And Cumberbatch's Character Is? [spoilers]

[J. Allen]

Prancer the Sith wrote:

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Is there, like, an agreement around here to just disregard Anthony Pascale's article? You know, the one in which he writes: "TrekMovie has also confirmed this with a number of sources so we no longer consider it to be a rumor. Khan is back in 2013."

As awesome as his site is, not even TrekMovie is infallible. If that's what he said, I'm still skeptical. If it turns out to be Khan, that's cool, but I'm still doubting it. J.J.'s too good at this whole obfuscation thing to let that name drop so easy, and if it's from unnamed "sources", that's even more of a reason to doubt it's veracity.

Plus, I've put my reputation as a cage fighter on the line for this. It's Kodos or nothin'.

[Bishop76]

Santa Hooves wrote:

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Cumberbatch is going to play Kodos the Executioner. I'd bet my reputation as a cage fighter on it.

Don't do it! I need to see you in the Octagon again!

[J. Allen]

Bishop76 wrote:

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Don't do it! I need to see you in the Octagon again!

Don't worry. I know I'm right. I can feel it in my soul, and also in my hands, but that might just be arthritis.

[Robert_T_April]

Dukhat wrote:

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The only thing I thought was ridiculously stupid in the first film was Kirk getting command of the Enterprise while only a (Lt.) cadet.

This would be five million times more stupid.

I doubt Orci and Kurtzman even knew who this Lt. Harrison joker was.

Field promotions, like the one Kirk received from Pike, are common during battle/wartime. Considering all the Starships that were destroyed, and all the Starfleet officers that were killed by Nero's ship, and Kirk's heroic performance in rescuing Pike and defeating Nero, it isnt ridiculous at all...

[Mach5]

Robert_T_April wrote:

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Field promotions, like the one Kirk received from Pike, are common during battle/wartime. Considering all the Starships that were destroyed, and all the Starfleet officers that were killed by Nero's ship, and Kirk's heroic performance in rescuing Pike and defeating Nero, it isnt ridiculous at all...

Eeehh, it kinda is. Considering he didn't even graduate from the Academy, that is.

25-year old Captains aren't unheard of IRL, though.

[Vektor]

Regardless of who he really is, all this guy has to do is use the alias "John Harrison" for some part of the film and there you have your photo caption.

I don't think we can draw any conclusions from this.

[Nerys Myk]

Shilliam Watner wrote:

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Possibly. Chekov hardly ever had any lines of importance. It's possible Harrison's had lines but were deleted in scripts or edited out.

Chekov actually had significant parts in several episodes. The Way to Eden and Day of the Dove come to mind. "Harrison" is just a name in a script and not actually assigned to any actor/character. The only reason that particular extra is thought of as "Harrison" is because the camera showed him during Kirk's voice over.

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Prancer the Sith wrote:

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Eeehh, it kinda is. Considering he didn't even graduate from the Academy, that is.

He was about to. He would have, had the hearing not been interrupted. (Just going by that transporter readout screen, which identified him as Lieutenant Kirk.)

[GMDreia]

King Daniel Into Darkness wrote:

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I must admit, the idea that a quiet, good but unspectacular officer becomes this awesome engine of destruction in another life is pretty cool.

Why not. I like it. "The quiet, good, and unspectacular guy who becomes this awesome engine of destruction" describes enough serial killers in real life.

[The Wormhole]

Greg Cox wrote:

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Simpler explanation: Maybe the villain starts out as member of Kirk's crew and, just for fun, they chose the name of some minor spear carrier from TOS. Lord knows there are plenty of lists of Kirk's crew floating around. I've been known to consult them when I need a random crew member to push a button . . . . .

I'd have chosen Mr Leslie myself. Or sense a British actor is cast, maybe Mr Kyle.

None of the other Treks really named as many of the lower decks officers and crew as TOS did.

[Mr Silver]

King Daniel Into Darkness wrote:

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I must admit, the idea that a quiet, good but unspectacular officer becomes this awesome engine of destruction in another life is pretty cool.

But it's a shout out that only diehard fans (us) of the original series will get. Sure, the first Abrams movie featured some callbacks to TOS, like the casting of Nimoy/Spock, who is a well known public figure regardless, in the first film as a shout out (and arguably the "passing of the torch) to TOS, but it's just not the same.

The concept of an extra being a big shot in an alternate universe (especially with a near 50 year gap between productions), is something that just cannot work when you are making a film aimed at majority audiences.

[The Wormhole]

Mr Silver wrote:

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But it's a shout out that only diehard fans (us) of the original series will get. Sure, the first Abrams movie featured some callbacks to TOS, like the casting of Nimoy/Spock, who is a well known public figure regardless, in the first film as a shout out (and arguably the "passing of the torch) to TOS, but it's just not the same.

The concept of an extra being a big shot in an alternate universe (especially with a near 50 year gap between productions), is something that just cannot work when you are making a film aimed at majority audiences.

Of course, if they are just re-using a name from a TOS extra for their essentially new character it won't matter. Fans will get the in-joke, to non-fans he's just some guy named Harrison.

The only flaw with this was that it doesn't fit with the mindset Bad Robot had with Trek XI, after the scene with Sam Kirk was deleted, Jim had to yell "Johnny" when he drove by him to not confuse non-fans. But if they had kept Jim yelling "Sam" fans would know he was Jim's brother, while to non-fans he's just some kid name Sam.

Or maybe they've learned how stupid they were with that mistake and are trying it out here?

[Cinema Geekly]

If it's not...then cool I suppose but this seems too odd to not be a Red Herring.

If it isn't a big name then why hide his identity on purpose for so long only for it to come out in a caption released by the studio?

I mean it would be one thing to say it's a new character and leave it at that, but people went out of their way to be secretive.

Now that you've waited....after years of speculation we are proud to announce that the next villain in Star Trek is...........................this guy whom you've never heard of before....TADA!

Or........................it's that background guy who got two lines of dialog in the original series (both off camera)........SURPRISE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[The Wormhole]

Cinema Geekly wrote:

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If it isn't a big name then why hide his identity on purpose for so long only for it to come out in a caption released by the studio?

Abrams does like to fuck with the audience. Just look through archived Trek XI news and notice how long he waited before officially confirming Nero would be a Romulan.

[diankra]

Mr Silver wrote:

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But it's a shout out that only diehard fans (us) of the original series will get. Sure, the first Abrams movie featured some callbacks to TOS, like the casting of Nimoy/Spock, who is a well known public figure regardless, in the first film as a shout out (and arguably the "passing of the torch) to TOS, but it's just not the same.

The concept of an extra being a big shot in an alternate universe (especially with a near 50 year gap between productions), is something that just cannot work when you are making a film aimed at majority audiences.

But that's the beauty of it (assuming that there's any reality to the theories being spun here). The new audience wouldn't have a clue who Kyle, Rand, Chapel, Mitchell, Dehner, Carol Marcus, any of that lot, are either. Lots of the people watching the 2009 movie will have had no idea that Chris Pike came from the original series.
Whereas creating an entirely new villain, but giving him the name of a non-entity from the original series, is a gag that really dedicated fans will spot eventually, lets the writers drop red herrings without lying, and which inverts that classic SF trope of "If you went back in time to 1920 and bought enough watercolours off this Austrian ex-corporal, you could have averted World War II... or could you? Would time find some ironic way to stop you?"

And the new fans can just ignore it and say "Isn't Benedict whatsisname a good villain?"