I’m certain we’d all be better off if we agree that this episode and Threshold were the results of a collective fever dream.
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The thing I like most about this conversation between Pegg and Takei is that they’re both coming from a real place of respect for each other, LGBT issues, and the Trek community.
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I agree. Adhering strictly to Roddenberry only gets you in trouble. Roddenberry’s “vision” is why Seasons 1-3 of The New Generation are so flat and lifeless. It’s only after they branched away from Gene that they got some good episodes in.
However, making Sulu gay is stupid and insipid. Doing this is a gimmick. Everyone knows George Takei is gay (and presumably was gay when he played the original Sulu). So making him gay in the reboot is just a wink-at-the-audience in the style that JJ Abrams has perfected to wretching nausea. It’s a tokenism. Worse, it’s meta-tokenism.
If you’re going to introduce this quality to a character, do it in a way that is original and organic to the plot. But the logic that “Hey, TOS Sulu was gay, so let’s make Reboot Sulu gay” is garbage. It’s a tribute to Takei that he is able to take the long view and understands this.
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They might have avoided this if there had been an Asian guy involved in the production. Like, say, the director, Justin Lin.
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I’d ask you to join me in the Militant Apathy society, but I can’t be bothered to post the membership form.
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Oscar Wilde was married with several children, discuss.
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I’m overall optimistic about Lin as director. However, I’m a woman who has, at one time or another fallen into just about every “chill girl” form of mild sexism. I’m thus disinclined to think that membership in group is much protection against the kind of expression of mild bias we’re discussing here.
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I have to agree with Simon Pegg on this one. think it works better as a character note for someone who was already in the previous two films than for a new character who would be entirely defined by their orientation. Sort of how Post-2005 Doctor Who threw marriage equality as a background note in a bunch of episodes. Essentially to say in the future, it is no big deal.
Outside of the wonderful Mr. Takei, who breathed life into the character, the people most likely to be annoyed by this development are least likely to be Star Trek fans to begin with. One takes as a given that Star Trek represents a progressive optimistic and inclusive future. One where we supposedly did away with our old prejudices.
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The most progressive television of it’s time but today people bash it for “casual bigotry”
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You could just as well as be talking about the 2009 reboot and its sequel. Both movies use the old characters in new bodies in ways that make me hate these movies, and I would have much preferred new characters, settings and stories, but clearly I/we are in the minority.
At this point I don’t care what they do with any of the old characters. They’re already all messed up for me. That said, I don’t begrudge those who enjoy the new movies. I still have all the old stuff.
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The David Gerrold script “Blood and Fire” was shot by the Star Trek: New Voyages people. It brings back Peter Kirk (“What Are Little Girls Made Of?”) and introduces another character. Don’t bother getting to know him, because, in true Star Trek fashion, he doesn’t make it to the end, but yes, much of the reason he’s there is to be gay.
For anyone wondering: eh, it’s a fan production, and New Voyages isn’t nearly as good as Continues. Also, because it’s a David Gerrold TNG script, there’s some TNGisms in there.
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I have tried to get through New Voyages. Its a bit of a slog. Blood and Fire is still on my Ipad waiting for 2 hours to kill in transit somewhere.
Some of the stories or elements ended up in Star Trek-The Next Generation so it seemed like a bit of a rehash. Plus there is the “Star Trek as Community Theater” aspect to it which is laudible but still a little rough to watch. I applaud the effort and the clear love that went into it. But its just kinda goofy. Like an ugly kitten. Its not pretty to look at, but you would still adore it.
It’s ok to acknowledge the flaws of one of the most progressive shows of its time. We don’t grow without acknowledging mistakes. Our mistakes and the mistakes of our heroes.
I’m a huge Star Trek fan. I’ve seen every episode (including TAS, VOY, and ENT), most too many times to count. Star Trek is a huge part of my life. And it doesn’t always hit the mark.
Sometimes because of the censors. Sometimes because Star Trek didn’t have Star Trek to learn from because the right Star Trek episode hadn’t been made yet. Sometimes just because humans—even really great humans with a beautiful vision of the future—are going to screw up. Owning up to its mistakes doesn’t lessen its accomplishments any and doesn’t decrease the impact it’s had on my life.
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I’ll be honest: I mainly watched it because I wanted more TOS. The DC Fontana and David Gerrold episodes…eh…
Continues was much better, but imho it gets a little too much adoration from the hardcore Trekkies. It’s Vic’s baby, and a lot of the stories are pretty Kirk-heavy. I will say, though, that Vic Vignogna looks more like Jack Lord than William Shatner to me. Which is awesome, because iirc Lord was one of the front runners for the Captain’s chair.
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Eh…maybe, but I don’t think it’s okay to dredge up TV shows from the 1960s and hold them up to modern standards, 50 years later. It’s okay, imho, to examine where it doesn’t age well for those reasons, though.
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Flaws? Mistakes? By what standard? Todays? Right… What you call flaws and mistakes are simply artifacts of the time. You don’t call the 1953 Corvette a mistake simply because newer and better cars now exist. Instead, you check yourself and try to understand the seismic shift it caused in the auto industry. We don’t look at Rembrandt and point out how much more realistic photographs are.
We especially don’t grow by needling the things that brought us forward or by comparing the works of the past to the works of today which would not likely exist without the trailblazer.
So then, Spock was gay too? Boy, this gets deeper and deeper.
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Vic Vignogna is one of my all time favorite anime voice actors. In both Fullmetal Alchemist series he sounds like a cross between an actual teenager and frustrated Yosemite Sam.
As for Jack Lord, he is the original Felix Leiter (Dr. No.) and the best of a long list of people playing that part. I could definitely imagine Lord in the captain’s chair on Star Trek.
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I don’t think it benefits anyone to shield a piece of culture from criticism just because it’s (obviously) a product of its time. It’s entirely possible to praise TOS for its progressive stance on people of color (for instance), while also criticizing it for its hamfisted depictions of Native American culture, or its casually misogynistic argument that of course women can’t be starship captains. It does help us grow to examine the ways in which a depiction of a more evolved humanity living in a social utopia is vulnerable to the blind spots of its own time. Doing so is not calling the original series a mistake, but simply a recognition of how much farther we’ve managed to come (and, in some ways, how much farther we still have to go).
To borrow one of your analogies, of course you shouldn’t compare Rembrandt to photography by saying that photos are more realistic. You could, however, compare his use of composition, lighting, color, and form to a photographer’s, and you should critically examine his work’s shortcomings, how his work influenced later artists, and how they adapted or improved on his style. Doing so doesn’t diminish Rembrandt’s work, it gives it greater context and enhances our understanding of the continuum of human culture.
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