Is 'Star Trek into Darkness' About to Kill Doctor Spock?
We're now just a little under a month away from the release of Star Trek Into Darkness, and after many trailers the blockbuster's first full clip has emerged, along with an ominous interview with director J.J. Abrams, there's a big, sad spoiler already in the making: Is a beloved character going to bite the dust?
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In Playboy's big Q&A this month Abrams (who now just "smiles" when someone asks him about Star Wars) explains just how dark his second Star Trek is going to get. He tells David Hochman: "The darkness is real in this movie, and it’s incredibly challenging and terrifying, and it can certainly be lethal. You need that edge, partly because Star Trek has been so relentlessly parodied over the years." Okay, okay, but who?!
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The new clip also certainly puts death front and center: The crew, wearing super-tight uniforms —well, hello, Chris Pine! — tries to figure out how to beam Spock back up from a volcano without jeopardizing the entire ship. Spock, meanwhile, is all about the "prime directive." What would Spock do if their positions were reversed? He'd let Kirk die.
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So, does Spock die in the film? We would assume not in any situation directly related to this here clip, and that would be a pretty major character to kill off this early in what could be a successful franchise for years. But Spock's fate was a question brought up by the Japanese teaser released in December. In that trailer an image of "the hands — one with fingers split in the Vulcan salute — touching on opposite sides of a plate of glass" is reminiscent of The Wrath of Khan, in which Spock sacrifices himself for the Enterprise, as Bryan Enk of Yahoo Movies wrote.
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Of course, it could just be all a close call, or something else entirely. But Abrams and the movie's marketing team sure are making us think about mortality.
