J.J. Abrams' Star Trek series broke new ground for the franchise as it reintroduced classic characters to a new audience.  

While Star Trek has always been known for its themes of discovery and adventure, the modern films added more action and suspense.  

And what has kept this splinter timeline of the canon unique was how they justified some of the biggest changes to the source material. 

One of the more prominent decisions was to kill off Captain Kirk in Star Trek Into Darkness, so let's look at how that choice came to be.

Narratively, Kirk's death works as it further kept in line the idea that these films existed in a timeline detached from the original shows and movies.  

Therefore, anything could change, for better or worse. However, when the history of the believed franchise gets factored in, 

it's easy to see why some fans wouldn't enjoy the idea of such an iconic sacrifice getting changed for the possible sake of variety. 

But in the end, the switch proved that the modern Star Trek films still dared to go where no other project in the series had gone before.