I know who the villain is.

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Not as much continuity as you might think. While Soran was a refugee from a borg attack in generations it was never established that it was the attack on the El Aurian homeworld. It's possible that the El Aurians just kept running from planet to planet over the course of 60 years. The two places that are known to be attacked are Earth and Kronos. Both places that accessed future technology in the last film. Remember the Klingons had Nero's ship for 25 years. I think that this character is going after technology from the Narada.

That's a ridiculous, huge amount of continuity linking this film to another one made almost twenty years ago - and it would be to no good end at all. No one cares about Soran.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

I care.

 

[Dukhat]

^No you don't. Stop lying.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

I like his hair.

 

[SmoothieX]

I'm betting it's Mitch Connor. Just your run of the mill con man. He's been moving from town to town, scamming people since he was fifteen. But he's tired of running.

 

[AJBlue98]

Not as much continuity as you might think. While Soran was a refugee from a borg attack in generations it was never established that it was the attack on the El Aurian homeworld. It's possible that the El Aurians just kept running from planet to planet over the course of 60 years. The two places that are known to be attacked are Earth and Kronos. Both places that accessed future technology in the last film. Remember the Klingons had Nero's ship for 25 years. I think that this character is going after technology from the Narada.

They'd have to break continuity into little tiny pieces to make Soran the villain for this film. Star Trek (2009) occurs mostly during 2258. Assuming that the four years between films is translated real-time, that would mean STID occurs at about 2262.

Now, in fairness, the El-Aurians were a space-faring race long before that, with Guinan having visited Earth in the 1800s. However, the Borg don't attack El-Auria until 2265, 3 years before. Not only would Soran not yet be a refugee, he'd have no motive, or at least nothing that minutely resembled his motive from Generations. He'd be the same villain in name only. It's one thing for Nero's actions to have a measurable effect on someone who grew up in the immediate vicinity of Starfleet so that it could change the course of their life, such as John Harrison, who may or may not be the same Lt. Harrison from TOS. It's another thing for Nero's actions to have an effect on two species who were damn near completely unrelated to the Federation, in an event happening on the other side of the galaxy.

There are other reasons as well. For example, Generations establishes that Soran is over 300 years old, which means if he were in STID, he'd be just shy of 200 years old at the very least, so it's unlikely that they'd cast someone who looks so much younger. (Granted, El-Aurian aging is a bit of an enigma, what with Guinan having hardly aged a day over the course of about 500 years, and she still looks younger than Soran).
_________________

I will hijack my own post to say that I always thougt Soran got an undeserved bad rap as a villian. Not only does he have a reasonable motivation and goal (honestly, he's the most believable of all the TNG film villains, and the least generic), but he's Malcolm f***ing McDowell.

Absolutely! It will break loads of canon! Soran didn’t enter the picture until the launch of the NCC—1701-B. The events of this film occur approximately, what, forty years before that? And as far as anybody knows, the Borg haven’t stepped up their game in the JJ-verse.

 

[siskokid888]

While I'm positive it's not Soran, it's not a far fetched idea. Soran did initially make it into the Nexus, maybe he still has a bitter "shadow" there. It was shown that you can pop in and out of the Nexus anywhere along the timeline, maybe he went back to his younger self in the new timeline to convince him to seek revenge on Kirk and company. He's established as a nutty obsessive, so he just goes nuts at a younger age.

P.S. I agree with the earlier poster that Soran was a decent villain, and not least because it was Malcom F*****g McDowell

 

[The Wormhole]

He's not Soran.

No, no:

It's not Soran.

Little things...

John Harrison's gender is unknown? Damn, JJ is getting really stingy with the details here.

Abrams won't even confirm that John Harrison has a gender.

Actually, I imagine interviews for Trek XIII will go something like this:

Interviewer: "What can you tell us about the villain?"
Abrams: "A villain is a character in a movie who traditionally has an agenda contrary to the one of the main characters."
Interviewer: "But what about this villain."
Abrams: "This villain will have an agenda contrary to that of the movie's main characters."
Interviewer: "So he's causing trouble for Captain Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise?"
Abrams: "Captain Kirk is a main character in the movie. The Enterprise is his ship, and it has a crew."

 

[Set Harth]

And as far as anybody knows, the Borg haven’t stepped up their game in the JJ-verse.

As far as anybody knows.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I'm betting it's Mitch Connor. Just your run of the mill con man. He's been moving from town to town, scamming people since he was fifteen. But he's tired of running.

Does Harrison love tacos?

 

[AJBlue98]

While I'm positive it's not Soran, it's not a far fetched idea. Soran did initially make it into the Nexus, maybe he still has a bitter "shadow" there. It was shown that you can pop in and out of the Nexus anywhere along the timeline, maybe he went back to his younger self in the new timeline to convince him to seek revenge on Kirk and company. He's established as a nutty obsessive, so he just goes nuts at a younger age.…

I've been swayed by the argument that “John” and not “Harrison” is the key part of the villain’s name here. Specifically, the theory goes that John Harrison is in fact the Johnny to whom Jimmy Kirk shouts at the beginning of Star Trek (2009). So that means when Bob Orci said the villain was canon, he was right. It’s just us fanboys who assumed it wasn’t from the canon he and J.J. themselves created.

 

[SmoothieX]

I'm betting it's Mitch Connor. Just your run of the mill con man. He's been moving from town to town, scamming people since he was fifteen. But he's tired of running.

Does Harrison love tacos?

And burritos. He's one bad ass man.