2. The Wrath Of John
Its not hard to notice the mirrors between Into Darkness and The Wrath Of Khan, the second Trek movie; the Quinto/Nimoy conversation even directly references it. Being an offset universe, however, this film allows Abrams and co. to have a lot of fun with that. Obviously theres the entire final act which takes the key elements of Khan and reverses Spock and Kirk, but theres a lot of smaller references. Carol Marcus is a fairly major character in the Original Series, having a love affair with Kirk, with whom she has a son, David. In Wrath Of Khan, David sneaks onto the Enterprise in much the same way as she does in Into Darkness, using his mothers surname to avoid his more prominent father's. Abrams Star Treks really do delight in knowingly subverting the classic series and films; in this universe Uhura, capable of rusty kilingon in Into Darkness, while knowing none in the original one (see The Undiscovered Country). Sure, it could be a plot contrivance, but its still a lot of fun.