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In short, Justin Lin and Simon Pegg wrote Sulu to be gay in the new Star Trek movie as they felt it would be a great way to pay respect to Sulu's original actor, George Takei. In a rather surprising twist though, Takei has said that, while he likes the idea of an openly gay character in Star Trek, he doesn't like that Sulu specifically was chosen to be said character. Takei states that it's because he feels it's "twisting [Gene Rodenberry's] creation."

I'm surprised but pleased with Mr. Takei's response. I know he's a strong advocate for LGBT movement but it is nice to see he still respects artistic integrity rather than try to promote tokenism.

That's not surprising at all considering its creator was a total control freak who is surely spinning in his grave atm.

I honestly don't know what's with all the Westerners overly advocating LGBT rights.
I mean there's nothing wrong with a few homos here and there, but boy Takei sure gets that "oh hey I put a gay character in my show!" isn't doing justice for the community.

Rubbing something we don't really need in our faces is just going to annoy us all in the end.

I don't know.

Unlike many other times they try to do something like this, this one actually has a real reason for it. That's not to say that doing this type of thing is inheritly bad, but it wasn't just "hey, we should have a gay guy in here, whoose main trait is he's gay".

While I get the argument that it is twisting Roddenberry's creation, at the same time, have you seen the other two recent Star Trek films? Most of the time in the series, the focus is on diplomatic, scientific or otherwise mostly peaceful solutions. The newer movies are much more like Star Wars, where shooting happens nearly immediately. Plus there are a million other minor things that don't fit even given the time change bit. That's not to say that these movies are bad, but considering they have specifically made the new movies and the Roddenberry series set in separate timelines, where changes bigger than this have already occurred, I personally don't see this either changing the original ideas of Star Trek (at least not any more so than what has already been done) or (again, since the series and the movies are separate timelines) how this automatically retroactivly change the original Sulu to being gay.

IDK, I'm not a huge Star Trek nerd, and by all means, if it was meant as a tribute to the original actor who is still able to provide feedback, I would advise them listening to their feedback. Still… this seems rather a minor thing to be upset about even among a fandom founded upon minor things to be upset about.

I think if the reason you do something is for another person, and that person says they don't want you to do this. You shouldn't do it.

Otherwise what you were doing wasn't for that other person. It was for an ulterior motive, and said person was just a secondary concern.

In response to Jacob's post:

but it wasn’t just “hey, we should have a gay guy in here, whoose main trait is he’s gay”.

But it WAS something of them to use in the headlines to appear trendy to the millennials, which is a shining case of tokenism in my eyes. It's not to say they can't appeal to certain demographics but when you see stuff like "we made character a totally different demographic" more often than not I am inclined to believe it is due to marketing rather than artistic expression.

if it was meant as a tribute to the original actor who is still able to provide feedback, I would advise them listening to their feedback.

Co-creator Simon Pegg 'respectfully disagrees' with Takei. His response is a bit puzzling because it strikes me that he's saying he made him gay because most people think of the actor as gay ["Justin Lin, Doug Jung and I loved the idea of it being someone we already knew because the audience have a pre-existing opinion of that character as a human being, unaffected by any prejudice,"] but then he gets into 'well it's multiverse so that's what lets our movie get away with it' ["Whatever magic ingredient determines our sexuality was different for Sulu in our timeline. I like this idea because it suggests that in a hypothetical multiverse, across an infinite matrix of alternate realities, we are all LGBT somewhere,"].

this seems rather a minor thing to be upset about

What is your definition of upset here? I have not really seen anyone react harshly to this, at most only expressing mild annoyance that 'Hollywood's doing the token minority thing again'. Forgive me if I harp on that one word "upset" but I'm legitimately curious if you are seeing a different reaction from the fans than I am.

@ Wisehowl
I don't know about the headline bit. Sometimes that's largly the papers and digital publishing wanting to get buys and clicks making it sound like that, and sometimes it's the studio wanting to put seats in the theater. Personally I'm more of a fan of seeing how well it actually works within the film, but I certainly see how it can been seen as the studio pushing tokenism.

I explained in my previous post that there are more questionable diffences between the two timelines than one Sulu being gay and one being straight. I get the butterfly effect, but things like how a black hole works shouldn't be affected by that.

As for 'upset' I used the term more because it wasn't extreme. Maybe "less than pleased" would be better. I wouldn't really say I've seen reactions that were worse than what you probably saw.

The more I hear people complain about Tokenism the more it seems like a convenient excuse to keep minorities out of media. If Sulu had a wife instead of a husband no one would complain that it's "unnecessary to the plot". No one would say Simon Pegg and Justin Lin are pandering to a certain audience. No one would oppose the decision on grounds of tokenism. Minorities in movies have to meet a higher standard of plot relevance in order to be accepted. They have to be gay or black or female for a specific reason otherwise they should default to straight white and male. I don't see why this should be the case.

If they would stop turning already established characters gay, they wouldn't have to meet or compete with any preconceived standard at all. Original characters. Add a crew member.

Sexuality is always going to look like Tokenism in a series like this anyway. The fuck difference does being gay make in the context of Star Trek? An LGBT couple being introduced in sci-fi/adventure Star Trek makes a hell of a different impression than one introduced in prime time drama The Walking Dead.

I would complain it was unnecessary to the plot. Why the heck do we need to devote any time to a side characters romantic interest? Every time the Ohara and Spock romance is brought up, it makes the films so much worse to sit through as it emulates the type of drama you see in a dumb romance serial like grey's anatomy. Do we really need to make more of it, only with more side characters. Do we need a scene where sulu gets offered to hook up with some girl and he's like 'no thanks, im into something a bit on the manly side" and then bones or kirk or possibly scoty looks at him all surprised like "Say whaaaaaaat?". Do we really need that in the film? I'd argue that if you are gonna make a character gay who wasn't, why not go for a curveball and do it to a character nobody expected? Why does it have to be the one everyone expected? The one everyone has stereotyped, if you would, into being gay? Why couldn't it have been bones being BI? To me this just strikes me as a retcon to sell tickets and little more, which is why they choose the least risky character to do this with.

It's especially sad to think about this happening in a universe like star trek, where humanity has evolved into some penultimate liberal dream-state where there is no capitalism and everything is working communism and social progressivism. Humanity doens't even have a military, if you think about it, not a military like you or I would know. This being something that needs to be pointed out in the film detracts from the universe, considering they are going to go the route I said, because that's what you need to send the standard "everyone is equal" message to people. IMO Paranorman did its gay character well, having no hints until literally the very end, so that he is just a man who is gay, instead of a gay character who has to explain themselves so the audience can nod their head and go "yup, that's why you should be tolerant". I think we already know how to be tolerant and why we should be tolerant without the movie holding our hands to remind us of that.

>one of the most prominent shows to feature a multinational cast
>original gay actor is against decision to make him gay
>thinking people would be fine with wasting runtime in a 2-hour movie to explore a supporting character's sexuality
>"people just want to keep minorities out of media"

Puh-leeeeeeeeease. It's not about him BEING gay that people are miffed at, it's about him being changed TO BE gay that people are miffed at. Changing the demographic of an established character pisses people off, be it through whitewashing or tokenism.

@Black Graphic T

I feel like if they did it with a character everyone expected, then people would say it makes no sense, and will be complaining much louder about tokenism. Cuz, I imagine if the character isn't expected to be gay, that just means there isn't anything about the character that suggests that they're gay, so the character coming out as gay would come off as something unplanned in a series, but would be fine in a standalone movie. There are more ways to hint at sexuality than having them act stereotypical.

Only we've had 2 movies to show how the new star trek films handle romance, and its done in the same stereotypical way as every other flm would. If you don't believe me, wait until the film comes out. I'm calling it now, they're all gonna be in a bar and talking about getting some and kirk or bones will suggest he hook up with a girl and he'll say how he's into guys, and then the interaction will go one of three ways. 1) Kirk or Bones will express shock/surprise for comedic effect, 2) the characters will have a deadpan reaction and maybe making a comment about having susepcted it, 3) they will point out some lovely men for sulu to date, with all 3 being played ofr laughs.

That, or it'll be a scene where their lives are in danger and they talk about regrets and sulu will say how he knows a guy he wishes he hooked up with. It'll go either of those directions, and it will be both predictable and eyeball rolling worthy, just like every other example of roamnce in these films, which are easily summed up as one liners and cliche bickering.

>thinking people would be fine with wasting runtime in a 2-hour movie to explore a supporting character’s sexuality

They're not. It's like a 10 second scene where his daughter and husband show up.

"Puh-leeeeeeeeease. It’s not about him BEING gay that people are miffed at, it’s about him being changed TO BE gay that people are miffed at. Changing the demographic of an established character pisses people off, be it through whitewashing or tokenism."

They didn't change anything, Sulu's sexuality was never addressed before this. The closest thing to him being heterosexual was one time when grabbed Uhura's arm and said "I'll protect you fair maiden" because he was high as fuck and thought he was one of the three musketeers, and even then it wasn't due to his sexuality but because he was being chivalrous. Other than that there was one time in the mirror universe where everything is different (including some characters's sexualities) where an evil version of him hits on Uhura with an ulterior motive. Neither of these in any way confirm his sexuality.

What happens is people assume that characters are straight because they consider it the default and then get mad when they are "changed" despite there being no evidence that they were straight in the first place. This is that higher standard I was talking about.

And to people asking what sexuality has to do with Star Trek. Heterosexual characters denonstrate their sexuality in much more overt ways all the time in Star Trek. Hell, Kirk fucking green alien babes has been a pop culture reference since the 60s. No one complains when straight characters have families in these movies though.

I complain when we waste time on characters who ultimately do not matter, IE people's families who show up for one scene just to establish a character is in a relationship.

If I remember the interview when they first mentioned that he had a daughter correctly, Sulu's family is in the movie to establish the stress that the characters are under after being in space away from their homes for 3 years.

& that's fine, it wouldn't be out of place for a gay crew member to reflect on their partner/family back home, but it would be very out of place for someone who has a straight family at home to suddenly be gay in space. The context for this specific character to now be gay is not there. All the barriers being brought up literally disappear the instant you introduce a new character. They could have any kind of mixed family back home, any kind of behavior and history, it can be smoothly brought up as a normal matter of fact during the 'we miss our families/home/etc' conversation instead of sudden shock omg this character is suddenly coming out, there's nothing to disagree with.

Actually Gene Roddenbury's ashes were scattered into space. It's true.

So is his ashes going to clump up into a meteorite and fall on whoever's idea this was?

I'm a Trekkie, and I'd be slightly annoyed with this move if it weren't for the fact that these are only Star Trek movies in name only. I mean, of all the stupid decisions they've made with the franchise, making Sulu gay when the original's sexuality wasn't discussed, is the least of all the offenses.

Some side notes:

There was one episode of the Animated Series in which,the Enterprise ends up in an alternate universe where humans could use magic (seriously), Sulu conjures himself a female companion, take that as you will.

One video game states him having a wife, and two novels state him having a brief romance with a woman, which is how they explained the existence of his daughter in Star Trek Generations.

There were at least a few episodes of the Original Series in which Sulu appeared to show some interest in Uhura as well.

In any case, I'll let it go, because it IS an alternate timeline, though not a good one, as far as I'm concerned. Any of the timelines in which the Voyager gets blown up in "Year of Hell" are better.

George Takei further elaborates

Basically:

-When he heard the crew were planning on adding a gay character he was actually quite happy with the idea since the original Star Trek was a pretty progressive show for its time, and Gene Roddenberry wanted to include a gay character long ago but never did because he worried 1960s-1970s era audiences wouldn't be accepting of it and it might destroy ratings

-He did discuss the idea with director Justin Lin, and Takei's suggestion was that the character be someone brand new to the Star Trek universe

-When he found out the director didn't heed his suggestion and instead made a pre-existing character gay he wasn't happy, because he was very close to Roddenberry and feels that altering Roddenberry's original visions for the characters goes against his wishes

Even shorter: he loves the idea of an LGBT character in Star Trek since it is one of the few progessive elements an already progressive series never explored, but he would have much preferred the character be an original creation rather than a pre-existing one who's been around since the original show.

he loves the idea of an LGBT character in Star Trek since it is one of the few progessive elements an already progressive series never explored, but he would have much preferred the character be an original creation rather than a pre-existing one who’s been around since the original show.

God bless Takei. This really sums up my opinion on the matter. It's alright to have an LGBTQ person added to the movie(just so long as it isn't their only defining trait), but to change the persona of an original character isn't necessarily sacrilegious, but it's definitely disrespectful to the creators.

Shoehorning in a trait(occasionally progressive) that doesn't need to be there has become more and more of a problem in Hollywood.

Not really surprising…doing stuff like this only makes a token character instead of adding anything to that character…

I think mr. takei did a good job explaining what most of the people who don't like this decision feel, and probably even a few who do like this decision. Of course you'll have a small number of jackasses who just don't like the thought of people of a certain sexuality being part of anything. But lets be honest, given the backlash to them versus all other comments about the dissatisfaction with this choice, it's obvious those people are in such a minority they don't even deserve a spotlight of being brought up.