sometimes things don’t matter as much as we think they do….. but because we’re upset it becomes a big deal…… and that’s unfortunate………
So apparently, Simon Pegg and John Cho (writers for Star Trek Beyond) have now revised The Original Series character Sulu to make him gay. This has apparently bothered Mr. Takei, the actor who played Sulu in The Original Series.
In a statement released to The Guardian newspaper on Friday, Pegg said: ‘I have huge love and respect for George Takei, his heart, courage and humour are an inspiration. However, with regards to his thoughts on our Sulu, I must respectfully disagree with him.’
The 46-year-old Pegg is responsible for writing the script for Star Trek Beyond with Doug Jung in which John Cho’s version of the USS Enterprise helmsman is in a same sex relationship.…
Takei said that when he first learned, last year, that Cho’s Sulu would be revealed as gay, he appealed to director Lin to instead ‘create a new character’ and thus honor Roddenberry’s intentions.
Takei tried to explain his misgivings to Cho. ‘I told him, “Be imaginative and create a character who has a history of being gay, rather than Sulu, who had been straight all this time, suddenly being revealed as being closeted.”‘Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-3681189/Simon-Pegg-fires-George-Takei-s-opposition-retconning-Mr-Sulu-gay.html
Okay then. Soooo…… where should I start?
I guess let’s think about Takei.
So if I were Takei, I think I’d feel wildly offended. I think I’d feel that they were taking my life, adding it to a character that I merely played, and representing my work… my struggles… my accomplishments… as the characters.
I feel that’d be demeaning to who I am as a person… the things I’ve done are now just a characters back story for somebody’s profit.
Now as for the writers…
Well if I was a writer, why would I care? I have license to just write whatever I feel like and I apparently can change established parts of the Star Trek universe with just the clikity clack of my keyboard… and I have to get this all done in a way that’ll make Paramount the big bucks. Making Sulu gay is a pretty small issue on that general plane of thinking…
Relationships in Star Trek – Always a Joke
As for a lot of Star Trek fans, I feel they (and myself) have always thought that homosexual as well as other kinds of romantic and sexual relationships were simply implied in the Star Trek universe. While relationships featured as part of many plot lines through out the various seasons… I’ve never felt that they were particularly important parts of the show.
You know, Captain Picard may have been in love with that one woman on that one episode, but it didn’t change anything about that season of Next Generation or the Star Trek universe.
Commander Riker had a dalliance with an androgynous person in an episode of Next Generation… it didn’t change Star Trek. Hell, Riker and Dianna were seemingly in love with each other throughout the entire Next Generation series and yet that relationship really didn’t feature much at all.
Relationships were just never Star Trek’s strong point… Relationships were never the focus of the show and I don’t think people watched because they wanted to see if Diana and Worf started dating. Star Trek was always more about the adventure of space and the possibilities for humanity in this brave new world.
So I guess I’m trying to say that Sulu being gay or straight is pretty irrelevant. Or at least… in the previous series it was irrelevant.
Now, I suppose that Takei may be right. Sulu may just be a token gay character in Star Trek’s new iteration as a bloody space action series.
In The End
In the end, for me, none of this really matters. Honestly this is just another reason to dislike the new Star Trek movies. They rely on the universe created by Rodenberry and friends and yet they selectively change whatever they feel like. Instead of telling new stories, they pervert the old ones. Instead of space adventure, we get violent space action. Instead of expanding the Star Trek universe and welcoming new fans to that universe, the movie studios seek restriction and profit. In the end, it’s just all so gross.
(want more gross??? HP Enterprise is advertising inside the Star Trek movie)
And when you think about how much Star Trek has changed because of the recent films, who cares if they make a gay version of Sulu? What does it matter… the vision of a brave new world that Star Trek represented in the past… is now dead.
“He’s up there now going around every 90 minutes looking down saying, ‘What have you done to my show?’”
– Majel Barrett, wife of Gene Rodenberry and Enterprise Computer Voice.