Star Trek Beyond

NeilT said:
it's alot bolder to go new than to retcon old.
and pisses off fans of the old character you changed. hip jimmy olsen *cough*. jennyolsen *cough*... i say that out loud?
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Except the old character hasn't been changed or retconned. NO ONE is saying Takei's Sulu is gay. They're saying the NuSulu is gay. There's a difference.

And for the record, her name wasn't Jenny Olsen. It was Jenny Jurwich. Jimmy Olsen actually appears in Batman vs. Superman. If you want to talk about making changes to a familiar character, well, this one is a lot worse than changing the character's gender or orientation.
 
Jeyl said:
Except the old character hasn't been changed or retconned. NO ONE is saying Takei's Sulu is gay. They're saying the NuSulu is gay. There's a difference.
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Good grief. It's the same fracking character.

This PC stunt is disrespectful to Takei, and is disrespectful to Roddenberry.

The Wook
 
OK, I like Eric Bana. He's better than a lot of the movies he's been in. But I refuse to believe that his mere presence in 2233 was enough to turn guys gay.

:D
 
Roll this around in your head: Why Sulu?

Why not Checkov? Why not DeSalle? Why not Nurse Chapel? Why not Scotty? (If Pegg is such a champion, why not do it to his own character?)

They took Takei's stance as a LGBT activist, and tried to ham fistedly tie it to their film, hoping that Takei would hop on facebook and tell his 9.8 million followers to go see the film.


It wasn't about making the character deeper, or more diverse.

It was a blatent pander attempt to put asses in seats.
 
tgreco said:
Roll this around in your head: Why Sulu?

Why not Checkov? Why not DeSalle? Why not Nurse Chapel? Why not Scotty? (If Pegg is such a champion, why not do it to his own character?)

They took Takei's stance as a LGBT activist, and tried to ham fistedly tie it to their film, hoping that Takei would hop on facebook and tell his 9.8 million followers to go see the film.


It wasn't about making the character deeper, or more diverse.

It was a blatent pander attempt to put asses in seats.
Click to expand...

I didn't even think about that angle.

even if it wasn't a last minute change, it could have been a last minute attempt to get people to talk about it if the film failed.
 
well the marketing budget for this one has been next to nothing.

So my assumption is they're going for a guerilla marketing campaign, and trying to attach themselves to some social issue. They already tried it a few months back with John Cho pushing his "If this leading character was asian" bit a few months back... which got no traction.

Also, Cho has been used pretty blatently the last few months in weird capacities for marketing, I'll assume because China's box office is the make it or break it for this, as the domestic box office numbers keep getting revised down.

interest in this one has been really low, and a lot of Trek fans (myself included) won't be seeing this one. and the first trailer killed a lot of passive interest.
(trailer 2 on Paramount's Youtube channel still hasn't broken a million views)
 
tgreco said:
well the marketing budget for this one has been next to nothing.

So my assumption is they're going for a guerilla marketing campaign, and trying to attach themselves to some social issue. They already tried it a few months back with John Cho pushing his "If this leading character was asian" bit a few months back... which got no traction.

Also, Cho has been used pretty blatently the last few months in weird capacities for marketing, I'll assume because China's box office is the make it or break it for this, as the domestic box office numbers keep getting revised down.

interest in this one has been really low, and a lot of Trek fans (myself included) won't be seeing this one. and the first trailer killed a lot of passive interest.
(trailer 2 on Paramount's Youtube channel still hasn't broken a million views)
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I thinnk i skipped part two in the theater and caught it on home video rent. i'll be doing the same for this one.

IIRC, china put alot of money in this one, so maybe that is why they are making john cho the face of it?
I wonder what china's stance on gay characters is....do they have a ban on that like they do on ghosts?
 
tgreco said:
It was a blatent pander attempt to put asses in seats.
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The fact that you're 'complaining' about the idea of studios, writers and directors featuring gay characters in their major motion picture just to get people to see it is fantastic. Why? Because not too long ago, studios would do the exact opposite to get people into the theaters. There is an incredible lack of perspective going on in this discussion that is not being brought up at all. I think Gail Simone said it best in her recent Twitter feed about this very issue.

Making it a huge controversy, it does seem to de-stress the humanity of people who are lgbtq somewhat.
It becomes about the producers and filmmakers, and not about representing marginalized people with dignity, often.
I feel like a lot of the problem would be solved it Sulu weren't the SOLE canonical lgbtq character of note in the films.
Star Trek changed lives BECAUSE it said we all survive, all people survive. Not having LGBTQ in THIS film series is a crime.
Comics do this all the time, and we have the constant battle between getting publicity or presenting lgbtq people as normal and human.​

Gail Simone also agrees with Simon Pegg about the prospect of introducing a new gay character would be a mistake because that character will be looked down on as the 'outsider' of our iconic main cast of all straight characters. Having one of your main characters be gay is a much more broad representation than having a one-shot character who's only memorable feature was that they were gay. After all, they tried to bring in Carol Marcus as a member of the crew and she was not brought back. See how easy it is to dump characters who aren't part of the main cast?
 
not complaining about it... just calling it what it is.
I could care less if they make any of the characters gay/straight/bi whatever...
It's just to me, it's pretty transparent what they're doing it.
And again, I'll just ask, Why not Scotty? If Pegg is such a champion, why not do it to his own character?

and to Bryan, I could care less what any review says
ID got good reviews... and I think it's utter garbage. So why would I bother with this?
 
tgreco said:
Roll this around in your head: Why Sulu?

Why not Checkov? Why not DeSalle? Why not Nurse Chapel? Why not Scotty? (If Pegg is such a champion, why not do it to his own character?)

They took Takei's stance as a LGBT activist, and tried to ham fistedly tie it to their film, hoping that Takei would hop on facebook and tell his 9.8 million followers to go see the film.


It wasn't about making the character deeper, or more diverse.

It was a blatent pander attempt to put asses in seats.
Click to expand...
This was an attempt to honor him. Not an attempt to "ham fistedly tie" him into anything. Takei is tied to Trek no matter what - it's the reason he has 9.8 million followers on Facebook - whether or not they go to see the film isn't going to be on his word.

Knowing the way Simon Pegg works - this is absolutely an effort to expand Trek's diversity, not pander to anyone or anything. I have complete faith that the intention was noble and honorable.

A gay helmsman doesn't put butts in seats.

- - - Updated - - -

Bryancd said:
Perhaps the negative pre-judging of the film is a bit off base. Buzz out of the Australia premiere sound very positive. Some spoilers in the article.

http://furiousfanboys.com/2016/07/early-spoilery-details-star-trek-beyond-australian-premiere/
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Two lines from this review give me hope:

- The tone matches up very well with the Original Series, especially the McCoy/Spock banter, and feels very much like a loving tribute to the 50 year mission.
- Consensus is that it’s the best of the Kelvin timeline movies, better than the first two.
 
JD said:
Knowing the way Simon Pegg works - this is absolutely an effort to expand Trek's diversity, not pander to anyone or anything. I have complete faith that the intention was noble and honorable.

A gay helmsman doesn't put butts in seats.
.
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1. Then why not make Scotty gay?

2. Agreed a gay helmsman doesn't put butts in seats, but, Takei plugging the film to 9.8 million Facebook followers does put butts in seats.

Perhaps if you read the entirety of my posts, instead of cherry picking, you'd understand the point I was attempting to make.
 
tgreco said:
not complaining about it... just calling it what it is.
I could care less if they make any of the characters gay/straight/bi whatever...
It's just to me, it's pretty transparent what they're doing it.
And again, I'll just ask, Why not Scotty? If Pegg is such a champion, why not do it to his own character?

and to Bryan, I could care less what any review says
ID got good reviews... and I think it's utter garbage. So why would I bother with this?
Click to expand...

I wasn't directing that at anyone specific.
 
So, here's my problem with Pegg's statement disagreeing with George Takei's disapproval. Asserting that making a "new" character who's gay would be tokenism just smacks of laziness in writing.

From what I gather, the acknowledgment of Sulu's sexuality is handled in a rather off-hand way, not making a big deal of it. That's good. That's how such things should be handled because unless Hikaru's sexuality is a central element in the storyline, it shouldn't be a big deal and if it's mentioned, it should be off-handed (a crewmate asking "How are John and the baby?" when prepping a shuttle for take off, for example).

Now... how is it any less tokenism or lazy to have it be Sulu than having a similar interaction with another previously unseen character who is shown to be competent and decently fleshed out?
 
Since this Sulu was born after the timeline change I'm not sure why he needs to exactly mirror the TOS Sulu. I consider these films a reboot anyway.
 
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firesprite said:
So, here's my problem with Pegg's statement disagreeing with George Takei's disapproval. Asserting that making a "new" character who's gay would be tokenism just smacks of laziness in writing.

From what I gather, the acknowledgment of Sulu's sexuality is handled in a rather off-hand way, not making a big deal of it. That's good. That's how such things should be handled because unless Hikaru's sexuality is a central element in the storyline, it shouldn't be a big deal and if it's mentioned, it should be off-handed (a crewmate asking "How are John and the baby?" when prepping a shuttle for take off, for example).

Now... how is it any less tokenism or lazy to have it be Sulu than having a similar interaction with another previously unseen character who is shown to be competent and decently fleshed out?
Click to expand...

cause then you wouldn't gain the controversy and click bait articles that'll last up until the movies release.
no one was talking about this thing before, suddenly it's trending on FB now.

hmmmmm..the cynic in me goes ;o)
 
tgreco said:
1. Then why not make Scotty gay?

2. Agreed a gay helmsman doesn't put butts in seats, but, Takei plugging the film to 9.8 million Facebook followers does put butts in seats.

Perhaps if you read the entirety of my posts, instead of cherry picking, you'd understand the point I was attempting to make.
Click to expand...
I even mentioned making Scotty or someone else in my other posts - I even suggested that Takei might not have taken the stance he did has this happened. Perhaps if you read the entire post (heck, just the first line of it) that you opted to reply to you might've read pretty clearly why they opted to make Sulu gay.

Again, a gay helmsman - even one being praised by George Takei doesn't anyone of those 9 million + would go see Star Trek on his recommendation. I have 22 friends that also like Takei on Facebook - and maybe 3 of them would see a Star Trek film and really don't think a little blurb that scrolled through on Facebook would change the other 19's minds. While Mr. Takei might be popular on Facebook, he's not the kind of figure that going to get butts in seats.

I read your entire post. I read your other posts on the matter. I replied to the bits that I thought were justified replying to and weren't just a rambling, whiny mess.
 
JD said:
This was an attempt to honor him. Not an attempt to "ham fistedly tie" him into anything. Takei is tied to Trek no matter what - it's the reason he has 9.8 million followers on Facebook - whether or not they go to see the film isn't going to be on his word.
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Exactly.

Sulu being gay wouldn't put people in seats... give me a break. IF anything it would do the opposite.

This is one of the few times I feel something like this ISN'T pandering... and while I'm not going to say Takei's opinion is wrong (CUZ IT'S AN OPINION) but his reasoning that Rodenberry wouldn't want it is WAY off base...

"He was a strong supporter of LGBT equality," recalls Takei, now 79. "But he said he has been pushing the envelope and walking a very tight rope — and if he pushed too hard, the show would not be on the air." Alas, the show was canceled the following season anyway."

Yeah so now that he would be able to have a gay character, why wouldn't he?

"But the only reference to how Demora was conceived appears in a secondary canonical source: the 1995 Star Trek novel The Captain's Daughter. "It was, to put it crudely, a one-night stand with a glamazon," Takei explains. "A very athletic, powerful and stunningly gorgeous woman. That’s Demora’s mother.""

A book written 4 years after he died? Who's to say Roddenberry wanted that?

"Unfortunately, it’s a twisting of Gene’s creation, to which he put in so much thought. I think it’s really unfortunate."

And Roddenberry had always envisioned Sulu as heterosexual.

I work on show pitches ALL the time... as a creator you can have your characters fleshed out all you want, and then out of nowhere a studio will ask "Hey, can this character have grown up an army brat?.. we would like to potentially have a father character come in who's super conservative".

And though it was never thought of before it may light a spark in the creators mind saying "yeah... that would actually work well! and it would explain the characters inability to connect with friends easily...all the moving around! I like it!"

So give me a break on the "he fleshed them out so much that he wouldn't like this change" type response. They gave Sulu a glamazon wife 4 years after Gene was gone.



And to the poster asking "1. Then why not make Scotty gay?"

Cuz Takei is a huge presence in Star Trek and openly gay... if they HAD made Scotty gay, everyone would ask "Why not Sulu!?!?!?" Cuz it's the obvious choice.
Takei isn't just gay... he's a spokesperson for the LGBT community... He's at the front lines of every discussion.

It's an obvious choice.
 
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I want a john Cho led "excelsior" tv show.

Even though I hate the JJ verse, I would watch that

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