Star Trek Into Darkness: Five Things We Know About John Harrison

Before he was finally named, Benedict Cumberbatch’s Star Trek Into Darkness villain was speculated to be any number of original series characters. Had that been the case, we would have had quite a bit of information going into the movie that, if not true, we could at least assume until we were told differently.Now that “John Harrison” is in the water, though, much less is known. Ahead of tonight’s Super Bowl trailer for the film, what is it that we know, or at least have strong reason to suspect, about the formerly-anonymous villain?And what, if anything, will we find out tonight, either during the ad that runs during the Big Game or in the second quarter when the Star Trek Into Darkness app goes live with new content?Hey may be involved with KhanWe’ll start with the most tenuous one first, becuase it’s the sexiest and it’s the best thing we have to go on. John Harrison may actually be a J.J. Abrams reinterpretation of Harrison, the name given a recurring extra on the Enterprise during the Khan-centric episode “Space Seed.” (He had appeared before that but never been named.) You can find out more about the character at the link above, but the gist is that he was a character who played a variety of roles in the series, but was eventually promoted to Lieutenant. He was a red shirt in “Space Seed” but survived the encounter with Khan.Lots of fans have taken this as a red flag that even if the character isn’t Khan himself, Harrison might be Silver Surfer to another actor’s Khan, coming out ahead of the bigger threat but still dangerous in his own right.  Is it a fairly baseless conspiracy theory? Absolutely–but it has that ring of “there’s something to this” that fans always felt about the crackpot “the island is limbo” idea on Abrams’s Lost.