Star Trek Into Darkness: 5 Pros & Cons Of Benedict Cumberbatch As Khan
3. Khan Serves No Purpose
It can be argued that the presence of Khan in Into Darkness is a stunt staged merely for the fans. The broader story of a corrupt Starfleet admiral who wants war with the Klingons (a throwback to Admiral Cartwright from Star Treks 3-6) is a solid idea and worthy of a Trek feature. But Into Darkness doesnt give us a Starfleet/Klingon conflict story. It gives us a hint of one before throwing Khan in the mix.
While Star Trek II was a story about Khan, about his revenge against Kirk, Into Darkness merely uses the character as a plot device. That so much work was put into making Khans presence a secret in this film, and then introducing Khan as a Starfleet officer before the big reveal seems kitschy. In the end these overlapping plot elements serve to focus screen time on the relationship between Kirk and Spock, but leave the rest of the crew with little to do. Scotty quits and goes to a bar, McCoy is hardly in the film, Chekov spends his scenes running around the engine room in a red shirt pretending to be Scotty with a Russian accent, and Sulu just gets to sit there on the bridge, sometimes in the center seat and sometimes at his regular post. Would a film about Kirk and crew squaring off with Admiral Marcus (Peter Weller) have been a better film? Without Khan there would be more time to develop these characters. Well never know.