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Benedict Cumberbatch Has Never Heard Of Botany Bay… Or Has He?

Date: May 2, 2012 | Author: Josh Tyler | Category: Sci-Fi

Here’s a weird addendum to the confirmation we got yesterday that Benedict Cuberbatch will be playing…

[SPOILERS!]

Khan in the next Star Trek movie. In a recent interview with MTV he acted like he’d never heard of the Botany Bay. Watch the interview and we’ll talk afterward…

If Benedict Cumberbatch really is playing Khan in Star Trek: The Next then there’s almost no way he wouldn’t know what the Botany Bay is. It should be in the script since, while much has been changed by the new timeline, Khan’s backstory would be unaffected. During the events of the 2009 movie Khan would still be out there, somewhere, floating around unconcious in a ship named the Botany Bay. In order for him to show up in this new movie, they’d have to actually go pick him up and get him out of the Botany Bay, which makes it seem pretty impossible that the words Botany Bay aren’t clearly written in his script somewhere.

What’s not entirely clear, though, is if Cumberbatch is merely joking. Early on in the interview it’s clear that he’s having a laugh, but towards the end when the Botany Bay question comes up he seems deadly serious. Now maybe he’s just playing coy and trying to throw us all off, but what if he isn’t?

Maybe I’m just grasping at straws because I so desperately don’t want this movie to involve Khan. Maybe this is nothing. What do you think?

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Comments

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1266823967 Allen Wilson

    Really?
    How much more do they want to change the Trek story line just to make a buck?
    I probably will not bother to go see this one.

  • Nathan

    Oh please, gods, don’t let this be true. I don’t want a new Khan movie either.
    But even if it is, then whyyyy would they cast (the very British) Cumberbatch in the role of an Indian man? I mean, he’s a great actor, but still… I hope this is someone’s very bad idea of a joke.

    • http://www.facebook.com/paul.dye.12 Paul Dye

      Like ricardo montalban was real Asian looking (and sounding)

      • JT

        Well as far as “sounding” it’s not really relevant. Khan was genetically Asian Indian in appearance (at least partially, remember he’s genetically engineered), but he wasn’t necessarily Indian culturally. As far as appearance, at least he had a similar skin color. Cumberbatch not even close.

        • http://www.facebook.com/paul.dye.12 Paul Dye

          not relevant – it is to an Asian Indian

          • JT

            So Asian Indians believe that genetics are responsible for accents? Because that’s the only way your statement makes sense.

  • Colin

    I’m with you, Josh…I really hope it’s all just rumor and Cumberbatch is playing someone new and different.

  • Mike

    He is clearly acting as though he knows none of the answers. As for Khan, I’ll wait till there is more solid evidence… wasn’t he meant to be voicing a computer the other month??

    • JT

      No the computer thing was just something we were having fun kicking around, was never a news story.

  • http://twitter.com/Calpurnius William T. Tripp

    Pretty sure these folks have confidentially clauses in their contracts, so I wouldn’t expect him to say much more than he’s in the movie.

    • http://twitter.com/Calpurnius William T. Tripp

      Confidentiality.

      • JT

        Confidentiality contracts would not apply to admitting whether or not you’ve heard of the Botany Bay.

  • gospyro

    If Abrams and his thugs can throw away 40 years of cannon, I don’t think they would have any trouble completely ‘reinventing’ Khan, or the history of Earth before Kirk. And, actually, I couldn’t care less, since I have no inclination to see the next one. Star Trek died the day they released Abrams’ abomination. (Trek has had some lame, even bad movies… but that last one was a steaming pile that I can’t even call Star Trek!!)

    • http://www.facebook.com/manthony1970 Michael Wheeler

      Would you like some cheese with the whine???

  • http://www.facebook.com/xsilver82 Darren Edward Doherty

    ok for the people out there going mad about this, Khan will be in this movie or the next one, because TOS is when then first meet Khan and his crew who try to over take the Enterprise and to think about it, is had noting to do with 1982′s original Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Kahn. at all because it like 20 years or so after the TOS timeline where Kirk find out he have a son, But for this to happend there will have to find Botany Bay first . ??? now think this out before going mad about the new movie

  • http://www.facebook.com/briancmckinley Brian C McKinley

    I don’t like him already.

  • Nate Yapp

    I’ve always felt that the reboot could get away with changing events before the split-off point, since every Trek series has a least a couple episodes where they change the past. In the new universe, those adventures might have gone differently or never occurred at all. Of course, then you get into some crazy recursive thinking.

    • JT

      Nate! Good to see your name buddy.

      • Nate Yapp

        I’m always lurking around CB and GFR. I just never post, because I apparently became Internet-comment-shy at some point in the last ten years.