Scribe Damon Lindelof can count himself a lucky man. Not only is he the screen writer for Ridley Scott’s return to the sci-fi fold movie, ‘Prometheus,’ he also co-wrote another highly anticipated film, the untitled sequel to ‘Star Trek’ (aka ‘Star Trek 2’). From what I can tell, one of the advantages of writing a script for these movies is that you can also get to visit the set. While on a press junket for ‘Prometheus,’ Lindelof touched on his impressions of the physical Star Trek world and his thoughts on Benedict Cumberbatch as the new villain.

Lindelof was very impressed with the design change the set production team made with this film. As he describes it, the different sets of the Enterprise ship were built as though they were one unit:

“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.’ “

He also touched on the excitement of seeing the Enterprise crew together again especially Kirk dressed in his iconic yellow shirt:

“And then 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.”

Although he was very good at not disclosing any spoilers, Lindelof did give some pretty flattering praises of Benedict Cumberbatch’s performance as the movie’s baddie:

“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.”

Rumors have been flying about Cumberbatch playing the role of Khan. But Simon Pegg, who plays Scottie on the film, immediately put that rumor to rest. “(Cumberbatch is) not just another disgruntled alien. It’s a really interesting… sort of… thing…Obviously I can’t talk about it.” He continued to say, “It’s not Khan. That’s a myth. Everyone’s saying it is, but it’s not.”

With filming already having been completed last week, ‘Star Trek 2’ is now in the hands of the post-production team who will have almost a year to do their magic as the movie is slated to be released on May 17, 2013.

Hopefully we won’t have to wait for too long before the first trailer is released!

Source: Collider, The Telgraph