3. The Klingon War
The rising action of Into Darkness basically all but set in stone the pre-tense for Star Trek 3; the Federation-Klingon War, when Kirk, Spock and Uhura and Cupcake dude are on a stealth mission to Kronos where they are caught and Uhura interrogated when Khan Noonien Singh saves the day (and you wonder why purist Trekkers are miffed) by literally blowing the Klingon patrolmen to bits, saving their lives so he may ally with them against the real bad guy, Admiral Alexander Marcus. Now, I get it, Klingons in Trek lore have never entirely been as warrior like as they think themselves to be. In fact, as a race in general, they're like that macho quarterback on the high school football team who thinks he's all that, only to get sacked hard with a loss of 50 on the play and every bone in his body shattered. Basically, they're the Trek equivalent of Bantha fodder. There was a glimmer of hope for them, however, when we saw the new rather badass look for the rebooted Klingons pictured above. Then our hopes and dreams for the Klingon race to actually become self sufficient and, well, fearful were wiped clean when we saw them get slaughtered by Khan without putting up much of a fight. Oh yeah, and this is what lies beneath the helmet...
I'll admit, as much as I loved this movie when I first saw it in theatres, this literally caused me to burst out laughing. Admiral Marcus said in his second scene that the Klingons have occupied at least two known planets since the events of Broken Bow, which at this point would probably include Adipose III and The Lost Moon of Poosh considering the way they fight and the way they look in this film. But hey, it could have been far worse... far, far worse.
Like I said, Klingons are considered Trek's Bantha fodder to begin with, but if the Federation is going to war with these guys, the new director needs to step up the Klingons' prowess with a bat'leth or a disruptor. At the very least, make them keep the helmets on. Either way, before Into Darkness we never saw a successful Star Trek movie that involves Klingons; they were simply extraneous in The Search For Spock and flat out laughable in The Final Frontier, and The Motion Picture obviously failed across the board. Hopefully, assuming the new production team rolls with the storyline incited by the events of Into Darkness, they can make something watchable that involves Klingons. In this Trekkie's mind, however, it might be best to just have The Klingon War serve as background noise for a more exciting and less predictable story.