Warning: This post contains spoilers!
So, anyway, the first showing of the Klingons (with their masks on) look ok – a change from the original series, but a good one since in the original series the Klingons looked human with wispy beards. It wasn't until Star Trek: The Motion Picture that the Klingon look changed into what we know and love today, in fact, there was an explanation as to why the Klingons looked the way that they did and that was to do with a genetic virus at he time. So the current writers used masks as a way for the human looking Klingons to hide their shame from the regular Klingons.
Then came the unmasking, as Uhura speaks to the Klingons about getting Harrison back - since she was the only one able to speak Klingon. No trademark hair, forehead ridges still intact (barely) and the face....my god what did they do to the face??
Just as Uhura is about to be killed by the Klingons a shot is fired off screen by Harrison and a fight scene erupts, with Harrison playing at “look at me being Mr. Awesome†and everyone else being shit. Harrison quickly lays waste to everything and surrenders, mainly because the Enterprise have 70-odd photon torpedoes aimed at his head. Kirk (laughably) pounds on Harrison for a bit in revenge for Pike's death and then they return to the mothership.
Kirk remains unconvinced as to why Harrison is surrendering, confronts him about his false identity and we find out Harrison's real name.....wait for it.......wait.......(because they totally weren't going to do it as they had a whole new timeline)..........it's KHAN!
It's this reveal in the movie which changes everything and the point where I naturally start to compare Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan with this one. So let's just rewind back a bit to the scene with the laughable pounding that the now revealed Khan gets from Kirk. It makes that scene 10 times worse and almost cringable because Kirk was the guy that we were supposed to believe that he was a magnificent fighter and gives as good as he gets. Yet here is Kirk punching Khan like a boy would try and punch out a punching clown.
I know Khan is supposed to be a superhuman, but that scene just didn't deliver the type of man fight I'd expect from a ship's captain. Don't believe me? Then take a look at this video showing Kirk from the original timeline fighting Khan, in the episode Space Seed, and the “fight†scene from Into Darkness:
Either way you look at it, the first section of the video with Kirk, shows a man who is using every type of technique to down a man who is trying to blow up his ship, and in the other, you see a Kirk who really couldn't punch his way out of a paper bag. In both situations, these captains in these two timelines would have had the same amount of combat training in Starfleet, the only difference is that the Kirk from the original timeline has had maybe a year out in deep space. Although, in the grand scheme of things, that isn't much time and not enough hand-to-hand combat experience to separate the two.
During more dialogue between Kirk and his prisoner, we also learn that Khan had been helping to build Admiral Marcus a new ship and had forced him to do it by holding Khan's, still frozen, people hostage. Khan, being the clever bugger that he is, decided to smuggle away his people in the torpedoes that Kirk brought on board to kill Khan with.
Upon being told that a ship is coming into range, Kirk goes back to the bridge to await said ship. Which is the same ship that Khan had been building, a ship that dwarfs the Enterprise in sheer size, power and everything else.
What is it with Hollywood and their simplistic David and Goliath type stories? It makes my IQ take a nosedive....