2. Star Trek Into Fanboyism
Its no secret that JJ Abrams isnt a Trekkie, but what you might not know is that his writing staff are diehard Trekkies (your mileage may vary with Lindelof). The last movie did have some neat little references to past Trek installments, but Star Trek into Darkness takes it to a whole new extreme. The entire story is constructed out of Star Trek references, along with all the visual ones throughout the movie. Carol Marcus, Khan, and the final act lifting a lot of material from The Wrath of Khan are the obvious examples, but thats only scratching the surface. Theres Deep Space 9 references in the plot (Section 31 and the Ketha province where Khan hides); The Motion Picture inspired some of the costumes (the admiral uniforms and McCoys medical one where hes working on the tribble), while the ship Kirk and company use on Qonos is made by a race that cameod in that film; models of various Trek ships like the Pheonix, NX-01, and NX-Alpha in Admiral Marcus office; redshirt jokes; and many more. In most cases, there arent any real problems to having a lot of references besides pacing them out to keep the audience from hating them. But with Star Trek into Darkness, the sheer amount of references screams of writers desperately shouting This really is Star Trek! Its as if the writers heard the criticism from diehard Trekkies about the previous movie basically tossing all of Trek continuity out and decided to stuff this film full of references to get them to like it. Thats not how you get people to like something crafting a high quality piece that does its job well is the way to bring those people around.