Pulling back the curtain on Star Trek Into Darkness Monday at Bad Robot HQ, director J. J. Abrams and his Trek crew of cast and collaborators were cautious not to reveal too much information as they previewed the May 2013 blockbuster. Still, some of the most intriguing details thus far in the great “What Is J.J. Abrams Hiding From Us?” Trek sequel mystery emerged: Who is Benedict Cumberbatch playing? How do a certain race of staple Trek baddies figure into the plot? And, perhaps most significant: What does Alice Eve’s character, revealed to be Carol Marcus – a character very familiar to fans, from a very specific story in Trek canon – mean for Star Trek Into Darkness?
[Spoilers and speculation ahead!]
Benedict Cumberbatch is... John Harrison
First things first: A conveniently released/leaked still revealed that Cumberbatch's mystery villain is named John Harrison, though some questioned whether this was a misdirection on Abrams' part. So what do we know about him?
Well, get used to the name. At Monday's press day Cumberbatch's character was referred to left and right as Harrison. The costumes of his on display were sleekly functional and metrosexual (one getup involved a scarf and a cobra-like cowl that would fit right in with H&M's Winter 2259 line). The Starfleet-issued black shirt he wears in the above photo, I'm told, is the same kind Chris Pine's Kirk wears in 2009's Star Trek; read into that what you may.
I briefly spoke with Cumberbatch about the character, and while he couldn't say much he did describe Harrison in a particular way. "He's a terrorist," Cumberbatch emphasized. Still a mystery, but that brings me to...
The Klingons
Yes, Star Trek Into Darkness will have Klingons — we'll even take a trip to the Klingon home planet of Qo'noS.
Although a dozen Klingons were outfitted in STID's semi-throwback Klingon style (pierced ridged bridges and all), only two seem to have prominent speaking roles in the film, which required new prosthetic designs for ease of speaking. They sport armored helmets and familiar Klingon weapons, including a bayonet-like Klingon rifle, a pistol, and bat'leth.
Most curious of all: I'd swear one mannequin dressed in Harrison's garb also sported a Klingon rifle slung around its shoulders...
Next: Alice Eve is Carol Marcus — and a NEW Trek villain theory so crazy it just might work...
Alice Eve is... Carol Marcus
Forget Benedict Cumberbatch and Klingon intrigue; it was revealed that Alice Eve is playing Carol Marcus, and that opens a very specific door into the past of Star Trek lore — specifically, The Wrath of Khan.
In 1982's The Wrath of Khan, Marcus (played by Bibi Besch) is the molecular biologist who shares a past and a grown son with Kirk. She creates the Genesis Device, which is stolen by Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalban); later, her son is killed by Klingons.
The Marcus of STID is younger than she is in Wrath of Khan, of course, so Abrams' film will catch her at an earlier point in her story, according to Eve. And while there was no sign of a Genesis Device in any of the Star Trek Into Darkness preview materials, the opening nine minutes do feature Spock using a volcano deactivator, which houses three colored cubes of chemical compounds and a power source in a handheld case, and which can be used to neutralize an erupting volcano by creating an opposite effect — a freezing reaction.
Is STID merely setting up the Khan storyline to come, maybe one or two movies down the line? Have Abrams, Damon Lindelof, Alex Kurtzman, and Bob Orci taken character and plot threads from throughout Trek canon to create a new twist on a familiar character in Harrison?
"Charlie X" meets the Gary Mitchell storyline in the (non-canon) fan mini-series Star Trek: Of Gods and Men, which envisions an older, vengeful Charlie taking revenge on Kirk by going back in time to effectively kill him, creating an alternate timeline in which Mitchell has taken over the galaxy with the help of the alternate timeline version of another canon Trek character: Starfleet captain John Harriman.
Harriman... Harrison... Harriman... Harrison...
If we're talking canon (from which Cumberbatch's character is supposedly taken), Harriman appeared in Star Trek: Generations, played by Alan Ruck; he's the captain of the Enterprise-B and the man responsible for Kirk's eventual demise. The wild theorizing ends there, alas; from what we've seen of Star Trek Into Darkness, Cumberbatch's Harrison is an unfamiliar character whose true nature has yet to be revealed.
What do YOU think, my Trekkies? Lay all your theories down in the comments below.
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