Benedict Cumberbatch Is A Frightening and Cool Villain Says J.J. Abrams For Star Trek Into Darkess

[[wysiwyg_imageupload:4654:]]Paramount and J.J. Abrams recently released a pair of trailers for Star Trek Into Darkness as well as screened the upcoming IMAX footage that is attached to The Hobbit.

A new image still was released featuring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto and Benedict Cumberbatch, with Cumberbatch’s identity being revealed as John Harrison.

Trek fans will note the name of Harrison as being a supporting character in the original television show and involved with “Space Seed,” which set up Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

MTV caught up with Abrams to get his take on all the speculation surrounding Benedict Cumberbatch, as it’s thought that Cumberbatch could – still – be either Khan, Gary Mitchell or Garth of Izar.

Rather than answer anything that would give away the fun of the movie, I would say that the character that Benedict plays, he brings such an incredible power to it. His voice alone, I actually as a joke should have had him read the lunch menu. He makes anything sound great and brings such a force to it that hopefully when you see the movie, this character, all speculation aside, will be really compelling, not because of any connection to anything past, but because of who he is and what he brings to it.

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Of course, Abrams wasn’t going give out anything specific, but does offer that there will be nods to previous Trek continuity, and at the same time, the movie is being made for people that aren’t specifically Star Trek fans.

This movie was not made for ‘Star Trek’ fans; it was made for movie fans. But if you’re a ‘Star Trek’ fan, I think you’ll be really happy. There’s a lot of stuff in here for you, but we couldn’t just make the movie only for fans of ‘Star Trek.’ The thing about the movie that I love also is that we didn’t even make it for fans of the first movie we did. A lot of sequels I’ve seen tend to assume you love the characters and know them really well and get things off to a fast start where you don’t have any sense of investing in the characters in the beginning, so we tried to treat this as a movie that works on its own. Certainly it’s a sequel, certainly if you saw the first movie, great. You don’t have to have seen the first film. This movie is its own thing, and there are definitely nods to prior ‘Trek’ lore in the film.

So what does J.J. Abrams offer about Benedict Cumberbatch? That he is a “frightening and cool villain.”

The whole thing, not just his backstory, but his agenda, his plan, his secret, all that is what, for me at least, makes him such a frightening and cool villain. Also, the real villains — when they’re not just two-dimensional, angry vengeful types — don’t see themselves as the bad guy. They are the good guy and have complete rationale and motivation. So true to form, the character that Benedict plays has an absolute sense of right and wrong, and he’s on the right side.

Check out the full video below:

Star Trek Into Darkness has a May 17th, 2013 release date in 3D, is directed by J.J. Abrams and stars Chris Pine as Capt. James T. Kirk, Zachary Quinto as Spock, Karl Urban as Leonard “Bones” McCoy, Zoe Saldana as Nyota Uhura, Simon Pegg as Scotty, Anton Yelchin as Pavel Chekov, John Cho as Hikaru Sulu and Benedict Cumberbatch as an unnamed villain.

Warp on over to the Cosmic Book News Star Trek Movie Hub for more news.

Synopsis:

In Summer 2013, pioneering director J.J. Abrams will deliver an explosive action thriller that takes “Star Trek Into Darkness.”

When the crew of the Enterprise is called back home, they find an unstoppable force of terror from within their own organization has detonated the fleet and everything it stands for, leaving our world in a state of crisis.

With a personal score to settle, Captain Kirk leads a manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one man weapon of mass destruction.

As our heroes are propelled into an epic chess game of life and death, love will be challenged, friendships will be torn apart, and sacrifices must be made for the only family Kirk has left: his crew.