Hikaru Solow?

[kirkshairpeice]

in the book inside star trek by herb solow and bob justman they mention that the name sulu' was a mispronunciation of herb solows name by roddenberry to honor' him( without the w the name eventually became sulu as we all know. if you watch the enemy within when bad kirk enters the bridge near the end,farrell says; no word from mr solo sir! this is something i noticed whenever i seen this episode and long before the book came out, early script error perhaps?

 

[Christopher]

Hmm, I wonder if Han Solo was named in honor of Herb Solow...? (Probably not.)

 

[M'Sharak]

Or Napoleon Solo?

 

[Nerys Myk]

So the Sulu Sea story is false?

 

[Christopher]

So the Sulu Sea story is false?

Maybe it was a secondary reason for the choice of the character's name.

 

[ToddPence]

Or maybe Goldfinger's business associate Martin Solo?

 

[Tan Ru]

OR.............. was there a Mister Solo onboard somewhere at that time? That's what I always assumed...

 

[Valin]

OR.............. was there a Mister Solo onboard somewhere at that time? That's what I always assumed...

Yes, but he was a loner.

 

[roguephoenix]

so sulu is not full japanese. he must have some other ancestry besides japanese to get the last name of sulu because that's not even remotely japanese. maybe he's not even japanese. cambodian? tibetan? just happens to have a japanese first name. might not be uncommon in the future for non-japanese to have japanese first names like non english to have english first names now.

was it ever said what his nationality or ancestry was?

 

[Timo]

American. That is, he was born in San Francisco, as per ST4:The Voyage Home.

Several novels suggest that he then moved on to a colony world named Ganjitsu, which one might define as his "actual" nationality, since those novels were not yet aware that ST4 would nail him as American and instead suggested that the bulk of his youth was spent on Ganjitsu. That's all noncanon, though: on screen, Sulu remains American (or whatever the proper 23rd century name for somebody born on the west coast of the supposedly former United States), and nothing is established of the nationality of his parents or more distant ancestors.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Skywalker]

so sulu is not full japanese. he must have some other ancestry besides japanese to get the last name of sulu because that's not even remotely japanese. maybe he's not even japanese. cambodian? tibetan? just happens to have a japanese first name. might not be uncommon in the future for non-japanese to have japanese first names like non english to have english first names now.

was it ever said what his nationality or ancestry was?

His ancestry is mixed Asian. The Japanese given name and a surname based on a Philippine sea is intended to illustrate that.

 

[Timo]

Or then he's pure Japanese, and the surname has been altered to a foreign spelling because his Japanese ancestors found it cool.

Or he might be from Mongolia, and the Japanese first name is the thing that was chosen simply because it sounds cool, even if there isn't a drop of Japanese blood in the mix.

FWIW, the Ganjitsu backstory (originally from McIntyre's Enterprise: The First Adventure, I think) suggests that Hikaru's parents and some other relatives observed traditions or had hobbies stemming from Japan, such as certain forms of poetry. It's not quite established that the colony would be a "cultural theme park", though, despite the suggestive name.

As far as canon stands, Sulu could really be an alien who just looks like an Asiatic human, and has chosen a human name, although perhaps showing his inexpertise by his not-quite-realistic choice.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[ClayinCA]

the Ganjitsu backstory (originally from McIntyre's Enterprise: The First Adventure, I think)

It's mentioned in Enterprise, yes, but I think Sulu talks to Mandala Flynn about this in McIntyre's first Trek novel The Entropy Effect, as well.

 

[Christopher]

Skywalker is correct. The producers deliberately gave Sulu a nonspecific Asian heritage so that he'd be representative of all Asia, not just one country. The Making of Star Trek says, "Although of mixed Oriental and Filipino background, Sulu's cultural heritage is mainly Japanese" (p. 247).

However, it wasn't the creators of the character who gave him a Japanese given name; they assigned him no given name at all. It was novelist Vonda McIntyre who coined "Hikaru" in The Entropy Effect in 1981, and it wasn't made official until TUC a decade later.

 

[roguephoenix]

so sulu is not full japanese. he must have some other ancestry besides japanese to get the last name of sulu because that's not even remotely japanese. maybe he's not even japanese. cambodian? tibetan? just happens to have a japanese first name. might not be uncommon in the future for non-japanese to have japanese first names like non english to have english first names now.

was it ever said what his nationality or ancestry was?

His ancestry is mixed Asian. The Japanese given name and a surname based on a Philippine sea is intended to illustrate that.

ok. that clarifies it. it was just bothering me that his last name wasn't japanese so i had to wonder where it came from. everyone kept saying he was japanese but clearly was not purely japanese. makes more sense now. wonder if that's something they'll touch upon in the movie as more people these days are more aware of what words are japanese sounding and what are not. and since japanese clearly don't have an L, then people would wonder. by people i mean people who are not familiar with the old characters.

 

[Christopher]

^^Well, the actor playing Sulu now, John Cho, is Korean. So people who aren't bothered by that probably aren't bothered by the non-Japanese surname either.

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

^^Well, the actor playing Sulu now, John Cho, is Korean. So people who aren't bothered by that probably aren't bothered by the non-Japanese surname either.

Should I be bothered? I have nothing against Korean Actors (or Koreans in general for that matter.)

 

[Christopher]

^^Err, no, I was saying there's no reason to be bothered. It's a mistake in the first place to assume that Sulu is supposed to be Japanese, so there's no more reason to object to the ethnicity of the actor than to the non-Japanese surname of the character.

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

^
^^ Right.

And since Takei was a Japanese actor playing a non-Japanese role, then there should be no problem with Korean actor John Cho playing a non-Japanese role. It seems like we agree.

If the original actor's nationality made a difference, then another Canadian should have been tapped to play Scotty. I know that is a trite statement, but that doesn't make it any less true.

 

[Skywalker]

Yes, if that did make a difference, another Canadian should have been tapped to play Kirk, too.