Hoping to clear the deck for the next decade or so of dealing with Star Wars-related disappointments, J.J. Abrams followed his recent lens flare mea culpa by telling MTV News he now believes he made a mistake by keeping the identity of Benedict Cumberbatch’s Star Trek Into Darkness character a secret. “The truth is I think it probably would have been smarter just to say upfront 'This is who it is,'” said Abrams of how, in hindsight, it might have been smarter to say, “This is a guy who punches way better than Captain Kirk punches, so it will take a whole lot of punching to stop him,” in order to properly prepare the audience for what they were about to see.
Of course, it also would have been smarter to just admit he was Khan, but Abrams says the studio feared it would alienate people who weren’t already Star Trek 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,” Abrams says of the burden these non-fans would feel to already be familiar with Star Trek’s most famous villain, despite blissfully ignoring a half-century’s worth of mythology before buying their ticket. Or failing that, read an old movie title, so they’d at least know Khan is sort of angry guy. Anyway, having at last acknowledged that the audience doesn’t always respond well to secrecy, Abrams went back to pretending like he doesn’t know what’s going to happen in Star Wars.