Khan is Not Star Trek 2 Villain & Here's Why

In recent months, we have, once again, been plagued by rumors about the next Star Trek movie. Who will the villain be? Will it be someone we know? Who will play him? (That's actually been answered already: Benedict Cumberbatch. By the way, if you haven't seen Sherlock, it is very very good and you should watch it unless you hate Sherlock Holmes, of course, and then you should skip it and accept my evaluation that he is a very good actor.) But for some reason, the name of Khan has been brought up quite a bit, and unless I miss my guess, will be brought up quite a few more times before we're through and the identity of the villain officially named. After all, I seem to recall the name of Matt Damon showing up a few times before the end of all the rumormongering last time around, even after they had announced that Chris Pine was Kirk and filmed the entire movie. In June of 2009, we began to see the first rumors regarding the next movie. Of course, that was ridiculous at that point, unbelievably just over a month since the new movie appeared when Aint it Cool News reported that maybe, possibly, Jack Black was going to be Harry Mudd in the next movie. Which was fine with me, really, in theory, except I was still seeing Star Trek in the theater every chance I got and it was just a little bit soon. Son June 9, 2009, I was relieved to read this:

Even though I KNOW that any casting on the next film will most likely begin after they've actually started to have real meetings and an outline for the next film... I wrote JJ about it anyways. Who knows what he'll say. Here's what he said: Yes, talking to Jack Black about doing something -- but not Mudd. Bryan, Damon, Alex and Bob and I have not had MEETING ONE about a sequel. Brief, casual, blue-sky conversations, of course. But "okay, what's next for The Crew?" Not a meeting. So any character decisions, let alone actor discussions, feel like a ways away. I can tell you one thing. For the sequel? I think we should have a shitload more lens flares. Hope your summer is going well -- DYING to see The Hangover. Talk soon, Sir! JJ

Okay, I thought, whew. What I didn't realize at the time was what was happening in the comments down below, was the beginning of what was possibly going to be the biggest annoyance of my entire life, at least this year. That's because, at 3:23 AM Central Time, there was a post made about that article that read like this:

NEW Story for pt. 2 & Khan is a minor player... Have him and Kirk part on friendly/mildly antagonistic terms. Setup for a third movie which would be a Wrath of Khan redo, but the only thing they should take verbatim is the °K. speech.

So great. If I was one for reading the comments section of AICN, I would have seen it then, but of course I don't, because it's hard to follow the threads of the conversations. I don't make that mistake anymore. Over the ensuing months, as we moved past the excitement of the release of the movie, the speculation began. It came to a head when I heard the inevitable non-Trekkies who think they are Trekkies (you know the type, you're standing at the bus stop minding your own business, wearing a Star Trek shirt or something innocent like that and someone comes up and says, €œI love Star Track! Captain Archer is the best Captain ever! I love how Enterprise fits perfectly into the series!€ or some other ridiculous thing that makes you want to scream) start approaching me at work and in between the inevitable €œDid you know that the actress who plays Lwaxana Troi is the same actress as the one who played Nurse Chapel?€ and the €œDidn't they just make a new movie or something,€ I noticed that people were starting to approach me with something else. Namely, €œSince it's Star Trek 2, this one must be about Khan, right?€ Erm.... no. The timeline doesn't match up. And also, that's kind of silly logic since it's a different universe, and, just, no. It feels wrong. But the non-Trekkies, they kept asking. Things stayed pretty calm for a while. It was a couple of weeks after the AICN article before anything official was really said, and then it was more a vague statement by Bob Orci on ComicBookMovie.com, which basically said that Khan is a great villain and it's really tempting to use him, but at the same time, €œwhy take the chance?€ I was a little more adamant about my response, plus the non-Trekkies were getting really annoying by this point. Alex Kurtzman also said they were leaning toward a two-parter, something akin to Star Treks II and III. Okay, well, I like II. And III. But if we're talking about something akin to II, that brings us back to the Khan question. By the end of June, Alex Kurtzman told movie-moron.com the odds were about 50/50, about Khan's inclusion at all and not necessarily as the villain. Now let's face it, Kirk bungled Khan the first time. If he had been a smidge more cautious, Khan might have turned out quite differently and now we're in a new universe. This is what alternate universes are for. Saving Gary Mitchell and David Marcus, and making Khan the good guy while Harry Mudd plots to destroy the universe by genetically modifying Cyrano Jones' tribbles to eat it all. Using Khan as the second movie villain is just walking right back into the universe we just left. And the non-Trekkies were getting really annoying. I was trying to enjoy the movie, not speculate about the next one. Ugh! By August of 2009, even when people weren't talking about Khan, it seemed like someone had to make a note that they weren't talking about Khan. Sickening. In October 2009, Alex Kurtzman and Bob Orci did give an interview in which they didn't deny thinking about Khan as the villain. But they also admitted €œWe haven't landed on anyone yet.€ To me, that says, very plainly, that Khan is not likely to be in the new movie for the simple reason that he's such an obvious choice: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Star Trek 2: The Return of Khan or something to that effect. If Khan was going to be the villain, they would have at least a story already, I figured, ergo, it wasn't Khan. So why, exactly, did I have to quit the message boards because no one would stop talking about Khan? Is it because J.J. Abrams made it very clear that he would not be calling the movie €œStar Trek 2€? That's just good sense -it tells us JJ is aware this isn't Star Trek II so why would he make it about Khan? Personally, I think at this point he was cashing in on the free publicity. He did the same thing with Star Trek: €œ Is Matt Damon in it?€ €œI'd be thrilled to have Matt Damon....€ blah blah blah, doesn't say he's not. Matt Damon denies it but the story kept coming around like an ice cream truck in June. Free advertising. So think of Khan as this movie's Matt Damon. Here we are, the script is being written, the whole idea is ridiculous because they're all about going forward and making Trek their own, and yet we're still talking about this. But that's okay, because this is in October 2009 and it's only been five months. And that's when the DVD came out. Now personally, I don't really care that much about the commentary, but since we all knew it was going to be at least a two year wait for the next movie, I listened to it. Including the part where Damon Lindelof told us that they thought about putting an after-credits shot of the Botany Bay in space, you know, like the Marvel movies do. It didn't help that Ricardo Montalban had died relatively recently, and then some geniuis over at Coming Soon.net decided to leak the name of an actual actor (Nestor Carbonell) to take over Khan. This thing was clearly not going to go away. Now, if you remember the time before we had a cast last time, in the 2006s and 2007s, you may recall a whole slew of these silly rumors that popped up everywhere. They did well to cast Spock first and Kirk last, because each and every decision was fraught with dissention. Zachary Quinto? €œI don't wanna see Sylar when I look at Spock!€ Zoe Saldana? €œYou STOLE! MY! UHURA!€ Anton Yelchin? €œToo young.€ Karl Urban? €œHe makes me think of horses.€ Simon Pegg? €œI don't need more fatboy jokes when I look at Scotty. Yeah, I said it! So sue me!€ John Cho? €œI always thought Sulu was high at the helm.€ And then Chris Pine, whose major credit before he was Kirk is being the cause of Lindsey Lohan running into walls. Oh, and he married Anne Hathaway in Princess Diaries 2. My point is that even when they make a decision, they do it in such a way that we'll talk about it for weeks on end and generate a ton of free publicity. So basically, the Khan thing, I figured they were just milking for all it's worth. Luckily they shut up for a while and let us enjoy the blessed silence. They set a date for the movie, and I reminded myself that the original release date for the first movie was August 2008, and that the date they set was therefore not accurate. Patrick Stewart got knighted. More little comments from the cast along the lines of €œKhan would be cool.€ More little comments from the writers along the lines of €œWeeeeeelllllll, I dunno...€ And then it was months of silly little rumors, and you'd think the Khan thing was dead, except every time the subject of Star Trek 2 came up somewhere on the interwebs, it seems like someone would say something like, €œit better not be Khan,€ and every time Trekmovie.com did one of those recaps of what we actually knew (nothing), they would mention it in the sense of €œPeople keep talking about Khan,€ or €œThere's been a lot of media attention about Khan.€ But the funny thing was, as far as I could tell, they were the only media anything still even thinking the word €œKhan€ right then. In the end, or what should have been the end, Bob Orci and Alex Kurtzman decided to let us vote and €œwe will listen.€ Okay, fine, sanity. Since most of the internet (not all, because since when has the internet been of one mind on anything?) seemed to be against it, and the voting was online, it was pretty much a guarantee at that point that we would not be seeing Khan in the new movie. So, really, we shouldn't hear anything more about it, right? Right? In September of 2010, Alex Kurtzman brought it up again, probably because people were still talking about Khan and doing an interview where you say the word €œKhan€ was bound to bring in some free publicity. They started writing the script the next month. No word on who the villain was. Then, at the end of October, a rumor at Badass News told us, and I quote:

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.

This is from an €œinside source€ but still, look who is not on that list. Khan. And you'll notice no one came out and denied it. Okay, so that should settle it, RIGHT? Until July of 2011, when MTV asked Damon Lindelof about Khan, and he didn't exactly say no, but it's a very teasing non-answer, and I definitely get the impression from it that it is not Khan: I think to Khan or not to Khan was the jumping off question. We actually put a big list up on the board: pros and cons ®C cause its a pun. Sort of weighed it all out and came to a big decision and once we did we stuck to our guns. Okay, so that's not really a €œno€ but I do get the impression that the Khan decision is in the past, and if they were actually doing a movie with Khan in it it would be more... present. At least, until you start casting Benicio del Toro, after the script was written, by which point one would assume that they'd settled on a villain. So, then, since it was made crystal clear that Benicio del Toro was being considered for said villain, one would assume that when JJ said they were not considering Benicio del Toro for Khan, that Khan was definitely, absolutely, 100%, NOT IN THE MOVIE. And THAT should settle the whole thing, right? Except that Benicio del Toro didn't work out, and they started talking about Edgar Ramirez. And people started going, €œHey, Benicio del Toro's Hispanic, Edgar Ramirez is Hispanic, Ricardo Montalban was Hispanic... maybe it's Khan?€ Despite the fact that JJ said they were trying to get Benicio del Toro for the villain and that the villain was not Khan. Not even when Simon Pegg (Scotty) flat out said, after talking ad nauseum about how he knew all about the story that he hadn't €œheard the name Khan come up,€ Not even when the whole €œHispanic actor, must be Khan,€ thing got kicked to the curb by the casting of Benedict Cumberbatch who is, note this, not Hispanic, and then when someone got onto the set and started taking pictures of the filming, wow, if Benedict Cumberbatch is playing Khan that's the worst Khan makeup job on record. Of course, one could make the case that Benedict Cumberbatch has an Hispanic accent in the same way that Patrick Stewart has a French accent they're both British. But no, that wouldn't happen. I have plenty of evidence that Khan doesn't exist. I'm not going to worry about it anymore. Not even when the sports fans at work start talking about how Khan's sure to be in the next Star Trek movie, dude. Or when the non-Trekkies start pouring out of the woodwork, wondering what it's going to be like when Khan is played by Sherlock Holmes. Star Trek whatever-its-called comes out on May 17, 2013, at least for now. For those of you counting, that's fourteen months of this theorizing. Fourteen months most of us would prefer to go without hearing the name €œKhan€ one more stinking time. I mean, that should be the end of it, right? RIGHT?