Who is John Harrison (Possible SPOILERS or Insane Babbling)

[Dukhat]

Now, I'm fairly certain that he is, in fact, Garth of Izar as a couple of others believe. Garth was a member of Starfleet...

So were a lot of other people.

...a contemporary of Pike...

Is John Harrison a contemporary of Pike?

...a masterful tactician...

Is John Harrison a masterful tactician?

...and a looneybird bent on genocide and universal domination who was eventually locked away.

Is John Harrison any of that? (He may be a terrorist, but we don't know what his motives are or if he's mentally unbalanced.)

The fact that he learned how to change his shape fits in really well with having an assumed name (which only makes sense since there wouldn't have been any reason to keep it a secret for so long if he was in fact a new character)...

What? Why would he have an assumed name and be walking around looking like Benedict Cumberbatch when he really looks like Steve Inhat? Why would the casual moviegoing audience understand or even care about something like that?

...that he was an explorer...

Is John Harrison an explorer?

...that he is a recognizable character from TOS...

Garth of Izar is not a recognizable character from TOS, outside of hard-core TOS fans. A recognizable character from TOS would be Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Sulu, Uhura, or Chekov.

and that revealing one of his pseudonyms is a way to give people what they want without letting the actual secret out all fits.

Again, why would John Harrison need a pseudonym, if there's no real payoff for the casual audience to get the Garth reference? Did any Star Trek bad guy, past or present, need a pseudonym?

The fact that Cumberpatch bears a (very, very slight) resemblance to him is just icing on the cake.

Benedict Cumberbatch and Steve Inhat look about as much alike as Anton Yelchin and 60's Walter Koenig.

 

[Bengoshi2000]

My gut feeling is that the WOK elements we've seen are not just JJ's homage to TOS, but in the AbramsVerse, these similar events happen because they were destined to.

Except it wouldn't make sense to rehash TWOK at this point. The relevant story would be "Space Seed." People keep forgetting that. There's no way that the storyline of TWOK -- about Khan seeking vengeance on Kirk for stranding him on a hellhole a decade and a half earlier -- would make any sense at this point in the timeline, when Kirk has only been in command of the ship for less than a year and has never met Khan.

Not saying we're going to get a rehash, just that what makes Kirk, Kirk has to happen in some form or another.

This article sums up my point pretty well: http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/12/ha...Tor.com+Frontpage+Partial+-+Blog+and+Stories)

And FWIW, I think LEGION is onto something with his "underground augment" theory...

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

It's not Garth of Izar.
It's not Gary Mitchell.
It's not Harry Mudd, Trelane, Q or the Third Klingon From The Left.

They're deliberately building up the mystery about Cumberbatch's character. This means one of only two things:

1. He is someone the movie audience will recognize; or
2. Revealing information about him will disclose too much information about the plot for other reasons, which means he's directly connected to someone or some event that the movie going audience will recognize.

So, the movie turns on someone or something already established and well-known to the general public. Otherwise the reveal is the equivalent of declaring that John Harrison is really John Doe.


That rules out everyone but Khan or the Borg, really.*

It's not the Borg.


*(or Luke's father)

 

[cooleddie74]

I'm still wondering how Harry Mudd wound up on the poll ballot. I mean, at least most of the others mentioned as a possibility for Cumberbatch's character were - oh, I don't know - villainous. They did nasty, horrid things much worse than smuggle a placebo beauty pill or have androids hijack Captain Kirk's ship.

Harry Mudd at his worst was about as threatening as Eddie Haskell on Leave it to Beaver.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

If they use Harry Mudd, Q or Trelane and don't cast Eddie Izzard I'm outta here.

 

[Ryan8bit]

If John Harrison is an augment, shouldn't he still be susceptible to the Vulcan nerve pinch (unlike as seen in those early photos)? I suppose they could have changed the rules, or this particular augment's trapezius was particularly engineered for that.

 

[SalvorHardin]

Wasn't Gary Seven the only human unaffected by it back in the TOS days?

 

[cooleddie74]

Was Spock able to nerve pinch the Augment guarding Kirk in the the Sickbay pressure chamber in "Space Seed"? It's been a little while since I've seen the episode and can't recall if Spock pinched the guy or immobilized him in some other fashion.

 

[SalvorHardin]

Was Spock able to nerve pinch the Augment guarding Kirk in the the Sickbay pressure chamber in "Space Seed"? It's been a little while since I've seen the episode and can't recall if Spock pinched the guy or immobilized him in some other fashion.

It was a nerve pinch as far as I remember.

 

[Ryan8bit]

Yeah, I think he pinched a guard in sickbay. It doesn't really matter because not every genetically engineered person has to be the same, and that's probably all they need to justify it.

Wasn't Gary Seven the only human unaffected by it back in the TOS days?

As far as I know. And who knows why? Maybe that was a result of genetic engineering too.

 

[RAMA]

http://www.trekbbs.com/showpost.php?p=7425460&postcount=942

 

[Franklin]

Was Spock able to nerve pinch the Augment guarding Kirk in the the Sickbay pressure chamber in "Space Seed"? It's been a little while since I've seen the episode and can't recall if Spock pinched the guy or immobilized him in some other fashion.

The transcript of "Space Seed" at http://www.chakoteya.net/startrek/24.htm says, "The outer sickbay door opens, Kirk waits and then tackles Spock's guard. Spock neck-pinches him."

However, it could be that with the adrenaline flowing (the Harrison and Spock fight scene), an augment could fight off a neck pinch.

 

[Drago-Kazov]

I'm still wondering how Harry Mudd wound up on the poll ballot. I mean, at least most of the others mentioned as a possibility for Cumberbatch's character were - oh, I don't know - villainous. They did nasty, horrid things much worse than smuggle a placebo beauty pill or have androids hijack Captain Kirk's ship.

Harry Mudd at his worst was about as threatening as Eddie Haskell on Leave it to Beaver.

Don't underestimate him, Zsinj was a good SW villain.

 

[EliyahuQeoni]

Has anyone tried to anagram his name?

No. However, his name spoken backward sounds like "turn me on, dead man".

Nah, it sounds like "I buried Khan".

sounded like "cranberry sauce" to me...

 

[cooleddie74]

I'm still wondering how Harry Mudd wound up on the poll ballot. I mean, at least most of the others mentioned as a possibility for Cumberbatch's character were - oh, I don't know - villainous. They did nasty, horrid things much worse than smuggle a placebo beauty pill or have androids hijack Captain Kirk's ship.

Harry Mudd at his worst was about as threatening as Eddie Haskell on Leave it to Beaver.

Don't underestimate him, Zsinj was a good SW villain.

I've seen that character before. And yes....I thought about Harry, too.

It's hard to take an Imperial officer that seriously when you keep imagining him finishing each order or sentence with "Laddy Buck."

 

[Bengoshi2000]

It's not Garth of Izar.
It's not Gary Mitchell.
It's not Harry Mudd, Trelane, Q or the Third Klingon From The Left.

...


That rules out everyone but Khan or the Borg, really.*

It's not the Borg.


*(or Luke's father)

Well crap... so much for my "Harrison is Annakin Sykwalker posing undercover as the third Klingon from the left" Theory...

 

[Drago-Kazov]

Luckily i read about him before i watched TOS.

 

[Set Harth]

If John Harrison is an augment, shouldn't he still be susceptible to the Vulcan nerve pinch (unlike as seen in those early photos)? I suppose they could have changed the rules, or this particular augment's trapezius was particularly engineered for that.

"Piece of shrapnel tore up that nerve cluster my first tour. I had it moved."

THANK YOU JOSS.

 

[Lonemagpie]

He's definitely not Khan.

In the trailer there's a shot of a room full of some kind of stasis canister type things, big enough for a sleeping human, and two men are on the far side of it, leaving, with their backs to us. The guy on the right is Cumberbatch in a white suit of some kind. The guy on the left is a big burly guy with a ponytail, in a yellow/orange jumpsuit. Guess who *that* most likely is...

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

...The guy on the left is a big burly guy with a ponytail, in a yellow/orange jumpsuit. Guess who *that* most likely is...

Steven Seagal?