HUGE Mr Sulu Spoiler

[Amaris]

Due to not being born yet, the rest of you are gonna have fill me in - did everyone tie themselves in such knots after the TPTB officially decided that Sulu actually had a first name?

Depends on when you prefer. He technically got a first name in "The Entropy Effect" by Vonda McIntyre, but his official first name came in Star Trek VI. I do not recall anyone being upset about his receiving an unofficial, or official first name.

 

[Trekkin]

But, but.... putting something in the place of nothing breaks 'Da Canon!

Real Fans would have cared about a massive change to such an important character detail. You lot need to hand in your Trekkie licences.

 

[Guy Gardener]

There was no database or method of binging the series, or requesting a viewing of specific episodes.

"Sulu has a Christian name? Um, okay that must have happened in one of the 30 episodes I haven't ever seen."

 

[F. King Daniel]

Depends on when you prefer. He technically got a first name in "The Entropy Effect" by Vonda McIntyre, but his official first name came in Star Trek VI. I do not recall anyone being upset about his receiving an unofficial, or official first name.

Sulu was unofficially named "Walter" by George Takei on the convention circuit in the 70's. This name crops up in quite a bit of fanfic from the era. Uhura was given the first name "Penda" at the time (although I'm unsure as to the source), and that lead to William Rostsler getting some angry letters when he named her "Nyota" in Star Trek II Biographies. That name stuck through decades of novels and was made canon in 2009. I don't know if there was a fuss over Walter/Hikaru

 

[Amaris]

Sulu was unofficially named "Walter" by George Takei on the convention circuit in the 70's. This name crops up in quite a bit of fanfic from the era. Uhura was given the first name "Penda" at the time (although I'm unsure as to the source), and that lead to William Rostsler getting some angry letters when he named her "Nyota" in Star Trek II Biographies. That name stuck through decades of novels and was made canon in 2009. I don't know if there was a fuss over Walter/Hikaru

I am seriously relieved that both Hikaru and Nyota survived to become canon.

 

[Trekkin]

But it's not what Gene would have wanted.

 

[Shaw]

Just FYI... both Nyota and Hikaru date back to 1980's U.S.S. Enterprise Officer's Manual by Geoffrey Mandel and Doug Drexler (and tons of other contributors). Because these fans later worked behind the scene of Trek, they were able to make sure that many of their theories about TOS stuck. They didn't get everything (for example, they have Sulu being born in Japan rather than California... though who knows where this version was born), but those fans did have quite a bit of influence back then.

Mandel worked on 2009's Star Trek as a graphic artist until he was let go for being too attached to TOS.

 

[Guy Gardener]

But it's not what Gene would have wanted.

Gene wanted to be bigger than Star Wars.

 

[Trekkin]

Dirty lies! Star Trek has only ever been made for purely artistic reasons.

 

[mlk]

You claim to be opposed to any of the charcters being gay, yet you're constantly throwing out suggestions..

Can you please point out where I have been opposed to "any of the charcters being gay" ? Thank you.

Anyway, I assume you're one of those who turn every criticism into the homophobe rant. Since I have never ever been opposed to anyone being gay and I have given suggestions from start to others who should have been gay.

 

[Trekkin]

Can you please point out where I have been opposed to "any of the charcters being gay" ? Thank you.

Sulu has a family and a daughter, making it at least more probable that he is straight. That's why another character would be a better fit.

Your wording. Watch it. Coz Sulu is 'any character.'

Also mlk, what did you think of Meyer and McIntyre retconning Sulu a first name? After Roddenberry explicitly created him without one, 40 years of no hint as to what it was, and after Takei clearly expressed a preference for an alternate choice?

 

[Grendelsbayne]

Disagree on the evidence.

We have no onscreen evidence in either direction, so that does not help us either way.

But why would you choose to only focus on onscreen evidence? (Unless of course, you are leaning toward wanting the Prime Sulu to be gay, which I suspect you are.)

Because creators do not actually get final word over their work. If you make a movie with the intent that a character has blonde hair and blue eyes, but then forget to give the actor blue contacts, then that character does not have blue eyes (until such time as a later movie might retcon it). This is even more true in a case like Star Trek, which is an ongoing franchise created and expanded by dozens of different creators over decades.

Gene's intent, and George's intent, and anyone else's intent doesn't matter in the slightest, because it never actually made it onscreen.

There's circumstantial evidence on-screen in TAS that Sulu Prime was straight. It's been mentioned in-thread.

Two seconds of extremely circumstantial evidence from one of the most bizarre scenes I can recall in the entire franchise. Even the general action of the scene seems completely out of character to start with. Calling that 'evidence' is seriously stretching.

It's hard for me to imagine that behind the scenes Sulu Prime was conceived of as anything other than straight. I feel confident that that's where Takei as getting his notion that Sulu Prime was straight. He played him staight. He was never told to do otherwise. Heck, it's conceivable that he had a private conversation with Gene about it, but I have no direct evidence of that.

Retcons can be fine. I'm not a slave to canon, and I support them in some cases. In this case, I'd be fine with a retcon, but I don't think it's necessary, and I think that's what it would have to be.

No, it wouldn't. Negating an idea that some writer or actor had years ago has absolutely nothing to do with 'retconning' anything. A retcon requires actual existing continuity to overwrite before it can ever be considered a retcon.

I think that we also have to consider how conservative the show was overall. They never had a gay character at all on TOS. It would have been an enormous controversy. We'd have to believe that Sulu was designated as possibly gay behind the scenes, and that it was a perfectly kept secret that somehow that never got out even after all these years. I find that really, really hard to believe.

It's not a case of sifting through canon to see what might or might not be consistent. It's a case of inferring the intent of the writers and showrunners.

Which is completely irrelevant to canon or continuity. If you want to use various creators' intent to inform your idea of what a character is or isn't, then by all means do so, but no one - including any new creator - is ever in any way obligated to take such things into account. What matters is what the character has actually been shown to be (insofar as anything matters at all, of course - unpopular characters can and have been completely rewritten from the ground up and no one gave a damn).

Also, I'm not sure why - if such things are really important to some people - we should be content to just give Gene and George exclusive final say over what Sulu should be? There are probably dozens of other official creators who contributed to that character, and I suspect a significant portion of them actually contributed significantly more than Gene himself (whose primary contributions were probably a basic name/race/job profile and generally approving or denying other people's ideas). If you expand your view of the character to the novels, it may not even be unthinkable to find another creator who contributed as much as or more than George himself.

 

[Makarov]

So to recap the thread up to this point the actor's opinion doesn't really matter - George Takei's opinion itself can be dismissed or psychoanalyzed away, and if you're not a fan of the character change then you're a duck dynasty watcher.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Just FYI... both Nyota and Hikaru date back to 1980's U.S.S. Enterprise Officer's Manual by Geoffrey Mandel and Doug Drexler (and tons of other contributors). Because these fans later worked behind the scene of Trek, they were able to make sure that many of their theories about TOS stuck. They didn't get everything (for example, they have Sulu being born in Japan rather than California... though who knows where this version was born), but those fans did have quite a bit of influence back then.

I stand corrected.

Mandel worked on 2009's Star Trek as a graphic artist until he was let go for being too attached to TOS.

Which ties into our eternal Starship Size Argument thread, if the story I heard has any truth to it.

 

[Trekkin]

So to recap the thread up to this point the actor's opinion doesn't really matter - George Takei's opinion itself can be dismissed ...

Is Takei my doctor and/or my lawyer?

Because otherwise, yes. Yes it can be.

 

[Guy Gardener]

You can takei it or leave it.

 

[Pauln6]

Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.

 

[Samuel T. Cogley]

Some people are mixing up the following concepts:

1. Is there enough "onscreen" evidence to definitively prove Sulu was gay, straight, etc.?

2. Is it a good idea to retroactively make Sulu gay the whole time?

3. If so, do original creators and actors have the ability to prevent this change from happening?

...and the unrelated, in my opinion, question...

4. Was the original Sulu straight, based on the totality of the evidence in front of us?

This last question is the one I am most interested in, mostly because I think people here are having a hard time separating out concepts 1, 2, and 3 from their answer to 4.

We have a decent amount of evidence that old Sulu was straight, and zero evidence that he was gay. Put all of that on the scales of justice, and see which way it tips. (The answer is "straight," by the way.)

If you have come to any other conclusion, it is because you are mixing your thoughts and feelings on 1, 2, and 3 into your answer to 4.

I agree that is it is a good time to make new Sulu gay, and that the Kelvin, wishful thinking, magic, or creative license is good enough reason to make it so.

The original creators and actors don't have the ability to prevent new Sulu from being gay, nor do the new creators and actors have the ability to make the old Sulu gay.

Canon, onscreen evidence, personal experience, the sign of the times, and well-written posts by writers/actors all factor in to the stew that causes each fan to believe what they want to believe, and once locked in, that fan is sure they are right. We choose the pieces we like and discard those we don't.

If you like the idea of new Sulu's becoming gay as of Pegg's recent pen strokes somehow re-writing 50 years of history, retroactively, no one can stop you. But you are acting on sentiment, not logic.

From a purely logical standpoint, old Sulu is straight and new Sulu is gay.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Just FYI... both Nyota and Hikaru date back to 1980's U.S.S. Enterprise Officer's Manual by Geoffrey Mandel and Doug Drexler (and tons of other contributors).

No they don't, but they might have been corrected in later editions. Hikaru is definitely from "The Entropy Effect" (1981). "Nyota" first appeared in William Rotsler's "Star Trek II Biographies", a tie-in to "ST II: The Wrath of Khan" (1982).

The prozine "USS Enterprise Officer's Manual" (1980) calls Sulu "Itaka Sulu", and Uhura is "Upenda Uhura", a misremembering of fandom's "Penda" from the 70s. It also calls Pike "Christopher Robin Pike", and includes Arex, M'Ress, Xon, Ilia, Willard Decker and DiFalco as crewmembers.
http://stexpanded.wikia.com/wiki/USS_Enterprise_Officer's_Manual

they have Sulu being born in Japan rather than California.

Sulu being born in San Francisco wasn't established canonically until ST IV in 1986.

By the way, I saw an online conversation once, where a fan was saying that George Takei had created the "Hikaru" name before Vonda McInytre, but I think they were actually thinking of "Hosato". Hosato was the Sulu/George-like main character of a SF novel he wrote with Robert Asprin, "Mirror Friend, Mirror Foe" in 1979. (A sequel was announced, "Stellar Flower, Savage Flower", but never published, AFAIK.) A Takei/Sulu fan club of the day adopted "Hosato" as their club name in the early 80s.

An article in "Best of Trek" explains the Walter and Penda names. It also suggests Winston for Kyle.

(Please pardon my edits.)

 

[JeffinOakland]

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