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HUGE Mr Sulu Spoiler

Mr Takei on the money with his social observations as usual. One shouldn't rewrite history, one should create it.
Thank you Mr George Takei for your clarividence in the name of all fans. I, as many share your opinion.
 
That's George third attempt to say the same thing.

Which counts as two rewrites, so if a third rewrite is called for, someone is going to be pulling out their hair in frustration.
 
He's just far too polite to say loudly:"Get away with your token character"

Sincerely this is what i think he thinks. I wholly understand Mr Takei's point.
 
Mr Takei on the money with his social observations as usual. One shouldn't rewrite history, one should create it.
- Star Trek has rewritten aspects of its own history literally from the second pilot of TOS and in all subsequent series & films. Sometimes entire stories and subplots are dedicated to rewriting that history.
- It's a fictional history, so fans need to lighten up about it being rewritten.
- It's not being rewritten in this case, since this is a different Sulu from a different timeline and Prime Sulu still exists.
- Star Trek was rewriting real history while the show was airing, unless you think we had orbital nuclear platforms and genetically engineered supermen already alive in the 60s, or that the starship Voyager was seen flying above LA in 1996, the year that we launched Voyager VI after the Eugenics Wars ended.
- There's just as much "creation" involved in this decision as there would be to create a new briefly seen background character who was gay.
He's just far too polite to say loudly:"Get away with your token character"

Sincerely this is what i think he thinks. I wholly understand Mr Takei's point.
That's not what he implied at all. You clearly don't understand what a "token character" means if you think it involves making an already established and well-liked character, who is known for other things, also happen to be gay, as opposed to creating an entirely new background character solely for the purpose of them being gay in an ensemble film where they would have little time for extensive character development.
 
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I have thought the same thing Guy. It is questionable at best that a parent would be away from their young child for such a long time.
As a kid who's father was in the military,I can say it can be rough for both parent and child. I recall, once when my father returned from a long deployment, my brother had no idea who he was, because my brother was an infant when my dad had left.
 
What is done is done.
Mr Takei have perfectly told what he thinks. And i am 100% with him. If someone knows his character and Star Trek it is him ofc.
Anyway that does not matter anymore. Most people do not even know nothing about this.
I do not think this will have consequences on this movie audience rates .
 
As a kid who's father was in the military,I can say it can be rough for both parent and child. I recall, once when my father returned from a long deployment, my brother had no idea who he was, because my brother was an infant when my dad had left.
It did occur to me that there are military people who are away from their families for long periods of time. I'm not sure that anyone goes five years, and even people who are away would often have chances to visit.
I wonder if this issue will be addressed. Possibly visits will somehow be possible as I expect reasons will come up for the Enterprise to make return visits to Earth.
 
It did occur to me that there are military people who are away from their families for long periods of time. I'm not sure that anyone goes five years, and even people who are away would often have chances to visit.
I wonder if this issue will be addressed. Possibly visits will somehow be possible as I expect reasons will come up for the Enterprise to make return visits to Earth.
I recall some two year deployments. For a couple of the longer ones we went overseas with him. (Japan)
 
Two years is a long time but five years is a huge amount of time when you're talking about raising a young child.
 
It seems all your questions are already answered on your own argument.
I'm not even sure what that means. How does anything I wrote answer the question why they should have been required to listen to Takei? Or the question whether you have reacted so strongly to something so minor in entertainment before?

That's not what he implied at all. You clearly don't understand what a "token character" means if you think it involves making an already established and well-liked character, who is known for other things, also happen to be gay, as opposed to creating an entirely new background character solely for the purpose of them being gay in an ensemble film where they would have little time for extensive character development.
Just to be fair here, though, “bringing in a new character that happens to be gay” isn't the same as “bringing in a new character solely for the purpose of them being gay”. Jaylah could easily have been a tough, lonely, resourceful fighter that helps the Enterprise crew and also happens to be a gay man. Sure, audience and media attention would have been on the gay aspect, but that doesn't mean the movie would have to. Does it?
 
There are fewer pitfalls with respect to tokenism to avoid by revealing an already established character to be gay than by introducing a new gay character into an environment of a lot of established straight characters, and I think that's more or less Pegg's position as he stated it.
 
There are fewer pitfalls with respect to tokenism to avoid by revealing an already established character to be gay than by introducing a new gay character into an environment of a lot of established straight characters.
Yes, sure there are. But I'm not convinced it's impossible to establish a new character in a Star Trek movie that also happens to be gay without it being all about his gayness. It's not necessarily easy, but it is possible.

But all of this is pretty academic to me, because having an established character being gay is a million times stronger than having a new one, I don't disagree with that. I'm glad Simon Pegg, Doug Jung, Justin Lin and John Cho were just the right guys to FINALLY do it!
 
One problem with introducing an important new regular character is that there's barely any time for all the supporting characters we already have, and bringing in a new crew member to be part of the main cast would be taking time away from the established characters. And I have no doubt if a new character had been created there'd be just as much complaints about that.
 
Just to be fair here, though, “bringing in a new character that happens to be gay” isn't the same as “bringing in a new character solely for the purpose of them being gay”. Jaylah could easily have been a tough, lonely, resourceful fighter that helps the Enterprise crew and also happens to be a gay man. Sure, audience and media attention would have been on the gay aspect, but that doesn't mean the movie would have to. Does it?
Several people have seemingly suggested bringing in a new character almost solely for the purpose of being gay, and listed no other characteristics about them. And I wouldn't even have a problem with that, if it were just to demonstrate that gay people exist in Trek (which is ridiculous that this is something they've neglected this long), but all the people who whine about agendas and it being forced would have just as much problem with that too.

Of course it's possible to introduce a well-rounded character who just happens to be gay, but my point was given that existing main characters are going to draw a much larger portion of screentime than new secondary characters, and that it's already a large ensemble cast, and you have a limited fraction of a short ~two hour runtime to develop this previously unknown character and give them broad characteristics, that it's much easier for those conditions to result in the very tokenism the poster was complaining about. You avoid a lot of those issues by instead using a pre-established, well-rounded, and well-liked character like Sulu instead.
 
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There is barely time is an weak excuse.
This is a mess. A plain and simple tokenism
Goerge Takey knows it, i know it. We all know it.
 
Several people have seemingly suggested bringing in a new character almost solely for the purpose of being gay, and listed no other characteristics about them. And I wouldn't even have a problem with that, if it were just to demonstrate that gay people exist in Trek (which is ridiculous that this is something they've neglected this long), but all the people who whine about agendas and it being forced would have just as much problem with that too.

Of course it's possible to introduce a well-rounded character who just happens to be gay, but my point was given that existing main characters are going to draw a much larger portion of screentime than new secondary characters, and that it's already a large ensemble cast, and you have a limited fraction of a short ~two hour runtime to develop this previously unknown character and give them broad characteristics, that it's much easier for those conditions to result in the very tokenism the poster was complaining about. You avoid a lot of those issues by instead using a pre-established, well-rounded, and well-liked character like Sulu instead.
Yes, not disagreeing at all. :)
 
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