Star Trek: 8 Things The Kelvin Timeline Movies Got Wrong

This one hurts the most.

As stated in the intro, these are good movies with a lot of action and a lot of heart. The exposition and world building are left by the wayside, but the spirit of Star Trek is distilled into three beautifully made, popcorn flicks. Collectively they tell the story of a crew coming together and a Captain earning his place on the bridge of the Enterprise. But in the era of continuing stories and cinematic universes, what was going to keep audiences coming back and seeing these films?

Each installment of the Kelvin Timeline trilogy picked up fragments of the previous film, but otherwise told self contained stories. These movies weren't designed as a trilogy or to even tell a continuing story and that's a major setback. It's easy to pop one of these things on to watch on a cold day or while you're mopping the floors, but the story of the Kelvin Timeline wasn't compelling enough to get butts in the seats at the theater.

The creation of a new timeline, the destruction of Vulcan, the more aggressive push of Starfleet deeper into space as a result... all of these are compelling ideas that could've driven an ongoing story arc. Hell, they left Cumberbatch's Khan alive just in case. But as they stand now, these are all just concepts that get tossed out for an individual movie and given lip service (if that) in later installments.

These characters as played by these actors deserve another outing in a fourth (probably final) Kelvin Timeline film. But what's their story? Two hours just hanging out with Pine's Kirk, Quinto's Spock, and Urban's McCoy is an appealing prospect, but with the diminishing box office returns of both Into Darkness and Beyond, is Paramount really going to fund that?

Nothing greater drove these movies other than an appealing cast, momentarily diverting stories, and exciting action. They're loved by a small fan base, but even most Star Trek diehards have moved on from the Kelvin Timeline if they ever even got on board in the first place. The legacy of the Kelvin Timeline is CBS's new shows and their almost complete dismissal of this new continuity as a viable place to tell stories. Ultimately, the Kelvin Timeline films are good movies with a ton of wasted potential.