George Takei isn't happy about Sulu being gay in Star Trek Beyond

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   Stevennix2001posted 8 years ago

   
   For those of you who have not seen "Star Trek Beyond" yet, it's been revealed that Hikaru Sulu is the franchise's first openly gay character.  Granted, in the original timeline, it was revealed that his character had always been heterosexual.  In fact, if any of you ever watched "Star Trek:  Generations:, it was revealed that Sulu did in fact have a biological daughter, and even George Takei admitted that  his character was always meant to be straight.
   
   Anyways, Simon Pegg  (the man who plays Scotty and one of the screen writers for "Star Trek Beyond) wanted to honor George Takei, and thought making his character openly gay would be a sweet way to honor him. 
   
   But, he was wrong.  Not only did George Takei say he was not fine with this change, but he said it completely undermines Gene Roddenbarry's original vision of the character.  Granted, it was revealed that George did talk about his character being turned into a gay one, back in the show's original TV days, but nothing ever transpired from it. 
   
   According to the Hollywood reporter, George would've preferred if they had created a new character instead, and made them become the first openly gay character in the Star Trek franchise. 
   
   To be honest, I'm literally surprised by this because George Takei has been a political activist for the LBGT community for years, and I would've thought he'd be happy about this change.  But then again, i can see his point of view, and he's right to some degree.  Gene never meant for the character to be gay, and we have to accept that.  And to make matters worse is the fact that they even knew George was not happy about this decision, but they did it anyway, while claiming to honor him in the process.
   
   As many of you writers on hubpages probably know, I'm just a dumbass from Texas, but isn't that kind of disrespectful to George Takei himself?    Don't get me wrong, I want to see more of the LBGT community represented in media, but if George Takei is even against you changing his original iconic character gay, yet you do it anyway while doing it under the guise that your honoring him, then isn't that like a huge slap in the face to George Takei?  I don't know, but it seems like it to me.  What are your thoughts on this?
   
   Also here's a link for those of you who want to know more about this situation:
   
   http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/g … ulu-909154

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      lions44posted 8 years agoin reply to this

      I think this has more to do with creating "buzz" for the movie than anything else.  I understand Takei's argument. He doesn't want to see LGBT actors pigeonholed into only gay characters. I like his stance.  At first, I thought that it was a great way to honor the man, but then I realized why he might be angry about it.  Business motives seem to be behind this move.  Marketing is very expensive and they just found another way of doing it.

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      mrpopoposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      I'm in agreement with Takei. Changing an established character's backstory for the sake of diversity feels like pandering and lazy writing. It would be better to create a new character entirely. However, if that character's creation hinges on his homosexuality, the character's depth would likely suffer. They ought to make a character that happens to be gay, not a gay character.

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   Live to Learnposted 8 years ago

   I kind of get it. Takei is Sulu. Just like Nimoy is Spock. The characters are the people who originally played them. There is no way around that. So if Takei is gay, Sulu is gay. Roddenberry wrote it but the original actors became it, to us.
   
   I get Takei's point also. He is modest and kind to feel that way.

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