There is an ongoing debate about whether ST09 is connected to TOS or whether it's a clean reboot. I think the latter and here's why: the onscreen evidence as opposed to whatever the filmmaker may or may not have intended.
In the far future TOS' Spock may have gone into a black hole and went somewhere. We needn't speak to that because we don't know.
What I do know is that future TOS Spock didn't emerge into the Abramsverse. Simply because TOS Spock well knows that Kirk didn't command the Enterprise until his early thirties. And for him to express surprise that young, barely out of Academy, nuKirk is not already in command of the Enterprise clearly illustrates that the Spock that emerges into the Abramsverse isn't TOS Spock.
It may be that Abrams wants to suggest that, but that isn't the evidence on the screen. That it isn't onscreen shows that Abrams either didn't really know and/or care about the original continuity and or he was just sloppy. Either way the onscreen evidence (or lack thereof) trumps whatever his intent.
The age of some of the characters are wrong as well. Most particularly Chekov. In the TOS universe Chekov comes aboard the Enterprise somewhere around the age 21 or 22. In the Abramsverse he is 17, and he's 17 not when Kirk is in his early thirties (as in TOS), but when nuKirk is in his early twenties. It means that nuChekov is born easily a decade earlier. In TOS Scotty and McCoy are easily about a decade older than Kirk, but in the Abramsverse nuScotty doesn't appear that much older than nuKirk. In TOS Kirk is older and attends the Academy several years before Uhura and Sulu, and yet in the Abramsverse they're all at the Academy at the same time.
The argument that the Abramsverse is TOS but altered at some point doesn't work either. No one expects a 2009 film production to look anything like a 1965 television production, but still there isn't one single nod to what things looked like during the TOS Pike era. And also in TOS no one in the Federation knows what Romulans look like until they're encountered in "Balance of Terror." But that's definately not the case in the Abramsverse.
One may try to argue that everything changed after the Nerada emerges from the future. But what is the present like when it does emerge? It doesn't look much like the Pike era even without considering production values. One can argue that the timeline was changed any number of times and most particularly during FC. But all of that is irrelevant because Abrams wants to suggest a connection between TOS and ST09. Whatever happens to Spock in the far future he must clearly remember his history and what he experienced, and most particularly Kirk's history. That the older Abrams' Spock remembers something distinctly different than what TOS Spock would certainly know clearly illustrates that the two are not the same person and not from the same place.
This isn't about whether you enjoyed the film or not. It's a question of the story's internal logic.
In the far future TOS' Spock may have gone into a black hole and went somewhere. We needn't speak to that because we don't know.
What I do know is that future TOS Spock didn't emerge into the Abramsverse. Simply because TOS Spock well knows that Kirk didn't command the Enterprise until his early thirties. And for him to express surprise that young, barely out of Academy, nuKirk is not already in command of the Enterprise clearly illustrates that the Spock that emerges into the Abramsverse isn't TOS Spock.
It may be that Abrams wants to suggest that, but that isn't the evidence on the screen. That it isn't onscreen shows that Abrams either didn't really know and/or care about the original continuity and or he was just sloppy. Either way the onscreen evidence (or lack thereof) trumps whatever his intent.
The age of some of the characters are wrong as well. Most particularly Chekov. In the TOS universe Chekov comes aboard the Enterprise somewhere around the age 21 or 22. In the Abramsverse he is 17, and he's 17 not when Kirk is in his early thirties (as in TOS), but when nuKirk is in his early twenties. It means that nuChekov is born easily a decade earlier. In TOS Scotty and McCoy are easily about a decade older than Kirk, but in the Abramsverse nuScotty doesn't appear that much older than nuKirk. In TOS Kirk is older and attends the Academy several years before Uhura and Sulu, and yet in the Abramsverse they're all at the Academy at the same time.
The argument that the Abramsverse is TOS but altered at some point doesn't work either. No one expects a 2009 film production to look anything like a 1965 television production, but still there isn't one single nod to what things looked like during the TOS Pike era. And also in TOS no one in the Federation knows what Romulans look like until they're encountered in "Balance of Terror." But that's definately not the case in the Abramsverse.
One may try to argue that everything changed after the Nerada emerges from the future. But what is the present like when it does emerge? It doesn't look much like the Pike era even without considering production values. One can argue that the timeline was changed any number of times and most particularly during FC. But all of that is irrelevant because Abrams wants to suggest a connection between TOS and ST09. Whatever happens to Spock in the far future he must clearly remember his history and what he experienced, and most particularly Kirk's history. That the older Abrams' Spock remembers something distinctly different than what TOS Spock would certainly know clearly illustrates that the two are not the same person and not from the same place.
This isn't about whether you enjoyed the film or not. It's a question of the story's internal logic.
Last edited:
I choose otherwise, when I watch Star Trek or any other show I want everything I see and hear to be "in universe." Not the producer/directors/writers did this or it only a TV show or those are just the FX of the day. What is on the screen is actual what is happening in the story. 
