The newest Star Trek Into Darkness TV spot premiered during the Super Bowl last night. Needless to say, Tumblr exploded with pictures and GIFs. We have some of those pictures below as well as the new video. It still doesn’t answer the question Captain Kirk poses to John Harrison, “Who the hell are you?” We may have to wait till the movie opens on May 17th to find out which character Benedict Cumberbatch is actually portraying, although another theory is making the rounds.
The collective minds at HitFix and Bleeding Cool have put together a very plausible theory that Benedict Cumberbatch’s character is really Robert April. Who? Well, if you ever watched the very short lived ’70s animated series, he appears in the episode “The Counter-Clock Incident” (watch it here) as the first captain of the Enterprise before Christopher Pike (Bruce Greenwood). The plot of that episode found everyone on the Enterprise aging backwards while April figuried out how to reverse the process. If you’ve seen the nine-minute preview, you know that it opens with a little girl in the hospital, who appears to be rapidly aging, when Cumberbatch shows up and tells the father played by Noel Clarke that he can cure her. [The Playlist]
Well, whoever Benedict Cumberbatch is playing, we’re looking forward to the scene where he and Chris Pine perform “Anything You Can Do“.
That last one may not have happened, but that’s how it went in the version in my head.
UPDATE: Paramount has also released an app for “access to early showtimes of the film (starting May 15th in select IMAX 3D theaters) and an extended version of the TV spot.”
[Sources: First Showing, The Glorious Silver Cupcake, Benedict Is Better At Everything, Felix Kitty, Brain Confetti, Benedct]
![[avatar]](http://p.uproxxcdn.com/photo/72/thumb)
![[image]](http://cdn.uproxx.com/wp-content/thumbnails/130/110/2013/05/starstrek-150x150.png)
![[image]](http://cdn.uproxx.com/wp-content/thumbnails/130/110/2013/05/two-legged-dog-walks-upright-gets-new-fancy-arms-150x150.gif)
![[image]](http://cdn.uproxx.com/wp-content/thumbnails/130/110/2013/05/jonathan-rhys-meyers-shutterstock-resized-150x150.jpg)
![[image]](http://cdn.uproxx.com/wp-content/thumbnails/130/110/2013/05/kencosgrove-150x150.jpg)
Yep, Khan.
I know absolutely jack shit about Star Trek, especially TOS and all the movies, but it does seem kind of lame that, after setting up all that alternate timeline nonsense, Abrams just seems to be reusing iconic villains from the old movies. Whatever, hopefully Cumberbatch will at least be entertaining, because Nero was fucking boring as shit. Seriously, one of the worst movie villains in recent memory. He was up there with the Lizard among villains with seemingly pointless and stupid evil plans.
I’ll give “Star Trek” credit for establishing Nero at least had excellent reason to be pissed off. But honestly, I think Paramount is telling Abrams, Orci, Kurtzman, etc. to use the most “recognizable” characters, and frankly, that’s a short list. Like, it was either Khan or Henry Mudd.
I will never get over the fact that Benedict Cumberbatch is an actual name of a British person.
/great actor, though
CUCUMBER BARBARIAN.
BANDERSNATCH CUMBERBUND.
All other British names must bow down to the britishiest of names.
Cumberbatch deserves a knighthood just for having that name. The name itself deserves a lordship.
BENDEROVER CATCHERSNITCH
THIS BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH, I CALL HIM MANTI TE’O, BECAUSE HE’S GOT A UNIQUE NAME AND LIKES TO PLAY PRETEND
Win for DaRooster- nice KSK crossover
That name needs a Roman numeral after it
I think I’m going to tap out of the whole speculation game for now and just drool over that shot of The Enterprise plummeting to Earth. That is just an amazing visual.
His voice is so deep…it makes my balls vibrate. It is going to make things awkward in the movie theater for sure.
“Sir, turn off your cell phone.” “IT’S NOT MY CELL PHONE, OK?”
KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN
I read some other speculation about Robert April.. ugh. Really? I hope that’s not the case. I would rather see a Khan retread, I think, than to see a de-aging plot from the cartoon. I don’t think it’s Khan. I wouldn’t mind them delving into the Eugenics War though. That’s something oft mentioned but never covered in detail. It could be Gary Mitchell if in their new timeline Kirk never met Gary before…. eh. Just have to wait I guess, darn.
Oh for God sakes, let’s just call him Khan and let the 79.34% of Trekkers who won’t get pissed about the idea be excited about the movie.
Speaking for that 20 or so percent, we’d ALSO just like to know who the fuck he is so we can get the bitch fest started.
As a member of the 79.34%, I’m going to say the 20.66% are never going to be happy with the 2009 and beyond films
Well, yeah, considering JJ Abrams and Co. have made it a point to tell the real dedicated Star Trek fans to fuck off while simultaneously turning the franchise into lowest-common-denominator mass appeal shit, I’d say we have good reason not to be happy.
Cuz Berman did wonders with it.
For fuck sake, even Roddenberry managed to piss away the quality when Paramount took off the reins.
Never said Berman/Braga were saints, and Roddenberry was a self-righteous douchenozzle.
At least they didn’t tell the fans to go fuck themselves.
@KevinW have you seen “These Are The Voyages…”? Berman and Braga pretty much told fans to fuck off with that episode harder than JJ Abrams will ever be able to dream of even if he actually wanted to.
Do you think Sherlock Holmes can help Benedict Cumberbatch locate the 40% of his upper lip that appears to be missing?
HA! Sorry but that’s something that has always caught my attention. His problem isn’t the missing upper lip but the smudged permanent lipstick thing he has going. Plus it’s only exacerbated by the fact that his bottom lip is so full and his upper lip has such a pronounced cupid bow.
I want him and Tilda Swinton to mate.
My post seems to dissappeared so I’ll just repeat this part:
I want Benedict “stiff upper lip” Cumonyourback and Tilda “Orlando Bloom” Swinton to mate.
The color on my screen must be completely off because their eyes are mako green to me.
“…the captain of the Enterprise even before Pike.” Except that we saw the Enterprise being built in the last film, with Pike as Captain. Gah! forgive me for playing this game. This particular bit of tease is getting old.