To sum it up, the bad guy isn't Khan.  For months now, persistent rumors have asserted that Khan Noonien Singh, the bad guy played by Ricardo Montalban in the Original Series episode "Space Seed" and oh-so memorably in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, would be going up against the rebooted Enterprise crew.  Actually, scratch that, Khan's been discussed since just after Star Trek restarted the theatrical franchise in 2009, but talk of Khan-vasion really got big when Benicio Del Toro was in talks for a mysterious villain role.

Those talks didn't work out, and the great Benedict Cumberbatch of Sherlock ended up with the role shortly before production began in January.  But every once in a while, the Khan talk bubbles up again, with myriad breathless so-called confirmations that aren't actually possible to confirm.

Pegg, who took over the role of Montgomery "Scotty" Scott from the late James Doohan in the Abrams-directed reboot, says that Chris Pine won't be screaming "Khaaaaaan!"* in the as-yet untitled twelfth Star Trek movie.  In an interview for a profile in The Telegraph, Pegg said in no uncertain terms,

"It’s not Khan. That’s a myth. Everyone’s saying it is, but it’s not. I think people just want to have a scoop. It annoys me – it’s beyond the point to just ferret around for spoilers all the time to try to be the first to break them. It just spoils the film. It masquerades as interest in the movie but really it’s just nosiness and impatience. You just want to say, ‘Oh f--- off! Wait for the film.'"

Pegg also noted that the movie we're just calling Star Trek 2 will feature more Scotty, who was the last of the rebooted crew to be introduced in the last film.  He went on to speak in broad terms about the follow-up, saying,

“This time we had the benefit of being able to hit the ground running – we spent some time in the first one re-establishing the characters. Now we have a fully set-up group of people that we can just get on with straight away. So it ups the ante slightly, and we’ve all had more to do. So it’s totally incumbent on us to not drop the ball. It would be a disaster if it wasn’t as good as – or better than – the first one.”

Check out the whole profile on the man behind Tim Bisley, Shaun, Nicholas Angel, and even Benji Dunn at The Telegraph.

Whoever the bad guy is, he's played by Benedict Cumberbatch, and he'll have support from Peter Weller, who is playing a supporting villain of some kind.  Those two, along with fellow franchise newcomers Alice Eve and Noel Clarke, join returning actors Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, John Cho, Anton Yelchin, Bruce Greenwood, and, of course, Simon Pegg.

All those folks will be reciting lines written by returning screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, along with Star Trek producer and Prometheus co-writer Damon Lindelof.

We'll see for sure who the bad guy is when the next Star Trek movie arrives in 2D and 3D on May 17, 2013.

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