Benedict Cumberbatch gets the Spock treatment from Zachary Quinto.
ComingSoon has a report about a possible leak naming the villain in “Star Trek 2,” but also posits the idea that that leak might be either outright wrong or a distractor planted by the notoriously (and maybe excessively) secretive J.J. Abrams.
Apparently at a press conference for the upcoming “Dredd 3D,” the star of that movie, Karl Urban, who’s also in “Star Trek,” mentioned that Benedict Cumberbatch is playing Gary Mitchell in “Star Trek 2.” Mitchell is a well-known character in Star Trek circles, who dates back to the second pilot for the original series (remember, there were two pilots for the show).
While that is an intriguing possibility, and set photos show Cumberbatch in costumes that seem like they’d fit with Mitchell’s Starfleet Academy backstory, ComingSoon points out some reasons why this isn’t likely, not least of which is Abrams’s emphasis on secrecy that makes it more likely he could be throwing out incorrect clues. The other very good reason is that the Mitchell character had appeared in the IDW comics series done by Roberto Orci, one of the writers of the film, and Orci has already listed Mitchell as one of the characters who do not appear in the film. They also present the possibility that Urban may have just slipped up and meant Gary Seven, another character from the Star Trek canon. You can read all of ComingSoon’s ideas on the subject here.
I’m not sure how big a deal this is. On one hand, I feel vaguely irritated by Abrams’s super-secrecy; on the other, I can live happily until the movie comes out without knowing who the villain is. Do people really, really need to know that much…?
