Speculation: Must the villain be Gary Mitchell, or... ?

[Shilliam Watner]

I definitely agree. The shirt is torn exactly like it was in the episode with the neck ring intact.

Was the neck ring intact?:

At one point it was lol

 

[Kruezerman]

Okay, for the record, let's go over everything:

1. Nothing anyone has said to date needs to be taken as gospel truth. Their first concern is making a successful movie, and to the general public, no publicity has happened yet, and won't happen until much closer to the premiere date.

2. It's more likely than not that Cumberbatch's character is an existing character from TOS. After all, Abrams made the whole movie series about known characters. He could have invented all new characters but he didn't, and why? Brand name recognition= butts in seats.

3. What villain has the most, heck any, brand name value? Khan. And that's it, no other Trek villain from TOS has pop culture awareness.

4. But can Khan work as a villain in a two hour movie? Tricky. He will be starting from zero since his backstory is "bad guy frim Eugenics Wars" and that's it. The audience needs to be told: What is the Eugenics Wars? What was Khan's role in it? Why do the charatcers care about this part of their history? Why should the audience care? And by the tme you've gotten through all that blahblahblah, the audience is bored and has gone to the lobby for popcorn.

5. The biggest problem with Khan is: what makes him dangerous? he's just some guy from a previous time period. Is he dangerous because he's super sexy? Super persuasive? That's not the kind of threat that translates well to a summer popcorn movie. But an insane guy with superpowers and glowing eyes, now we're talking!

So, Khan has the advantage of helping promote the movie, but trying to shoehorn him into a fast-paced action movie is problematic. He could be rewritten to make him more action-movie-ready, but why bother? That guy already exists.

Plus the edge of the galaxy = darkness is an easy connection. There's nothing dark about Khan, he's a very upbeat guy, until he gets bitter later on but there's no time in a two hour movie to cover all that.

I'll believe 1 but the rest is kinda more of an assumption and expectations on your part. They said it was more drama heavy and "bigger", whatever that means. Could it be an Undiscovered Country kinda flick? Black Ops in the Federation doing bad things? I can see that happening. It could be a spy flick.

That's assuming Section 31 (or some other order) has anything to do with this.

 

[Oso Blanco]

But can Khan work as a villain in a two hour movie? Tricky. He will be starting from zero since his backstory is "bad guy frim Eugenics Wars" and that's it. The audience needs to be told: What is the Eugenics Wars? What was Khan's role in it? Why do the charatcers care about this part of their history? Why should the audience care? And by the tme you've gotten through all that blahblahblah, the audience is bored and has gone to the lobby for popcorn.

They managed to explain Khan's background in Space Seed in about one minute and a half, so why wouldn't it work in a movie?

Every character in every given movie has a certain backstory that is important for the respective movie, I don't see what the problem is here. Even if the villain in XII was a completely new character, he would still have a backstory that needed to be explained.

The Enterprise crew has already been introduced in the last movie, so they have even more time now to introduce whatever character they've chosen to put into the movie.

 

[iguana_tonante]

It's a mixture of Mitchell and Khan created by a transporter accident.

Mitchellkhan.

I'd say "Khanchell" has a better ring to it.

 

[chardman]

I thought Orci had said the villain was a character we've seen from TOS?

AND

Yeah, I'm not sure why everybody is so convinced that they're bringing back an old villain.

Because Bob Orci did say, ages ago, that at least one villain in the movie was to be a canonical TOS character. But, of course, that might not be Benedict Cumberbatch's character.

Umm... no.

IIRC, what Orci said was that a canonical Trek character... and a fan favorite at that... would appear in the film. He didn't even say for certain that this character would be a villain, though many of the articles that carried Orci's statements certainly interpreted it that way, and/or jumped to all sorts of unsupported conclusions.

Heck, I don't think he even specified that it was a character from TOS itself, but am pretty sure he referred to them simply as an established character that most Star Trek fans would recognize, and could have easily been referring to fans of the whole of the franchise, and not just TOS.

Moreover, he merely stated that the character in question would "appear in the film", and that statement is vague enough to cover a heck of a lot of ground, from an appearance that impacts the story in a significant or pivotal way, to little more than an "Easter Egg" that serves only to establish that this "fan favorite" still exists in the JJ Verse.

Personally, I'm betting on something along the lines of a humorous but insignificant cameo of Whoopie Goldberg in a silly flared hat, lasting only a few seconds, and featuring no more than a line or two of wise but witty dialogue.

 

[Therin of Andor]

IIRC, what Orci said was that a canonical Trek character... and a fan favorite at that... would appear in the film.

We know there are Klingons. I'm still thinking that Kor, Koloth or Kang will be leading them. But I'm pretty sure Cumberbatch is not playing one. Unless he's a Klingon disguised as a human.

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

I definitely agree. The shirt is torn exactly like it was in the episode with the neck ring intact.

Was the neck ring intact?:

At one point it was lol

Well, yeah -- the neck ring was intact before the shirt was ripped at all .

However, the the first time we saw the ripped shirt, the neck ring was also ripped.
Here is the FIRST GLIMPSE we get of the ripped shirt. This is about two or three seconds after the shirt was seen NOT ripped (Kirk had just dived at Mitchell, and before and during the dive the shirt was not ripped):

But alas, having shown all of this is probably provides no evidence either way as to whether the film includes Gary Mitchell or not.
.

 

[Set Harth]

But can Khan work as a villain in a two hour movie?

If only there were some way to determine this.

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

IIRC, what Orci said was that a canonical Trek character... and a fan favorite at that... would appear in the film.

Well, I'm a fan, and two of my favorites are Mr. Kyle and Kevin Riley (seriously).
I'd like to see Kevin Riley in the film -- maybe singing "I'll Take You Home Again Kathleen".

 

[Dukhat]

But can Khan work as a villain in a two hour movie?

If only there were some way to determine this.

 

[Ovation]

IIRC, what Orci said was that a canonical Trek character... and a fan favorite at that... would appear in the film.

Well, I'm a fan, and two of my favorites are Mr. Kyle and Kevin Riley (seriously).
I'd like to see Kevin Riley in the film -- maybe singing "I'll Take You Home Again Kathleen".

He has to sing it at least as many times as in the original episode or I'll refuse to watch.

 

[Dream]

I'm be disappointed if they go with Gary Mitchell as the villain. I don't want to see Kirk go up against yet another God like villian. We had more than enough of that in TOS.

At least Khan was more unique being a superhuman and had a more interesting past as a dictator.

 

[BillJ]

I'm be disappointed if they go with Gary Mitchell as the villain. I don't want to see Kirk go up against yet another God like villian. We had more than enough of that in TOS.

And those episodes were nearly fifty years ago and this version of Kirk has went up against zero God-like villains.

 

[M'Sharak]

What does a God-like villain need with a starship?

 

[BillJ]

What does a God-like villain need with a starship?

The movie will be worth the price of admission if Pine speaks that line!

 

[Set Harth]

Who needs starships when you've got transwarp beaming?

 

[milo bloom]

I'm going to go ahead and stake my claim in the speculation game: I'm going with a shapeshifter like Garth of Izar. First all the talk of Khan, then the way Urban worded his comment about "Cumberbatch's Gary Mitchell" being "exemplary". I'm thinking JJ is wanting to "cheat" and cram several TOS iconic villains into his movie by using a changeling that will impersonate these other characters and go after Kirk that way.

Just pulling that out of my, er, hat, so I'm not going to wager any money on it or anything.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I'm thinking JJ is wanting to "cheat" and cram several TOS iconic villains into his movie by using a changeling that will impersonate these other characters and go after Kirk that way.

Not to mention the coincidence of Koloth looking just like Trelane!

Wasn't "Talosian" on Orci's list of possibles? Another shapeshifter, through the power o the mind. We still have Pike, and he has a history with Talosians in the other timeline.

 

[CommanderRaytas]

If the villain is portrayed well, then who cares whether it's Mitchell, Khan, or the Tribble Emperor?

It's not the character that counts, it's what is done with that character.

In all honesty, I'd much rather watch the Tribble Emperor (of Random Capitalisations) than Khan...but I suppose we must take what we get.

 

[Sindatur]

If the villain is portrayed well, then who cares whether it's Mitchell, Khan, or the Tribble Emperor?

It's not the character that counts, it's what is done with that character.

In all honesty, I'd much rather watch the Tribble Emperor (of Random Capitalisations) than Khan...but I suppose we must take what we get.

Hmmm...Is that why the other thread is titled The Trouble with Trailers?