Since the inception of the series, every "Star Trek" film has shared one thing in common: the name of the television series that inspired it.

Although "The Wrath of Khan," "Generations" and "First Contact" are now synonymous with those installments, they're still "Star Trek" movies to the core. And when asked if there was a possibility that he and his collaborators might have considered removing those two magic words from the title of "Star Trek Into Darkness," director J.J. Abrams said no, but admitted they did discuss other options for the upcoming sequel.

"We always had 'Star Trek' in the title in some way," Abrams told MTV News. "But there were other things we talked about. There's a very intimidating, giant black ship in this called the Vengeance, so we talked about that name, 'Vengeance,' but it also seemed like a word that was being used quite a bit in movies and it felt a little familiar."

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Not unlike "The Empire Strikes Back," widely considered the best sci-fi sequel of all time, "Star Trek Into Darkness" ventures into more philosophically complex and, yeah, darker territory than its predecessor. The new film reassembles the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise for another adventure, this time as Kirk (Chris Pine), Spock (Zachary Quinto) and company track down John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch), a fugitive terrorist who is determined to destroy Starfleet and everything it stands for. Abrams once again steps into the director's chair, working from a script by Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci.

"Star Trek Into Darkness" opens in theaters nationwide Friday.

Check out everything we've got on "Star Trek Into Darkness."