Star Trek - Into Darkness personal log

Strong points:

• Portrayal of the Vulcan rage. New audience to the franchise might not be adequately appreciative of this detail as the purely rational character of Spock didn't have enough time to imprint a deep impression.
• Decent acting, costume, and make-up.
• Good special effects. This brings a fresh air to Star Trek.

Complaints (get some popcorn):

• Unrealistic plot points. Case in point, the battle scene above Earth took a good quarter of the movie (starting after the ships dropped out of warp), yet Startfleet weren't even so much as aware, let alone intent on intervention. There is absolutely no excuse for the descent of the Vengeance to be a surprise to the people on the surface, and yet here it turned out to be a apocalyptic disaster. What if the Klingon, Romulans, or Kardashians were to make an attack at that time? Hell, even the Ferengi would've been a successful conquerer. The entire Starfleet surely would've been caught with their pants all the way down. Unacceptable.
• Stupid plot points: The exchange between Khan and Spock turned badly for Spock, yet Spock had in his hands the lives of 72 hostages. Morality aside, for Khan to even bring up hostile intentions (attacking life support system) is just dumb, as the Enterprise could easily initiate a self-destruct sequence before Khan could bring down their shields. Sure the auto-destruct mechanism could be down, but that's just a cheap plot hole filler; the whole point of auto-destruct is a last-resort solution, whoever designs it wouldn't tie it into something that goes down every other Tuesday. Logic, which both Spock and Khan are more than capable of, suggests that the best course of action for both sides is to (at least ostensibly) yield to the exchange. Spock did this, so apparently the conclusion is that Khan is too dumb to have figured it out. Lazy plot.
• The society. The human interaction and the general mood of the movie feels much too Hollywood and "21st century action movie." There is no hint of that civilized air of the 23rd~24th century Earth where poverty has long been eradicated and education, exploration, and self-betterment are the primary societal objectives. Even worse, Earth can easily be mistaken for being ruled by a police state.
• That fucking transporter that never works. Spock and Khan were NOT moving constantly; they were snuggling with each other almost affectionately atop a mobile travelling at constant velocity. God help science if they can't get a lock on THAT.