In a new interview with MTV, Star Trek Into Darkness director J.J. Abrams admitted he now regrets keeping the identity of Benedict Cumberbatch’s Khan a secret for so long.
If you’ll recall, leading up to the release of Star Trek Into Darkness, there was much speculation surrounding the identity of the villain Cumberbatch was playing. Officially, the character was called John Harrison, but many believed his role was actually the iconic Star Trek villain Khan. Perhaps due to Abrams’ long history of secrecy, the rumors were constantly perpetuated by media and fans alike, until finally Khan’s role in the film was revealed.
Now that several months have passed since the film’s May 2013 release, Abrams sat down with MTV to speak candidly about this decision to conceal Khan’s identity. You can watch the interview below:
If you’d rather read Abrams’ comments, here they are:
“The truth is I think it probably would have been smarter just to say upfront ‘This is who it is.’ It was only trying to preserve the fun of it, and it might have given more time to acclimate and accept that’s what the thing was. The truth is because it was so important to the studio that we not angle this thing for existing fans. If we said it was Khan, it would feel like you’ve really got to know what ‘Star Trek’ is about to see this movie,” he said. “That would have been limiting. I can understand their argument to try to keep that quiet, but I do wonder if it would have seemed a little bit less like an attempt at deception if we had just come out with it.”
The fact of the matter is quite simple: it didn’t really matter. As Abrams pointed out the studio was worried that Khan’s identity would scare off non-fans of Star Trek, but when it comes down to it Khan was nothing but a name to Cumberbatch’s character. His identity didn’t even play much of a role in the finished film, which makes the whole game seem a bit pointless.