They can only do that up to a point.
They have been many immitators of Star Trek that failed because they tried to do this. As of right now it is past momentum that is going to carry this film.
However, they can’t just trash the past because they can. Change for the sake of shock value is not going to be sustainable for a franchise.
No mistake and credit due to abrams for producing a star trek action film. (the final kobayashi test was more about what was happening inside kirk’s head exposed rather than running it dry and official as would have been expected. apple forbidden fruit?)
Then again, does this mean the ENITRE voyager series can be expunged from the continuity?
They did it right from the start. By killing George Kirk in the first 10 minutes they dramatically moved things away from old canon.
What past momentum? Paramount killed the past momentum, and a lot of what hurt momentum was 40 years worth of constantly changing canon (Star Trek canon has always had consistency issues). This movie has already made more money domestically than Nemesis made for its entire global run.
They didn’t trash the past, they set it aside, and it wasn’t for the sake of shock value, it was to get rid of 40 years of baggage. All that mighty canon, constantly changing, with nobody being sure what at any given moment is canon or isn’t, has been dragging the franchise down. Of course keep in mind too, by doing the kind of clean break they did it’s always possible, should someone be dumb enough to want to put the albatross of old canon on their neck, to do further “original time line” stories.
According to Paramount Voyager is canon, of course during its run Paramount said at one point it wasn’t, just another shining example of the problem with canon. But of course it’s Roddenberry-Berman time line canon, not Abrams time line canon.