people calling a movie out on its whitewashing hardly is an example of looking for pretexts to get offended, though.
There are some movies recently that flopped hard because of this kind of controversy so I think we can consider stid lucky as it hardly, if any, suffered the same fate (and I might add that Benedict's career wasn't negatively affected by that, nor he, honestly, got the hate that other actors get because most of the criticism was only directed at JJ and the writers)
if we want to talk about how much stid's 'flaws' are blown out of proportion compared to what the movie is as a whole, and its possible merits (especially compared to some old trek movies - or movies from other franchises - that are far worse products), that's another matter.
This is, perhaps, another difference between how Beyond is judged compared to stid because while with beyond, the movie seems to get a pass for its flaws because people like some aspects of it better than the other movies, stid is trashed as a whole because of some aspects that fans disliked. In both cases, fans are maybe lacking 'balance' because either something is overrated beyond proportions, or the opposite.
IMHO, star trek into darkness is the new disguised as the old: they got a cold feet, perhaps, and put some tos nods trying to pander to those old fans who didn't like the first movie and felt alienated by it being too 'different', almost as a (naive?) way to reassure some that things were still the same (e.g., trying to make K/S the same bestfriendsforever duo they were at the end of tos without allowing them the time to truly create their own dynamic), but it's still unapologetic new trek - their own trek - set in another reality. It's still a movie not made only for tos fans (and JJ made it clear from the start, putting himself in the blacklist of many tos fans for that^), and that's why haters and 'purists' still hate it (and that's why the hypocrisy of people who criticize stid for its nods, but then claim that Beyond is the best movie in spite of it being worse in that regard);
star trek beyond was the old disguised as the new: they desperately wanted to please old fans and win their heart (in a self-serving way too, of course) so it does have even more fan service and tos nods than stid had; it's a way more tos nostalgia movie than stid was, and it distances itself from the first movie and makes even less use of potential the reboot had at the beginning, in a way ignoring most of the 'new' in favor of the old.
It's kind of bizarre, in a sense, that after stid was criticized for its nods and nostalgia, the new team apparently thought they'd fix that by making a movie that.. has even more nods and nostalgia. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
You could say that stid tried to 'trick' old fans into watching a new trek, while beyond tried to trick new fans into watching the same old trek. In both cases, it backfired.. I think more for beyond than stid.
The annoying thing for me is that for all the new team's preaching about how progressive and new Beyond is compared to the previous movies, where it really counts their movie actually is more safe and consevative than the first two, and they went backwards even with the few little 'gutsy' things that JJ had actually modernized and made more contemporary already (and that, when all is said and done, this trek was remembered for)
The most notable example is them trying to restore the old dynamic at the expense of the new that the first movies introduced and had made their established 'formula'; I know that marketing for the most part still considers the new trio with Uhura the 'face' of this trek, so to speak, and so do the comics (which would itself hint at them knowing that it works for new fans), but let's be honest here it's misleading for Beyond because it's undeniable that the movie tried to distance itself from that and placate those who wanted the old trio back and they don't like 'change', let alone making a woman (and a woc) the third lead instead of a white guy. This is something that a certain side of the old fandom loved about Beyond, the nostalgia making them give the movie a pass for stuff they still criticize stid for, and yet the new dynamics had worked for the first movies so I think paying homage to the old by making it mutually exclusive with the new wasn't a good idea.
Honestly, this is a larger issue with some trek fans in general who want to have the cake and eat it too when it comes to some things: this hypocrisy, this pretentious preaching about a supposed 'trek's ideal' and how this franchise should be more progressive and inclusive etc etc than other things... and yet? and yet it's obvious that some people love trek because of its most conservative aspects (that essentially make it only 'one of the many', especially nowadays) and they don't want those to change. Those supposedly more progressive and 'modern' aspects are acceptable to many only if they are just some sort of 'decoration' making the conservative stuff look better. So you can have poc in the cast, as long as they are kept in the background and don't interact with the main guys as much as McCoy and Scotty do. You can have ~strong female characters that can kick a$$, as long as they don't have a long lasting important connection to the main guys - and thus can't be perceived as a 'threat' to that part of the fandom that will have a nervous breakdown if you don't decipt anyone but Kirk as asexuate beings, and if you're allowed to see other dynamics beside the bros being bros.
The irony is that the more trek tries to look like this so called 'trek ideal' some keep preaching about, the more supposedly hardcore fans dislike it.
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