He said Star Trek Into Darkness had too many "nods" to "Wrath of Kahn". He also said that he had people writing a collection of scenes that, as a story, didn't pan out so he had to figure out how to make the scenes as exciting as possible.

JJ is basically the anti-Joss Whedon. Whedon creates worlds and gets lost in them and gets pissed when people want to mess with them. JJ seems to try to figure out what execs and audiences want and then has the story jump to that point regardless of whether it makes sense or not. Business-wise, that's why studios prefer to work with Abrams but it's why his work is mediocre at best to me.