McWeeny has a theory about this movie

[KirkusOveractus]

Over on Trekmovie, Anthony Pascale (I think he wrote the piece about speaking with Lindelof and Orci) gathered from Lindelof that there may be some honor to Trek's past with Harrison.

Could this honor to the past be a nod to the Captain's name before TOS was filmed, making this a regenerated Robert April, thus violating the Prime Directive and having to send Enterprise to stop him?

 

[Saul]

Captain April Vs Captain Kirk. Nice... This or Khan would be quite cool. It does seem a bit too obvious to leave a piece of concept art lying there with a Villain's name on it. I mean, why not just put Harrison's Gun on that piece of concept art if the Character is going to remain as Harrison till a later reveal.
Maybe April owned or invented that gun but it was taken by Cumberbatche's character from a museum or lab.

Good show JJ Abrams. This kind of speculation is frustrating yet a lot of fun.

 

[Vektor]

I'm having a hard time buying the April theory. I think it's more likely the piece of concept art was a disinformation plant.

Even with the changes to the timeline, the only commonality between Cumberbatch and what little has been established or even conjectured about April is that he's British. Otherwise he's the wrong age, has a totally different history, different personality, different motivations, different everything. Certainly they could still call him Robert April (presumably after revealing that the name John Harrison is an alias) but to do so would be virtually meaningless. They might as well call him Cyrano Jones or Harry Mudd for all the relevance it has.

Then again, these are the same people who applied the name Delta Vega to a completely different planet just to give a shout-out to the relatively few people who would recognize it, so who knows?

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Could even be another April altogether. Bob, Jr. Or, as has been noted, it's something to do with April production dates.

I lean more now toward Khan than I did three days ago - that's the other part of McWeeny's speculation, which I suspect is more grounded in what he knows than the "April" part (he both disclaims less of his Khan theory, and makes less of a big deal about it).

 

[Vektor]

I must grant McWeeny's point that Khan is just about the only Trek character, villain or otherwise, outside of the Enterprise crew that the average audience member out there is likely to recognize. Ergo, if you want to do a villain that is meaningful to the Star Trek universe and get the maximum mileage out of him, Khan makes the most sense from a purely practical point of view.

 

[Captaindemotion]

I lean more now toward Khan than I did three days ago.

Why so? I ask in genuine curiousity and interest, not in an argumentative way.

Everything about Cumberbatch to me screams that he's NOT Khan; demeanour, voice, looks, movement, abilities and the denials and/or misdirection by cast and crew. I mean, I'm quite prepared to be proven wrong but I'm just not getting a Khan vibe at all.

 

[Balrog]

I must grant McWeeny's point that Khan is just about the only Trek character, villain or otherwise, outside of the Enterprise crew that the average audience member out there is likely to recognize. Ergo, if you want to do a villain that is meaningful to the Star Trek universe and get the maximum mileage out of him, Khan makes the most sense from a purely practical point of view.

Yes. Simply put, like Batman, Khan is The Joker of the Star Trek universe.

 

[BillJ]

I lean more now toward Khan than I did three days ago.

Why so? I ask in genuine curiousity and interest, not in an argumentative way.

Everything about Cumberbatch to me screams that he's NOT Khan; demeanour, voice, looks, movement, abilities and the denials and/or misdirection by cast and crew. I mean, I'm quite prepared to be proven wrong but I'm just not getting a Khan vibe at all.

Not sure that he's Khan, but I think the character is connected in someway.

 

[BillJ]

I just hope they put half as much effort into actually writing this movie as they have into actively confusing people about it.