Where's the morals?

Rating: 5/10 (23 May 2013)

What this story lacked is the moral fiber Next Generation has. The whole moral conflict is being contained in a tiny speech Kirk gives in the end of the movie.
But where's the struggle, where's the dilemma?
Basically the moral is that one shouldn't return evil for evil. Like we should try a criminal and give him a chance to defend himself before prosecuting, even if we are 99% sure that he's guilty (Hello, Osama). And that the very act of plain revenge dehumanizes us. There could have been a passionate conflict about all this.
Kirk has the orders to execute Khan without a trial. Instead he chooses to capture him and prosecute. He makes the moral choice, but we don't really know why.

Is it because Spock has successfully appealed to his reason? We don't know, they barely discuss this.

Is Kirk now in opposition to the whole Starfleet risking war with Klingons just because he believes that moral grounds are more important than real politics? Probably not, because as we find out later its not really about Starfleet, it's about EVIL Admiral and his EVIL plans. No moral dilemmas here.

Did Khan face the same moral choice (return evil with evil) and just made the other choice? We get a hint of that, but then, Spock-Nimoy resolves any moral problems here by letting us know that Khan is... well.. EVIL and cannot be changed.

This way the whole movie turns into bland good vs. evil story with one antagonist being fascist and another one being power hungry militarist.
When did Star Trek became Star Wars? :(
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P.S. Stop humanizing Vulcans.