At the end of the day, almost everything in this discussion is subjective, but I would love for you to flesh out what "respect for canon" means to you.
There are a lot of ways that can be taken. Did you expect JJ to build duplicates of the TOS sets?
Sure, the redesigned Klingons is irksome, but beyond that, I'm not quite sure I get what you mean. I'm at least going to wait to see a few episodes before I make such a sweeping conclusion.
I definitely wouldn't want them to duplicate the TOS set style in 2017 (unless maybe they were actually onboard the 1701 itself), but at the same time, it makes little sense to me in universe for literally every single design aspect of ship exteriors, ship interiors, technology, uniforms, alien species, space suits, whatever else you can name etc, to become unrecognizable in such a short span. It breaks my sense of immersion or reality or progression or respect for the franchise.
But what about TOS -> TMP? I respect that the original series is a product of its time, with constraints of budget and technology (I think most of the show is just a laugh), so I'm very lenient to the changes that later series and films have made around it, especially with TMP as the closest and biggest deviation. However, they were also moving forward in time with nothing to contradict what came next, and only had 3 seasons of an old TV show covering a span of 3 years to worry about, not 50 years of established canon from 700+ episodes of television and 10 (prime universe) movies, covering a span of over a hundred years in either direction, attempting to paint a somewhat consistent linear progression.
But it's not always consistent! Yes, in that time they've had many notable and obvious contradictions, as expected from shows created in different eras with different crews and different writers, but overall I think they've they've generally done a pretty good job of respecting what came before it.
But that's still sounding pretty subjective, as you've pointed out. You're right that it's subjective, because at the end of the day, it hasn't been 100% internally consistent at all, and I can't justify every little thing I accept or don't accept without some contradiction, or always give reasoning beyond "I'm ok with this change but not this one". Some things the head canon can accept, some things it can't. That's probably going to have a lot to do with our own history with the franchise, and what we personally value from it.
That all said, I feel they could have modernized the designs while still maintaining stronger style cues to tie it into the original timeline. The bridge we've seen is straight out of JJ Trek to me, with the open window viewscreen, holographic HUD, dark and moody metallic look with lens flares etc. It's following the current trend of what "spacey" things look like, rather than being a modern interpretation of old Trek is. Imo of course.
I'd like to think I'll give the show a fair chance. I'm just not optimistic based on anything I've seen or heard so far. Each to their own. If you dig it, you dig it. :thumbsup
