When we saw the first leaked photo from the set of J.J. Abrams's Star Trek sequel, it showed Zachary Quinto's Spock applying some Vulcan fighting techniques to Benedict Cumberbatch, who wouldn't even confirm he was the villain up to that point. The photo made it pretty clear he was the bad guy, but the most intriguing part was a little shadow on his shirt, barely perceptible, that looked a whole lot like the Starfleet logo. Was Cumberbatch playing a good guy gone bad?
Of course, coupling that with the incessant rumors about Khan, the whole issue got muddled and we never learned anything else about the villain, much less his actual name. But with shooting finally completed and Karl Urban, who plays Bones in the Star Trek movies, doing press for his role in the upcoming Dredd, some real information might have leaked out at last. Talking to SFX in the UK, Urban answered a fairly standard question about Cumberbatch's work in the film with a possible big reveal:
"He’s awesome, he’s a great addition, and I think his Gary Mitchell is going to be exemplary."
Now, it's possible Urban has inherited J.J. Abrams's love of misdirection, and is pulling our leg here. But if it's a legitimate reveal, Star Trek nerds around the world can begin flipping out. Gary Mitchell is a character from the original Trek series, and just as those set photos suggested, he started off as a member of Starfleet-- he was an acquaintance of Kirk's before he got transformed into a more powerful, wrathful being "after encountering the galactic barrier." That simple explanation would probably get al title more complicated in a Trek movie, but the connection to Starfleet makes sense with that set photo, and the fact that Cumberbatch appears to be playing a regular human being and not an alien.
The only problem? Screenwriter Roberto Orci explicitly said not long ago that Gary Mitchell would not be in the movie. Then again, as SFX points out, Orci has a history of misdirection-- he also explicitly said that Megatron wouldn't be in Transformers 2, and look how that turned out. So did Urban just not get the misdirection memo and reveal some real info? Or is this all just part of the game of keeping us confused until the last possible moment? I'm not assuming anything at this point, and won't be at all surprised when Cumberbatch is playing somebody totally different. We'll only find out for sure, of course, when Star Trek 2 opens on May 17, 2013.
