You know, the whole thing about the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica was that the makers clearly liked the original, but wanted to re-tell it with a somewhat different sensibility. More to the point, they did it well. Just to give you an idea how horrible it could have gone--imagine Leslie Nielsen as Adama, Pamela Anderson as Starbuck and Taylor Lautner as Apollo (and that is just for starters).
What has this got to do with Star Trek 2017? Give a minute.
I'm a theatre critic and literally see a hundred or so plays a year. Many times I go see versions of Shakespeare. Classics! But I find myself most enjoying those productions that give the plays a new "twist" that doesn't change the play so much as make it even more itself--throwing everything into sharp relief. Last summer there was an amazing version of Romeo & Juliet simply called R&J because they had switched the gender of every single character! The familiar became suddenly achingly more vivid as we saw a gang of teenage girls try (and sometimes succeed) in killing each other with knives, while a teenage boy's birthday party is explicitly a meat market where older women size him up for deflowering. It didn't change the play, but did make it fresh in the audience's eyes. At the same time--this is crucial--they did it well. It was a good production of the play either way, with some amazing performances and startling choices along the way (just as having Julian wake immediately as Romea, having drunk the poison, kissed him).
I've also seen failures. An Othello with an all-black cast save for the title character was just...dull. Because that choice was just change for change's sake, and worse, they didn't do it well anyway.
But that is what I want for Star Trek 2017. I want to be startled, so the world of Starfleet and the Federation, of the Vulcans and Andorians and Klingons, etc. seem entirely new. How? Ideas are a dime a dozen. An experimental starship design that remains in service but isn't going to be continued, which in the wake of the Dominion War is crewed with a bunch of semi-misfits then sent deep into uncharted space. That's one. A show focusing on young officers in one way or another related to a variety of famous figures to us (Ensign Lydia Kirk, Spock's son Sarok, Geordie's grandmother, etc.) working their way up. A colony of dissidents whose planet turns out to be important for some reason and so gain a permanent Starfleet presence. Whatever...just tell good stories with good characters played by good actors. Make me care, wonder what will happen next, fear for the lives of the regulars.
