Conversely…

Maybe this is a necessary step in that timeline. After all, the year I graduated from high school we were supposed to be deep in the Eugenics Wars. The history leading up to Star Trek was fictionally a lot rougher than reality has been, at least, in the US. But the most interesting thing to me is that when they reimagined Khan he was a much more empathetic character, being forced to help build weapons as his people were held hostage.
In the original series, the crew was afraid of Khan and that doesn’t really come across in the new movie. And that suddenly seems really weird to me, because the character backgrounds did not change. He’d be like resurrecting Hitler or Pol Pot in 200 years. Someone intentionally waking him up to use his awful brain is so much more terrifying than accidentally rescuing him and then struggling with how to manage him instead of just firing him into space. And I don’t think they captured that sickening feeling.
Has our culture changed so much in only 40 years? I see parallels there with the way the GOP harnessed Trump. I’ve almost convinced myself that the Pumas and the Bernie bros were actually time travelers trying desperately to alter this timeline.
