Quick question: Am I the only one who wants to see Star Trek Into Darkness that doesn’t care what villain Benedict Cumberbatch is playing? Because sometimes it feels like I am.
More and more it seems to me like the rebooted Trek franchise is being treated like a superhero movie series, where fandom thinks the goal of the fandom is to try to guess what pre-existing material will be adapted next, and the point is to recognize said material and go “Ooooooooooooooooooh I know what that is!” I am not above doing this (I enjoyed the Project: Pegasus sign in Avengers a bit more than I should have), but it’s not exactly the intended purpose of the movies, or the primary source of entertainment. Do people do this with other franchises? Do they eagerly anticipate news that Galvatron will be in the next Transformers, or that they’re bringing back Ernst Blofeld to fight Daniel Craig?
As soon as 2009’s Star Trek ended, people began speculating as to what the sequel would be about, and it’s only natural that this speculation is limited to bringing back X or revisiting Y. However, the difficulty in doing that with Star Trek is that the franchise has so few prominent recurring villains. Everybody immediately remembered Khan, and then promptly ran out of ideas.
Of course, Trek has many recurring villainous organizations–the Klingons, the Borg, the Maquis, Section 31, the Orion Synidcate, and so on. With continuity rebooted you can easily finagle it so that any of those groups are available to tangle with Kirk and Spock. But that doesn’t satisfy this primal fandom urge to see a singular archnemesis, looming just beyond the horizon and threatening to be ten times worse than the last villain. Fans want that moment where Batman’s finally gotten past the first movie and now he has to contend with a new fellow named…the Joker!!! But the Klingons, as an entire race, cannot be Star Trek’s Joker. Star Trek arguably does not have a Joker. 1
And so the fandom is left with the unenviable task of scouring the original Star Trek TV series to pick the best one-off anatognist that happens to line up with the plot and the casting of Cumberbatch. To date, Khan Singh (unfrozen 1990s ubermensch) and Gary Mitchell (Captain Kirk’s buddy corrupted by godlike power) are the leading candidates. Comic Book Resources put up an interesting list of suspects here, and I must admit that Ben Finney (Kirk’s buddy who went postal) and Garth of Izar (Kirk’s hero who went mad) are intriguing possibilities. But the fact I feel I must remind you who these characters are indicates that none of them are iconic enough to jusify all the hullaballoo about bringing them back. I find Garth particularly fascinating, but I can’t say he’d be substantially more fascinating than introducing a brand new character. 2
Therefore I see no point in trying to guess what the name of Cumberbatch’s character is. His identity doesn’t appear to be a plot point, and I have a rough idea of what the character’s motivations are, so his name is about as important to me as that of Eric Bana’s character in the last movie, which I frequently forget. If his name is “Gary Mitchell,” then I applaud the old school callback, but that doesn’t really tell me anything I’d like to know about the character. Frankly, I wouldn’t expect Cumberbatch’s Mitchell to be substantially different from Cumberbatch’s Khan–I’m pretty sure either way he’s going to be BBC’s Sherlock but evil and with more rayguns.
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This is why I’m so depressed about the reboot–Trek is now about recycling old ideas rather than coming up with new ones.
I dunno, his Sherlock is already a bit dickish, so not much of a jump here.
That said, I’d love for it to be Gary Mitchell, if only so that THE UNIVERSE MAY TREMBLE AT THE NAME … GARY. It’d be another addition to the “working-class villain” corps iTrek established with Bana’s character in the first go-round.
“Do people do this with other franchises? Do they eagerly anticipate news that Galvatron will be in the next Transformers, or that they’re bringing back Ernst Blofeld to fight Daniel Craig?”
ABSOLUTELY. You have no idea the amount of hype being generated by my friends when they found out that Javier Bardem was rumored to be playing a rouge double-0, thinking he was going to be Sean Bean’s 006.
Yeah, I was going to say. If you’re using an iconic series, of course people are going to be interested in seeing an iconic villain. And I agree Trek, at least OS Trek, doesn’t have a really iconic single villain aside from Khan.
Of course, Khan wasn’t that iconic until they resurrected him for the movie, so it’s not at all strange to speculate on various obscure one-shot villains going through the same process. And Gary Mitchell is a natural–he’s a friend of Kirk’s, and what happens to him on the show sets up a pretty potentially amazing storyline.
Oh, and in case you weren’t aware, Jim, the producers have said that Cumberbatch is playing a pre-existing Trek character, hence the speculation. It’s not that the fans are THAT unimaginative, it’s the people who made the movie inviting it. Of course, after all this, they’re going to have to produce something amazing to make all the secrecy worth it.
As for Khan–one of the reasons I, at least, am chewing it over so much is that having Khan be the baddie is a REALLY STUPID IDEA, and I really don’t want them to be that stupid. Just as I don’t want to see a Kirk-Spock-Uhura love triangle, but I’m worried Abrams and co. are insipid enough to give us one. So it’s not like I’m buzzing with glee when I discuss the possibilities; it’s more, like, “Gee, I hope they dodge THAT bullet.”
I don’t know what all the arguments are about, when it’s so clear that “Star Trek Into Darkness will feature the glorious return of Harcourt Fenton Mudd as interpreted by Benedict Cumberbatch. I’m calling it now and you’ll all have to say how smart I am when it happens.
(seriously though my money is on Garth of Izar – there’s a ton of dramatic possibility with that and the basic premise seems to fit with what they want to do with STID)
The thing is, by pulling the whole reboot thing, they FORCED the story into a position where the natural storyline is going to be “what happened before, but different”
Long time fans have at the very least a rough idea of what Kirk, Spock and their crew do- Fight a lot of Klingons, explore planets X Y and Z, occasionally time travel. Now, things won’t happen the same way now, but a lot of the same people are presumably going to be out there doing the same things. So when they go looking for plots for Into Darkness and further sequels, a lot of fans are going to expect the writers to mine the thousands upon thousands of pages already written about this universe to fill those.
Or better yet, Stephen Hawking.
@DistantFred: the thing is, it’s in the nature of Star Trek that they can do anything they want, story-wise, and no one is going to argue that they’re deviating from the original. All you have to say is “they went to a different series of planets in this timeline”. You expect certain broad elements, like the Klingons, or the basic shape of Federation society, but only the saddest, nerdiest nerd would argue that they’re betraying Trek if they don’t go to the gangster planet or whatever.
That said, again, the producers were the ones who claimed Cumby was playing a canon Trek villain (or character, at least). This isn’t coming from the fans.
@Doug: Garth of Izar actually makes a surprising amount of sense, especially in regards to why they’re so determined to keep his identity a secret. It’s a pretty deep cut, though (but then, who isn’t?)
Okay, really beside the point MGK is making, but Drew McWeeney over at HitFix has a pretty interesting theory on his Motion Captured blog as to who Cumberbatch may be playing. I’ll post the link when I’m not on my BlackBerry (which I am right now–currently hard to fo digging throught the archives)
Do they eagerly anticipate news that Galvatron will be in the next Transformers
A substantial number of us plead with fate that Galvatron — or insert any other favorite character here — won’t be in the next TF movie. Because the movies are bloody awful.
I don’t think it’s so much an issue of fans being obsessed with who the villian might be (fun fact: of the 11 previous TREK films, only 2 featured the return of specific villian characters from the tv shows- and in only one instance was that the main villian (Khan, of course- the Duras sisters in GENERATIONS were very much “henches” to a new character); TREK fans have shown themselves very willing to accept new additions to the mythology, thank you very much.
No, I think this is really about J.J. Abrahm’s love of playing dickish games with the fanbase, obstensibly to conceal his “secret plotlines”… but more likely just because he doesn’t like them very much.
(AND because it’s hard to convince people you’re some kind of “visionary” who’s taking an established franchise and making it your own if you publically admit “yeah, we’re basically remaking/sequelising/ripping off a specific tv episode”).
It’s fan-hype, Jim, but not as we know it…
@Prankster:
I know they said it’ll be an existing Trek character, I just don’t know why they bothered to. The point of doing that should be to excite a long-time Trek fan (e.g., me) but any long-time Trek fan should realize that there are no candidates worth getting excited about. There is no hardcore Gary Mitchell fan who’s going to fist-pump if it’s confirmed that Mitchell is in the movie. Indeed, I can’t think of any original series villain that fans would be more excited about than they are for Cumberbatch himself, in any role.
I’m not suggesting fans are unimaginative in speculating about recycled characters instead of expecting a new villain. (And bear in mind, they were doing this long before the producers confirmed they would be using an existing character.) Obviously fans can’t speculate that the next movie’s villain will be Miggerus Jansso of the Cavity Creep Imperium if we don’t know who that is or if he exists. The only way to speculate at all is to assume old characters will be brought back. It’s just that Star Trek doesn’t lend itself to that approach as well as, say, Harry Potter, where you could safely assume Voldemort and his goons would keep coming back because it’s that kind of saga.
I dunno, I actually think it’s kind of cool if he is playing Gary Mitchell. Not least because the show suggests an interesting storyline that could be expanded on profitably (ditto with Garth of Izar) but wouldn’t tie them down all that much. And it’s not like non-Trek fans will be lost. It’s just a neat little callback.
I just hope that, whoever he’s cast as, he’ll be made-up so heavily that I don’t just see an otter every time he’s on screen.
Slut Bunwalla!
I want the next ST movie to be a mash-up of Spock’s brain and I, Mudd
There was actually a pretty big amount of speculation about Fiennes playing Blofeld in Skyfall (which, um… Missed it by *that* much.)
I’m confused. Galvatron is popular? (Maybe there’s some other version that’s actually popular, but Gen-1 post-movie Galvatron was too stupidly psychopathic to be an interesting threat or a credible leader.)
Well, if they aren’t going for the Khan angle, someone/thing from the Mirror Universe, perhaps?
“Do they eagerly anticipate news that Galvatron will be in the next Transformers…”
Not Galvatron- but Thok, his being a psychopath is what makes him fun! -but there was a fair bit of buzz around Shockwave being in Dark of the Moon. And then he turned out to be another prop in Optimus Prime’s murder spree(Don’t get me started).
He could’ve been anyone, but just happened to be vaguely purplish and named Shockwave.
I hate those movies so much.
Wait, there was a Project: Pegasus sign in Avengers? and it’s also just fun to see how they re-imagine someone.
What I don’t understand is why they feel constrained to TOS villains. It’s a whole new timeline. Throw in Q, throw in the Borg, give us the Federation-Cardassian War hinted at in TNG and DS9 but never shown.
Nero messed up the timeline, things got accelerated, use the whole toybox.
When I heard Cumberbatch’s voice, for a second I thought it was Patrick Stewart who was back for his vengeance.
But no it’s probably Khan. The Japanese version of the trailer has Kirk and Spock doing that thing where they Live Long and Prosper but can’t touch each other’s hands through glass. <- sorry everybody.
This is my hope: Arne Darvin, Klingon spy foiled by Tribbles, made to look human.
http://www.startrek.com/database_article/darvin
Instead of becoming a merchant sippin’ hot fish juice, Arne applies himself to get back in the good grace of the Empire and infiltrates Starfleet. As a Captain young enough to be a rival to Kirk, his domestic terrorism unfolds as the Klingons prepare to go to all-our war!
Into Darkness … of a Klingon heart humming for revenge. It’s personal, geo(spacial)-political, funny (lead with the Tribble episode before the opening credits), and ties back to an existing character. Ole Arne would have to have some more surgery afterwards to make it into Starfleet, but Klingon-Human, why not a little Face Off too?
Okay, here’s that interesting theory that Drew McWeeney had: http://www.hitfix.com/motion-captured/a-day-at-bad-robot-gives-us-a-better-look-at-star-trek-into-darkness/3. It goes pretty damn old skool.
I agree. I don’t care who he’s playing as long as the story is well told. We were lucky to see the 9 minutes IMAX previews before our Hobbit viewing and I can’t wait until the movie premiers.
They’ve said the character is neither heroic nor a villain, but there’s really only one character in the Pre-Boot universe who fits those qualities AND is iconic enough to bring back. It’s obvious.
Harcourt Fenton Mudd!
C’mon, he’s obviously playing Bela Oxmyx. (That’s why he didn’t have any lines. The ’20s gangster patter would be a dead giveaway.) 🙂
Finnigan!
With Peter Weller there, who I would think would be playing some incarnation of his ENTERPRISE Human Supremacist character, possibly someone from that arc?
(It was the one season of ENTERPRISE that was good.)
Borg. Tribbles.
Tribbles. Borg.
TOGETHER THEY WILL SHAKE THE HEAVENS.
IN THREE-DEE
COMING SOON
William Burns: In my personal canon, “Cupcake” was Finnegan.