New Star Trek Poster Sets Its Sights On...London?

Well, there's your first official poster for J.J. Abrams's impending Star Trek Into Darkness.

You certainly can't give it points for originality.  Aside from the overwhelming similarity to the early teaser imagery from The Dark Knight Rises, it is also approximately the 439th poster in the last handful of years to feature a solitary figure standing with his back to the camera.  That's not to say I don't enjoy the Starfleet delta-of-destruction, but I have much higher hopes for whatever ends up being the final theatrical one sheet.

I wouldn't be surprised if this particular teaser image is specifically alluding to the film's nine minute opening that will play in front of IMAX prints of The Hobbit next weekend.  Nobody really knows precisely what that footage will entail, but I expect we'll get a big action sequence that sets up the film's yet-unnamed villain. (Much like TDKR's IMAX preview/opening sequence set up Bane.  Are we sensing a pattern here?)

There's still plenty of speculation out that as to Benedict Cumberbatch's precise identity, with most folks camped squarely in either the Khan camp or the Gary Mitchell camp.  While Mitchell is a great character, he feels kind of small for a feature film, aside from the fact that he's already been used in the IDW comics which are supposedly considered canon with this new Trek timeline.  At the same time, Abrams (and Simon Pegg) have both claimed that Khan is not the film's baddie, so...who knows.  We'll probably find out next week.

Honestly, the most curious thing about this poster is the presence of the London skyline.  The only Earth city that has ever been prominently featured in Trek up till now has been San Francisco, so it's certainly a peculiar choice, which I think leads to only one possible conclusion:

Benedict Cumberbatch is playing a Mirror Universe version of Sherlock Holmes.

Mystery solved!