Pine's right. I’m not sure why there is an issue with thinking smaller, since the movies do in a way.
Its tries to be a big budget spectacle to reach a wider audience and be on the level of Star Wars and Marvel, but misses out on key factors that allow those films to be as big as they are.
Lacking in fantastical elements - the closest to fantastical in the Kelvin films was Yorktown starbase. A small part of a movie within a single film. Meanwhile Star Wars and Marvel make the fantastical a part of their identify. It ironic since there are a lot of ideas in TOS, TAS and early TNG to inspire them in expanding on fantastical elements
Killing off the villains too quickly - The Kelvin movies have killed off all of their villains – Nero, Admiral Marcus, Krall. Not that its unusual for Trek movies to do that as that actually the norm, but they would be better served having a recurring antagonist. Even Marvel and Star Wars has recurring villains that go on for two movies or more. Thanos, Darth Vader, Emperor Palpatine, Count Dooku, Jabba the Hutt, Boba Fett and Kylo Ren would not have reached the heights they did as iconic characters if they were killed off in their first appearance.
The only one the Kelvin films have established as a possible recurring character is Khan, already an iconic character, who is in stasis. And its unknown if he will be revisited anytime soon; the writing will need to be vastly better than what he had in STID. Outside of Khan, there is no one within the films that exist as an antagonist that could be revisited in multiple films outside of the Klingon Empire as a whole.
Need a more coherent narrative as a series of films - The Kelvins films do work as the early voyages’ trilogy of the Kelvin crew. But they are no Genesis trilogy. Let alone sagas as large as Star Wars and Marvel. Trek films aren’t normally written to be serialised featured. They are currently written to be stand alone adventures, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
The upside is that the foundation is in place for a trilogy of films that more connected that past Trek fare.