It could well be that they had someone else in mind as the villain when they were trying to cast Benicio del Toro. I don't think the identity of the villain is as important as what has happened to him in the past few years, what made him who he is today. It doesn't matter if it's Lt. Harrison or Johnny, it only matters what became of them!
You mean the backstory where young Kirk drove past some kid in a stolen car and waved to him? Yeah, what an intriguing backstory that is. And the point isn't that the general audience would or wouldn't care. The point is that the only, only link you've created between BC's character and this kid is that they have a similar first name. Sorry, but I'm giving the writers a bit more credit for originality than that.
I'm sure that won't be ALL the backstory between the two of them. If he really is Kirk's stepbrother, they may have a LOT more backstory! It's supposed to be someone from canon. So you can either look for a John/Johnny or a Mr. Harrison. I think Johnny is the most obvious candidate. Besides, there are far more crazy theories on this board. The only thing that would stand in the way of Johnny being John is the hair colour and the accent, both of them can be explained away quite easily.
It's actually John McClane and he's Too Hard To Star Trek. The movie is actually a remake/reimagining of the 1995 epic Die Hard: With a Vengeance
Yeah, that’s where my mind’s been while my views on this have been evolving. I’m betting that the original idea was to do Harrison from TOS, then somebody realized that they could make the character Johnny from Star Trek (2009), so they decided to do both, just to screw with us.
All this anger because he left his ipod1000 in the glove box of his step dads car......people sure love their music collections. lol
Where was it ever said that this Johnny kid is Kirk's stepbrother? He was originally his brother Sam, and that got changed to some random kid named Johnny. AFAIK, he's no relation to Kirk whatsoever. You shouldn't believe everything that you hear.
If you read my initial post ... I said he "could" be his stepbrother. I know that the kid was supposed to be Sam, but for whatever reason that was changed in the final movie. In the movie, the guy talking to Kirk on the phone is supposed to be his stepfather. Would it really be that surprising if Johnny was a son of that stepfather?
But why would some random kid walking down a street just happen to be the son of the guy Kirk was talking to on the phone? Because that's all he was...just some random kid walking down a street. The movie gives no indication otherwise, so there's no connection for the audience to make. Heck, you could barely even hear Kirk yell "Hi, Johnny!" or whatever he said. Look, if you want to desperately believe that this kid is a young Benedict Cumberbatch based solely on his first name, you're welcome to think that. But he's not.
I said he could be. And if you want to desperately believe that this kid is not young Benedict Cumberbatch, you're welcome to think that. But he could be.
Or he could just be some kid named Johnny. I don't have to desperately believe it. I already know it.