I mean, good lord, the character DIED. It was a huge media event at the time! Patrick Stewart and Wiliam Shatner were on the cover of f&*king Time magazine for god’s sake! They both were appearing on every nightime talk show from Leno to Letterman to talk about the fact that he was killing the character. TV Guide released a special Trek issue. Dozens of other mainstream publications were dedicating prime space to the movie/Trek in general. Trek was probably at the peak of it’s popularity with the general public at the time. Believe me, people DO remember he died.

I think it’s with that in mind that Orci says they have to take special care in how they bring the character in, if they do at all.

AMEN Harry. This is the same circle where high concept ideas are writing live screen versions of 30 year old saturday morning cartoons.

Please refer to “Trials and Tribulation” and “In a Mirror Darkly”. These episodes were produced with big budgets and for the most part in the new millenium, were the looks of the Defiant and Enterprise changed? Were the looks of the uniforms changed? Which unfiroms were Sisko and Crew wearing when they went back into the past? Lets say there was a time travel story on TNG that had Picard and Crew interacting with Pike and crew, what uniforms do you think Pike and crew would be wearing? The looks for that “time in TOS history”, therefore if we are to assume a Pike Era story, logic dictates the look must match as closely as possible. Cawley and crew did a great time travel story and they totally got it right in terms of “look for the specific period in ST history”.

Again like you said, if this does indeed become an alternate timeline universe series then anything is possible — new look, new characters, even possibly the Captain Pike’s fatal mission on the class J starship will never happen in this possibly “new” timline.

That’s your in-universe reason for the changes, but it had nothing to do in reality for why the changes occured, anymore than why there will be changes in the new movie.

Remember, when Roddenberry was working on Phase II, which was also going to consist of a ‘new’ Enterprise, the look of that show was going to be much closer in appearance to TOS. No, the reason there were so many changes in TMP has nothing to do with a ‘new’ Enterprise, and everything to do with what would look good on a theatrical movie screen.

“but why not bring back “goosenecks”, “lasers”…”

Actually, I always liked the goosenecks, although I think you and I may be in the minority there! As for the ‘lasers’, that would be a bad idea, for the same reason Roddenberry got rid of them for TOS: because viewers know that lasers don’t work that way, and aren’t ‘futuristic’ enough for a weapon.

“Let me ask you this question. If United Artists decides that the next James Bond movie will be “period piece”…”

Not really a valid analogy, because ‘period piece’ vis-a-vis your Bond analogy is used to describe a look for something in our real world past. Since none of the technology in Trek is real, or has ‘occured’ yet, it’s not the same thing as having a 2006 vehicle in a movie set in 1963.

The MAIN reason there are going to be changes is that if they made this new movie look like TOS the viewing audience WOULD think this a ‘period piece’: 1960’s! The makers of this movie want you to think it’s a ‘period piece’: 23rd century, not 1960! (those goodnecks screem 1960, not 23rd century).

VoR #166: “But if you have Leonard Nimoy, recreating THE Spock from 1966, you need to keep it real within Nimoy’s Trek universe if you want to be taken seriously, in the context of Trek’s fictional timeline.”

Did you think the Enterprise in TMP was ‘real’ within the trek universe? Because of the differences in relative dimensions there was NO WAY the TOS Enterprise was re-fitted into the TMP Enterprise.

Although fun to discuss, all of this is moot anyway, since it’s pretty obvious that any changes in aesthetics in the movie can and will be explained away by the Romulans changing the timeline! :)

If you want to play games, and treat the history laid down by TOS lightly, then you can jack with it. If you want to make a new timeline, you can jack around with it. If you want to reboot it completely , you can revamp it, get crazy.

But if you have Leonard Nimoy, recreating THE Spock from 1966, you need to keep it real within Nimoy’s Trek universe if you want to be taken seriously, in the context of Trek’s fictional timeline.

If you don’t want to go within the constraints of established TOS/Nimoy Trek history, pull a Lost in Space and do whateve ryou want to do. Whether or not its the right decision will be measured by the box office.