EPK Interview with Simon PeggRecorded on October 14, 2015
Question: So Simon, you’re in the movie and you wrote the
movie. What was it like when they came to you and asked
if you’d help write this film?
Simon (17:24:04:00): I was making Mission: Impossible –
Rogue Nation in London with Bryan Burk, who is as well a
producer on Into Darkness in ‘09, and he mentioned that
they were thinking of restarting the process, and we were
just kicking ideas around on the set of Mission:
Impossible. He was sort of talking about you know ways
that we could go and we had these very spirited
discussions and then I was on the set of, where was I? I
think I was - I remember he took me somewhere - oh yeah,
it was Mission, and he took me off - I thought he was
going to assassinate me - took me to a corner and just
said, “Do you want to write it?” And I kind of went
(jibberish - laughs), and then um - but said yes. And
then I met Doug in January, very early January, for the
first time - Doug, who’s now my absolute wingman and
great friend. We had a very interesting sixteen hours in
a hotel room in London with me, Justin, Doug and Lindsey
EPK Interview with Simon PeggRecorded on October 14, 2015
Weber, and even despite that, we continued to work
(laughs), and we wrote the film.
Question: What was the process with Doug?
Simon (17:25:28:00): There was a lot of phone stuff.
There was a lot of me coming home from Mission:
Impossible, half past eight at night, and then being on a
conference call to LA until God knows when. And then I
went off to LA and Doug and I for the first time spent
time together and we locked ourselves in the screening
room at Bad Robot and covered the white boards in there
with ideas and hashed out a kind of rough structure for
the movie. And then Doug came over to the UK and he
stayed with me at my house in Hertfordshire and we spent
a week just working at it solidly. We got a lot of work
done that week. We watched a lot of Star Treks in the
evening. When we’d done good stuff, we’d go and watch the
original series, just to kind of - not just to enjoy it,
but also to pick little details that we could feed into
our universe as well, you know? The names of redshirts
and various personnel that could also exist in the prime
EPK Interview with Simon PeggRecorded on October 14, 2015
timeline, and then we kind of got a first draft together
somehow. Then JJ gave us, and Lindsey and Justin, gave us
notes, which made us so depressed (laughs). I sent a
picture of myself with a phaser against my head to JJ.
Like, I didn’t know how we were going to do it. But there
were times during this process where we were like, “We
can’t do this,” but we did it. We just kind of somehow
battled through.
Question: Can you talk about Lindsey Weber’s
contribution?
Simon (17:27:00:15): Lindsey Weber is this sort of
incredible force of intelligence and reason and
practicality, which - and great creative input as well,
which was absolutely indispensible for Doug and I. To
have someone in the room who was kind of - you know,
who’d be able to sort of shout down the more crazy stuff
that we had or help us talk stuff through. And she was a
great sort of third member of the creative team, of
myself, Doug and her - and Justin of course, so a fourth
member. And she was just indispensable and great to have
EPK Interview with Simon PeggRecorded on October 14, 2015
because she was very impartial. She came at it from a
very pragmatic - you know, she’s a fan of Star Trek but
she’s not like a fan boy or fan girl, like I am, or you
know Doug and I are both a bit sort of nerdy about Star
Trek. She’s more practical and yeah it was just great
having her. I sent her a message when she left Dubai
towards the end of the shoot, just sort of saying,
“You’re my rock. Thank you.”
Question: Can you talk about your relationship with
Justin?
Simon (17:28:13:00): The hardest part of the process was
before we started, before we got to Vancouver. Justin was
always so busy. It was very hard to kind of get any time
with him, and often his concerns and thoughts would come
to us second-hand. I didn’t feel like I particularly knew
him through the initial part of the process. As soon as
we got to Vancouver and we could all be together all the
time and we started to see some of the conceptual designs
for some of the ideas he’d had, some of his pre-vis,
suddenly it began to click in and become a far more
EPK Interview with Simon PeggRecorded on October 14, 2015
productive and fruitful process. And then when we started
shooting, we were able to prioritize each scene in terms
of whatever was coming next, we would look at most
intensively. And having Justin there to discuss stuff
with was great. He’s got a very visual mind, Justin, and
sometimes you have to kind of eek out what he means. He
kind of does this thing where he sort of like encourages
you to complete his sentences in a way that you’re kind
of trying to guess what he’s thinking. But somehow we
found a rhythm and it worked really well. And I suddenly,
as soon as I started to see Justin work, I got him
straight away and became very sort of fascinated by his
process and really impressed by his choices.
Question: Let’s talk about the script. It opens with
humor, restlessness, fatigue, the emblematic five-year
mission. Why did you feel that was the right place to
start?
Simon (17:29:55:00): Doug and I both felt that they
hadn’t really ever addressed the practicalities of deep
space travel in this way before, in terms of how being
EPK Interview with Simon PeggRecorded on October 14, 2015
aboard a starship for that amount of time might have
affect on you day to day in the smaller issues of life,
in terms of just little personal things and how it might
affect your mood and your attitude towards the mission.
We like the idea of questioning the Roddenberry universe
a little bit. Not just conceptually in terms of the big
themes like unity and cooperation, but also in terms of
having to wear the same uniform every day, you know? And
that became something important to us quite early on and
we thought we’d play with that and feed it into the
general ennui that the crew have at this point. And then
suddenly what they take for granted gets ripped away and
hopefully you know they’re invested with a new sense of
belonging.
Question: Why did you choose Yorktown as the victim of
the film that the crew is trying to save?
Simon (17:31:15:20): One of the notes that JJ always
directed towards us was the idea that he wanted the
threat in the movie to have a very far-reaching effect
and in a way he seemed to be keen that it always come
EPK Interview with Simon PeggRecorded on October 14, 2015
back to Earth. Now Rarth is a very, very long way away
now in this iteration of the story, and it was a slight
dilemma for us, cause how can we make earth a victim or a
potential victim of whatever’s going wrong here with it
being so, so, so far away? Because what we’re trying to
get across in this movie is that they’re not anywhere
near Earth anymore. They’re light years away and Earth is
long gone. So we created a sort of proxy Earth, which is
Yorktown. Yorktown was the name, I think, of Gene
Roddenberry’s – well, the Enterprise was first called the
Yorktown, so we took that name and we gave it to the
space station. And it became sort of a representation of
the Federation, a hub for the Federation and all the
newly inducted worlds and the pre-existing inducted
worlds and it was in that one sort of globe the
Federation itself, so any threat to it was a threat by
association to Earth eventually. So that became our kind
of, our proxy Earth, as it were, I guess.
Question: The movie begins in earnest when the Enterprise
is destroyed. Can you talk about that choice?
EPK Interview with Simon PeggRecorded on October 14, 2015
Simon (17:33:05:00): I was dead against destroying the
Enterprise. I had several shouty arguments with everybody
about it because I felt like - I don’t know, maybe it was
partly my Scotty side just being protective of the ship.
My initial argument was that it’s been done. It’s no big
deal to destroy the Enterprise. We’ve seen it in Star
Trek 3, we saw it in Generations. You know, the
Enterprise has been destroyed before, but the fact is it
hasn’t been destroyed on someone else’s terms. It’s
always been kind of like a sacrificial move or something
that’s kind of - they’ve been partially - sort of
involved with doing in order to save something. This is
an attack, which succeeds against the Enterprise, so once
I came around to the idea of it and watched the pre-vis,
which was very exciting and kind of amazing, I sort of
grudgingly accepted that that was what was going to
happen. It was actually told to me that it was going to -
It was like a fait accompli. I remember Lindsey just
saying, “Simon, they’re going to destroy the Enterprise.
Just deal with it.” So I was like, “Okay.” And have since
kind of come around to the idea of what the Enterprise
means, and the removal of it is such a hugely significant
EPK Interview with Simon PeggRecorded on October 14, 2015
deal for everybody, you know. It’s the taking away of the
family linchpin for the entire crew. And so it’s -
symbolically it’s a huge thing. And I’ve come around to
agreeing that it should’ve been blown out of the sky
(laughs). Because the Enterprise is an idea, it’s not a
spaceship, you know. And there will be an Enterprise B.
Question: It creates a special plot mechanic. Instead of
having a crew together, we have different members coming
together. Can you talk about why that was the right move?
Simon (17:35:16:00): We wanted to separate the crew quite
quickly and have them all in disparate parts of the story
and the geography of the film. And the pairings came
about sort of, I wouldn’t say randomly because we
certainly put characters together who haven’t really
spent much time together. Spock and McCoy was a key one,
because I felt and Doug felt that we’d seen the Kirk-
Spock relationship quite extensively in the previous two
films. It’s time to let that go for awhile and come back
to it later on when they’ve known each other a bit
longer. I feel like they’ve been through almost a
EPK Interview with Simon PeggRecorded on October 14, 2015
lifetime’s journey in the first two films. We don’t
really need to kind of linger on that too much now, and
the relationship between Spock and Bones has always been
fascinating, to coin a phrase, and very funny because
they are so diametrically opposed to each other in so
many ways, and yet somewhere there is a great friendship
and we wanted to explore that. With Scotty and Jaylah we
liked the idea of Scotty finding a kind of adept, young
engineer, like someone who has a mechanic skill, which
impresses him. With Uhura and Sulu, that changed around a
little bit. There was a time when it was just Uhura in
there, and then Sulu. I think Sulu was somewhere else and
then came to the thing. But we kind of liked the idea of
those two as an odd pairing. And in terms of Chekov and
Kirk, it’s just that you’ve got the boy and the man.
There’s a great sort of interplay, juxtaposition between
Chekov’s very excitable enthusiasm and Kirk’s now faintly
jaded attitude towards things. So those pairings all felt
kind of right, you know?
EPK Interview with Simon PeggRecorded on October 14, 2015
Question: You acknowledge that Sulu has a family, and it
felt like it’s a step away from a lot of other things
happening in the story. Why’d you do that?
Simon (17:37:23:00): That’s the whole big thing that we
decided to do early on, was that we’d not only give Sulu
a family but we’d make it a same sex relationship. And
that was partly in deference to George Takei, in terms of
his - not because he ever played Sulu in that way. His
Sulu I’m sure he played straight, it was more to his
activism as a person. And also this is the prime
universe, so we’re not necessarily the same people, we’re
not necessarily the same embryos. We are the same
characters but there is a chance that this is a different
person altogether. We didn’t ever want it to seem like he
could’ve chosen his sexuality cause that’s impossible to
do, but we did sort of float the idea that we are all
completely separate people, albeit with the same names,
with the same genetic makeup, same parents, but there
could be significant differences which might explain why
we look slightly different and perhaps have different
aspects to our character. And we decided, in such an
EPK Interview with Simon PeggRecorded on October 14, 2015
inclusive universe as Star Trek, in a universe where
everybody is considered equal, that there wasn’t really a
really strong gay character in Star Trek. And we thought
wouldn’t it be great if one of the main characters, it
wasn’t just an ancillary character, it was one of the
main characters, and that aspect of their character had
no bearing on who they were or what happens to them in
the film. It’s just a detail of who they are. And that
became Sulu, and we had a long chat with John about it.
We didn’t want it to be anything to do with the story,
other than the fact that he has a family. He doesn’t
learn a lesson about his sexuality or his sexuality has
no bearing on anything other than the fact that he has
someone he cares about in Yorktown. And it was a bold
move, I feel. It was one that we kind of talked about a
lot. But I really felt like it was right thing to do
because it just would be most likely someone in that part
of the ship would probably be gay, if not more. Maybe
Scotty’s gay. I don’t know. But it just felt like
something that we wanted to do, and it also gave us the
idea of Sulu having a vested interest in Yorktown as a
place that he obviously did not want to see under threat.
EPK Interview with Simon PeggRecorded on October 14, 2015
There’s going to be a lot of discussions about it, I
think. And anyone who is upset about it, hopefully we can
talk them out of being upset. Anyone who thinks it’s a
bad idea just because he’s gay shouldn’t be a Star Trek
fan. The only thing I can foresee being a problem is the
idea that someone would say, “Well, how come the other
Sulu isn’t gay?” But I think we can explain that in a way
that’s credible and canonistic.
Question: Can you talk about the creation of the villain
core? How they fit together and why they had to have the
philosophy that they have?
Simon (17:40:23:19): Yeah, it’s interesting because with
this story, for a story which takes place so far from
earth, the bad guy ends up being a human being and that
kind of felt like - rather than being a not very
imaginative in terms of, well this goes back to Earth
again, it felt like a really interesting idea in that
there is an incredible parallel between Kirk and Krall.
They are the mirror of each other, and at some point they
separated in their decision making and one became one
EPK Interview with Simon PeggRecorded on October 14, 2015
thing and one became the other. And so we wanted to
create a subterfuge really with the bad guys, so that you
didn’t see that coming and in Kalara and Manus and Krall,
you have seemingly three aliens who we learn later were
all at one point human and were changed genetically. And
it just felt like a really interesting idea, you know?
The irony of them being faintly anti-inclusive, anti-
other. They were kind of racists in a way because they
didn’t want the human beings to combine with aliens,
became aliens themselves and found strength in their
alien-ness. There were so many intricate complex ideas
floating around that it felt too sort of fruitful and
weird not to pursue, so yeah. And we didn’t want him to
be, Krall specifically, we didn’t want him to be just
another guy out for revenge. We kind of wanted him to
have a complex reason behind his bad guy-ness, it was
more like he made a poor decision and in not being able
to take it back, just exacerbated his situation into
galactic autocracy. And we kind of liked that, that he
was just pissed off a little bit - cause he was too proud
to ever realize what he was doing was wrong, he became
this monstrous despot when the root of his problem was
EPK Interview with Simon PeggRecorded on October 14, 2015
something as simple as sour grapes - cause that happens
sometimes.
Question: It feels like there’s a moment at the end of
the movie where it feels like he might switch back.
Simon (17:42:44:00): Ee had a conversation about Edison
in the final moments of the movie where he becomes fully
human that the return of his humanity would give him a
massive crisis because emotionally he would start to
become human again and things like his conscious might
start coming back. His human self might start to question
the actions he made. Not as alien because being an alien
isn’t bad but becoming what he did which is a bizarre mix
of things and a confusion of ideals and genes. We had
this thought what if he in a moment of redemptive guilt
helped Kirk save the day and we tried to explore this a
lot and every way we came back to it didn’t ring true
that he would actually go “you know what I was wrong”.
But we love the idea that it might be there in the
shadows- this feeling like, “Oh my God, what if I have
been terribly wrong the whole time. What if this whole
EPK Interview with Simon PeggRecorded on October 14, 2015
thing has been a mistake? What if I was wrong?” So we
came up with this idea where he would have this crisis of
conscious and be about to save Kirk, be about to help him
when suddenly he catches sight of himself and in that
moment he realizes exactly what he is which is lost and
he fights the urge to be good. And he becomes what he is
which is a monster, whatever he looks like - whatever
physical appearance. He is in his heart a monster and
that is his own doing.
Question: How did you feel about Jaylah?
Simon (17:44:46:07): I love Jaylah. Also have grown to
love her more and more. When we first started talking
about her - I don’t know if I should tell you this story,
it’s a funny story - when we first started talking about
her we referred as Hana Solo. And it was because we
wanted a kind of resourceful, pirate, kind of young girl
who was cool and people would want to be. But because of
the cross pollination of that name just felt wrong and I
said we can’t call her that even in kind of discussions.
We had to give her a name. Then we started talking about
EPK Interview with Simon PeggRecorded on October 14, 2015
who she reminded us of and who she was. Jennifer Lawrence
in Winter’s Burn was incredibly tough and sort of
independent resourceful girl so we started calling her J-
Law. And that became Jaylah. So Jennifer Lawrence if
you’re watching the extras on the Star Trek DVD, which
I’m sure you are, we kind of named her after you. But
yeah, it was a character on paper that seemed kind of
cool. She had this strange, syntactical way of speaking
cause of where she’d learn English. She was super-
resourceful and tough. But as soon as we got Sofia
involved, Sofia Boutella, who just inhabited the
character in such a way that charmed the socks off of all
of us. All of us love Jaylah. JJ loves Jaylah. I got
emails from JJ after he watched dailies going “Can we
have more of Jayla in the film?” Cause she is just so
awesome and 3D. It was a real joy to be her foil in the
movie and to kind of be there for her journey, which is
sort of an orphan surviving in this ship, which becomes
the savior of the entire crew. This old jalopy, which is
hidden in the undergrowth on Altimid. She’s such a great
character. I am very proud to have been a partial parent
of hers, you know?
EPK Interview with Simon PeggRecorded on October 14, 2015
Question: Can you talk about the process of deciding to
have the Franklin be on Altamid? This massive, ancient
spacecraft whose existence pre-dates Starfleet?
Simon (17:47:14:23): We loved the idea of them thinking
they were the first humans somewhere and discovering that
they absolutely weren’t. And that there was this old
Federation technology. The Franklin had got there via a
worm hole, which had almost destroyed everyone on board.
They found their way there by luck. The Enterprise had
been traveling for a long time to get to this part of the
galaxy. And Altamid is a planet which is very, very, very
far away that hasn’t been visited by the Federation on
purpose ever. But we loved the idea of them discovering
this, like an old car in the bushes. This idea of a very
early Federation ship. And we kind of went back right
into the past with the help of Memory Alpha, which is –
the guys who made this amazing website, which is
completely fan-driven and created and is so reliable and
so full of incredible detail. It was enormous help for
myself and Doug. Not just to watch the TV shows, but get
EPK Interview with Simon PeggRecorded on October 14, 2015
back to pre-the original series stuff – the Enterprise
show, the M.A.K.O. – the kind of, the beginnings of the
Federation. We wanted to put that in there as well. And
we also liked the idea of them having to use very old
stuff to win the day. Not least kind of old music and old
human things to try and win out.
Question: It also marks the third appearance of the
Beastie Boys. Why are the Beastie Boys such an integral
of these Star Trek films? Was that a J.J. thing?
Simon (17:48:50:00): I think it was a J.J. thing! I know
the Beasties were pretty – you know, there’s references
to Star Trek in some of their songs. And it felt like
because we’d done it twice, we should do it again. And we
had this idea of disrupting this kind of cyberpathic link
with the swarm with noise somehow. And it really felt
like a cool thing to do with music. It just felt cheeky
and hopefully extremely fun. And “Sabotage” is one of the
greatest pieces of music ever created. And it seemed very
apt to be the song they use to sabotage the swarm. And I
really wanted to see a lot of spaceships blow up to the
EPK Interview with Simon PeggRecorded on October 14, 2015
sound of the Beastie Boys! (laughs) The idea was just
kind of – it was too much fun.
Question: It’s an audacious choice, and one of the two
elements in the film that I think could really go south
if not done right. Can you talk about that other big risk
– the motorcycle piece?
Simon (17:50:06:09): The motorcycle was Justin’s idea,
and it was something that at first we were like, “Okay,
but how in the heck are we going to do that?” So we
started thinking about it and it suddenly started to make
sense that they probably have land transport on the ship.
The ship was most likely a sort of mineral survey ship, I
think initially. It was an exploratory ship and probably
would have certain ground transport available. We came up
with this idea for the Hilts PX70 and that was named
after Steve Mcqueen’s character in “The Great Escape.” We
thought it was it was a nice irony and it was being used
to get into a prison camp rather than to get out. So we
called it a “Hilts PX70”. Justin to his credit was like -
should I do this because people obviously associate me
EPK Interview with Simon PeggRecorded on October 14, 2015
with kind of land transport movies but it just felt like
another nice (inaudible) and would be fun to see. It’s
always nice to see kind of low teach destroying high
tech. Doug and I had a crazy evening in L.A. And the
Paramount lot - I don’t know what of the night it was but
we had “born to be wild” on the iPod and every time we
spoke about the motorbike we put it on. It was almost
this idea of cutting into Kirk “keep the motor running”
and it was one of those ideas that it was so out there
that we could not not do it.
Question: Can you talk about the fight? Did you have a
sense in your head when you ran it?
Simon: (17:51:42:22) We tried to. I can’t claim it was
our idea because it was an idea Justin had in a very
Justin way. Doug and I were constantly going “What do you
mean” we eventually began to sort of - as soon as we
started to see the model - the idea was there a nexus in
the middle of the station where by gravity it was very
questionable. It shifted and changed because it was a
nexus with four different gravity points. And that sort
EPK Interview with Simon PeggRecorded on October 14, 2015
of created a sort of - a force that was going to take
place in this place where the gravity was very uneven and
enabled us to really do some crazy stuff. Yeah, that was
one of those director–writer interfaces that took a long
time to sort of get.
Question: At the very end of the film, is the plan to
have Jayla in Starfleet?
Simon: (17:52:50:12) I would love to see that, we seem to
be accumulating a lot of crew members left, right and
center and I don’t know at this point if the character of
Kevin will have featured, but you know we love the
character of Jayla very much and we would like to see her
become part of the universe. The non-human characters of
Star Trek are more important and the more of them the
better. To some degree they are racial (inaudible)
anyway, to keep things different and not have it been all
one note. I would love to see Jaylah come back because
she feels like a character that has lots more to do. I
feel like maybe a spin off would be great.
EPK Interview with Simon PeggRecorded on October 14, 2015
Question: You just mentioned Deep, he had his moment in
this movie and why was that the moment?
Simon: I laugh with Deep all of the time. I love Deep and
he’s such a great guy and such a seasoned professional.
He’s an extraordinary actor and has done many, many
things. Deep and I were one of the few actors that were
in the Doctor Who, Star Wars and Star Trek so we have our
own little club me and Deep. He was a character in the
first film that was kind of - wasn’t supposed to come
back. JJ and I were talking after the scene when scottie
transports off Delta and leaves Keenser like (sad noise)
and were like that’s really sad - we should bring him
back at the end. And then we had this idea what if he has
a staff uniform, or what if he is like a super wiz
engineer. So by sheer accident and a joking conversation
Keenser became a regular character as such “Into
Darkness” and even though Scottie and Keenser get
separated he has his part to play – a corrosive mucus
based one. The prime universe is a different place
altogether, and we are meeting people and they are
EPK Interview with Simon PeggRecorded on October 14, 2015
becoming part of that crew. So it’s nice to have that
freedom to do that.
Question: Lets talk a little bit about Scottie, where is
he at the beginning of the film? Where is his head-space
and what was your sense of him at the beginning of the
film?
Simon: (17:55:04:20) I feel like Scottie is probably the
least bothered by everything. He’s in his element when he
is in the engine room. He likes his job very much and I’m
sure he complain more than anyone but he’s probably the
most satisfied out of everybody. He’s not in a terrible
place so when we join him he’s kind of doing his thing
which is to be in the guts of the ship, keeping it
moving- that’s what he kind of lives for. And obviously
that is kind of all quickly taken away from him. But he’s
sort of brave and resourceful as ever in this movie. And
meeting Jaylah is kind of an interesting journey for him
because he has to engage his emotions a little bit and be
a little bit more empathetic and less blasé about her
feelings. It’s been interesting. It was strange writing
EPK Interview with Simon PeggRecorded on October 14, 2015
for myself because I feel like its almost too easy at
times you know. He’s someone I know very well and I was
almost relieved when I was writing Scottie’s scenes
because it came a lot easier.
Question: It feels to me like Bones gets all the lines in
this film. Did you intentionally kind of pull back on
Scottie because you said to yourself I am the writer and
I can’t make Scottie the lead?
Simon: (17:56:28:19) A little bit, I feel also that we
missed Bones in the last movie. He’s a character that
people really love, and I felt like “Into Darkness” we
didn’t see so much of him. And so this was the time to
rectify that. And yes it felt a little bit strange,
giving myself all the cool lines and the best stuff.
There’s probably a conscious effort to not be too
prevalent.
Question: Lets talk about the 50th year. It’s a big deal
and the idea of Star Trek because – it’s not even a film
- it’s an idea because it expands in so many properties.
EPK Interview with Simon PeggRecorded on October 14, 2015
Why is it still relevant? Why does it still work? Why do
people still get passionate and devoted over it?
Simon: (17:57:28:08) I think Star Trek persists and is
here in its 50TH year because it’s such an optimistic
idea. It’s the rehearsal of the notion that we might not
perish because of own stupidity. It’s the idea that we
might actually succeed and become a noble and productive
and inclusive cooperative species. It’s what we all
secretly hope for I think. It’s a universe where we are
all accepted, it’s a universe where there is no judgment
or prejudice. Its just all about hope and offers us our
own future, the idea of our own future. Large. And its
such an irresistible thing and as long as we have some
hope that we might not become victims of our own
stupidity. People will love it. This one feels like such
a big deal, this one. Not just because of the 50th year
but it’s the first Star Trek since lost Lennon and Maury.
There’s a lot of significance in terms of symbolic
meaning. The weight of that hasn’t ever felt light on
myself, Doug, Justin, Lindsey or JJ I’m sure. It means a
EPK Interview with Simon PeggRecorded on October 14, 2015
lot to us that this film kind of resonates with the fans
and the people that have never seen Star Trek.
Question: People who don’t know Star Trek know Spock.
Simon: (17:59:15:09) Well it’s yeah. It’s a very easy
responsibility. We lost Leonard during the writing
process and it felt like literally we thought we had to
make some reference to it and pay some tribute. The most
obvious way felt to have Spock join him. And communicate
our sadness of losing Leonard through the sadness of
losing the Spock that we all know and love. And that felt
very, very right and very respectful and we all knew
Leonard and he’s such an important part of the story that
we wanted to make a reference to him and as much as to
his character. And I hope we have done that. I hope we
have done that. I think if what we’ve planned works in
the movie I think it will be a rather beautiful thing. We
all miss him very much.