To my knowledge, JJ Abrams never said it was a prequel or a reboot. He said he would respect canon.
What if it's not flashbacks we're talking about... what if Spock and crew just get young again in the 24th century for some reason... Starfleet needs it's best crew in history for some heavy mission... They even get a new Kirk out of dead Kirk's dna... No continuity problems there... No retro design conflicts... no actual reboot... no timeline limitations... No canon offenses... No absolute need to see old Shatner/Kirk... Could even include Shatner/Kirk with some explanation... Just new TOS adventures. This may seem far fethched... but so would have seemed Spock's rebirth on paper. New appearance of crewmembers could be explained by imprecisions in the genetic manipulations. New technique would restore or transfer old conscience, memories, experiences, soul.
We've seen similar clonage with Riker in TNG. Human conscience could be transfered in a robot in I Mudd, why not in a clone... Spock's conscience was even transfered in Trek 3...
And after that you can make new movies or series without the original TOS actors, without having to worry about connecting with Star Trek timeline at some point and without our knowledge that characters can't die because they'll show up in the 5 years mission in their future...
You can also be really futuristic... not retro futuristic...
Cloned TOS crew on the Enterprise NCC-1701-F or some other ship...
Ok... start throwing rocks at me.
What if it's not flashbacks we're talking about... what if Spock and crew just get young again in the 24th century for some reason... Starfleet needs it's best crew in history for some heavy mission... They even get a new Kirk out of dead Kirk's dna... No continuity problems there... No retro design conflicts... no actual reboot... no timeline limitations... No canon offenses... No absolute need to see old Shatner/Kirk... Could even include Shatner/Kirk with some explanation... Just new TOS adventures. This may seem far fethched... but so would have seemed Spock's rebirth on paper. New appearance of crewmembers could be explained by imprecisions in the genetic manipulations. New technique would restore or transfer old conscience, memories, experiences, soul.
We've seen similar clonage with Riker in TNG. Human conscience could be transfered in a robot in I Mudd, why not in a clone... Spock's conscience was even transfered in Trek 3...
And after that you can make new movies or series without the original TOS actors, without having to worry about connecting with Star Trek timeline at some point and without our knowledge that characters can't die because they'll show up in the 5 years mission in their future...
You can also be really futuristic... not retro futuristic...
Cloned TOS crew on the Enterprise NCC-1701-F or some other ship...
Ok... start throwing rocks at me.




sorry