In the '09 film they were impersonating the original crew, because that was kind of the thrust of the film. Here, they really didn't have to worry about that, and I noticed a big difference, they really came into their own, probably partly because there was a real story, whereas the point of '09 was more Star Trek Junior High The Movie, and necessitated more of that self-conscious prequel mindset. It worked in that film, but I was glad to see that the characters and actors are more immersed in the roles and carving out the characters. McCoy was doing a bit of caricaturing in Into Darkness, but it's not very in your face, and the McCoy role is so bold it's hard not to without seeming inauthentic.
I don't understand for the life of me how anyone can call this film a bit shit. It's a bit brilliant. I understand that it's a fast-paced military thriller, but the two best Trek films by Meyers were like that too. Who cares if it's re-using WOK/Space Seed elements, it's a prequel/reboot so you have to expect it to touch upon the classics. Next film will probably involve the Klingon war and god knows every TOS movie ever made involved them in some capacity, but that's just the way ST is. I'm a lifelong Trek fan but I don't care what changes they make as long as it serves a good purpose. The script to this film was very good and touched upon all the classic Trek morality issues that the best episodes were about, while simultaneously giving us great characters with believable and interesting dialogue, lots of humour, an unpredictable storyline, plenty of surprises, while also crafting a tense thriller that used and even inverted the best parts of WOK while giving twist after twist and keeping you glued to the screen. And on top of it--it's just a fucking great action thriller, ST or not.
I was 100% spoiler free going in--didn't know about the Klingons or Nimoy, heard rumours of Khan but sort of brushed them off--and this film impressed me immensely every minute of screen time. Not saying it's perfect--the WOK throwbacks were a bit too heavy at the end for my tastes and I saw the Kirk resurrection a mile away--but honestly guys, I really don't understand how this did nothing for you. People hate on Dark Knight too, but what in the name of fuck is their problem, that is a great movie as well, it's stuff like this that feed the lame "can't please everyone" excuse that idiots use to defend the crappy movies they like (cough, Attack of the Clones, Transformers). Everything is relative, so if this movie is a disappointment it defies medical science how anyone here made it out of the Phantom Menace screenings still alive. To be fair, part of the problem is that ST is very diverse and different people like it for different reasons, but if you don't like Into Darkness it baffles me how you could profess to like WOK, Undiscovered Country, and episodes like Galileo Seven and Doomsday Machine, which are two of the best episodes and also are fast-paced military themed stories about morality issues--heck, so was the original Space Seed.