It's Just Movies

— by CHRIS HYATT —

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t participate in rumor-mongering or gossiping, but when it comes to my favorite sci-fi franchise of all time, “Star Trek,” I will bend the rules a little bit. Scripting for the highly-anticipated sequel to “Star Trek” has begun, and there is now (potentially) an answer to one of the hottest questions surrounding the production: Will there or will there not be an appearance by Khan Noonien Singh, famously played by the late Ricardo Montalban.

According to TrekMovie.com, there will be no Khan in the sequel. Ladies, this means no sculpted pectoral muscles for you, but more importantly, the extremely long yardstick of comparisons that would have inevitably killed off the film before it got made remains a hypothetical situation that will likely never happen. So now the next logical question becomes: If there’s no Khan, who will be the baddies in the sequel. Obvious answer would be Klingons, right? Well, the same source that gave us no Khan also had this to say:

“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.”

First, it’s important to reiterate that these are most definitely rumors, even though there’s an insider source. That said, personally, I think that list is pretty thin. Without getting into too much TOS (The Original Series) detail, of the five characters listed, I can realistically only see four decent scenarios:

• The Harry Mudd scenario means we’re shooting for comedy. Bruce Campbell would be excellent casting to play the intergalactic conman and all-around charletan. It would be a great setup for Zoe Saldana’s Uhura to be the one to constantly call him out on his crappy advances.

• The Talosian scenario will struggle to not be cheesy. Aliens with big heads and their insidious mind control powers. I think the only way Klingons get worked into the script is if this scenario plays out.

• The Horta would be an interesting storyline. Have an away team crash a shuttle through some barren planet and then basically do a movie version of the classic episode “Devil in the Dark.”

• The Trelane scenario has the most potential, and from a character point of view, probably the riskiest. Trelane, if cast correctly, could be the “Q” of the Abramsverse. For this movie, he could be the main antagonizer, but if done right, he could pop in and out of future movies at will. The biggest downside is that if they blow the casting, you can kiss the omnipotent being storyline goodbye

• Gary Mitchell can’t be set up well since he was supposed to be Kirk’s nemesis in the academy and Spock kind of filled that role. Now that Kirk has a ship, the backstory would make no sense without rebooting the reboot.

Now that I’ve given Trekkies something else they should add (and that line’s a shout out to the hardcore Trekkies out there), I just want to say this is the first of many rumors, so everybody do some meditations, light some candles, and drink tea from a weird blue vase looking thingy … there will be more rumors to come, I assure you.

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Follow Chris Hyatt on Twitter at http://twitter.com/hyattch.