Hmm. Certainly it is possible, but if it is so, it would be interesting to know the reason. The old material being always instantly available might be one, as you're just not comparing against some memory from years ago. Improved production design and visual 'realness' of shows and films might be another, making people take what is depicted more literally.Perhaps. But at the risk of channeling my inner curmudgeon, it does sometimes seem to me that modern audiences do seem to find recasting more egregious than back in the old days, which I see as part and parcel with the whole modern obsession with "canon" and all that. Is it just me or do modern audiences take this stuff way more literally these days, as opposed to when, say, you could recast Jane in an old Johnny Weissmuller TARZAN movie and nobody lost sleep over whether this meant that we in an "alternate timeline" or whatever.
And I'm not just talking Trek fandom here. I still remember being taken aback when the IRON MAN movies recast Rhodey and the internet howled in as though this had never happened in the history of Hollywood before.
Does nobody else remember Valerie Hobson replacing Mae Clarke as Dr. Frankenstein's fiancee in the original Universal FRANKENSTEIN movies, or Ilona Massey replacing Evelyn Ankers as Dr. Frankenstein's grand-daughter in the sequels?
My point being that recasting has been going on forever, but it does seem to me as though modern audiences are more allergic to it than audiences in the past.
Not sure that's an improvement.
I'm pretty sure that my personal opinions on this have not changed, I have always found recasting jarring, especially in a story that is supposed to be one continuous narrative. Though as I said earlier, the three decades having passed in the setting too makes the Maddox recasting about as smooth as it can be with adult actors.
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