If you simply must Hoover up any new footage of Star Trek Into Darkness footage that's out there, then have a look at this Japanese trailer. There are a few new morsels to be found in the footage, including a shot of Spock in the volcano looking perilously close to becoming one with the magma churning around him. more »
The marketing teams for Star Trek Into Darkness and Man of Steel have been killing it in the trailer department, and their latest efforts are no exception. In fact the trailers that each campaign put out for their respective movies on Monday are so strong that I want to put it to Movieline's readers to decide which is the most powerful statement. more »
When the Star Trek Into Darkness marketing campaign began in earnest late last year with a much-discussed teaser trailer, the debate was all about the villain: Benedict Cumberbatch's icy voiceover and acrobatic evildoing led to lots of theorizing that his mysterious character was Khan, Robert April and other Star Trek canon creeps. Four months later, with the release of the J.J. Abrams-directed film a little over a month away, a TV clip that debuted on Sunday continued to shift the spotlight from bad guy to good: Captain James T. Kirk. more »
Whether Benedict Cumberbatch is Robert April, Khan or some other canon character entirely, he's going to be awesomely evil judging from this new international Star Trek Into Darkness trailer. He's also going to speak in a measured and lordly British accent that will surely have him competing with Ben Kingsley's the Mandarin for Affected Villain Voice of 2013. more »
Paramount has released two new Star Trek Into Darkness photos that don't reveal anything about the plot or the true identity of Benedict Cumberbatch's character, but they do underscore the tone that previous stills have established. In other words, set your phasers for intensity! more »
The release of the first issue of a three-part prequel comic to Star Trek Into Darkness has lent some credence to the theory that the true villain of JJ Abram's upcoming movie is not Khan or Gary Mitchell, but rather Robert April, the very first captain of the Starship Enterprise. more »
It's impressive how much J.J. Abrams and the folks at Bad Robot manage to pack into the new teaser trailer for Star Trek Into Darkness without revealing, well, the actual plot of the summer 2013 sequel. Space action! Benedict Cumberbatch! That darned hands-on-glass scene that just screams "I have been and always shall be your friend!" Watch the action-packed teaser below and let's get to piecing together the puzzle.
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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?
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Introducing a sneak peek at the first nine minutes of Star Trek Into Darkness in a special IMAX 3-D presentation for press Sunday night, director J.J. Abrams warned of the "doom and gloom" throughout his May 2013 sequel. "There’s a lot of intensity in this, and a little bit of gloom," he admitted, "but it’s also fun."
In true Abrams fashion, that's about all he said before he exited the theater, taking the truth about who the heck Benedict Cumberbatch is playing in Star Trek 2 with him. (The first nine minutes will debut in theaters on December 14, attached to select IMAX screenings of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Read on for details, speculation, guesstimates, and wild theorizing about what's in store in Star Trek 2 based on the tease.)
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I'm an outlier among other insufferable snobs on the Internet: I actually want Khan to be the villain of Star Trek Into Darkness.
This isn't because I desperately want the films to touch every base that the original series did. After nearly 30 years on television and 10 movies of highly uneven quality, the Star Trek universe prior to JJ Abrams' Star Trek was suffering horribly from internal rot, not to mention a growing reliance on awful time travel plots and constant nods to series continuity. A fresh start was desperately needed if it was going to remain relevant, even if it came at — sniff — the expense of Captains Picard and Sisko*.
But if Star Trek was a successful fresh start (and it was), it also brought with it some terrible baggage from the previous continuity, specifically the fact that its plot was motivated by the same time-travel bullshit that caused the TV universe to finally collapse under the weight of its own pretentions. Thank the founders that Abrams movie focused squarely on the Holy Trinity of Kirk, Spock, and Bones, or we would have noticed how awful Nero really was.
But as we've already learned with Iron Man 2, a successful sequel needs to do more than coast on the chemistry of its leads. With Kirk and co. firmly established, STID needs a strong conflict with high stakes, and a memorable villain (or at least a prime mover) connected to that conflict.
To pull that off, you can't force the audience to consult a Trek lore guide. Superturbonerd Trek Fans like me might want to see Harcourt Mudd, Cyrano Jones, Gary Mitchell, The Horta, or that horrible psychic kid played by Ron Howard's brother but frankly, that's inside baseball. Ask the legions of moviegoers for whom for whom Star Trek is essentially Kirk bangs space hotties-Spock lectures him about the logic of using a condom-Bones grumpily administers penicillin, the only villain they'll recite from memory is Ricardo Montalban's Khan Noonien Singh.
Is that a problem? Only if you think that the Joker's appearing in The Dark Knight was a problem. Iconic characters linger in the public memory for a reason, and that makes it easy for a skilled storyteller to take them and make them over into something later audiences can appreciate anew. Do it right and you can get away with anything, even making a horribly lame villain like Bane look bad-ass. And for better or for worse, Khan is Kirk's Joker. So milk that shit, I say. Use him well and firmly ground STID in its own past, and save less exploited territory for future sequels, when you've solidified the audience's loyalty.
But is Khan the villain of Star Trek Into Darkness? Who the hell can tell? The new trailer certainly doesn't want us to know for sure. But damned if it isn't teasing the hell out of us. It's already been confirmed that the villain will be canon. And now we know that whatever character is blessed with Benedict Cumberbatch's crisp, Public School tones, he's really angry and looking to exact some revenge - sorry, vengeance, which is way classier than mere revenge - on the people of Earth. That sounds like Khan to me! Unless Cyrano Jones is angry that the Klingons wiped out the Tribbles.
There's also the fact that the American trailer lacks one crucial scene present in the Japanese trailer (see it right before the end): a deliberate homage to the moment of Spock's Death in Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan. Even if it's just a dodge (something Abrams does very well,) the reference can't be a coincidence. And if this means we get to see Cumberbatch doing is best Ricardo Montalban impression, that's fine by me. Just so long as it doesn't mean we have to endure another go at The Search For Spock.
Some additional thoughts:
-If you think it's ridiculous that a lily-white Briton like Benedict Cumberbatch could even pretend to play an Indian, it's worth noting that Gabrielle Anwar and Ben Kingsley both have Indian fathers.
-Notice the ship rising out of the water? If it isn't the SS botany Bay, I wonder if it's the same starship we see crashing into the San Francisco Bay later in the trailer.
-The interesting thing about the trailer is just how much of Earth we're seeing in it. Star Trek was originally pitched as Wagon Train to the stars, but of course, the wagon train had to start somewhere. The original series and subsequent iterations barely feature earth as anything other than a reference. For all we know, the only thing people do back home is build more Enterprises. Also, whenever I watch a western, I always want a scene of what people are up to back in Boston or London. It's interesting that in the new Star Trek, we're getting exactly that.
*Truth: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is inarguably the best series. YEAHISAIDIT.
Read More:
'Star Trek Into Darkness' Explodes An Early Tease
Ross Lincoln is a LA-based freelance writer from Oklahoma with an unhealthy obsession with comics, movies, video games, ancient history, Gore Vidal, and wine.
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Or is he just effing with us? While doing press for his upcoming Dredd, Karl Urban seemed to let slip the identity of Benedict Cumberbatch's Star Trek 2 character. Was he telling the truth or not? Right now, there is evidence for both sides. First, some background.
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Fans of Benedict Cumberbatch, Jonny Lee Miller and director Danny Boyle who weren't lucky enough to cross the pond to catch the trio's intriguing Royal National Theatre production of Frankenstein, you're in luck! A filmed recording of the play, in which Cumberbatch and Miller took turns playing the dual roles of Frankenstein and his monster (a tag-team performance that won them the 2012 UK Olivier Award for Best Actor) is heading to theaters stateside this June. Details after the jump!
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Rumors, conjecture, speculation... All in a day's work around the Star Trek 2 gossip mill, where the identity of the villain in J.J. Abrams's sequel (currently in production) has seemingly undergone more revisions than a Kardashian's Wiki page over the last few months. We know Benedict Cumberbatch has the part, but which part? Khan? Worf's Zit? Who knows? Except for the obsessives at TrekMovie, that is — they apparently know. Spoiler alert! (Sort of.)
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Here’s cause for excitement for J.J. Abrams’s Star Trek sequel, set to debut May 2013: British actor Benedict Cumberbatch has signed on to join returning cast members Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, and Co. Better news: He’s reportedly playing the villain. If your first thought is “Benewhat Cumberwho?” see why you should take this as very good news after the jump.
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