The weirdness of Star Trek Into Darkness 2013
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by Blender Dumbass
Aka: J.Y. Amihud. A Jewish by blood, multifaceted artist with experience in film-making, visual effects, programming, game development, music and more. A philosopher at heart. An activist for freedom and privacy. Anti-Paternalist. A user of Libre Software. Speaking at least 3 human languages. The writer and director of the 2023 film "Moria's Race" and the lead developer of it's game sequel "Dani's Race".
I remember 2015. I remember the hype people had when the first teaser of Star Wars: The Force Awakens was dropped. I remember the memes depicting screenshots from old classic Star Wars movies, with super-imposed, fake lens-flares all over them. The meme was: it is J.J. Abrams, he is going to lend-flare the fuck out of Star Wars. I also remember the disappointment watching The Force Awakens for the first time, not really seeing many of those lens-flares people so anticipated. What happened? Well... Star Trek Into Darkness happened. ↩ Reply
![[embedded image]](/pictures/user_upload/blenderdumbass/jjlensflaresstid.png "Extreme Lens Flare in Star Trek Into Darkness")
J.J. has clarified in interviews that his decision to use lens-flares less on The Force Awakens has a lot to do with one particular shot in Star Trek Into Darkness where an actress's face was utterly obscured by them, while she was trying to deliver a very emotional scene. In some frames you can't even see her. I mean, the image looks amazing. The lens flares make everything look amazing. But isn't that too much? Well J.J. thought is was. ↩ Reply
![[embedded image]](/pictures/user_upload/blenderdumbass/star-trek-into-darkness-edgar-wright-4213024688.jpg "Edgar Wright directing Star Trek Into Darkness")
Here is an interesting thing about this movie. J.J. Abrams only directed 99.95 % of this movie. The other 0.05 % ( or one of 2120 shots ) was directed by Edgar Wright of all people. ↩ Reply
I mean it sort of makes sense. Both J.J. and Edgar really love to work with Simon Pegg and Simon Pegg is playing a rather big character in Star Trek by J.J. Abrams. He is even a big part of the Mission Impossible franchise because of J.J., and an actor for at least 2 films by Steven Spielberg ( who made Super 8 with J.J. ) because Edgar Wright was one of the writers on Tintin... Does your head spin? ↩ Reply
What's more important, if you look at that image of Edgar Wright on set of Into Darkness is that at least some of this film was shot on a fucking IMAX camera Christopher Nolan style. Both J.J. and Edgar Wright love shooting on film. Mostly 35mm anamorphic. But Chris Nolan set a new stage for these film-makers: make all of the grandiose bullshit in the movie be IMAX. ↩ Reply
Actually wait a second? Chris Nolan? Because thinking about what unites, so to speak, J.J. Abrams and Edgar Wright, at least stylistically, I don't think of Christopher Nolan. I think of Michael Bay. Look at my reviews of Star Trek 2009 and Hot Fuzz to see what I mean. I mean the name "Michael Bay" is present in the titles for both reviews. And Michael Bay did use IMAX cameras for sections of Transformers 2 in 2009. ↩ Reply
Yes, technically The Dark Knight ( the first Nolan film to use IMAX ) was released 1 year earlier. So Nolan is in fact the guy to credit, or to blame, or whatever. But specifically when it comes to J.J. and Edgar duo, I'm inclined to think Michael Bay was the reason Star Trek: Into Darkness was shot like this. ↩ Reply
More than that. The 2011 Transformers 3 movie, which was shot during the development of Star Trek: Into Darkness ( by the same studio ), has a lot of references to Star Trek. Did Bay know? Did Bay intentionally put in those references to the J.J. film because J.J. decided to mimic the way Bay shot Transformers 2? ↩ Reply
If that is the case, did Michael Bay took inspiration from Nolan directly? ↩ Reply
Now here is another complication. Unlike the 2009 Star Trek, the 2013 Into Darkness, that we already know was shot on film, and sometimes on IMAX film, was released in fucking 3D. Excuse me? ↩ Reply
The camera in the picture from set ( the IMAX camera ) doesn't look to be a 3D setup. There is only one lens. Imagine shooting IMAX with a 3D setup. This would be a nightmarish endevour. This is why Bay shot Transformers 3 ( which was in 3D ) on James Cameron's fusion cameras. ↩ Reply
But that is not even the main issue here. Fine, they were shooting 2D and post-converting it. It could be done very well. And why the hell not. ↩ Reply
But if you think back about the reason J.J. stopped using lens-flares, the whole train of logic rams into a car and explodes into pieces ( if you know what I mean ). ↩ Reply
There is an interview where both Michael Bay and James Cameron talk about the 3D process on Transformers 3 and they specifically mention lens-flares and how much of a pain in the ass those are to make right in 3D. Their conclusion was, in order to make it work, you have to shoot as cleanly as possible and add all those lens-flares in post. ↩ Reply
Think about that shot in the top of this review. There are 2 possibilities. One: J.J. shot it for real on film with the lens-flare being the lens-flare we see in the end. Or two: The lens-flare is added in post. If it is one, then some poor post-conversion artist had to somehow re-create all of the shot under the lens-flare, to make the frames for the other eye. And then re-apply that lens-flare back on the shot. Which doesn't seem to me like a J.J. sort of thing to do, because as you can learn from a recent VFX Artists React Episode J.J. participates in the visual effects of his movies. He knows how hard something like this would be. ↩ Reply
So he probably shot the shot without the lens-flare and the lens-flare is added in post. ↩ Reply
This lens-flare! The one that he thinks is a mistake. This lens-flare! What? ↩ Reply
How? I mean, if you are adding it in post anyway, you can actually dial it to be as strong, or as soft as you need. Making the scene work. ↩ Reply
I have an explanation. Put on your toilet-hats. I'm about to shit out a theory. J.J. Abrams actually loved this shot while making the movie. He thought it was brilliant. He changed his mind only after the movie was released. Only after people criticized it. And decided that after the movie is released it is out of his hands. He decided not to be George Lucas. Not to fix it any further. ↩ Reply
But then when he thought about what can he make next, the name George Lucas was ringing in his head. So he made The First Awakens without the lens-flares. ↩ Reply
Happy Hacking!!! ↩ Reply
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