Did I watch the same movie as everyone else?

Rating: 3/10 (10 June 2019)

I saw 2009's Star Trek as someone unfamiliar with the series as a whole. It was a really fun and well made take on the series that has been around for 50 years now. Afterwards I watched most of the original series, which hasn't aged well, but I still enjoyed it.
There were rumors for months that Khan was going to be the villain. As someone who never watched any of the movies, I only knew that he was revered as one of the best baddies in the Trek universe and in what was considered the best Trek movie until 2009. So the eventual reveal was meaningless to me, but it was just so weird why they needed to hide and deny it so much, when it is essentially a meaningless addition to the plot.
Besides that, this one just was missing all of the charm of the first movie. That and the plot beats it decides to take really just aren't that enthralling at all. Klingons are added in an inconsequential scene, just for fan service. Khan's reveal is also some useless fan service. The Star Fleet Admiral that ends up being the baddie is lame and the subplot with him using Khan's people as rockets was just stupid.
Going back on a few things from the ending of the 2009 movie are just annoying and question why they did them in the first place. Kirk became a captain at the end of the 2009 one, but it gets taken away right away after a botched mission. The Enterprises journey gets cancelled, and we're back at square one after a movie where we just got everything to that point and ready. Everything established in the first movie just gets undone to subvert expectations, but it just ruins the movie.
I'm not a fanboy of Trek, but the whole Kirk and Spock role swap of the infamous "KHAAAN" scene was just really stupid. And then of course there's a plot device that allows Kirk to come back right away. It would have been cooler if it ended like "Wrath" and Kirk was gone for part of the next movie. The final "action" climax is also one of the most boring I've seen in a movie.
It goes to show that Damon Lindelof is screenplay cancer as every film he has written ends up having the same feeling of disappointment when watching them. They all end up being a mixture of too many aspects that don't work and made unnecessarily complex to seem deep, when it ends up being inept, uneven storytelling.
It's a shame the 4th movie is in limbo for now. Star Trek Beyond was a fun return to form and Lindelof not touching it showed that there are people out there who can write a neat adventure of the crew of the Enterprise, the one that this 2nd movie should have been!