You're making a set of assumptions here, not all of them right. E.g. I'm NOT a purist (I'm probably not even a "real" Trekkie, having never watched DS9 or most of TOS). Yet I found ItD to be an bad film - not as "Star Trek" but as a film in general, so the bad opinions don't necessarily get caused by "purism". Leaving that aside, your question is likely not answerable in the Stack Exchange format, as it is likely to solicit opinion more than verifiable answers.

@Woody - I'm gonna have to see actual survey that proves the bad opinions are "mainly" purists before conceding your assertion. My personal anecdotal experience (not just me but most of my peer cohort) is the opposite.

@DVK-in-exile In any case there is a phenomenon of purists hating it, and that's what I'm asking about. I'm sure there are non-purists who hate it as well, just as there are a number of people who hate every movie

@Woody — I don't understand how any of DVK's statements could be interpreted to suggest that it is "objectively a bad movie". As for "there is a notion out there" … there are lots of notions out there, but that doesn't mean they are majority opinions, even within a specific group. I would expect "True X fans should hate X 2" to be quite a common opinion among X fans who hated X 2 for any given value of X.

@Quentin I've changed the question a bit. Do you still have an objection?

I think it’s still basically asking the same question. Which reasons are “consistent” and in particular “legitimate” is going to be highly subjective. Which is fine: it doesn’t seem like looking for the common criticisms of Into Darkness would be too useful, since you already listed most of them in your question. But on the whole, if you want to discuss the merit of those criticisms, chat would probably be a better venue.

The question seems fairly stawmannish. You've pre-dismissed most of the possible "purist" reasons. I hated ItD, but most of my reasons for doing so would apply to any movie that pulled similar tricks, and aren't related to some idea of it "not being proper Star Trek", so you've excluded them already.

If your question is really about typical reasons for hating Star Trek: Into Darkness, you can’t simply “reject” accurate answers in the body of the question. And if it is more about your assessment of the accuracy of those reasons (as it seems it is), it should be considered opinion-based, and asked in Mos Eisley or a dedicated chatroom.

@Quentin - not sure how it came off, but I most certainly tried to express that "bad" was my personal subjective opinion (but shared by others).

On the subject of strawmen, "They say Star Trek can't be an action movie - nonsense. They almost all are, to varying degrees." — There is a difference between "an action movie" and "a movie with some action in it".

@DVK-in-exile I've cleaned up my question to make it clear I'm only asking about purists and purist-related reasons. Do you still find it objectionable?

"why should that ruin the whole thing" — Why shouldn't it?

@Quentin Because it doesn't really affect the plot in any meaningful way - it's an added on contrivance that has no consequence - Kirk doesn't even stay dead for more than 2 minutes

@Woody — It's still a thing that you have to spend time watching to watch the movie. Just because it didn't ruin your enjoyment of the film doesn't mean it can't ruin someone else's. Which brings us back to the main problem with the question, it's really subjective.

As a fan of pretty much all prior Trek, I didn't really like either of the reboot movies, partly because of tone, partly because they seemed to disregard canon, and partly because I didn't buy or respect reboot-Kirk's flippant character. Canon pretty much established that Constellation class starships were constructed in space and didn't land. This was underscored in Voyager - among other things, its ability to land differentiated it from other starships. Then the reboot has them being built on Earth, and the sequel capable of operation under water, and turning everything Trek into a joke.

@AnthonyX That sounds like a good answer, especially if you specify more ways they disregard canon and tone.

@Woody - depends. I still find it subjective, because it's hard to define who is and isn't a purist objectively. And even harder to find some universal "purist" point of view - many people have very different opinions on many different things even if you can somehow label them all "purists" in general. Ironically, I think you do have a core of a good, answerable question in there, if you chop off all your own opinions.

@Woody I would if I could, but your question is now on hold.

@DVK-in-exile Ok I think I've chopped off my rebuttals/opinions. What do you think?

@Woody - much better. I'm voting to re-open. I would drop off the whole "purists" angle, and may be simply say "fans of pre-reboot Star Trek". The latter is far less subjective and prone to arguing over who is/isn't a purist

Consider a different franchise which got a reboot treatment: Battlestar Galactica. It took on a much more serious tone, injected a sense of realism, heavily re-jigged characters and went seriously epic-story-arc space opera, and tweaked, but basically respected the original series canon. Abrams' Trek just plucked all the icons and iconic quotes he could glean from the original and jammed them into a couple of generic action/comedy movies.

@AnthonyX The question may be reopened soon, so you'll hopefully have a chance to answer

I just made another minor edit and upvoted your question. Hopefully it'll get reopened soon :-) In the meantime, maybe some of these comments should be cleaned up ...

@Randal'Thor How do you get rid of other people's comments?

Hi! The question is closed so I can't answer, but as someone who does in fact rank Into Darkness as the worst Trek film ever, below Nemesis and the Final Frontier, I thought I'd add my thoughts here so even if the question is not reopened Woody at least gets an explanation. Really I don't know whether or not the question should be re-opened, or whether my thoughts would make a good answer, but I thought I'd put them out here anyway.

@Woody - I think it could be getting to the point at which it could be reopened and possibly receive answers grounded in objective information.

To make it objectively answerable, I’d suggest two more changes: First, cut out the part about “objective, Star Trek-related reasons.” It’s likely to lead to arguments about the legitimacy of reasons to dislike Into Darkness, which is what we are trying to avoid. It’s probably better just to say “reasons.”

I suppose it wouldn't be opinion-based if it were asking about why people didn't like the movie, as opposed to what was wrong with the movie.

I don't think it's possible for "objective" reasons to explain a dislike of something.

Second, it’s probably best to include a working definition of “purists” as well, so that it’s clear what it means. Something like “purists (i.e. people concerned with canonical consistency” or “purists (those who like the style of the original series).”

Otherwise, people might interpret it as “purists (i.e. those who hate the new films),” which of course doesn’t lead to very productive answers.

Also, it might be best to change the question title to something more accurate, such as “What are some of the major fan criticisms of Star Trek: Into Darkness?”

If I saw all that, I suppose it would probably no longer be opinion-based.