All right, so, the imagery they are going for here is probably more akin to Spock’s final moments in Wrath of Kahn but you have to admit it does look a little bit like the scene with Nick Fury and Loki from 2012’s Avengers film.
Paramount just released this image from the upcoming Star Trek (2009) sequel and while a lot of people seemed worried that it would be Spock behind the glass, we now know that to be untrue. In fact, it’s Benedict Cumberbatch instead. Poor Sherlock.
GeekTyrant considers this image to be ‘revealing’ though they never say why they think it’s revealing. I agree. I think it is revealing but I think casual Star Trek viewers might miss out on the possible implications here. The trailer launched that launched a few days ago in the US was missing this particularly emotional scene. At first, a lot of people really did think it was Spock. But that was likely intentional – they never showed faces and showed the moment from the interior rather than the exterior. Kirk spent pretty much all of the last movie in just a black undershirt and Spock wore his regular blues. It was a reasonable jump.
This scene more than any other is what makes me want to jump on the Gary Mitchell bandwagon now that we know it was in fact Benedict Cumberbatch behind the glass. There is no reason for Spock to be sharing such an emotional moment with Kahn but there is a reason for him to be so connected to Mitchell. In the original series, Mitchell was a classmate of Kirk’s who came to serve on the Enterprise at his request. They were classmates and friends. But Kirk didn’t really go to the Academy right away like he did in the original series. He had his extra few years of angst and what not so he might have missed Mitchell. Or Mitchell’s place was instead taken by Bones and the two officers went their separate ways. It makes sense, then, that Spock would have had the opportunity to make some sort of connection with Mitchell. And that in whatever cataclysmic event at the beginning of the movie causes Mitchell to go all Dark Side, Spock is the one he has a moment with and not Kirk. (The other hint at this being Mitchell is Cumberbatch’s Force Jumps in the trailer [assuming that is him] and Mitchell’s history of psionic abilites in the series.)
That said, if that is the angle the movie takes Spock really needs to stop pissing off people who take their vengeance out on the whole of his home planets.
UPDATE:
Well, JJ Abrams says that I am completely wrong about the identity of Benedict Cumberbatch’s character. I do, however, stand by my view of the relationship between not!Mitchell and Spock.
(Image via GeekTyrant and Paramount Pictures)
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