Lots of possibilities for the Star Trek sequel have suddenly sprung up. It looks like there’s no Khan, but lots of ideas for who could be the villain of the film have appeared…
As JJ Abrams continues to put the pieces of his Star Trek sequel into place, there's been a fresh batch of rumours to mull over. Here's our round-up...
We've got until June 2012 to wait before we clasp eyes on what JJ Abrams has in store for us in his follow-up to his hit rebooting of the Star Trek franchise. But with filming set to start as late as summer next year (as Simon Pegg told us in our interview with him, here), there's plenty of time for the Internet to fill in a few knowledge gaps. It's nice like that.
First up, from Bad Ass Digest (now that's a name), it's been revealed that, contrary to much speculation, Khan will not be the villain in the film. Khan had been suggested from the moment fans rolled out of screenings of the last Star Trek movie, and, to be fair, Abrams and his team hadn't done much to counter those suggestions.
But according to the site's source close to the production of Star Trek 2/Star Trek 12 (take your pick what you want to call it), "the film won't be focused on a traditional 'villain' type at all". Instead, the new film is set to "focus on a classic Trek character", one that was involved in the show when Gene Roddenberry was still at the helm. In fact, the site suggests we're looking at a character that appeared in the first season of The Original Series.
Further investigation from Bad Ass Digest got the response that "It's definitely a character that will make fans of TOS excited. Think along the lines of Harry Mudd or Trelane or Gary Mitchell or the Talosians or the Horta. Actually, it's one of those that I named."
This could all, of course, be tittle tattle, but at worst, it's interesting tittle tattle. Harry Mudd, incidentally, would be quite interesting. He's an intergalactic conman, and you can easily see him being the catalyst for bringing in something like the Klingons.
The site, however, reckons that Gary Mitchell is the more likely of those listed, and it's hard to disagree. Mitchell at one stage appeared to be James T Kirk's best friend, and helmsman on the Enterprise. He's the character who got affected when the ship hit an energy field, which gives Mitchell massive powers.
Just to add some fresh intrigue to the mix, though, over at the New York Times, it ran an article on how Roberto Orci, one of the screenwriters, was using an iPad. However, the titbit that was dropped in said article was that "Mr. Orci, meeting with the producers J. J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof and Bryan Burk, and his fellow writer Alex Kurtzman, jump-started the discussion with an iPad slide show, showing stills from the first film, snapshots of potential locations and a photo of a suggested actress for one of the roles. On the woman's photo, he had used his iPad to paint on a Vulcan ear."
A Vulcan female, then? Obviously, this may have just been a casual moment in a meeting. But it also might be painting the way towards T'Pring, a Vulcan that Spock had a bond with in the episode Amok Time.
Make of all of that what you will, and keep the speculation going in the comments below...