10 Dumbest Things In Star Trek Into Darkness
1. That Khan Noonien Singh Thing
You probably saw this coming, but the inclusion of Khan is the movie’s dumbest element.
Not the casting of Benedict Cumberbatch in the role. Khan’s ethnicity has always been problematic, beginning with the sad Hollywood tradition of casting anyone perceived as “ethnic” to play practically any role that isn’t lily white. Ricardo Montalban’s parents were from Spain, and just as European as Cumberbatch. Neither actor looked the part of a Punjabi Sikh.
Nor is it the pointless misdirection of “John Harrison” to try to maintain a surprise that wasn’t any such thing.
A true John Harrison character who’d turned against the military excesses of Starfleet would relate to the story themes. But Khan? He’s wholly incidental to the tale being told. The real villain of the piece is Marcus, the end justifies the means philosophy he espouses, and the immoral lengths such thinking leads to. But Marcus is narratively airlocked at the end of the second act in favor of the incidental Khan and his OTT theatrics. The writers were so goddamned determined to shoehorn Star Trek’s supposedly greatest villain (who I find vastly overrated) into this film that they undermined the script to do so, made worse by the fan wanky and obvious inversion of the sacrific ending of The Wrath of Khan.
Khan’s always been overrated, and his pointless inclusion in this film renders what could have been a truly compelling story down to a Star Trek Into Dumbness.