Star Trek Beyond - Farewell to a Franchise

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Is this because George Takei, the origina Sulu, actually IS gay (having revealed this several years ago)?
 
Tarpeian_Rock said:
Is this because George Takei, the origina Sulu, actually IS gay (having revealed this several years ago)?
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From what I read it is to honor Takei. IT said that it isn’t really part of the storyline it is that we meet his child and the other parent is a man.
 
I’ve been liking the reboot movies so far but I wish they hadn’t done this.
It’s a sad commentary of our times. most TV shows these days have a gay character.
 
marytk said:
From what I read it is to honor Takei. IT said that it isn’t really part of the storyline it is that we meet his child and the other parent is a man.
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That to me is the worst part. I understand the drive in Hollywood to normalize homosexual relationships, but placing a child in the mix, something I view akin to child abuse, is not something I can support, even for the price of a movie ticket, any more than I would any other attempt to make other child abuse acceptable in society.
 
meltzerboy said:
I thought the true Trekkies have no interest in anything beyond the original series.
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Bah, TOS is overrated and only held in high esteem because it was the original. DS9 is the true standard bearer.
 
pnewton said:
That to me is the worst part. I understand the drive in Hollywood to normalize homosexual relationships, but placing a child in the mix, something I view akin to child abuse, is not something I can support, even for the price of a movie ticket, any more than I would any other attempt to make other child abuse acceptable in society.
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Child abuse? Wait they’re going to be abusing children? Didn’t see that in any of the articles I’ve read.
 
Vanny said:
I’ve been liking the reboot movies so far but I wish they hadn’t done this.
It’s a sad commentary of our times. most TV shows these days have a gay character.
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If you look at Hollywood, 10-20% of people are gay, 50%+ commit adultry, and 100% fornicate.
 
phil19034 said:
If you look at Hollywood, 10-20% of people are gay, 50%+ commit adultry, and 100% fornicate.
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Well if you look at the US between 3-5% of the population is openly gay (who knows how many more are in the closet), 22% of supposedly monogamous Americans have committed adultery (and between 40-60% will during their lifetime), and 80% of US Christians have had sex outside of marriage (even higher for the general population). So while Hollywood isn’t exactly a cross section of Americana, they aren’t terribly far off in accurately representing true American values.
 
The franchise has run its course anyhow and, after two generations, who can really complain?

Sometimes infinity + beyond does turn out to have an end.

ICXC NIKA.
 
GEddie said:
The franchise has run its course anyhow and, after two generations, who can really complain?

Sometimes infinity + beyond does turn out to have an end.

ICXC NIKA.
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Considering the franchise is about to enter a new era with the new TV show starting in 2017, potentially back in the Prime universe rather than JJ land, the old girl seems to have plenty of life left in her.
 
This is just another example of the liberal agenda being pushed into our entertainment. However, I’d still see it. The Walking Dead has some gay characters, I don’t agree with it but I still watch the show.
 
I’m not really enamored of the JJ Abrams take on ST, much of it seems to be a case of “let’s change something just a little, not enough to make a big difference, but just enough to put my Own Stamp On It”.

Star Trek has included interesting twists on traditional heterosexuality before, not just the “Trills who were man and woman in a prior life meeting up as two women” episode of DS9, but I recall on TNG, Riker once has an affair with an alien from a culture in which any romantic relationships are considered “unnatural”.

Also, the Enterprise series (though IMO the franchise jumped the shark with that one already), had one episode feature aliens who actually have 3 sexes, traditional “male” and “female” and a “congenitor” that plays some kind of role in the conception of children, and are treated very shabbily, essentially as slaves who don’t even have any right to parent the children they help conceive. Troy keeps calling the congenitor “she” and though no one corrects him, his attempts to help “her” end tragically and it did seem the message was supposed to be “he shouldn’t have gotten involved in something he didn’t understand, this is why the Prime Directive exists”.

Although even that storyline seemed to me a ripoff of the Alien Nation concept of a 3rd sex, the “binnaum”, whose function is to “catalyze” the conception of an embryo by having what appears to be intercourse with the female, but the “binn” doesn’t actually contribute to the offspring’s genetic makeup, but apparently whatever chemicals wind up in the female’s reproductive system are essential for conception to occur when the actual male later has intercourse with the female. (Not to mention the idea of a quasi-male pregnancy, in which the female transfers the fetus early on in pregnancy to a kangaroo-like pouch in the male’s abdomen.)

Anyway, I think there could have been other more creative ways to address homosexuality in the series than “let’s make Sulu gay because the guy who played him on the original show is gay”. AFAIK there is a scene in the “Eden” episode that makes it fairly obvious Sulu is straight, though I suppose one can retcon this into Sulu being bisexual.
 
GEddie said:
JJ-verse?

ICXC NIKA
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The universe the Narada entered/created when it went through the black hole in Star Trek '09. The official name was just made the “Kelvin Timeline” a few weeks ago, but I still prefer JJ-Verse for its creator JJ-Abrams.

This is in opposition to the “Prime Universe” which housed the previous 5 TV shows (6 if you count the animated show) and the first 10 movies. And it may house the 2017 TV show as well based on some reports.
 
This was waiting to happen. They may go in this direction with the new tv series. I adhere and agree with Catholic teaching that homosexuals should be treated with respect and dignity… but I don’t want to see the redefinition of marriage portrayed in tv series’ or films… and to bring a child into the picture, is terrible.
 
Considering the myriad interviews that Gene Roddenberry gave about his universe, and the thinking of humanity during that time, I’m positive he would have no problem with this. In his future, humanity didn’t care about things like race, orientation, or gender roles. They even had men wearing skirts in early TNG episodes to show this, before the showrunners convinced Roddenberry to nix it. This sort of social liberal commentary has always been around in Star Trek.
 
Padres1969 said:
So here’s a bit of irony. George Takei actually was against Sulu being made into a gay character in the JJ-verse and tried to convince them to abandon the idea in favor of creating a new gay character instead.

io9.gizmodo.com/george-takei-tried-to-convince-the-team-behind-star-tre-1783306619

So they ended up honoring the guy, by ignoring him :confused:
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Interesting. Anyway, one aspect of SF, as well as fantasy, stories, that I’ve always found intriguing is the chance to pursue issues from a slightly different POV than mundane reality.

Now, although this isn’t what Takei wanted either, I certainly wouldn’t be opposed to, say, a character from a planet where, say, everyone is a hermaphrodite, or reproduces in a way much different from humans, and hence everyone is “gay” in terms of seeking out the same sex, because there is only one sex.

Another interesting scenario might be, a species that starts out as one sex, and eventually morphs into another, this happens in some actual fish species.

What I do like about Takei is that he does not identify merely as “gay”, his Japanese heritage is also important to him, he recently starred in a play about Japanese American internment camps during WWII and I don’t think his sexuality played much of a role in that story.

Also, note that “gay actor = gay character” is somewhat reductive, too. Especially because AFAIK the guy who will play Sulu isn’t gay himself. Actually, I’m more surprised there’s not more talk about him not being Japanese. (Especially considering the brouhaha over Khan being played by a white guy.)
 
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