Elba's villainous character, whom director Justin Lin calls Krall, is not a Klingon, but he may be a Gorn assassin.
- Dec 16, 2015
AceShowbiz - Paramount Pictures had released the first official trailer for "Star Trek Beyond" which revealed that Idris Elba is playing Krall, an alien villain in the upcoming movie. Shortly after the trailer debuted, director Justin Lin shared some details about the character when he participated in a roundtable interview.
Many have speculated that Krall is a Klingon, but it doesn't appear to be true. The director did stress in the interview that Krall was not a Klingon, but he's one of the new species the Enterprise crew discovers. "When [Idris] came in, he had a lot of [prospective] projects and when I talked to him about this character, it wasn't about this or that it was about building or having a philosophy or point of view," Lin said of the character. "And I like his character because his character is really challenging the way of the Federation's philosophy and there are a lot of things that when I was growing up I wanted to see."
Fans could notice quickly that the trailer features a callback to the original "Star Trek" film that was released in 2009, especially when they heard Beastie Boys' song "Sabotage". In the trailer, Elba's character says, "This is where it begins, Captain. This is where the frontier pushes back!" His dialog reminded fans of the original TV series and made them assume that Elba was playing a Gorn. That became more convincing when "Star Trek" databank also described Krall as "a Gorn assassin who later befriended Nox the Romulan commander of the USS Admonitor, and later became one of the founders of the Klingon Alliance."
The director then continued explaining the inspiration of the plot. "It was just really embracing the idea that the Federation, what would happen if you were going on a five-year journey and you're trying to also not only explore, but also maybe introduce other people to this way of thinking," Lin stated.
"What would that mean? What are the consequences to that? I mean, spreading a philosophy that you believe in that you think is great, are there gonna be any other points of views that's gonna counter you? And I think that those are the things that I thought of as a kid. And also then as an adult when I watch 'Star Trek'. And I think we got to kind of explore that a little bit," he added.
The upcoming movie stars Chris Pine as Captain James T. Kirk, Zachary Quinto as Commander Spock, Karl Urban as LCDR Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy, Simon Pegg as LCDR Montgomery "Scotty" Scott, John Cho as LT Hikaru Sulu, Zoe Saldana as LT Nyota Uhura and Anton Yelchin as Ensign Pavel Chekov. The sci-fi movie is scheduled for a U.S. release on July 22, 2016.
