Star Trek: 8 Things The Kelvin Timeline Movies Got Wrong
3. Klingons
Star Trek: The Next Generation developed a bad habit of knocking Lieutenant Worf on his ass every time the plot needed to show just how threatening a new villain was. Remember that time an alien inhabiting the body of Counselor Troi broke Worf's wrist?
The Kelvin Timeline's two uses of the Klingons similarly bring in the iconic Star Trek adversaries (and yes sometimes allies) just to make them look like bitches.
Relegated to dialogue in the film itself, Uhura mentions in Star Trek (2009) that Nero and the Narada are responsible for the destruction of 47 warbirds (yeah, we know) near the Klingon prison planet. This concept is actually fleshed out in a deleted scene in which Nero is held on Rura Penthe and interrogated by the Klingons, one of whom is played by an unrecognizable Victor Garber.
The scene is visually stunning and the helmeted Klingons are a distinctive, fresh take on the old adversaries, but Nero and his Romulan buddies are able to take out their captors with just a little too much ease. Especially for a group of miners (not soldiers) who'd been imprisoned for 25 years. It makes the Klingons look like weak idiots, deleted from the final cut of the film or not.
When they finally do get their big screen debut in the Kelvin Timeline, Star Trek Into Darkness has an entire squad of Klingons massacred by John Harrison. The buildup is great and the reveal of Neville Page's new Klingon make up underneath those helmets from the previous film's deleted scene is tense.
But, just as it seems the Klingons are going to live up to their formidable appearances, Benedict Cumberbatch swings in and blows them all away with a machine gun or something. He's genetically engineered so he's way more powerful than several patrol ships' worth of Klingon warriors. Super blood y'all.
No Klingons appear in Star Trek Beyond, but one was intended to appear as one of the scavenging aliens on the planet Altamid. Ultimately cut from the film before production, the only thing left of the Klingon from Star Trek Beyond is a behind-the-scenes photo of the make up in progress. That's two of three films in the Kelvin Timeline the Klingons have been cut from, and one appearance in which they are literally cut down to make the villain seem more villainous.
The Kelvin Timeline Klingons deserved to be villains of their own film. But even if Noah Hawley's rumored fourth film does feature Chris Pine and company, that's probably too much to hope for.