6. Khan... Wait, What?
Its time for the big spoiler John Harrison is in fact Khan Noonien Singh, probably the most famous Star Trek villain ever. Why is that a strike against Star Trek into Darkness? It all boils down to the intent behind the first Abrams Trek film. The whole point of setting the reboot in an alternate universe was to avoid prequel syndrome the audiences sense that nothing theyre seeing matters because of what they know will happen. By shaking things up through the destruction of the Kelvin and Vulcan, which radically altered Trek history, the Bad Robot crew set up an open sandbox to play in, with all sorts of new possibilities that the Prime Trek universe could never offer. Using Khan this early in the reboot feels like a cash grab, especially when the entire marketing campaign for the film played up the mystery of the characters identity. While the writers dont make the mistake of rehashing Khans origin story in Space Seed, Khan being Khan is barely relevant to the first two acts and leads to a fairly obvious rehashing (with a twist) of a climactic scene from The Wrath of Khan in the final act. In fact, aside from the fact that he and his followers are still alive (albeit in stasis), both universes wind up getting rid of Khan and company as a future threat, making the use of Khan feel like a sideways move.