Friday, July 8, 2016

My Reactions to the Announcement About Sulu in Star Trek Beyond

My thoughts on hearing the announcement that Sulu will be revealed to be gay in Star Trek Beyond, in the order that they occurred:

1) I wish I had seen that in the movie first. That would have been a nice moment and heartwarming revelation. Oh well.

2) Well it's about damn time. Star Trek, pushing the boundaries of inclusion and boldly going where Babylon 5, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Doctor Who, Battlestar Galactica, Stargate, Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow, and Archie Comics have gone before. And maybe some others I can't remember, since having an LGBT character has become so commonplace I don't even think about it when it happens any more.

3) Why Sulu? Do they not realize that just because George Takei is gay that doesn't mean that Sulu was? Ohhh, they did it as a tribute for all George has done for the LGBT community! Okay, that's pretty cool.

4) Wait, Uncle George is unhappy about it? Why? ...Oh, because he'd rather it had been a new character. Yeah, that was my first choice too, I get where he's coming from. (Although I do disagree with him about it being a change to the way Gene created the character, because this is Kelvin Timeline Sulu, an alternate universe version. Roddenberry's version of Sulu remains unchanged.)

5) Oh wait, Simon Pegg pointed out that making a new character gay would have been tokeninsm, and this way it's just revealing something about a character that's already been accepted. That is an amazing point. Go, Simon!