Yes friends, I am back with another post about my most anticipated film of 2013: Star Trek Into Darkness. Today saw the release of the first issue of a comic series, titled Star Trek: Countdown Into Darkness, by IDW comics and overseen by one of the writers of this new film, as well as the one before it, Roberto Orci. IDW and Orci are looking to do the same thing here as they did prior to the release of the first film of this reimagined series in 2009, which is create a prequel comic series that will tie into the new film. It is a strategy that worked last time, so who can blame them.
The story in this first issue finds Kirk and crew being sent to the planet Phaedus, which has a primitive population whose development technologically resembles that of the Iron Age on Earth. Kirk finds that the people on Phaedus have technology that is blocking the Enterprise’s transporter, so he flies down there via shuttlecraft to investigate. He finds the Phaedans are armed with Starfleet weapons and also Starfleet tricorders. On the last page of this first issue the person responsible for providing the Phaedans with this advanced technology and also violating the prime directive is revealed. The website BleedingCool posted the image of that page from the comic earlier today, which you can see below. It shows the person responsible to be Robert April.
Robert Who?
Let me take a moment here and give you all a history lesson on Mr. April. Back when Gene Roddenberry was creating Star Trek in the mid-1960’s he had decided that the Captain of the Enterprise was going to be Robert April. However after some time, Roddenberry decided to change Robert April to Christopher Pike. April seemingly was gone forever at that point.
But then he reappeared as Commodore April in an episode of the Star Trek Animated Series titled “The Counter-Clock Incident”. In the episode April and his wife Sarah are being escorted by the Enterprise to a diplomatic conference on Babel. They encounter some unusual energy cloud and the crew soon finds they are aging backwards. After some time, the crew all become small children and are unable to do anything to reverse the process. However, April and his wife were much older than the crew and therefore April is aged back to his prime years. Eventually he and his wife solve the mystery and reveal it to be aliens who were attempting to start a war between the Klingons and the Federation.
During this episode of the animated series it was also revealed that April was the very first captain of the Enterprise. A fact that is referenced in the above image from the comic. It was also revealed that April’s first officer during those days was George Kirk, who is of course Jim Kirk’s father. April supported Jim in Starfleet Academy and played a role in his success there. It was shown that April very much was a mentor to Kirk and the two had a close relationship.
Some time after the episode aired, Gene Roddenberry stated that anything in the animated series was considered canon, including Robert April and his backstory. Of course, April would later show up in several other novels and comics related to Star Trek. He of course never appeared in any of the feature films, nor any of the spin off shows.
Now could Cumby be playing April? Absolutely possible. In fact I just may need to admit I was wrong about Cumby being Khan here and instead declare that I think he may be in fact a de-aged Robert April. But I am ready to do that just yet. I am gonna stick to my theory of Khan until I get just alittle more compelling evidence than this. With that said, April could certainly work for this film and actually makes sense given what we know at this point.
First, you had Roberto Orci state that the villain in this film will be a character from canon. Now most automatically assumed that had to mean that it would be Khan, Gary Mitchell, Charlie X, or a few other characters from TOS. The funny thing is that no one either knew or realized that characters who appeared on the animated series were a part of canon as well. So, April could certainly be considered a canon character and fit with what Orci was quoted as saying.
Second, the beginning of the film takes place in London. It was established that April was born in Coventry, England. It also seems as if, based on the film itself and the marketing, that London will play an important role and be a prominent setting in the film. It also seems as if Cumberbatch will have an english accent in the film. So April does make sense here as well.
Last, let me dive into a theory as to how April could be used in the new film. As established above, April was a part of an incident on the Enterprise which caused people to age backwards. What if April discovered this all on another vessel and then went back to try and understand the technology behind it. Maybe he does find the aliens who designed it and he secures the technology for himself. He ages himself back to his prime, assumes the identity of John Harrison and heads back to Earth to exact revenge on Starfleet and one Christopher Pike.
Revenge for what? Well what if Christopher Pike was April’s first officer in this universe instead of George Kirk, as Kirk died on the Kelvin. Whether April and Pike served on the Enterprise together remains to be seen. But let’s just say their vessel encounters some sort of precarious situation. Pike makes a decision to save the crew, but one that ultimately causes great pain and suffering to April, who disappears after. Presumed dead perhaps, abandoned, alone.
So April, ahem “John Harrison”, goes back to Earth with the intent to kill Pike and deliver a devastating blow to Starfleet. He is successful there and flees, only to have Kirk go out with Spock and Uhura to attempt to capture him.
I do like the idea of Pike being the focus of Harrison’s revenge and not Kirk. In fact, I kind of love the idea of getting some valuable backstory to Christopher Pike’s career in Starfleet, Which of course no one has ever really tried to do.
As far as to how the Botany Bay and her special cargo fit in, I am unsure. It could be possible that April and his crew found the Botany Bay. Starfleet seizes its cargo and locks it away at a secret medical research facility to be analyzed and perhaps even duplicated. Maybe Khan’s men are reprogrammed to become an elite fighting force for Starfleet, similar to the Navy Seals. Or maybe they are just studied and experimented on.
Obviously I do not have all the answers here. In fact, I don’t think I have any of them with any certainty. While I would absolutely love to know what the plot of this film actually is, I really don’t want to spoil the film for myself either.
What I will say in closing here is that I would certainly be pleasantly surprise if Robert April is revealed as the big bad played by Cumberbatch. It would make for an interesting choice and would give the team a chance to reintroduce an important character in Star Trek canon to the general audience. I would like that choice and would be excited to see where they go with both the character, his backstory, and his master plan. For now all we have to go off is speculation and rumors, which is the game those involved with the production are happy to play with us until the film’s release in May.
What do you think? Would April be a good choice?
No comments:
Post a Comment