• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

HUGE Mr Sulu Spoiler

Six or seven more edits and this might be worth a responce... keep working on it, you'll get there! :techman:

I don't have my copy of the "Orientation Manual" available, so I had to research some online links to back up my initial remembrances. I remembered some more info this morning. Itaka Sulu and Upenda Uhura, at least, will thank me in my striving for accuracy, I hope.
 
First off, it's not necessary to qualify circumstantial evidence as "extremely." It's simply not direct evidence, hence it's circumstantial.

Secondly, it's not direct evidence; it's circumstantial evidence. There's no stretching there: it's a very specific kind of evidence.

Third, what does whether it's bizarre or out of character have to do with whether it occurred on screen?

The point had to do with the totality of on-screen evidence and how minimal it is. It's very minimal and the best evidence is only circumstantial at that, not even direct at all, and from TAS to boot.

How is that unclear that point I was agreeing with is that the on-screen evidence is very minimal?

I probably shouldn't have even directed the response to you. It was more of a general response to the several people in the thread who seem to keep falling back on that as 'proof', but you provided the most extensive description of it, so I replied to your post. Sorry about that.

As for your other questions: there absolutely can be degrees of circumstantiality, the bizarreness/out of character-ness of the scenes calls into question the extent to which it can even be interpreted as evidence of anything at all (Data being suspiciously emotional in TNG season 1 is not evidence that Data never needed an emotion chip to feel), and while calling it circumstantial evidence is not stretching, trying to use it as strong evidence (as has been done in this thread) is.

I see what you're saying, but to be frank, I get incredible personal comfort from reconciling them. ;)

And yes, it's apparently two seconds of the movie, matters not to anything, and it's even ambiguous at that. So, blame Pegg for "clarifying" it.

The problem is the importance and scope of the story is getting blown out of proportion. To that end, I regret the "two Sulus solution" in the real world because it lends credence (on the surface at least -- Quantum mumbo jumbo aside) to the idea that being gay is a choice, which is often the rationale for not granting gay people the same rights as non-gay people, and tends to go against the beliefs of most science. If this is the Sulu born before the Kelvin incident, then he's physiologically the same Sulu as Sulu in the Prime Universe. Of course, Pegg says that doesn't have to be now, at least I guess that's what he's saying. One Sulu must've carried the gene (or whatever) and the other didn't, I guess that's how he's rationalized it. He's essentially changed the Trek laws of physics once again. This time to placate Takei.

Anyway, this all went far deeper than Pegg probably ever intended. It's even got more legs and causing more buzz than blue warp nacelles did.

As a courtesy, he should've probably called Takei to see if he was OK with it before going ahead and "honoring" his character that way. Once again, we see what happens when we assume.

At the base of things I actually agree with your preferences - prime Sulu is now officially gay in my head canon (though he could easily still be either one based on actual canon) - but I don't think splitting them up really says anything about homosexuality being a choice. It is, at the end of the day, just a reboot, and saying one Sulu is straight and the other is gay is really no different from saying one Enterprise is twice as big and shiny as the other. Not to mention, if that's the sort of detail that you're concerned about, you would still have to reconcile Mirror Sulu (who is at least genetically similar enough to look exactly the same and be the same age).
 
I don't think splitting them up really says anything about homosexuality being a choice. It is, at the end of the day, just a reboot, and saying one Sulu is straight and the other is gay is really no different from saying one Enterprise is twice as big and shiny as the other. Not to mention, if that's the sort of detail that you're concerned about, you would still have to reconcile Mirror Sulu (who is at least genetically similar enough to look exactly the same and be the same age).

All Sulus are bisexual. If they want to be monogamous after marriage, they still need to select one partner, if that's making a choice. ;)
 
Six or seven more edits and this might be worth a responce... keep working on it, you'll get there! :techman:
Six or seven more edits and this will probably still sound like a needlessly smug response to a perfectly reasonable rebuttal of your post. But since we don't have time for all that, I'll just ask that you please refrain from making pointless and rude remarks like this again, and instead point out the alleged flaws in his argument or facts with evidence of your own.
 
http://www.fuse.tv/2016/07/george-t...witter&campaign=scl|twt|fsc&utm_medium=social

"When the news first broke, I gave a lengthy telephone interview, but the headlines have been misleading. Apparently, controversy makes for better sales! Let me be clear: I am not disappointed that there is a gay character in Star Trek. On the contrary, as I made clear, I am delighted that the Star Trek franchise has addressed this issue, which is truly one of diversity. It is thrilling to know that future generations will not see LGBTs go wholly unrepresented in the Trek universe."
 
It would've made more sense to leave Chekov out and instead used Janice Rand (and Chapel). God knows the series could've used another regular female character.
 
I'm confused why Chekkov isn't in every episode of the original series, and resent whoever is sitting at navigation for daring not to be Chekov, for the 42 episodes that he's not there.

Rand is out of sight, out of mind. It's nice when she's there, but when she's not, no big.

(I just face palmed.)

In Search for Spock, Grace is billed as "Woman in Cafe".... Shit.

OMG!

20th Century Woman in Cafe.

:)

Rand is a time traveller.

Rand is a time Agent.

Rand was monitoring Kirk for the 31st century.

... but was she pulled from her mission on Enterprise for becoming too close to Kirk, or not being close enough to Kirk?
 
I'm confused why Chekkov isn't in every episode of the original series, and resent whoever is sitting at navigation for daring not to be Chekov, for the 42 episodes that he's not there.

Rand is out of sight, out of mind. It's nice when she's there, but when she's not, no big.

(I just face palmed.)

In Search for Spock, Grace is billed as "Woman in Cafe".... Shit.

OMG!

20th Century Woman in Cafe.

:)

Rand is a time traveller.

Rand is a time Agent.

Rand was monitoring Kirk for the 31st century.

... but was she pulled from her mission on Enterprise for becoming too close to Kirk, or not being close enough to Kirk?

Ms. Whitney had a 20th Century addiction that interfered with Ms. Rand's 23rd Century duties.
 
I'm confused why Chekkov isn't in every episode of the original series, and resent whoever is sitting at navigation for daring not to be Chekov, for the 42 episodes that he's not there.

Rand is out of sight, out of mind. It's nice when she's there, but when she's not, no big.

(I just face palmed.)

In Search for Spock, Grace is billed as "Woman in Cafe".... Shit.

OMG!

20th Century Woman in Cafe.

:)

Rand is a time traveller.

Rand is a time Agent.

Rand was monitoring Kirk for the 31st century.

... but was she pulled from her mission on Enterprise for becoming too close to Kirk, or not being close enough to Kirk?
I'd read that book.
 
I'm confused why Chekkov isn't in every episode of the original series, and resent whoever is sitting at navigation for daring not to be Chekov, for the 42 episodes that he's not there.
Chekov worked the night shift. Source, Enterprise: The First Adventure.
Now please excuse me while I go back to reading Harry Potter (which had a gay character before Star Trek did, although I guess we beat Star Wars on this one)
 
Okay, I for one am sick of the "____ had inhabited this character for 50 years" rubbish. Wonder how much time George actually put in playing Sulu? Let's do some fun with math!

Sulu appeared in 52 episodes of Star Trek. He probably worked an average of 2 days per segment (sometimes more, sometimes less), so that's 104 days.

Sulu appeared in 22 episodes of TAS (supposedly), but as he generally only had a handful of lines in each episode, none of them would have taken a day to record, but being generous, we'll give him George 22 days of Sulu in the studio.

TMP had a famously protracted principle photography schedule, but even with 16 weeks of shooting George was at best in half of it, so let's give him 8 weeks (40 days).

For the remaining 5 movies I'm guessing he maybe got 20 days each (4 weeks). but I'll be generous and give him 30 (six weeks), and 30x5 =150.

6 days for Voyager's "Flashback".

Let's guess 10 days for the fanfilm "World Enough and Time".

And the total is: 332 days or 1.27 years in terms of 5 day work weeks.

Sure he had prep days, table reads, costume fittings, etc. But at the outside he spent two years in cumulative time and a half acting as/working on Sulu.

Well put.

Let me put it another way:

Takei didn't really create a character like Nimoy did with Spock. There was no real character to begin with.

To be honest, Sulu in the new movies has had more badass moments than Prime Sulu did in all of TOS and the original six films. And Cho is a much more dynamic actor than Takei. I'd watch a Captain Sulu show with Cho as the lead over Takei, who really isn't lead material. Nice guy, great advocate for the fans, but Takei just doesn't have "it".
 
I like the point about first names. How do you play a character, when you don't even know their first name (assuming they have one, which by now we know they do, retroactively)? How are they really a character? :lol:

<==== not an actor
 
I like the point about first names. How do you play a character, when you don't even know their first name (assuming they have one, which by now we know they do, retroactively)? How are they really a character? :lol:

<==== not an actor

Ha! You just reminded me of another name reference from the "USS Officer's Manual" prozine!

In issue 2 of Spockanalia, the first Star Trek fanzine, Dorothy Fontana revealed that she had arbitrarily assigned Spock the family name "Xtmprsqzntwlfd". She did this by hitting random keys on her typewriter, IIRC.

This name then turned up in Spock's bio in the "USS Enterprise Officers' Manual".

Speculation: Coupled with a legendary convention comment once made by Jane Wyatt (Amanda), this is actually Spock's first name and is pronounced "Harold".
 
Chekov worked the night shift. Source, Enterprise: The First Adventure.
Now please excuse me while I go back to reading Harry Potter (which had a gay character before Star Trek did, although I guess we beat Star Wars on this one)

I just saw Kardue'sai'Malloc and Greedo making out 39 years ago on the Richard Pryor Show.

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

That has to be canon right?
 
This is a big let down for me.. Sulu its part of my imagination for 40 years or so..i never imagined him as gay...what they are doing is ruining a character for making a point..unfortunately this is forced..this is imposed..even Mr george takei that i respect so much..one of my idols is, as far as i know against this.. I have nothing against gays, nothing.. But this is forced. If they want to put a gay character i completely agree... do it...but create a new character.
For me....its with sadness that this is a reason for me not to go to the cinema for the first time to see the upcoming movie.
Its over.
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top