10 Blockbuster Films Made More Interesting Thanks To Their Flaws

9. Star Trek Into Darkness

The Flaws: J.J. Abrams can't resist building his movies and TV shows around a mystery, and last year's Star Trek Into Darkness was certainly no exception. Most of the pre-release chatter revolved around the identity of Benedict Cumberbatch's antagonist, who was referred to in promotional materials as John Harrison, though was widely believed to be Captain Kirk's classic villain, Khan. Why is this a flaw? Because any self-respecting Trek fan had cottoned onto this long ahead of time, and distributing a pre-release clip of Cumberbatch's character referring to the number "72" made it absolute certain that he was Khan. More to the point, given that the majority of the audience will consist of casual viewers rather than Trekkies, even making a mystery out of it in the first place doesn't exactly seem very pointful, especially one that was so easily dissected by the community. Then there's the fact that the climax of the movie was a lazy rip-off of the end of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, albeit with the Spock and Kirk roles reversed. Why It's More Interesting: The funny thing is, it's hard to imagine being that excited about Star Trek Into Darkness without that mystery lingering on everyone's lips. It was pretty much the only thing people would talk about in relation to the movie, and though Cumberbatch playing the iconic character proved to be heavily divisive, it opened an interesting dialogue about actors of different races playing iconic characters, and a perceived double-standard in which an ethnic character can be "whitewashed", but not often the other way around. The ending being lifted from the original second movie also sparked an interesting debate about where the line between homage and straight-up cribbing from previous works can be drawn.