Yes, obviously, in every way that matters -- new stories, new cast, new look, new attitude.
The backstory builds off of the old TV shows and movies, one new story was a partial remake of a previous movie, they did bring back an old cast member to pass the torch, one went back to the ENT TV show to design a ship from that era, and all the shows have had a different attitude in one way or another.
The in-universe continuity ties are just a handwave to make a massive reinterpretation palatable to old-guard fans.
Speaking for myself, I would have found it more palatable had it just been a hard reboot. There is merit to that and to taking into account that that was the primary interest. But, at the end of the day, the Powers That Be did not and chose to tie it into the pre-existing continuity, adding enough DNA to make it more then just a handwave. While that would be separate from whether the movies work as stories in and of themselves, it is more then fair to assess how well they fit into the continuity that the filmmakers chose to put them in.
In real-world terms, looking at it as an exercise in storytelling and marketing, the express intent was to make Star Trek new, to relaunch the film franchise in a fresh way that would attract a fresh young audience. You can't make a profit by catering solely to old fans, since that's a population that's bound to dwindle over time. You have to periodically start over and appeal to new audiences, people who never saw the old version. So when you do that, there's no requirement to make it continuous with what came before, because it won't matter either way to the new audience. That's an option, but it's a secondary consideration. As I keep saying, continuity is not the sole purpose of fiction or the sole standard for judging fiction.
Fair enough. Kinda funny, though, that the "remake" branch of the franchise died after three movies (just when they'd cracked the code, IMHO) and the DSC TV show, which returned to the main continuity of the franchise, has been successful enough to start work on more projects like it. I'm sure it's not this simple, but on paper, it almost seems like going with the old is working out here more.
And there are different kinds of continuity. Clearly the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the Arrowverse are not in the same continuity as the comics they're based on, but they've been very good at respecting and adapting the characters and storylines and worldbuilding elements of their sources, using past continuity as a starting point and a font to draw from rather than being confined by it.
Sure, but there is a difference between a hard reboot and a continuation of something. It's fair to judge how the media in question fares depending on the model it follows.
Continuity of ideas, characters, and themes is more important to fiction than the literalistic continuity of events and chronology. You don't have to set your story in the same "universe" as an earlier one in order to be faithful and respectful to its essence.
All about the intent, and believe it or not, I do get it; I like a lot of different Spider-Man stuff, even if most of it doesn't fit together in terms of canon and all that.
The (visual) continuity discussion is really only a symptom of the need to riff on a familiar setting for a minimum audience, rather than jump forward immediately, risk everything and sweep the past under the rug as TNG had.
Eh, I think the question of visual consistency is a fair one, given how it factors into suspension of disbelief. However, I do think it's something that seems to have different levels of opinion, from whether it should all just be considered artistic license or be given some stock. Even in the case of the latter, there are different standards in terms of what someone would find acceptable leeway and what breaks the suspension of disbelief. Personally, I do believe that visual continuity is part of the canon with this franchise, so logical "in-universe" reasons for changes are appreciated. On the other hand, I have found that I'm willing to overlook more then other people (the guy who does that "Ex Astra Scientia" fan site seems to be a lot more bothered by the DSC changes then I was).
The bigger question is whether Star Trek should be defined by a set of legacy characters or the “virtual anthology” concept of boldly going somewhere with a replacable crew.
I don't get it.
). And I love debating it endlessly. But even I need to step away from time to time.
