost Rider sequel Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. The title Vengeance was kept in the Russian release, however.
• You Look Familiar: Peter Weller previously played John Frederick Paxton, the xenophobic leader of the Terra Prime movement, in Star Trek: Enterprise (which exists within the same timeline as the Abrams-verse).

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