Right. Sort of like how nobody seemed weirded out by the fact that Kirk had an adult son named David. They knew about it already, or at least knew enough about Kirk to know that he had a son even if they didn't know anything about him.The film hardly "depended" on the crew knowing about OldSpock. It's obvious they were made aware of it at some point, but we never do see when or why. They chose to address it in the tie-in material, but had they elected NOT to do so, it would have been as much of a "plot hole" as Admiral Kirk suddenly having an adult son named David Marcus that we never saw or heard of before.
I brought it up because I thought it was a peculiar thing that nobody seemed to be weirded out on the bridge, especially Bones.
Wouldn't be sure if that's comparable. They at least built up to that reveal, so it's not like it came out of nowhere. Similar to the magic blood in STID. Many criticize it, saying it came out of nowhere. Even though I don't like the idea of the magic blood, at least they had built up to that from the beginning, so I give them credit on that.
Thing is, until he shows up on the viewscreen, you only know that Spock, Kirk, Scotty and his Ewok are the only people aware of him. I'm speaking from the perspective of a viewer who only watches the films and doesn't read any comics or play the video games. In that moment I was a bit thrown off.
It didn't need to be, as we learn that Kirk promised that he would stay away and he did so by moving on with his life. It's clearly a subject that still guts him to that day, so it's likely something he was never comfortable talking about with anyone, not even his friends. McCoy is certainly aware of that side of Kirk and makes a remark about it, to which Kirk replies "as a physician you of all people should appreciate the danger of re-opening old wounds."
