Probably “This Side of Paradise” (the one with the spores that made people go all trippy). In the original draft, Spock’s love story was given to Sulu, instead.
I’m not sure whether you can say that Nimoy “stole” it from Takei. Everything I’ve ever heard was that Gene Roddenberry wasn’t happy with the script, and asked Dorothy Fontana to rewrite it. It was during that rewrite that the story became about Spock. Nimoy, in fact, initially objected to the idea of Spock having a romantic interest, and it doesn’t seem like he had anything to do with the decision.
It is too bad, though. As stated, Sulu never had any onscreen romance in the original series. Most of the other characters did–McCoy, Scotty, and even Chekov. But not Sulu or Uhura (the two “minority” characters–hmmmm).
In a way, I kind of understand Takei’s objections. It may never have been seen onscreen, but I can believe that he’s been thinking of Sulu as straight for all of these years. It might well be jarring to him for people to now declare the character to be gay just because he, the actor, is. I imagine that gay actors may also not want it thought that they can only play gay characters.
Takei’s Sulu hasn’t been retconned any more than Nimoy & Nichols’ characters have been retconned into always having been secret lovers. It’s a new universe.
I’ll take a stab at defending Takei’s views even if I don’t really share them.
Based on that one article linked above, I don’t think that we can conclude anything more than that George Takei wanted Roddenberry to sensitively portray a gay story on the series – not that Takei wanted to play a gay man. I’m speculating here, but as a closeted gay man in 1960’s Hollywood, Takei probably didn’t want to play a gay character for fear it might get him typecast into the few cringe-worthy gay roles of the time and limit his ability to play straight characters in mainstream film and television. He may just have been advocating that Roddenberry do a story-of-week episode on gay people who weren’t the villains and deserved compassion without pity.
Furthermore, Takei always played Sulu as a straight man and wanted Sulu to be perceived that way. He might feel it dishonors the character and his portrayal if all of a sudden Sulu is supposed to be seen as gay. It’s almost as though the new producers are suggesting that by being played by a gay man, the character of Sulu must also be gay. It seems to say that actors can only play people who are just like them; that gay men should only play gay parts and, conversely, straight men should only play straight parts. Takei may believe it discredits his good performance of a straight character if everyone retroactively interprets it as a not particularly good performance of a closeted gay man.
Takei also seems to sincerely believe that if Sulu were gay in the original series, he must have been closeted, and that no gay people would be closeted in a faithful interpretation of Roddenberry’s optimistic future. To say Sulu was closeted seems to impugn Roddenberry’s clear vision of utopic life in the federation where people who are different can peacefully and respectfully coexist.
That’s what makes it allowable. I do understand how he feels though. What’s really unfortunate is that Roddenberry couldn’t have included non-straight characters at the time. There’s no way to change that at the moment, I’m not getting anywhere with my own time machine, but in the future the gang can go back to the 60s and change things if they find it necessary. Worked for the whales.
I think this is honorable and not insulting. The notion is that 50 years ago, Star Trek could not have a gay character, because the society viewing Trek wasn’t ready for that yet. With a retcon, you have a chance to do-over Trek as it should and would have been, had society been ready to accept that.
It isn’t that the character was “in the closet”, it is that this is a new universe; the characters are simply different. Sulu in the original was straight; here he is gay.
Making that character Sulu (rather than some other random character) was intended to be a fourth-wall-breaking moment, to honor the actor who played him in the original’s present-day actions as an activist for gay inclusion.
Now, the only thing that gives me pause is that the man being so honored doesn’t like it. I think his wishes out to have been heeded, whether one disagrees with his points or not.
Why could not Scotty be gay. Or Chekov? Or Uhura? The one TOS character who is outed as gay just happened to be played by a gay man. That does not seem honouring to me.
There’s no way to undo the past here. Obviously using the Sulu character once played by a gay man makes a more noticeable message. Remember that George Takei was an effective spokesman for the issue of sexual orientation because he did play Sulu. This all should have happened earlier than now, even accounting for the changes in society, but better late than never, better to have this imperfect solution than none at all.
It’s common for background material on characters to be used to inform the actor’s portrayal, while never making it explicitly onto the screen. I imagine the background material on Sulu made it clear to Takei that he was straight, so Takei has spent decades building up a character who is straight, and isn’t happy that the portrayal isn’t being honored.
I also think Takei has a bit of a chip on his shoulder about the relative importance of his character when he was playing him, and felt like he was under-appreciated at the time. Not only did Shatner and Nimoy wind up with most of the lines and attention, but she show introduced Chekhov in the second season to cash in on the popularity of “The Monkees”, and Chekhov took more lines that were probably intended for Sulu.
Another straight-Sulu moment in the original series was in “Mirror Mirror”, where Sulu is easily seduced by Uhura and openly leches after her. You can retconn that by saying Sulu was only straight in that universe, but I don’t think there’s been any evidence that the ‘mirror’ universe changed anyone’s sexual orientation.
I agree with Takei - introduce a new character. Sulu is pretty much the guy’s life work, and the creator of the character is dead. It’s disrespectful to use all that as a vehicle for a social justice statement.
But Spock & Uhura becoming a couple is at least explainable due to the event that diverged the Abramsverse from the TOS universe - Spock was devastated when his home planet, species, and mother were destroyed, and turned to Uhura in a vulnerable moment. Why would previously hetero Sulu have become homosexual due to Kirk’s father’s ship being destroyed?
And I thought that was insulting to the character as well. The original Spock wouldn’t have ‘hooked up’ with anyone, outside of the Ponn-Farr. He repeatedly rejected Nurse Chapel, and it wasn’t just because he wasn’t particularly hot for her, but because he was a Vulcan and simply wasn’t capable of those kinds of feelings.
I really dislike the new Star Trek reboot series for many reasons, but playing fast and loose with the characters when they don’t have to is one of them.
They did? I thought there was attraction, but nothing concrete until the boom. I haven’t seen the movie since it first came out though, so I’ll defer to your knowledge.
It was expressly done to reference the actor George Takei’s role as an activist and spokesman for gay rights.
To put it another way: it wasn’t a case of gay actor = gay character; it was a case of character formerly played by an activist for gay rights = gay character.
The idea was, I think, ‘this references the sort of world that the actor who played this actor wanted to create’.
Well, maybe not the original TOS portrayal, but it sure did in DS9 unless Major Kira is deep enough in the closet to see Narnia.
I can see how someone could interpret it either way, and suspect (as noted by others, the remarks aren’t really clear on the point) that much of Takei’s objection is that he sees implications of the former.
No, the event that diverged Abramsverse or nuTrek from the OS universe was not the destruction of Vulcan, but the encounter of Kirk’s father’s ship with the Narada or whatever, when Kirk himself was just being born.
Since Sulu is younger than Kirk (I think? still true in Abramsverse?), he didn’t exist yet when the branching took place. In other words, the “world had changed” for nuTrek Sulu well before his birth. Presumably, one of the infinite ramifications of that altered universe might have been a change in his mother’s prenatal hormones affecting fetal development, so whereas TOS Sulu was “born straight” and was always straight, nuTrek Sulu was “born gay” and has always been gay.
(while freely admitting I got the timing of the romance wrong, but it’s fun to continue the argument anyway)
I didn’t mean that the destruction itself was the divergence, but it was certainly a direct result of the divergence. It’s a lot easier to see the chain between “Spock’s planet destroyed - so he’s more emotional than normal and winds up giving in to those emotions while in the original universe he never did” than the chain between “A Romulan ship shows up and destroys the Kelvin, so a baby born sometime in the future has a different sexual orientation but is otherwise pretty much identical to his original universe personality, down to choice of career.”
Oh, right. Errrr… trends in personality, home environment, schooling, etc., more robust than pre-natal hormones influencing sexual orientation? Cite of identical twin pairs sometimes having different sexual orientations, presumably due to small epigenomic differences, despite being identical genetically and very alike in other ways?
Yes, it does say that homosexuality should be okay. However, it also says that humans are still completely homophobic and that such is a flaw in humanity. Beverly doesn’t say it’s a problem with her, but with humans in general.
It actually takes some logic to work around it. That the flaw is that humans still have sexual orientation in general, which is an odd message. Or that Beverly was speaking for herself, and kinda covering things up.
It’s often cited as a way that TNG got the whole thing messed up despite trying to do well, just like that one episode where an asexual species has a woman who likes Riker, but chooses to be brainwashed back into being asexual.
