Thanks to the clever folks over at TheFilmStage, the first full synopsis for the highly anticipated Star Trek Into Darkness has just been revealed! While the first footage from the film is set to premiere with The Hobbit in just a few weeks, we finally have an idea of what to expect! If you’re trying to avoid any potential spoilers, you’ll probably want to avert your eyes beyond this point (then again, why did you even click the link!).
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.
So Kirk & crew find themselves on a manhunt. Who could they be hunting for? Jonathan thinks he may have just cracked this mystery (and I absolutely believe he has)!
This is Benedict Cumberbatch. It’s widely known that he’ll be playing the villain in JJ Abrams’ second Star Trek film. His character however, remains nameless, and likely will for some time. I’ll warn you again, there are potential spoilers ahead, so if you’d prefer to be in the dark (pun intended), stop reading!
To find the probable identity of the Into Darkness baddie, we had to go back… way back. All the way back to 1966 in fact, to Star Trek season one, episode three. Check out the synopsis, and see if anything sticks out:
The starship USS Enterprise is on an exploratory mission to leave the galaxy. En route, the damaged ship’s recorder of the SS Valiant, an Earth spaceship lost 200 years earlier, is found. The record is incomplete, but it reveals that the Valiant had been swept from its path by a “magnetic space storm,” and that the crew had frantically searched for information about extra-sensory perception (ESP) in the ship’s library computer. The recording ends with the captain of the Valiant apparently giving a self-destruct order.
Kirk decides that they need to know what happened to the Valiant, and the Enterprise crosses the edge of the galaxy where it encounters a strange barrier which damages the ship’s systems and warp drive, forcing a retreat. At the same time, nine crewmembers are killed and both helmsman Mitchell and ship’s psychiatrist Dr. Elizabeth Dehner are knocked unconscious by the barrier’s effect. When he awakens, Mitchell’s eyes glow silver, and he begins to display remarkable psionics.
Mitchell becomes increasingly arrogant and hostile toward the rest of the crew, declaring that he has become godlike, enforcing his desires with fearsome displays of telepathic and telekinetic power. Science Officer Spock (Leonard Nimoy) comes to believe that Valiant crew members may have experienced the same phenomenon, and destroyed the ship to keep the power from spreading. He advises Kirk that Mitchell may have to be killed before his powers develop further, but Kirk angrily disagrees.
Alarmed that Mitchell may take over the Enterprise, Kirk decides to maroon him on an unmanned lithium-cracking facility on the remote planet of Delta Vega. Once there, the landing party tries to confine Mitchell, but his powers have become great. He goes on a rampage, kills navigator Lt. Lee Kelso and escapes, taking with him Dr. Dehner, who has now developed similar powers.
Kirk follows and appeals to Dr. Dehner’s humanity for help. Before Mitchell can kill Kirk, the doctor attacks and weakens him. Mitchell fatally injures Dehner, but before he can recover from the effort, Kirk uses a phaser rifle to create a rock slide, killing Mitchell.
Back on the Enterprise, Kirk makes a log entry that both Dehner and Mitchell gave their lives “in performance of duty,” rationalizing that they did not ask for what happened to them. Spock admits to feeling sympathy for Mitchell too, and Kirk comments that there is hope for him.
This paragraph from a certain character’s IMDB bio also sounds rather fitting:
Mitchell was briefly stunned by direct contact with the strange energies of the barrier, but he recovered quickly. As his recovery continued, however, he began to display a widening array of psionic abilities. These abilities, or perhaps the energy itself, began to fundamentally alter Mitchell’s personality: he became progressively more emotionally distant, cruel, ruthless, and convinced of his own magnificence. Worse, with the passage of time his abilities continued to grow stronger at a geometric rate. They were accompanied by only two physical manifestations: a curious silver light or glimmer that appeared in Mitchell’s eyes, and a later accelerated graying of his hair, beginning at the temples and sideburns.
John Dalberg-Acton once said “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” That’s the basis of Star Trek Into Darkness. Benedict Cumberbatch will play Lt. Cmdr. Gary Mitchell, who the Enterprise crew will be forced to hunt down after his newfound powers send him over to the dark side.
1966’s version of Gary Mitchell
Agree? Disagree? Let us know!