...we should expect to see other reboots in the future.
Just as 1980's British series Robin of Sherwood effectively added new elements to the Robin Hood legend which have endured in every version of Robin Hood since, so too has Abrams' movies introduced new elements to TOS's lore.
Anyone care to speculate on which changes they think are likely to survive into future versions of Star Trek, and which are likely to go the way of the dodo bird? For example, the Spock/Uhura relationship, should it stay or should it go?
Interesting question. I think it's natural for ideas from various iterations of a series to accrete onto the mythos over time. For instance, the '40s Batman serials introduced the Batcave and skinny Alfred (replacing the chubby, comic-relief Alfred of previous comics); the '60s TV series introduced Mr. Freeze (he'd been Mr. Zero before) and sort of introduced the Barbara Gordon Batgirl (in that the show's producers asked the comic's makers to create the character so she could be adapted to the screen); the Burton films introduced a retro/Gothic aesthetic;
Batman: The Animated Series introduced Harley Quinn and Renee Montoya; and the Nolan films elevated Lucius Fox to a more central role that's been emulated by other adaptations.
And we've already seen such an accretion with TOS over time. Kirk's middle name Tiberius and Amanda's surname Grayson weren't established until the animated series. The modern image of Jim Kirk as a hotheaded renegade who routinely ignores orders has very little precedent in TOS (the only time he openly defied direct orders was in "Amok Time"), and comes mainly from
The Search for Spock. And Scotty was never called a "miracle worker" until that same movie, but he's been called that in subsequent screen appearances, and multiple tie-in books and comics have retconned its use into the TOS era. And of course there are things like the Klingon makeup and language that were introduced in the original movies and have been adopted in all subsequent Trek productions including the Abramsverse.
So I'm sure that some of the most memorable or iconic elements from the Abrams films will resonate in people's minds in decades to come and influence later reboots/reinventions. I think it's a reasonable conjecture that the movies' characterization of Uhura (including but not limited to her relationship with Spock) will influence future adaptations of the character, if only because she was given so little personality before. By the same token, the movies' portrayals of Sulu and Chekov, and maybe its more comedic Scotty, might have an impact on future adaptations. Their elevation of Pike to a mentor role for Kirk might be echoed later as well. I think Bruce Greenwood's Pike was more likeable and memorable than Jeffrey Hunter's, so I'd expect him to resonate with future generations of fans and creators.
Possibly the tattooed appearance of the movie Romulans will carry forward into later adaptations. I certainly like it better than the TNG-style forehead ridges, which were rather ugly and never really made sense given that the Romulans only diverged from the Vulcans 2000 years ago, a blink of an eye in evolutionary terms.
Otherwise, it's hard to say. Most of the stuff in these movies is itself adapted from earlier works, so it's hard to think of that many things that count as original. The
Kelvin? Robau? Keenser? Transwarp beaming?
I just hope that the next reboot is a 100% reboot that just starts by saying; "IN A COMPLETELY ALTERNATE UNIVERSE TO PRE-ESTABLISHED CANON..."
That phrase would be utterly meaningless to the vast majority of moviegoers who are just there to be entertained. And those few of us who care about words like "canon" would surely already know what universe the film was in months before we went to see it.
But yeah, I agree that a wholesale restart would be better. There are a lot of concepts in Trek that are mired in the '60s, if not the '40s pulps that inspired TOS, and that are increasingly outdated in this day and age, let alone the years ahead. Our smartphones make Kirk's commuicator look like a joke. And it's no longer realistic to expect things like nanotechnology and transhumanism to be limited to bad-guy groups like Borg and Augments. Plus it would be nice to see the Federation portrayed in a way that wasn't so overwhelmingly Eurocentric, or to see the TOS cast reworked with a bit more diversity (say, a black McCoy and a female Sulu, perhaps -- or, heck, why not a female Kirk?).
