Another thing about the reboot movies and the original series, and what happens if you’ve seen them both.

At the end, right, when Kirk goes and does the thing, and he and Spock are there, and it’s all mirroring the end of Wrath of Khan (in fact, the dialogue starting from “You’d better get down here” to the point where Kirk mentions the torpedoes is directly lifted from that scene with few if any changes).  

You don’t NEED to have seen any Star Trek before these movies to appreciate the end of Into Darkness, but two things happen if you have:

1: You realize that scene is so much more powerful in Wrath of Khan, with the weight of years of friendship behind it.  We know just how much they value each other, and with years of the series and a couple of movies under our belts, it breaks our hearts right along with theirs.  Which is not me trashing the scene in Into Darkness, because it goes how it goes, and they’re younger and the history just isn’t there yet.  Fair enough.

2:  EXCEPT that the scene in Into Darkness calls back to the original version in a way that’s more complicated than just copying a scene from an older film: Kirk and Spock both know how it went the first time.  Because Spock had just asked his older self (and that is why he flings himself out of the captain’s chair and RUNS down to Engineering when Scotty pages him), and Kirk knows because he saw it in older-Spock’s head during the mind meld in the first movie.  When he says, “It’s what you would’ve done,” it’s easy to interpret that as just a saying, but just as easily it can mean, “I wasn’t going to let it be you this time.” 

(As a bonus round, I love that older-Spock’s objective moral stance on the issue of time travel and interference gives out when it concerns the safety of Kirk, the Enterprise, and her crew.  There’s not even a struggle for him.  He’s just like, “Aw, screw that, I’m not letting you all go through THAT again.”)