Urban outs the villain. Maybe.

[M'Sharak]

Enterprise is Great wrote:

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I think it was the Variety article that announced Alice Eve's addition to the cast as a "new to the canon" character, I don't recall if there were any quotes from the producers to that effect in the article. Either Variety was mistaken, misinformed or the character was changed to a canon one during production.

It was another one of those "sources say"/"insiders believe" dealies:

Variety wrote:

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As is common with Abrams, secrecy has surrounded the pic since the helmer officially announced he would be back -- including which characters the new actors will play. Sources say Eve's character is new to the "Star Trek" universe, unlike del Toro, would insiders believe will be playing someone familiar to Trekkies.

[Therin of Andor]

Ian Keldon wrote:

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If they were making these films the way they are supposed to be made...

There are rules?

[Therin of Andor]

BillJ wrote:

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Dehner's absence is a huge hole.

More importantly, the suggestion in the comic that Dehner and McCoy were once a romantic item - and Alice Eve's Starfleet look - make for an interesting possible Easter egg.

[CorporalCaptain]

Well, about the only difference between the hairstyles of Alice Eve (linky), and of Elizabeth Dehner as realized by Sally Kellerman (linky), is that the parts are mirror images of each other. So, maybe Eve will be the Mirror Universe's Dr. Dehner?

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Ian Keldon wrote:

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If they were making these films the way they are supposed to be made...

They are, starting by ignoring the demands of the fanboisie.

[indranee]

Trekkie2 wrote:

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I thought Abrams said Eve's character was new to canon. Now Orci says the character is canon?

Why would Marcus be in a flight suit in a scene with Spock (given the probability that she is the lab tech, Mitchell set Kirk up with)?

I think these guys are feeding us all kinds of garbage, and sitting back, waiting to see if we'll digest it.

ITA

[indranee]

My Name Is Legion wrote:

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People get all excited at the idea of Gary Seven or Gary Mitchell, but when they hear "Khan" they yelp "remake."

That makes no fucking sense.

Khan is a genuine character, thanks both to Montalban and to a narrative which established a long history for him prior to meeting Kirk and company and a life on-screen that went on to encompass fifteen or twenty years.

Mitchell is a one-off, with no significance or life other than servicing the demands of a very specific plot; you either tell the story of How Gary Became God or you get the fuck out. Seven is even less than that, a cardboard set-up for a TV series no one was interested in (not even to the extent of being willing to fund a stand-alone pilot).

There hasn't been a detail released - granted, there haven't been many, period - suggesting that this movie is a remake of anything.

Legion, come on!! Khan is a genuine character because he was in an episode and then a movie. if he was only in an episode, he'd be nowhere near the "genuine character" you say he is.

[Admiral Buzzkill]

How does what you posted contradict anything I posted or even materially differ from it?

[JarodRussell]

indranee wrote:

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Legion, come on!! Khan is a genuine character because he was in an episode and then a movie. if he was only in an episode, he'd be nowhere near the "genuine character" you say he is.

This is what I call the "Yippie-ki-yay effect". No one would remember that phrase from Die Hard had it not been repeated in Die Hard 2. Goes for one liners, characters, plot elements, everything.

[JudgeDredd]

Cumberbatch is playing Trelane.

[Kegg]

There is literally no nerdy reason to insist that Gary Mitchell ever appear, or if he does, that Elizabeth Dehner also appears. This Kirk has had a different life from birth, he may have never met Mitchell... and more to the point, it's already a massie coincidence that so many of the old Star Trek crew just happen to join the Enterprise in this time. There's no reason that massive coincidences in ship rosters continue to happen - it's a big Starfleet out there, and a couple of decades of divergent history and many people who were born in one universe wouldn't be born in the other, there's people who survived acts that killed them in the other universe or vice versa (George Kirk and most Vulcans good examples there).

Taking the alternate universe explanation given in the first film, and given that we've had over twenty years of divergence from the timeline, the Abrams team have sizeable leeway to do wahtever the hell they want with the story without ever running into anything we could fairly exclaim was a continuity snafu.

JarodRussell wrote:

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This is what I call the "Yippie-ki-yay effect". No one would remember that phrase from Die Hard had it not been repeated in Die Hard 2.

The Wrath of Khan is generally regarded as one of the best (if not the best) Star Trek film, and elements of it - like Kirk screaming KHAAAAAAAN - are still recognizable, if ridiculed, parts of pop culture. Abrams' new film took more than a few cues from Khan, particularly its use of the Kobayashi Maru test.

I have difficulty recalling what Die Hard 2 is even about, beyond being another Die Hard. It may be true that DH2 solidified the pop culture lexicon from the first movie, but TWOK pretty much defined the pop culture image of Khan - even in Trekkie circles, one's more apt to have someone quote the theatrically vengeance driven Khan of the movie rather than the smug woman abuser of the episode.

[Temis the Vorta]

Its not a coincidence that so many of the crew met and other details are following the Prime Timeline regardless of the logic being used. If the new timeline is an offshoot of the old, that explains the similarities. If the new timeline is just one of an infinite number of possible tmelines, then there are countless timelines that are virtually identical to Prime, or not terribly different, and JJ Abrams chose to point his camera at one of those, instead of one where there are far more differences.

And Cumberbund is playing Mitchell. Best fit for the Darkness title.

[JarodRussell]

Mitchell would be interesting with Spock Prime in the mix. Omnipotent being and time traveler from another future or even universe.

[UFO]

Temis the Vorta wrote:

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Its not a coincidence that so many of the crew met and other details are following the Prime Timeline regardless of the logic being used.

Doubtless you only watched the movie once (), but even so it would be impossible to ignore how everything needed to fall precisely into place with "split second" timing to make things "work". Even that ignores all the amazing entropy decreases that would have had to take place to get most people ready to crew an Enterprise that itself had its history change enormously and was only just readly in time.

Things like Kirk meeting Scotty on a planet he was sent to for punishment are barnstorming examples of coincidence and implausibility but you can't have overlooked the fact that a disruptive force, instead of casting everyone to the winds, somehow herded them all closer together 10 years before most, if not all of them meet originally!

It would be easier to ask "Which part of all that wasn't a coincidence?".

[Jackson_Roykirk]

BillJ wrote:

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I agree that a film featuring Mitchell would have to be much more a straight remake of previous material than one featuring Khan.

I'm not so sure. I suppose they could have the character of Gary Mitchell be a friend of Kirk's, and then give Mitchell a plot that has nothing at all to do with the events surrounding WNMHGB.

I'm not saying that I think Gary Mitchell is in this, nor am I saying I necessarily want him to be in this -- HOWEVER, I'm sure they could find a way to make Mitchell interesting even without giving him god-like powers.

I feel the same way about the character of Arne Darvin. Darvin could easily be an antagonist of a trek film in the Abramsverse as part of a story that has nothing at all to do with tribbles. It could be a story about a Klingon spy disguised as a human who has infiltrated the Administrative/Executive branch of the Federation....

...there would be no tribbles at all [sorry -- I couldn't resist]