The 'Sheldon' Prequel

[Daedaleopsis]

Well, I don't have mixed feeling about this at all. I'm against it for the following reasons:

1. Steve Molaro has proven he has no clue how to do  "vintage Sheldon" with Molaro in control we would probably get a normal boy who became this neurotic nutball (according to some other sites) because during the course of the show a girl broke his heart and he gave up love, and normalcy for Science until the love of his life Amy showed up and made him feel again.

2. On the small chance they do get Sheldon right, I have no desire to see his drunken father shooting up the house; his Born again Christian Mother in full Jesus will cure your Science crazy; his brother, sister, and College "peers/Professors" bullying him; and the College Administration Pimping him out for money (Germany just didn't happen people)

3. Sheldon Cooper was special because of Jim, his facial ticks, body posture, dedication to learning difficult scientific lines and banter to "become Sheldon" has very little chance of happening again, especially with a 11-12 year old actor. The character will need to be sympathetic on his own, (without the adults adding sugary or traumatic moments) and most likely he'll come off as a snot-nosed know-it-all, which people will hate.

If they actually go through with this, (which it looks like they will) I give it 4-6 episodes before it's cancelled.

Retconning.  SO. MUCH. RETCONNING. will have to happen to make Sheldon's childhood a sitcom instead of a tragedy/horror show.  That is my biggest objection to "Young Sheldon."  You can see so much of it already in the trailer.  First, Sheldon's family was dirt poor.  They lived in a trailer on blocks, not a cookie-cutter middle-class suburb (as has already been pointed out).  Second, his family wasn't the least bit understanding.  Take the more recent episode about Sheldon's birthday where he confesses that every year as a child, Missy and her friends tormented him and made his life a living hell - on his BIRTHDAY.  And his mom at least had to know & did nothing to stop it.  In TBBT canon, Mary comes off as perennially exasperated by her difficult son.  We also know she hit him with a Bible, and put him in the position of keeping secrets from his dad.  His dad was just a hot mess.  I could have laughed at the preview where Sheldon's dad tells the story of "doing the right thing" at work - if it wasn't just so pathetic.  Are you kidding me???    Major retconning here.  His dad was an alcoholic who was often unemployed.  As a child, Sheldon accidentally got his dad fired by tattling on his dad for stealing from a cash register.  And his dad also cheated on Mary more than once; most likely it was a habit.
And while we're at it, I'm sure they'll find some way around the fact that his dad sent him away to boarding school when he was just ten years old.  Boarding school, people.  That means he wouldn't be living at home with his fake-supportive retconned family.  In fact, he most likely left home at the age of ten and never went back.  In the episode where Sheldon's knocking pattern is explained, he says he knocks three times after walking in on his father having sex with another woman - this was when he was home from college for a visit.  Since his dad died when he was like fourteen (and yeah, I'm sure that plot line will just be a barrel of laughs), it seems to me Sheldon had already been living away from home for a while.
And don't even get me started on the bow tie, since Sheldon should be wearing comic book tees and hideous plaid pants that his mom buys at K-Mart (probably because they're cheaper than plain pants).  Or the way that the preview starts out saying that Sheldon's second career choice who have been a train ticket taker, when he was keeping scientific journals since he was three years old.  The Sheldon we knew was obsessed with physics and understanding the way the universe works.
Also, TBBT owes it success to Jim Parsons.  Without him, I doubt the show would have lasted more than a couple seasons.  Asking a 11-12 year old kid to try to imitate that is just unfair to both the child actor and the viewers.
I'm also very apprehensive about seeing Molaro's portrayal of religion since on TBBT, there are an overabundance of crazed "religious nuts" - Mary Cooper, Bernadette's mom, Mrs. Wolowitz, Amy's mom - pretty much everyone's mom, actually.  I smell a complex.
In short, IMHO the only good thing about this show is that Jim Parsons will be getting paid for every voice-over he does.