Earlier today, Pop Culture Zoo posted a MAJOR SPOILER RUMOR for the new film Star Trek Into Darkness. As TrekMovie verified, and we can now confess, it was one big hoax. Friend of PCZ, Rich Handley, and myself, Joe Dilworth, conspired together to create a plausible rumor with the sole intent of seeing how far it would go.
Why would we do such a thing? I can only speak for myself, but basically it came down to being tired of seeing the same old rumors repeated ad naseum. Specifically, the Khan rumor. Everyone is swearing up and down that the people making the movie have not only said Khan is in the movie, but that Benedict Cumberbatch’s character is really not John Harrison, but Khan. Or Gary Mitchell. Or Garth of Izar. In fact, no one from the film has said anything of the sort. There was a story many, many months ago citing an unnamed source involved with the film as saying someone from the Original Series canon would be the villain and even named some characters…none of which were Khan. However, this source was never named or verified as an actual person working on the film. And yet, this rumor of Cumberbatch’s Harrison secretly being Khan has persisted, to the point of people claiming it is fact, although there is not one shred of evidence that he is anything more than a new character called John Harrison, something that the studio making the film has actually revealed.
So, yes, my article was fabricated to prove a point. Anyone can extrapolate a theory based on known information, claim to have spoken to someone working on the film who is credible and legit and post it to the Internet for all to see. That doesn’t make it true. I have no problem with folks dissecting information revealed from actual people who go on record, but when anything posted about the film becomes a rant against something that was never said, but accepted as “something we all know as fact”…well, that’s when I despair for fandom. Those already hating Star Trek Into Darkness based slightly on the scant amount of footage we’ve seen, but mostly on things that are pure unsubstantiated speculation need to take a breath and just relax. Judge the finished product once you’ve actually seen it, all right? Otherwise, why are you wasting so much time and energy on something you clearly are getting no joy from?
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