Damon Lindelof Compares Star Trek Sequel To The Dark Knight

Expectations for the Star Trek sequel are high; info on the project is low. At this point, I'm eager to learn anything I can about what to expect from the next adventure with the USS Enterprise, even if it's only vague hints and references to other billion-dollar-earning properties.

Last time we heard about the film, producer Bryan Burk made mention of Christopher Nolan's Batman films as an example of what they were trying to achieve with the sequel. Apparently that wasn't just an off-handed remark, either, as now co-writer Damon Lindelof (co-creator of LOST) has expanded on the comparison in a recent interview. Read what he had to say after the break.

E! Online caught up to Lindelof at a pre-Emmys party, and coaxed him into sharing some details on the film. The clip is included below, but here's the relevant excerpt:

We're looking at a movie like The Dark Knight, which went one step beyond Batman Begins. It was really about something, and at the same time it was a superhero movie. We don't want to abandon all the things that made the first movie work and have it be fun and emotional, but we also really want the movie to thematically resonate.

And here's what producer Bryan Burk said previously:

...our aspirations are for the movie to be even bigger and better than the first one. I don't mean that just in scope, I mean content and characters and emotionally. We had a lot of conversations about Batman Begins and how that movie kind of re-invented that franchise, and we looked at what The Dark Knight did and how that really ramped it up and they went to a different place with that film, and how those two films keep re-inventing themselves and are not the same thing every time. So we have strong ideas of what we want to do and we are hoping that this one is an even bigger film than the last one.

Attempting to model the film after The Dark Knight may seem like an obvious move from a financial standpoint, but it's easy to look past that and take away the main intention behind these comments: Star Trek 2 is going to be ambitious and feel distinctly like its own beast. I'm sure audiences would be content to simply go on another round of mindless yet deliriously entertaining fun with the Star Trek crew, but the filmmakers have something more interesting in mind.

I don't know how much faith I have in co-writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman to deliver a more thoughtful, thematically-rich, character-driven Trek outing—while they're very capable of coming up with creative conceits to facilitate fun, past-paced action (as they did on the first Star Trek), character work isn't their strong suit—but perhaps this is why they brought on Lindelof, who (for the first few seasons at least) crafted engaging and reasonably complex characters on LOST.

And hell, even if they don't achieve the same fantastic results as The Dark Knight, at least they will have tried. In Hollywood, that's something to be admired.

Watch the clip with Lindelof below.

[via Cinema Blend]