So if the comics & video game are canon...

Orci stated at Comic-Con, when pressed, that all of the recent IDW Star Trek comic books are canon... which includes the first arc featuring Gary Mitchell.

Would anyone else feel a sense of letdown at this point if Cumberbatch turns out to be either Khan or Mitchell? I know Orci said he's playing an existing character, but I just have this sinking feeling that if he turns out to be Khan it's just setting the movie up to fail, as far as fan expectations go.

So if we rule out all of the characters that have appeared in the comics so far, who else could there possibly be for him to be playing?

 

It's likely either Khan or Mitchell.

Why would Khan be setting the movie up to fail?

 

Well, I was just thinking that since Khan is the crown-jewel of Trek movie fandom, I just think redoing Khan is inviting comparisons that they might not be able to live up to, no matter how well they pull it off.

Then again, I guess the same thing could be said about the reboot in general.

 

Failing Fan expectations is not necessarily a bad thing for the success of the movie for the studio. If movies were made entirely to please the "fans", they would most likely fail miserably, because fan expectations aren't completely compatible with General Audience appreciation. Certainly a balance can be drawn, as I believe was with ST09, and I believe could be with either Khan or Gary Mitchell.

Plus, while the fans grumble and moan before a movie comes out about what's being done wrong, many times they will end up liking the actual movie that is released.

Catering 100% to Fan expectations would very often be a poor business decision for a movie studio

 

Oh I totally agree that catering to Fan expectations can be disastrous... but then again, I think it's too early to be tackling Khan in the first place. Though I assume they are only targeting a Trilogy with this cast instead of an ongoing franchise, so they may just be "hitting the highlights" story wise.

 

And he's already walked back that statement:

(Source: comment #102 in this TrekMovie post.)

So the comics still aren't considered canonical. Basically an interviewer was pushing the question and trying to convince Orci to declare he would treat Abramsverse Trek tie-ins as the same kind of non-binding "canon" as Star Wars tie-ins, and Orci just played along, probably because it was easier than arguing.

 

Well, I meant that Cumberbatch would fit.

 

Which he followed up with this comment, earlier today...

 

Holy sweet shit, he actually started that off with a zero! What is the obsession with leading zeroes these guys have?

Khan doesn't really fit Cumberbatch, but that doesn't stop everyone from believing that's who he must be. Therefore, any villain from TOS is fair game to guess as Cumberbatch's role.

I personally think it will the movie is a remake of Patterns of Force with Peter Weller playing John Gill and Cumberbatch playing Melakon. Okay, I don't really think that, but it would be pretty awesome all the same. They're both a perfect fit for those roles.

But since Weller's playing playing a new character according to the most recent version of events, lets just stop speculating on him and decide that Cumberbatch is Cloud William. Then again, he wasn't really a villain, was he? Captain Ron Tracey then?

 

Huh? The letter O and the number 0 are very close on the keyboard, typed with the same finger, and they closely resemble each other. It's an easy mistake to make, and an easy one to overlook if you're typing quickly.

 

Some history:
I've made something of a habit on this forum mocking Abrams and his Cohorts on the registry NCC-0514 for the USS Kelvin. And it is odd to see a four digit registry have a leading zero given that there have been three digit registries in the past (USS Grissom NCC-638).

I've gone on accusing Abrams and his Cohorts of having a fixation with the number zero and a need to start everything off with it. I even had an avatar (supplied to me by someone else) of the Count from Sesame Street counting with leading zeroes, known as "Learning to count, Abrams style."

So honest mistake or not, it is amusing to see Orci starting a sentence off with a zero since it ties into that which made me a staple for a couple of weeks on this forum.

 

^Seriously? You've "made a habit" of mocking and accusing people for something so monumentally unimportant? That's the pettiest thing I've heard all week.

Honestly, people, it's just a movie. Get over it already.

 

Can we change the forum motto to this? Of course it would be futile advice...

 

For the most part it was just a joke I took way too far. Although I am genuinely curious as to why they chose to have a leading zero in the Kelvin's registry when precedent for three digit registries had already been established.

 

Why not? It's the prerogative of different creators to bring their own interpretation to things. We don't demand that Sir Patrick Stewart play Macbeth the exact same way Orson Welles did, or that John Romita, Jr. draw Spider-Man the exact same way his father did, or that The Flamingos perform "I Only Have Eyes for You" exactly the same way Peggy Lee did. (Sorry, I don't know any more modern examples of cover versions of famous songs.) So we shouldn't require one set of Star Trek production designers to slavishly copy the choices made by earlier designers. They're entitled to exercise their own creative judgment and put their own stamp on things. It's not a continuity error, it's artistic license.

And really, it's not like numbers in Star Trek have a history of being particularly consistent or logical on the whole. Usually they're just filler without much of a systematic structure behind them. They're not as important as the characters and plots and themes, and most people in the audience won't pay much attention to them anyway. So I've long since learned not to worry much about numbers in Trek.

 

What can I say? I have weird obsessive tendancies and the first registry number to have a leading zero that was over two digits long in over 40 years of Trek stuck out like a sore thumb to me. *Shrug.*

 

Well, Star Trek teaches us to embrace the new, not to fear it.

Anyway, we've never before seen the 2230s depicted onscreen, so why couldn't they have used different conventions in that generation than in later ones? Given how radically different one generation's practices and attitudes can be from those of the next, I think that a separation of decades is adequate explanation for just about any seemingly arbitrary difference. Imagine if you'd seen all Star Trek except TOS/TAS (or "Trials and Tribble-ations" or "In a Mirror, Darkly") and were then shown a photo of Uhura in her miniskirt and low neckline. Wouldn't it seem shockingly incongruous and inexplicable?