One of the more entertaining rumors sweeping the entertainment industry is the story that J.J. Abrams has approached Benicio del Toro for the role as the villain in the sequel of his hit reboot of “Star Trek.”
Which villain? The betting is that if Del Toro accepts he may play Khan Noonien Singh, the genetically enhanced tyrant from Star Trek’s alternate 1990s who was Captain Kirk’s nemesis in the classic Trek episode “Space Seed” and the movie “Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan” considered the best of the big screen movies of the franchise.
Khan was played with panache by the late Ricardo Montalban and therefore would be a tough act to follow. Montalban played the character with scene chewing enthusiasm in the 1960s TV show. In the movie, which came out in the 1980s, he elevated the role of the fallen, superman tyrant to literary heights, evocative of Captain Ahab of “Moby Dick” fame.
How the new “Star Trek” film, which follows on a reboot movie that altered the standard canon timeline of the original series, would handle the back story of Khan is a matter of conjecture. Clearly a group of genetically enhanced supermen did not seize power in dozens of countries in the 1990s, only to be put down in what amounted to a Third World War. The technology to create a ship with suspended animation crypts capable of star travel did not and does not exist even 20 years after the “eugenics wars” ended in the “Star Trek” universe.
One approach might be for Khan and his compatriots to show up in the future, say the 2020s, to wreck death and mayhem. Considering the unsettled nature of the world, if one assumes a secret genetic enhancement program, such a development would not be outside the realm of possibility.
The alternative might be to alter the original back story to have Khan and his group exercising power from behind the scenes in the 1990s. One could weave their hypothetical activities in with the fall of the Soviet Union, the uproar in the Balkans, and the beginning of the war on terror.
Or, Del Toro might play a different character entirely. In any case, the new “Star Trek” goes before the cameras next year.
Source: Rumor of the Day: J. J. Abrams has found his mystery Trek villain, SyFy Channel, Nov 5, 2011