George Takei vs Simon Pegg on the New Improved Gay Sulu

I’m kinda surprised that George Takei is not down with Sulu being gay, but life is full of plot twists I guess.

From The Hollywood Reporter:

A scene was written into the new film, very matter-of-fact, in which Sulu is pictured with a male spouse raising their infant child.

Sounds legit. I can see why they kind of assumed that George Takei would be into it. Apparently, he is less than ecstatic.

Takei wasn’t overjoyed. He had never asked for Sulu to be gay. In fact, he’d much prefer that he stay straight. “I’m delighted that there’s a gay character,” he tells The Hollywood Reporter. “Unfortunately, it’s a twisting of Gene’s creation, to which he put in so much thought. I think it’s really unfortunate.”

Were all those lens flares and a white Kahn anybody’s original vision? Nothing means anything, man.

Simon Pegg, who came up with the idea of making Sulu canonically gay and thought everybody would be cool with it, clapped back, of course.

From The Verge:

After Takei spoke to THR about his concerns, Star Trek Beyond screenwriter Simon Pegg noted to The Guardian that he “respectfully disagreed” with the actor over the decision:

“He’s right, it is unfortunate, it’s unfortunate that the screen version of the most inclusive, tolerant universe in science fiction hasn’t featured an LGBT character until now. We could have introduced a new gay character, but he or she would have been primarily defined by their sexuality, seen as the ‘gay character’, rather than simply for who they are, and isn’t that tokenism?”

Pegg also took issue with the idea that Roddenberry would have opposed the idea, saying that he felt that the creator’s motivations likely stemmed out of the necessity to adhere to audience expectations: “Trek rightly gets a lot of love for featuring the first interracial kiss on US television, but Plato’s Stepchildren was the lowest rated episode ever.”

I don’t know man. S**t is complicated. Is it more important to preserve a dude’s original vision? Is it more important to be socially inclusive and continue to build upon a legacy of milestones? Idk. Ask some other nerd.