With all the noise surrounding the selection of J.J. Abrams to direct "Star Wars: Episode 7," you might have forgotten that the helmer actually has a sci-fi movie coming out this year. "Star Trek Into Darkness" is on the way, and despite some trailers and a even a big IMAX preview that played in select cinemas, as per usual, the secrets are being played close to the chest. But some savvy nerds may have cracked who the villain, John Harrison, actually is.
The collective minds at HitFix and Bleeding Cool have put together a very plausible theory that Benedict Cumberbatch's character is really Robert April. Who? Well, if you ever watched the very short lived '70s animated series, he appears in the episode "The Counter-Clock Incident" (watch it here) as the first captain of the Enterprise before Christopher Pike (Bruce Greenwood). The plot of that episode found everyone on the Enterprise aging backwards while April figuried out how to reverse the process. If you've seen the nine-minute preview, you know that it opens with a little girl in the hospital, who appears to be rapidly aging, when Cumberbatch shows up and tells the father played by Noel Clarke that he can cure her. Hmmm…
Drew McWeeny says he saw the name April on some production design artwork, while Brendon Connelly has posted a panel from the IDW tie-in comic book that has the Robert April character introducing himself. However, he's bearded and there's some speculation that perhaps Peter Weller is Robert April, and Cumberbatch's role is still undetermined.
Anyway, while you ponder over that, here's a new featurette (via CinemaTeaser) for the movie which features bits and bobs of footage, though half of it is Abrams reciting the names of the characters.