I will give to J.J., he pulled off something special. As much as his Trek characters are unique, I loved the first film because i thought every actor did a great job of carrying over what the original actors defined. The problem is, that is so rare. Most reboots abandon where characters and franchises come from, so it's not just a recast but a new vision. Abrahms recognized that there was a reason it worked and he just took those ingredients and added a few new ones to make something new but every bit as good.
It's a rare time I've embraced a remake, I usually think they fall short or spit on the originals. Halloween is a great example, by the time Zombie was done, nothing beared any resemblance to it's origin so much so that it might as well have been it's own original concept instead of cashing in on an established name.
As far as I'm concerned, there's the novel John Rambo, and the cinematic John Rambo. They are significantly different and yes, you could do a new movie and depict him as he was written instead of hte polished hollywood version Stallone delivered, but for me, it's what Stallone does that makes me like the character. I've thought about reading First Blood, but I haven't yet, and I'm going to want to imagine Stallone the whole time. And Rocky, he's Stallone's creation entirely so it'd be hard for anyone to ever depict him just as well, it's one thing to do as good a job playing a character as another actor when someone else writes it, but when you write it and play it, that's something else. Which is part of what happened with Rambo, Stallone was instrumental in crafting his cinematic depiction and translating him from the novel.
