20 Most Cringeworthy Moments In The New Star Trek Movies

2. The Big Reveal From Star Trek Into Darkness

The whole business with Khan posing as John Harrison is barely workable in-universe to begin with. Admiral Marcus has come up with this as a cover identity to hide the fact that he's really working with (gasp!) the famous near-world dictator Khan Noonian Singh, who nearly took over the Earth in the 1990s in a series of secret wars that... eh, forget it. You know the story already. But it seems you're the only ones. The movie makes a big deal of having Khan reveal who he is, but it's not clear exactly who he's doing it for. It's not for Kirk and Spock, who give no reaction to this information and who seemingly do not recognise the name. Compare this to the classic Trek episode Space Seed, in which they know exactly who it is they're dealing with. Even Scotty knows who he is. It's got to be for the audience, then, right? Nope - since Khan's return in this movie was one of the worst-kept secrets of 2013, and with all those subtle and not-so-subtle callbacks to Star Trek II thrown throughout this movie, there's no way any self-respecting fan couldn't know this was Khan. Well, um, apart from the fact that he doesn't look like a Sikh any more than Ricardo Montalban did. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LThIRkpYtI So this big moment comes, and even the soundtrack can't muster a sting at this point. Benedict Cumberbatch's delivery does the line no favours, either - it's as if you've been introduced at a party to someone who says, "My name...is Larry" and then stares at you for ten seconds waiting for you to bow before his might. You'd probably leave. We wish we could've.