Chris Pine and Co-Writer Alex Kurtzman Discuss Star Trek 2 Villain
Posted 06.20.12 by Ryan
Even though production on the highly anticipated sequel Star Trek 2 recently wrapped, fans still have a long wait before they'll see anything from the movie — it's not releasing in theaters until May 2013 and director J.J. Abrams and company won't bring any Star Trek 2 footage to Comic-Con this year. That leaves questions about the sequel's story and villain very much unanswered.
Rumors and excitable fans have placed their bets on Khan Noonien Singh, the genetically augmented superhuman originally played by Ricardo Montalbán in a 1967 episode of the original Star Trek TV series and again in the 1982 movie sequel Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. However, cast member Simon Pegg has refuted Khan's presence in the movie and maintains that the villain won't be "another disgruntled alien."
One thing's for sure: British actor Benedict Cumberbatch (BBC's Sherlock, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy) will be at the center of the Enterprise's problem. Who he is playing, though, is still the subject of debate. All we know is that Chris Pine recently told E! Online that Cumberbatch will play "one mean dude."
He's one mean dude! He's great. Wait till people see. He's going to knock it out of the park, I promise. [The sequel will be] bigger and brighter, faster and louder on the effects side. And on the character side, these characters are all still on their journey to becoming the crew that we know and love from the original series.
Co-screenwriter Alex Kurtzman was similarly taken with Cumberbatch's villain, telling Cinema Blend that audiences are "going to be scared of him."
Sequels are about your bad guy. Because your first movie is always about the becoming of [the hero] and your bad guy has to test that hero in a very significant way. And he's an incredibly formidable presence. He's amazing. Are you going to be scared of him? S**t yeah!
[Cumberbatch is] a genius. There are certain actors who have the ability to take a line of dialogue and add a ring to it that you didn't even know you put into the dialogue, into the line. And he's one of those really brilliant actors. Just listening to him talk...you could enjoy him reading the phone book.
You'll notice that neither Pine nor Kurtzman bothered to mention who Cumberbatch is playing, so expect online speculation to continue at a fever pitch. Set photos have revealed a showdown between Cumberbatch's character and Spock (Zachary Quinto), though that was probably expected. As for what else the sequel has in store, Pine told Collider that it is all about "the mythic structure."
With J.J. and company — Alex, Bob [Orci] and Damon [Lindelof] included — what they're really, really good at and what sets them apart is that they know how to do the action, and they know that if you don't give them the small character-driven drama, you can blow up anything you want and no one cares. People will leave the theater because we've all seen it, a million ways. With the second one, people will find that it's the mythic structure, done really well. The character journeys are just perfect mythic structures. They do it so well. The journeys with the characters will be really great, and the explosions and set pieces are going to knock people out of their seats.
What that means exactly, we'll have to wait until next year to find out. In the meantime, we can be contented that Star Trek 2 will once again follow Kirk (Pine), Spock (Quinto), Uhura (Zoe Saldana), Bones (Karl Urban), Sulu (John Cho), Chekov (Anton Yelchin), Scotty (Pegg), and the rest of Enterprise crew on yet another futuristic adventure. Bruce Greenwood (Admiral Pike) will also return for the sequel, which features newcomers Peter Weller as "a C.E.O." and Alice Eve in an unspecified role.
Next Showing: Star Trek 2 opens May 17, 2013