Been there.
Spoilers Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 4x06 - "Off-Hour"
Romulans? The Communist Chinese.
They were analogues for the Soviets. Totalitarian rivals of the the Federation. The Russians have often been portrayed as "Eastern" and the other in Western media. Especially when the West was fighting them literally and figuratively.
The Romulans are the Chinese, Mysterious and isolationist. Which was the view of China in the Sixties.
The Vulcans are in my view the post war Japanese. An enemy turned ally. But also mysterious and foreign. Hence Mcoy's line about Vulcan being conquered (None which lasted past the first season)
As a kid, given the Cold War tone of many TOS episodes, I also kinda assumed that the Klingons were stand-ins for the Russkies and the Romulans were the Red Chinese.
Although obviously other cultural references influenced how they were depicted, sometimes from episode to episode. (Michael Ansara in "Day of the Dove" seems to have inspired much of the "honorable warrior" approach to Klingons seen in the latter-day shows and movies, as opposed to the sneaky, underhanded bad guys seen in other TOS eps.)
April being black or white is like Spock having free or attached earlobes, T'Pol and Saavik having human or vulcan eyebrows, and which version of the D miniature was used. Real but non-important differences. Colt being a spiky lizard or a blonde human is a much bigger difference 
Colt used Krall's life draining technology from Star Trek Beyond on a hapless spiky alien victim.April being black or white is like Spock having free or attached earlobes, T'Pol and Saavik having human or vulcan eyebrows, and which version of the D miniature was used. Real but non-important differences. Colt being a spiky lizard or a blonde human is a much bigger difference
It's about Romulans now, I think.
But Koloth and his crew were at any rate only introduced as knowing Kirk by reputation. Much like Kor.
Nazis, guys.
The show's creators fought in WWII.
The idea of the Klingons as a hegemonic power equivalent to the Federation might have been derived from world politics of the 60s.
But the characterization of the Klingons themselves are straight out of war-era movies about the Germans and Japanese.
The Romulans, culturally, were Romans right out of Cecil B. DeMille's old film epics, grafted onto a story about a WW II destroyer and a German submarine.
The show's creators fought in WWII.
The idea of the Klingons as a hegemonic power equivalent to the Federation might have been derived from world politics of the 60s.
But the characterization of the Klingons themselves are straight out of war-era movies about the Germans and Japanese.
The Romulans, culturally, were Romans right out of Cecil B. DeMille's old film epics, grafted onto a story about a WW II destroyer and a German submarine.
But wasn't that characterization transferred to the "Dirty Commies" following the war and the rise of the Cold War.
Pretty much. By 1966 and the Vietnam War the bad guys were corollaries of the Cold War.
Sort of but not really. A lot of the animosity was.
I can accept a race change for casting purposes a lot faster than the idea that people just decide they want to change race. They cast an actor they liked and didn't worry about race because, frankly, it doesn't matter. He was a white guy in a cartoon and a composite image of Gene Roddenberry head on Shatner's body for the Star Trek Encyclopedia. As far as the general audience is concerned, SNW is the first time we actually saw April.
Adrian Holmes is great in the role.
Which is why "canon" is worthless. Either its part of the continuity at the time the people in charge decide it is, or it isn't. All it takes is a word from whoever is running the show to make that decision. Once the new regime starts making more Trek, they can (but I'm sure won't) say all of the P+ stuff was an alternate timeline. And then someone in the future can take it back. The Star Wars EU was canon until George sold the property. Then Disney said "nah."
Roddenberry considered TAS and even TFF apocryphal. He died, it was all back to being included. Meaningless. Forget about canon and just see if you like the story. This is their version of Star Trek. Like it or don't. It doesn't change the earlier versions.
Entirely this. And when I roll my eyes hard when SNW decides to address James R. Kirk (and I'll put down real money that someone mentions it), I'll keep this in mind. Not every bit of early series weirdness begs exploration and explanation.
Jim was constantly being confused with the other Kirk, so much so that he starting using his middle name/initial regularly, or vice versa.
The one with no sense of humor?
The "theatre vs documentary" argument is strange to me, because there is a huge gap between the two, which Star Trek had been living in very comfortably for years. TNG, DS9 and Voyager is the benchmark I'm comparing it to personally, along with Star Wars and Stargate etc., not the History channel. Trek should be able to clear that bar.
Why?
This. Exactly this. I can't take it as one big whole because you have very different production teams on varying elements. Taking as it comes, not with strict literalism, and working with the shows is more enjoyable to me.
Heresy!
This may indeed be a generational thing, at least in part. I grew up on TOS, long before the latter-day shows came along. Beyond that, I grew up when movie and tv series took a much more laissez-faire approach to continuity and casting -- and "canon" was not the fannish obsession it is today.
At the risk of showing my age, I sometimes wax nostalgic for the days when we never worried about whether the latest Sinbad or Tarzan or Godzilla movie was "canon" or not. Was Son of Frankenstein 100% consistent with the previous two Karloff movies? Not at all, but nobody ever insisted that it took place in a different "timeline." Ditto the early Bond movies. And did we demand an "in-universe" explanation for why Darrin on Bewitched was suddenly played by a different actor? Or why Marilyn Munster was replaced -- twice? Nope.
Heck, Catwoman went from white (Julie Newmar) to black (Eartha Kitt) on the same TV series and nobody blinked an eye, or demanded that the show somehow explain or justify this.
So, yeah, April going from a white cartoon character to a black live-action guy, fifty years later, doesn't faze me.
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Good episode. I liked that everyone got something to do. Nice to see the whole cast being involved. It was very entertaining 9/10
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