My favourite fact about Star Trek TOS is that, because automatic doors weren’t invented yet, the ‘automatic doors’ in TOS were really just some guy yanking a rope and pulley system to make them slide open. Problem was the person was far enough away that they couldn’t see when exactly the doors needed to be open, and relied on a signal from somebody just off set. The actors, however, had to act as if they were 100% confident the doors were going to open at the exact time and moment despite the fact that they occasionally did not which lead to multiple occasions in which the actors walked directly into the doors while they were opening.
“the millenium falcon would wipe out the enterprise in seconds” lmao the enterprise is just an innocent science class floating thru space…. all they wanna do is look at some rocks… kiss an alien…. find some space plants….. why would you fight that its not a battleship theyre just nerds…… leave them olone
A friend of mine saw this and brought up some interesting arguments
so, in other words,
Pretty much.
Revenge of the Nerds.
I think everybody’s not considering the people running these ships.
Why would Captain Kirk fire on a random freighter as though he were running a Star Destroyer? Why would Captain Solo take on a massive non-Imperial ship as though he were a pirate?
No, they’d probably encounter one another, talk on the comms, and dock to get to know each other and possibly trade supplies.
Han would probably disappear into the engine room with Scotty to compare warp to hyper and argue over who has the best ship.
Chewbacca would take advantage of the universal translator and talk to everybody.
So would Artoo.
Spock would find himself having a conversation with Threepio.
Kirk would probably charm Leia into bed, and Luke would fall head over heels for Uhura.
Then they’d go their own way, all peaceful and friendly.
Kirk would not charm Leia into bed. Kirk would ask her on a date, she’d say no, he’d accept that, and she’d be so startled that she’d join Starfleet.
She was a general, after all. Why not go for admiral, too?
(I mean, whether or not she did or did not eventually decide to take Kirk up on his offer is up for debate. But Kirk would absolutely not charm his way into her pants. He’d ask politely.)
Kirk and Leia would get along so well. I mean, he’s the youngest Captain in the Fleet, she (I believe) the youngest General in the Rebellion? You can bet they would sit down and start talking tactics and shit, and compare notes and Kirk would be FASCINATED by the Death Star plans but also totally horrified and you can bet he’d offer all the help he is authorized to give and more because James Tiberius Kirk does not play nice with evil space dictators like the Emperor, fancy voodoo space powers or not. No dating or charming needed.
Spock would be asking Luke all sorts of questions about the Force, trying to figure out how it works and stuff, because it it Illogical, you can’t just lift things with your mind, says the Vulcan, there has to be an explanation. Luke just kind of shrugs helplessly because he really doesn’t know?? He didn’t get much training before Ben died, and would honestly love to know anything Spock can figure out, he’s really just been flying by the seat of his pants here.
Uhura would immediately make friends with C3PO because LANGUAGES! Chewbaca too. She would want to learn Everything. C3PO is very happy to actually have someone listening to him when he talks.
Bone and Artoo, surprisingly, hit it off like nobody’s business, and spend they entire time complaining/insulting their respective crews (in the most loving way possible). Artoo also manages to get someone to give Bones a bacta sample, which he is fascinated by, and determined to replicate.
Scotty and Han do indeed disappear to talk ships, engines, and alcohol. Scotty lends a hand patching up the Falcon, because despite being a classy lady, she is in need of a bit of a tune up, and Scotty is more than happy to help.
At some point Sulu and Luke have a sparring match. It takes Luke a bit to get used to the weight of an actual metal blade, but he manages, though Sulu still kicks his ass, and then proceeds to teach Luke some fencing stances and moves.
But, no, wait, Obi-Wan Kenobi simply HAS to meet Jean-Luc Picard! Can you imagine? Obi-Wan and Captain Picard sitting down over a lovely tea set discussing the finer points of each other’s culture and history? Obi-Wan explain to a finally, FINALLY, appreciative audience about the intricacies of the Jedi Order and the Code? Captain Picard would be fascinated by the Force and the philosophy and all of that carefully chronicled history just waiting to be explored and examined and ARCHAEOLOGY! Those two would dork out FOR DAYS I TELL YOU! DAYS!
Picard tells Obi-Wan all about Star Fleet and their mission and the prime directive and how you can have all the awesome peace-keeping, negotiating, war-is-bad-and-yay-science! of being a Jedi with none of that Attachments-bad-mkay nonsense! Obi-Wan would so be down for that. He would join up and they would just hand over a ship to him like “Go forth and bring peace in our Time!” and they would be unstoppable tea-drinking badasses who meet up for shakespeare and lightsaber lessons in the holodeck and PICARD WOULD BE AMAZING AT LIGHTSABERS! I DO NOT CARE ABOUT THE FORCE. THAT MAN WOULD BE AMAZING.
Also, could you imagine Anakin meeting Data and wondering how he works? Data would show Anakin the schematics of his positronic brain and our little droid mechanic would just lose his mind, like actually lose his mind. “You’re a droid but a person but a droid but how?” and then it turns into a “I MUST FIGURE OUT HOW TO MAKE ONE AND GIVE IT TO PADME BECAUSE HOW IS THIS NOT THE COOLEST THING EVER?? MASTER THIS GUY IS A DROID BUT ALSO HUMAN AND HE SINGS!” Anakin makes friends with Geordie and learns the science of teleportation and katie bar the doors because teleporting?! Can you imagine how amazing that would be fighting the Separatists?
Meanwhile Worf has adopted Ahsoka as his tiny, feral space daughter and routinely challenges her to sparring in the holodeck because she is tiny and fierce and she would make any Klingon parent proud! And Ahsoka is just so happy to see her space dads happy and this place is nice and no one is shooting her and they’re treating her with the respect she deserves because Worf knows a warrior when he sees one and Ahsoka is nothing if not a tiny, ferocious warrior. Ahsoka would also love Spot because who doesn’t love Spot?
Rex and Riker are happily kicking back with Cody in Ten Forward shooting the breeze and jointly kvetching about their bosses and how they would die for them really but like could they just chill out for a second. Like must everything be so dramatic and epic? Have none of them ever heard of xanax?
And Counselor Troy and Padme can spend their time exchanging tips on how to have awesome hair, even better clothes and all the reasons why the men should just let the women run things because UGH, Anakin! and Q! NO! Clearly women should be in charge and democracy is awesome!
Like… it would be amazing. And who doesn’t want to see Ewan McGregor and Patrick Stewart share the screen?
fights in the s’chn t’gai household must be wild. like “father, i find your behavior illogical” “my son spock, it is your behavior that is illogical” two weeks pass without them speaking to each other at all after those intense accusations were flung
It’s really upsetting to me that George Takei is openly against Sulu being gay in Star Trek Beyond.
Like I respect he’s allowed to have opinions on a character he once played but I 10000% agree with Pegg that introducing a new character and making them gay ran the very likely risk of them becoming The Token Gay. It takes a lot of time to establish a new character and if you introduce a character and the first thing you know about them is that they’re The Gay One then that’s all the average audience is gonna absorb about them. They’re the Gay Character. That’s it.
But when you reveal that a long standing, established character, with a long history, also happens to be gay, like that’s a big fucking deal.
And not only that but this great, well loved character is a POC, and not only is he gay but he’s married, with a child.
That makes a statement. That sends an important message to the audience. Queer people are everywhere. They’re your barista and your taxi driver and your doctor and your lawyer and your neighbor and your friend.
And now they’re the senior helmsman of the USS Enterprise.
I mean, I think a lot of it comes from George Takei being from a different generation. No, really, it applies to gay men too. I run into a lot of older gay male Sherlockians, for instance, who don’t get shipping. They’re perfectly happy with that “close friendship” thing. It’s a very important relationship to them, but they don’t always really get why it would be important for the relationship to be explicitly romantic. The desire for media representation is very generational.
Also, I think Takei is also looking at it like this: if Sulu is gay, and was never shown as being so in TOS, than Takei was playing a closeted character, which he’s not happy about.
That’s how I’m thinking it through, anyways.
That’s pretty much what he’s said, I think. And I get that. He’s not some sort of backwards, regressive guy just because he doesn’t like this particular character interpretation. For him, I’m sure there’s a personal element of pain, since when he was playing Sulu he WAS a closeted gay man, and to think about Sulu also being closeted at that time (and yes, I know about the whole ‘multiverse’ thing that Pegg is talking about), has got to be uncomfortable.
I don’t think there’s really a right or wrong here. Pegg is doing a thing he feels is right, Takei disagrees with how he’s going about it. We can disagree with either side too–doesn’t make anybody the devil.
Honestly, I’m very uncomfortable with how people are responding to Takei. Fifty years late, AU Star Trek is like, “we’ll have a gay character now that it’s fairly safe to do … oh, how about the one with a gay actor?” And the actor in question strongly opposed using his specific character for this—not because he doesn’t want representation to exist in ST, but because he didn’t want it to be Sulu. And he was ignored. Yet somehow ignoring his express wishes is supposed to be a gesture of respect for him, and he’s being blamed for not being grateful or socially aware or whatever enough.
*mutters about how Jim Kirk was already semicanonically bisexual why not him under her breath*
This is really one of those things where I can see both sides, but also feel like this wasn’t handled very well by anyone.
I’m sure the creators and decision-makers were motivated by their personal respect for Takei and his activism and that’s why they wanted the character to be Sulu. Let’s not pretend that the story would be equally interesting if they’d done it to Chekov or Nurse Chapel instead – Sulu was the obvious choice, not for any in-universe reason but because of Takei’s real life. He’s a public figure who brings visibility, publicity, and good will, and the fact that we all associate him with gayness AND Sulu also probably makes it a smaller cognitive leap in the minds of many established fans. It’s blurring the line between the actor and the character.
And if Takei hadn’t been against it there wouldn’t be any problem whatsoever with that, I want to underline.
But he IS against it, and while I almost completely agree with the OP here – I also can’t blame someone who is so associated with the fictional character they portrayed for taking it personally, when the rationale for choosing this character is so tied up in his personal life.
This decision is literally profitingfrom his personal life, his personal history of pain from being closeted, and all the immense amount of work he’s put into his career and visibility and activism. They’re getting publicity and progressive brownie points for this for the individual creators and they’re also getting potential money for the evil megacorporation behind the whole production.
So I don’t think he should be upset for the sake of the original Sulu, and I don’t agree that making reboot Sulu be in a committed gay relationship makes Takei’s Sulu’s canon sexual and romantic interest in women false or puts him in a closet, nor do I think that it is disrespectful to Roddenberry’s “vision”, I also don’t think Takei is being inappropriate by expressing his feelings. I kind of wish he had handled it differently, but I definitely don’t think he should have sucked it up or refrained from speaking to the press, after the sequence of events he describes.
Nothing is as relevant to this situation as his feelings because this wouldn’t be happening if he hadn’t come out: if they’d chosen Sulu without the context of Takei’s public life and without knowing about his sexuality, the story would be completely different. We’d be talking about the history of gayness in Star Trek and Roddenberry’s progressivism exclusively right now instead of Takei’s thoughts and his personal life.
(preserving @iamgwenslongroadhome‘s tags because those are honestly my thoughts about the situation, too)
Reblogging simply to capture this intelligent, insightful conversation which acknowledged and accepted two differing opinions regarding Sulu in the new Star Trek reboot.
