Spoilers ST: Beyond - Surprising fact about Sulu

[Jarvisimo]

Something striking:

Speaking to the Herald Sun, John Cho revealed fans would get to meet Sulu’s husband and daughter in Star Trek Beyond.

“I liked the approach, which was not to make a big thing out it, which is where I hope we are going as a species, to not politicise one’s personal orientations.”​

The description says we’ll get to see Sulu as a ‘loving father’ so I hope that means a scene of him at home with his family, just doing mundane things before it all hits the fan again. Cho also confirmed Sulu’s orientation was an homage to George Takei.

From Hitfix. Anyway, how long till this affects a novel? It will be interesting to see if this does happen. It also shows how far we have come, when something like The Captain's Daughter couldn't have dreamed to have a gay Sulu. I guess Prime-line Treklit Sulu could be very different from his Kelvin-verse self, but perhaps Captain's Daughter-related lit Sulu will just be bi now?

EDIT: If this is a spoiler, which I guess it is, even though it doesn't affect the film's story, can the thread title be changed.

 

[Christopher]

I've been wondering what this would mean to the books, given that a number of works (e.g. The Entropy Effect, Home is the Hunter, The Captain's Daughter, and others) have shown Sulu in heterosexual relationships. But then, TOS and TAS did show Sulu expressing interest in women ("Mudd's Women," "Mirror, Mirror," "The Magicks of Megas-tu," "The Lorelei Signal," ST:TMP), so there's a canonical basis for that.

It could be that Sulu's bisexual. Then again, according to Memory Beta, Sulu was born in 2237, four years after the timelines split. So perhaps the hormonal or other epigenetic conditions affecting his natal development were different and resulted in a different orientation (i.e. the same reason that the various Leda clones on Orphan Black have various different sexual orientations and identities — Alison is hetero, Cosima is lesbian, Sarah is at least situationally bisexual, Tony is transgender, etc.). So it’s possible that Prime Sulu and Kelvin Sulu could have different orientations. (Oh, it’s nice to have an official label for that timeline at last.) Still, there's certainly room to establish that Prime Sulu is bi, if someone wanted to do that.

 

[Leto_II]

Something striking:



From Hitfix. Anyway, how long till this affects a novel? It will be interesting to see if this does happen. It also shows how far we have come, when something like The Captain's Daughter couldn't have dreamed to have a gay Sulu. I guess Prime-line Treklit Sulu could be very different from his Kelvin-verse self, but perhaps Captain's Daughter-related lit Sulu will just be bi now?

EDIT: If this is a spoiler, which I guess it is, even though it doesn't affect the film's story, can the thread title be changed.

Yeah, the daughter-aspect was revealed back in January:

http://trekcore.com/blog/2016/01/jo...rek-beyond-secret-in-new-set-visit-interview/

 

[Csalem]

Yes but the husband element wasn't revealed before and it is a bit of spoiler putting it in the title, especially since this is not the Trek Film forum where spoilers might be expected.
Personally I think any mention of the new film outside of that forum should have spoiler warnings for those of us who want to go into the film as fresh as possible.

 

[Greg Cox]

Bottom line: all we really know from Generations is that Demora exists. If this new information contradicts some older novels . . . .well, that would be hardly the first time that a new movie or episode rendered a novel or two apocryphal. It happens.

 

[TheSeeker]

@Jarvisimo I'm not the mod of this forum, but might I suggest you edit the thread title so that it doesn't contain a spoiler?

 

[Jedi_Master]

@Jarvisimo I'm not the mod of this forum, but might I suggest you edit the thread title so that it doesn't contain a spoiler?

At this point - all the media outlets have picked up the story and very soon it will be - in my opinion - "general knowledge."

 

[TheSeeker]

This is true, but it's usually considered good form to not include spoilers in a thread title.

 

[Jarvisimo]

I don't know how, hence my edit/suggestion for the title to be changed! I also was very excited/curious to see what you all thought, didn't think, then realised after posting it might offend people.

But yes, I've seen this on a number of media front pages... and I imagine anyone on FB who follows Takei will see this.

Anyway, if mods want to change this, please do; otherwise - this is exciting! I wonder if the daughter is Demora too, or another person. Also Demora's own lit bisexuality perfectly complements her father now

 

[Jarvisimo]

Also John Cho is 44 ... I feel old, at 29

 

[Christopher]

This is already all over the Internet. Half my Facebook feed at the moment is about it. This is not something that the filmmakers want kept secret, it's something they're willingly publicizing, something John Cho himself announced during a promotion tour for the film. It's not even an important plot point within the story, just a bit of character detail. Therefore, it is not a spoiler and it makes no sense to treat it like one.

My first hint of this was a thread here on the BBS saying "HUGE Sulu Spoiler!" I thought "Hmm, I wonder if I'll be able to avoid learning whatever this spoiler is." Then I went to io9 and the first headline was "Sulu Is Gay in Star Trek Beyond and It's Not a Big Deal." So much for avoidance. Nobody in the media is trying to hide this, and the filmmakers do not want it hidden.

 

[Idran]

Would this even necessarily contradict the novels? Even if Sulu's not identifying as bi but rather identifying specifically and explicitly as gay in Beyond, you can identify as gay while still having fulfilling heterosexual romantic or sexual relationships. (Just as you can identify as straight while still having fulfilling homosexual romantic or sexual relationships.) Sexual identity is more complicated than just dropping someone in a bucket.

 

[Leto_II]

Now cast Sung Kang as his husband, and then the pages upon pages of Better Luck Tomorrow slashfic I've written will be made canon.

 

[Christopher]

Would this even necessarily contradict the novels? Even if Sulu's not identifying as bi but rather identifying as gay, you can identify as gay while still having fulfilling heterosexual romantic or sexual relationships. (Just as you can identify as straight while still having fulfilling homosexual romantic or sexual relationships.) Sexual identity is more complicated than just dropping someone in a bucket.

Sure, it could be that. Or, as I said, if Sulu was born after the timeline split, then it's entirely possible that Prime and Kelvin Sulu could have different sexual orientations, because science says that's shaped more by epigenetic factors during prenatal development than by genetics alone. Heck, it's a much less extreme difference than Chekov being four years older.

Now, the tricky part is if the daughter is named Demora, as seems likely. The Captain's Daughter established that Demora was the name of the place where Sulu and Susan Ling met and had their brief fling, and that it was Susan's decision to give that name to her daughter. That would be very hard to reconcile with Kelvin Sulu giving the same name to a daughter who was born something like a decade earlier under completely different circumstances. (Which is a matter of concern to me because The Captain's Daughter is referenced in a number of novelverse works, including one or two of my own books. So it's part of the current book continuity.)

 

[borgboy]

I'll be surprised if they don't call the daughter Damora.
I'm thrilled to finally get a gay character on screen, but the continuity freak in me worries over little details like this too.
I agree that Chekov's age is a bigger issue that Sulu's orientation, but most people won't accept that. I have no issue with the two Sulus having different orientations, and Prime Sulu can pretty easily be portrayed going forward as bi. It'll work out somehow.

 

[Christopher]

I have no issue with the two Sulus having different orientations, and Prime Sulu can pretty easily be portrayed going forward as bi. It'll work out somehow.

Yeah... I should clarify that I was approaching it more from a continuity-nerd angle than a "This is how it should be" angle. Making Prime Sulu bisexual or pansexual is probably the best route, just because it's so, so overdue to add some sexual diversity to the canonical Trek casts. (Although I did establish Dr. Phlox as bisexual in my latest Enterprise novel, and implied in the previous one that Travis Mayweather had at least experimented with bisexuality in his youth. And some of the DS9 books have portrayed Garak as bi, taking a cue from Andrew Robinson, who always played him as gay.)

 

[Idran]

Now, the tricky part is if the daughter is named Demora, as seems likely. The Captain's Daughter established that Demora was the name of the place where Sulu and Susan Ling met and had their brief fling, and that it was Susan's decision to give that name to her daughter. That would be very hard to reconcile with Kelvin Sulu giving the same name to a daughter who was born something like a decade earlier under completely different circumstances.

I'm not sure if it's any harder to reconcile than, say, Chekov being born some years earlier in the Kelvin timeline. You could always just chalk it up to the same sort of phenomenon that always has alternate timelines have odd similarities to the prime timeline even after years of passage; like Mirror Sisko still marrying Mirror Jennifer, or the entire human DS9 cast still having been born in the Mirror Universe despite the upheaval around the Terrans.

 

[Christopher]

^Yeah, but that's an inelegant thing to have to fall back on. Sometimes I wish the Kelvin Timeline had been a pure reboot, so that we didn't have to concoct handwaves to reconcile the discrepancies.

 

[F. King Daniel]

It will be interesting to see if/how this affects the depiction of Sulu in Primeverse Treklit.

 

[JD]

I think it's cool they did this.
I'm curious to see how the novelverse books are going to handle this, especially since it sounds like The Captain's Daughter treated his as straight. Some good possibilities have already already been posted earlier in the thread.