George Takei Opposes Gay Sulu In 'Star Trek Beyond' (hollywoodreporter.com) 354
HughPickens.com writes: Seth Abramovitch reports in the Hollywood Reporter that actor and LGBT activist George Takei says Paramount's plans to have Sulu's character in the upcoming 'Star Trek Beyond' the first LGBTQ lead character in Star Trek history is out of step with what creator Gene Roddenberry would have wanted. [Roddenberry] "was a strong supporter of LGBT equality," says 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." Takei says he'd much prefer that Sulu stay straight. "I'm delighted that there's a gay character," says Takei. "Unfortunately, it's a twisting of Gene's creation, to which he put in so much thought. I think it's really unfortunate." The timeline logic of the new revelation is enough to befuddle even the most diehard of Trek enthusiasts, as the rebooted trilogy takes place before the action of the original series. In other words, assuming canon orthodoxy, this storyline suggest Sulu would have had to have first been gay and married, only to then go into the closet years later. Simon Pegg, who has co-written the latest Star Trek movie, as well as starring as Scotty, has responded to criticism by the actor George Takei at the film-makers' decision to make the character he used to play openly gay. "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?" says Pegg. "Our Trek is an alternate timeline with alternate details. Whatever magic ingredient determines our sexuality was different for Sulu in our timeline. I like this idea because it suggests that in a hypothetical multiverse, across an infinite matrix of alternate realities, we are all LGBT somewhere."
No More reboots (Score:5, Insightful)
Its dead, Jim
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Really, I thought there was a new TV series coming out early next year?
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Remember ST:Enterprise? A new TV series doesn't mean the franchise is still alive.
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Enterprise, despite its mistakes, actually had some pretty decent television.
Sure the temporal war stuff was terrible, and the first season was a bit hammy, but the Xindi arc was up there with the Dominion war in terms of good longer-arc trek.
I honestly suggest going and giving it another watch. Enterprise failed because after a 2 decades people where just trekked out.
Re:No More reboots (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed. The temporal stuff was bad but for the most part the episodes, even the first ones, were good for what they were trying to represent.
I know people whined about Hoshi, how she was a blithering idiot, but think about her position. She was asked to do something no one else had ever done (translate unknown languages on the fly), was reluctant to do so in the first place, in an unknown environment (in a spaceship) and had to deal with translation software which was shit (much like today's software).
The balancing act that Archer played between the Vulcans and the Andorians once he caught on to the games being played (mostly by the Vulcans) was very good. He, like Hoshi, had to deal with the unknown, on very limited information, with two disparate races, one of which he didn't truly trust to begin with.
Let us not forget how Enterprise was routinely overmatched by those it encountered in combat. No more tricks by Scotty to miraculously pull them out of the fire, no deux ex machina to save the day. They suffered, badly, and the scenes where this played out more or less conveyed their desperation at being bested.
Nor were the transporters the miracle they are in later shows. These barely worked and when they did were much more slow and finicky to operate.
And yes, some of the eventualities of the Star Trek universe such as how the Prime Directive came about might be considered forced, but the circumstances by which it came about was straight out of the original: meeting strange new worlds and civilizations and trying to understand them.
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Its dead, Jim
Joke reference for non-Trekies [youtube.com]
Did you see Star Trek: The Motion Picture? (Score:2)
I daresay that was the first "reboot" and it set the bar for terrible.
first (Score:5, Funny)
Just like JJ Abrams, it's all about shoving things down people's throats, no pun intended
This is sacrilege plain and simple (Score:4, Insightful)
I suggest all fellow Star Trek fans boycott this production.... trash the muddies the name Star Trek, which is about science and exploration, not millennial "inclusive" bullshit.
Rather think that by the time of Star Trek in a Utopian society, they managed to get over this confused "sexual orientation" nonsense.
Re:This is sacrilege plain and simple (Score:4, Insightful)
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You must be kidding. The original Star Trek was a campy space opera.
Star Trek society is more dystopian than utopian: a stifling society based on a hierarchical bureaucracy. Just about the only good t
Re:This is sacrilege plain and simple (Score:5, Insightful)
You're trying to look at TOS through a lens that's about 50 years out of focus.
If you're not capable of appreciating it in the context of the times in which it was produced, then kindly STFU.
Thank you.
Re:This is sacrilege plain and simple (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm old enough to remember it, in the first re-runs at least. It was campy space opera with genuine moral dilemmas and thought provoking plots. Having a proud Russian speaking crew member hinted at a future without the Cold War era separatism. Spock's existence as a half-breed Vulcan, and Uhura's presence as a department leading critical helm officer, provided meaningful comments on the aggressive racism common in most of our societies. And I was too young at the time to understand how groundbreaking the black/white kiss in Plato's Stepchildren was.
Star Trek, and Gene Roddenberry's work in general, held up fascinating mirrors to our society and challenged us to do better, and said "we _can_ be better than this". I genuinely wish "The Great Bird of the Galaxy" could have stayed around and productive, to explore the similar scale of problems today of fanatical terrorism and global ecological destruction.
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You must be kidding. The original Star Trek was a campy space opera.
It was low-level SciFi, but it's SciFi.
The science tends to be English-major Bullshit dressing up Will Rogers tropes, but unlike pure space opera there's at least an attempt.
Star Trek society is more dystopian than utopian: a stifling society based on a hierarchical bureaucracy. Just about the only good thing about it was that, at least on Earth, most people were sufficiently well off that it didn't matter.
Bureaucracy? Have you seen it at all? Like any of it?
In the entire run of all three post-Federation series the only Federation bureaucrats are in the Tribbles episode. Other then that you get an occasional Ambassador, and a political system that is so much in the background that no Federation Presidents got named until Season 4 of DS9.
Re:This is sacrilege plain and simple (Score:4, Insightful)
That's because Star Trek focuses on some of the most privileged people in the Federation and their exploits; it's like looking at the royal court of Louis XIV and not seeing what's going on in the rest of France or Europe at the time.
Roddenberry imagined a post-scarcity world with technocratic government, a benign defensive military, and a commitment to science and exploration. But he hadn't thought through what the politics or government of such a world would look like, how power would be distributed, and who would end up privileged and who would end up oppressed, he just assumed that his world would be magically egalitarian.
That is, the lack of a portrayal of bureaucracy, power, inequality, and government in much of Star Trek is not due to their non-existence (which is logically impossible), but due to Roddenberry's failure to think things through and create a realistic portrayal of his imaginary society.
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I guess you're joking? Gene Roddenberry's vision for Star Trek was always aggressively liberal and more inclusive than society would accept. He tried to have a woman first officer in The Cage but that wouldn't fly. According to Takei, Roddenberry would've liked to have a GLBT character when Takei approached him about iit in the 60s but felt it was too risky since the interracial kiss had tanked ratings already.
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Yes, I agree that a gay character is not being shockingly inclusive in the way Roddenberry liked to be. The grandparent was wrong both in asserting that a gay character is "millennial inclusive bullshit" and also in asserting that Roddenberry wouldn't have loved "millennial inclusive bullshit" (he would've).
For the first couple seasons of DS9, he was credited as Siddig El Fadil. As far as I can recall, exactl
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TOS episode, 'Bread and Circuses" where they traveled to a 20th century Roman Empire where subversives were worshiping "The Son".
Maybe no Christian crew members but the writers certainly had their moment.
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>However, there's nothing that bold or controversial about a gay character.
Ok, then why doesn't Star Trek have any?
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Dax was bisexual.
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Really ? All that inter-species sex in TOS, and they are worried about a gay character? Or even an inter-racial kiss?
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If my eyes are red, it's not from crying, I can assure you of that.
Sulu is George's character (Score:5, Insightful)
Not Simon Pegg's. George is the person that should define that character, alternate timeline notwithstanding. George IS Sulu.
Period.
I understand an applaud the intent behind this move, but honestly it's insulting to imply that George Takei, as a gay man, could not have portrayed a straight man. He's commented. He's shown his appreciation as it happens, and he has said that he does not think that Hikaru Sulu is gay.
That pretty much settles it for me. If George says it, that's the fact.
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Not Simon Pegg's. George is the person that should define that character, alternate timeline notwithstanding. George IS Sulu.
Period.
I understand an applaud the intent behind this move, but honestly it's insulting to imply that George Takei, as a gay man, could not have portrayed a straight man. He's commented. He's shown his appreciation as it happens, and he has said that he does not think that Hikaru Sulu is gay.
That pretty much settles it for me. If George says it, that's the fact.
George is NOT Sulu. The creator of Star Trek created Sulu. Just because George played a great Sulu, he does not define the character. Strange how a homosexual character doesn't want his seemingly open homosexual character portrayed as such.
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George is NOT Sulu. The creator of Star Trek created Sulu. Just because George played a great Sulu, he does not define the character. Strange how a homosexual character doesn't want his seemingly open homosexual character portrayed as such.
The point is that Sulu *wasn't* portrayed as homosexual until now; quite the opposite, as Takei says, he was portrayed as heterosexual.
I'm sure the move to make him gay was well intended, and even originally a tribute to Takei, but that's the problem. My first thought was, "Oh, they're making Sulu gay because Takei happened to be gay". It was just too obvious.
This falls into the longstanding trap of equating the actor's sexuality with that of the character. No-one assumes that Anthony Hopkins is a flesh
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I guess I'm going to be the only voice I see commenting here who suggest that it is the director who, within the limits of the actor he is given, controls the character who is portrayed. He interprets the writer's creation, but the vision is the director's.
Writers decide who a character is (Score:2)
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You are confusing actors with writers. Writers decide who a character is and what they are about. Actors implement the writer's vision, actors communicate that vision through their performance.
It's true that actors don't "own" the character and often get too much credit for work on the part of the writers.
Still, your vision and understanding of actors as being mere conduits for the writer's work suggests an overly literal view of this sort of thing as an engineering-style process, rather than one with the blurred lines which often exist in reality.
Blurred lines such as the actor feeding back aspects of his performance and opinion to the writers and directors (#), longstanding actors' portraya
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And yet everyone knows that Sean Connery *is* James Bond. Roger, Timothy, Pierce, and Daniel all did a fine job, and each contributed IMO a valid interpretation, but Sean set the standard by which they were all judged.
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The omission was not an accident.
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You are speaking as someone who understands the jobs by description, but ha
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Theoretically. Not really. Not even close to always. Gary Cooper defined Howard Roarke in Atlas Shrugged and Will Kane in High Noon. Jimmy Stewart was pretty much the same character in every one of his westerns. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Spencer Tracy. Jack Nicholson. Robert De Niro. Morgan Freeman. Sidney Poitier. Clint Eastwood. Humphrey Bogart. Gregory Peck. Clark Gable. James Cagney. You felt right at home and fa
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So Philip Marlowe belongs to? (Score:2)
Would it be:
- Humphrey Bogart
- Elliot Gould
- Robert Mitchum
- Dick Powell
- James Garner
- Robert Montgomery
- James Caan
- George Montgomery
- I think there's another couple or three actors that also have played the Mr. Chandler's detective.
Not to take away Mr. Takei's performance as "Sulu" in ST:TOS, but it's a role and when another actor performs it they should be allowed to put their own spin on it. That goes for the writers, the director and the producers.
I guess you could argue that the creator has the fin
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Humphrey Bogart of course. You must be joking.
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Wrong. Dick Powell was the superior Marlowe. Bogart just played Bogie, but Powell brought Chandler's character to life.
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The problem with the Philip Marlowe question is that "The Big Sleep" is sine qua non of Chandler film adaptations and every other attempt paled in comparison.
"The Big Sleep" was directed by Howard Hawkes, the screenplay was written by William Faulkner, was a noir picture made during the noir phase of Hollywood, has Bogart *and* Lauren Bacall, and the film was made and set during the same basic time period as the books. So it doesn't suffer from the "period piece" flaws of shoehorning modern sensibilities i
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Not Simon Pegg's. George is the person that should define that character, alternate timeline notwithstanding. George IS Sulu.
He's not George's character, he was a creation of Roddenberry and the writers on the original series, the animated series and the movies, and yes to some extent the actor who portrayed him.
it's insulting to imply that George Takei, as a gay man, could not have portrayed a straight man.
I don't see how that is implied anywhere. This is a different version of the character, who could have been bi for all we know even in the original series. Come on, the reboot has changed so much, like Spock and Uhura having a relationship, and Kirk being... well, I don't know what he is supposed to be.
And Pegg is right,
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He's not George's character, he was a creation of Roddenberry and the writers on the original series, the animated series and the movies, and yes to some extent the actor who portrayed him.
Well for one thing, the likeness of the actor who portrayed him was used for Sulu in the animated series. If he's not Sulu, why did they do that? Let's fucking wait until he dies before we start calling someone else Sulu, OK? Which is just one more of the problems with these piles of shit.
Come on, the reboot has changed so much, like Spock and Uhura having a relationship,
Your ignorance would be startling if this were not a conversation about Star Trek. As such, it's merely an annoyance; you have no idea what you're on about, but you're running your face anyway. Ah, you might say if you wer
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When you start accusing others of "startling ignorance" because some slightly obscure bit of text that by dubious inference you consider cannon bolsters your argument, you sound like a religious zealot.
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Your ignorance would be startling if this were not a conversation about Star Trek.
When you start accusing others of "startling ignorance"
Try again, son.
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If George says it, that's the fact.
George is an actor. No more no less. He isn't Sulu. He merely acted as Sulu. It would be wise to remember this distinction not just here but every time an actor speaks on behalf of someone else.
It *is* tokenism that they chose Sulu! (Score:5, Insightful)
Disingenuous of Mr. Pegg to claim they're avoiding 'tokenism' here. Since most of the world knows George Takei is gay, this was the most cowardly option Hollywood could take if they 'had to' introduce a gay character. They want to hide behind the real actor's sexuality in justifying the character's new spin.
If they *really* wanted to avoid tokenism they could have chosen Scotty or Spock or Uhura or ... anyone else.
Re:It *is* tokenism that they chose Sulu! (Score:5, Funny)
Or Captain Kirk. And Mr Spock. Together at last...
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Although, the actor actually portraying gay Sulu isn't gay so it's a bit odd to hide behind the non-gay actor while saying that the original universe Sulu portrayed by the gay actor is still straight.
They should've given Scotty an interspecies gay relationship with that scaly creature he seemed to have a domestic relationship with in the first reboot film. Or, just make Kirk bisexual so he can flirt with everyone on the screen.
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If they were going to do hat they should have just cut a deal with the BBC to bring in Cpt. Jack Harkness. Course, that would interfere with Kirk's own tail chasing exploits.
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This reminds me of how they will randomly take anyone other than the main character and change them into a __________. Of course the real message is that a _______ doesn't belong in the main characters role.
Pegg has it backwards (Score:2, Insightful)
Introducing a new gay character just means there's a character who, among other traits, happens to be gay. Changing a character to make him gay means every single thing that character does or says will be defined by the fact that he's gay, and every other trait will be irrelevant.
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Introducing a new gay character just means there's a character who, among other traits, happens to be gay.
Not true. He acknowledges either consciously or subconsciously that he is just making a shitty movie without a likable plot or narrative of any kind because he inherited the Star Trek franchise and can capitalize on it - with that in mind it is known he cannot make a gay character who has any trait other than being gay because he is just a political activist without any other skillset, not even the writing aptitude a kindergartner might use to advance the story of the Star Trek universe.
Simon Pegg is being a bitch (Score:5, Insightful)
Simon Pegg, who has co-written the latest Star Trek movie, as well as starring as Scotty, has responded to criticism by the actor George Takei at the film-makers' decision to make the character he used to play openly gay. "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?"
We could have introduced a new gay character, but instead we'll tell George Takei whether his character was gay or not, because we ought to know.
Guess we can call that straightsplaining
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Nobody's telling George Takei that his character is gay. They're telling him that John Cho's character is gay. Neither of these people have to be wrong.
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Nobody's telling George Takei that his character is gay. They're telling him that John Cho's character is gay. Neither of these people have to be wrong.
Let George fucking die before we tell him that Sulu isn't his character. Whiskey Tango.
How about we all just ignore the movies until they go back to the old storyline and causality? That would be the best thing. When Jar-Jar and Fuzzy Boy are no longer involved, we can care again.
Gay crew members scrapped in TNG... (Score:2)
IRC, there was an episode planned for TNG that included a gay crew member or crew member couple, but it was scrapped by the studio. Does somebody remember the details offhand?
TOS pushed back against racism and bigotry in a big way. TNG was still an excellent show, and those principles still underlie Trek, but it did not do that in the same way.
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The entire concept of the Trill was intended to bring that into attention. A race where the "intellect" could inhabit either sex. They even, in the first story in which the Trill appeared, introduced the conflict in which Doctor Crusher had fallen in love with a Trill intellect when it was expressed in a body with one sex, but could not reconcile when it was in a body of the opposite sex. A perfectly reasonable response by a human being who has their own sexuality in full grip, but it did pose an interestin
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There were the genderless J'naii in The Outcast (ST:TNG 05x17) who Riker pressured into sexual relations.
Captain Janeway in Voyager was widely believed to be a lesbian, despite her marriage.
Tasha Yar on TNG always talked about the rape gangs but held a position as chief security officer and was widely believed to be a lesbian or at least bi-sexual (and willing to get it on with fully-functional androids).
In ST:TNG 01x14 "Angel One", the Enterprise sends an away team to a female dominated planet. They take
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I don't recall Janeway ever showing any interest in sex at all, unless you count 'the amphibian incident.' The one that no crew member ever dared speak of afterwards.
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There were the genderless J'naii in The Outcast (ST:TNG 05x17) who Riker pressured into sexual relations.
Riker didn't pressure anyone. He fell in love with one of them who was gendered, and thus considered something of an abomination by her society.
Fun fact: Johnathan Frakes was apparently in favour of having his love interest played by a (androgenous, to fit the species look) guy. Didn't happen though.
Oh, sure (Score:5, Insightful)
Christopher Pike able to talk and laugh... no problem. Vulcan destroyed... no problem. Spock and Uhura making out in the turbo lift... No problem. But make Sulu gay? THIS SHALL NOT STAND!
Good Observation (Score:3)
Of course, you could point out a number of inconsistencies going back to the original series that are just as large.
Maybe this is a function of, let me think of a word for it, "fiction".
It's not real so we can try out different ideas.
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The difference is that Sulu is being retconned to be gay before the timeline is changed.
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Yeah... not to mention Star Trek was pushing the 60s standard pretty hard by having a black woman as a bridge officer and kissing the captain at one point. If you want to touch some social stigmas and not just be a Fast & Furious clone wouldn't this be right up Gene's alley? I mean sure the fans go ballistic over canon when Spock and Uhura make out, but what most people see are just one person with pointy ears kissing another without pointy ears. It's not like an interracial kiss is a big deal anymore.
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All of that except the Spock and Uhura thing (most fans have read the comic book and the comics are canon in the new films) is garbage, and people complained about it as well.
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Kindly speak for yourself. I'm a lifelong fan of the series, starting from the original run of TOS, and the comics mean nothing to me.
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Kindly speak for yourself. I'm a lifelong fan of the series, starting from the original run of TOS, and the comics mean nothing to me.
Unless you are every fan, I was not speaking for you. Thank you, please drive through. You are #2 today, BTW. Work on that reading comprehension.
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Christopher Pike able to talk and laugh... no problem.
As the timeline has been altered, the circumstances leading to his alternate-timeline incapacitation have changed.
Vulcan destroyed... no problem.
As the timeline has been altered, circumstances have led to the destruction of Vulcan.
Spock and Uhura making out in the turbo lift... No problem.
As the timeline has been altered, the circumstances leading Spock to be more strictly logical have been altered, and he secretly leans more towards his human, emotional side.
But make Sulu gay? THIS SHALL NOT STAND!
So, *circumstances* lead someone to be gay? It's not an inherent trait? See how that can be an issue?
WTF - Star Trek Fans can't accept alternate univ? (Score:2)
Stick true to the story ...
What true story? Its an alternate universe. If any fan base could be assumed to accept and understand that in parallel universes things can be a "little" different you would think it would be the Star Trek fan base.
... but don't be so foolish to talk about Star Trek "canon orthodoxy". This sort of "difference" is entirely within "canon".
Make all the comments you want about political correctness, pandering, etc
tokenism mr pegg? (Score:3)
making sulu gay is a key plot device then and not to force an agenda?
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It's not really about agendas. It's about audience identification with characters. The more demographics they can make feel included, the more money they can make. Personally I really couldn't care less.
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making sulu gay is a key plot device then and not to force an agenda?
Yep in the same way that making everyone else straight is a key plot device.
Marketing kayfabe... (Score:5, Insightful)
I suspect this is just manufactured controversy to generate a bit of buzz for Star Trek Beyond in 2 weeks.
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Never put the industry above the ability to actually take these petty little things seriously.
Maybe in the 23rd century (Score:2)
It's considered to be within the spectrum of normal human behaviour so that it doesn't even warrant attention. Perhaps 21st century ideas of "equality" are considered regressive in the 23th century, kind of like the 19th century pushing it's values onto us today?
If they *really* want to reboot things... (Score:5, Insightful)
Have Kirk be gay - all his womanizing just a symptom of self-denial. I'm sure Chris Pine would love that...
Re:If they *really* want to reboot things... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Why stop at Kirk? Have all of them be gay. If the plot is good it doesn't matter.If the plot is good.
The trouble with that it it would then be a derived work of about 99.7% of star trek fanfic and so the licensing situation would be unclear.
Tokenism (Score:2, Interesting)
The tokenism argument doesn't make any sense to me. Let's look at TOS. Uhura wasn't in either of the pilot episodes. Was Uhura a token black character? Chekov wasn't introduced until season 2, and Russians certainly weren't viewed favorably in the West at that time. Was Chekov a token Russian? For that matter, was Sulu a token Asian? There certainly is latitude to introduce new characters in movies, such as was done very successfully with Saavik. Independent of whether Takei is right or wrong, the comment a
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Good argument, you're right.
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Dr. Richard Daystrom (William Marshall), owner of the Daystrom Institute, inventor of the duotronic circuit and the M-5 Multitronic Unit ("The Ultimate Computer"). I daresay a MAJOR character, even though he only appeared in that one episode, though he did get a LOT of mentions elsewhere, particularly DS9 and Voyager, maybe once or twice in TNG as well.
Black as the Ace of Spades.
http://vignette3.wikia.nocooki... [nocookie.net]
I think Riley was the only Irish crewmember.
Spock was, by one count (it might have been one of th
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The episode which struck me, as a fan, as being pretty much the most controversial in TNG was "Up The Long Ladder", which wasn't even aired in the UK the first run round (1989).
You're thinking of The High Ground.
Up The Long Ladder was a fairly light-hearted episode. There were some fairly unsubtle "Oirish" stereotypes in it, though.
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that one. I knew it was one of the Irish episodes. Written by the same person, too, if I recall.
Fast and the Furious in Space (Score:4, Interesting)
Ya know... (Score:5, Insightful)
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My thoughts exactly. "forced" was the exact word I was thinking of.
This is an established character and this proposed aspect of Sulu seems to have just come out of left field, from nowhere.
Frankly,. it feels to me like the only reason to suddenly write Sulu as gay is because the actor who used to play that character happens to be gay., and I don't think that's a good way to write for a character when it's being played by someone new. Honestly, it comes across
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[SPOILERS FOR BSG]
I haven't seen Caprica, but BSG is not a good example of how to portray queer characters.
Harold! (Score:5, Funny)
I bet Kumar is laughing his ass off that Harold has to suck a dick.
Just make all the characters gay (Score:2)
Given just a little more research... (Score:2)
We're talking about a couple of centuries in the future, right? Surely by then, it would be possible for a person to change their sexual orientation the way we change a shirt. So Sulu starts off gay, decides he doesn't like it, and takes some trivially easy treatment to become heterosexual.
Who knows, maybe he had to hide his new un-gayness from judgmental friends. Either way, he'd be in serious tribble.
That answers that question... (Score:3)
...as to why the Captain's Log was always concave at one end.
So Earthish (Score:2)
There's a whole galaxy, make Sulu into tentacled hermaphrodites from Alpha Reticuli.
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Dr Who has tentacled hermaphrodites from Alpha Centauri. Crossover potential?
Hmmm... society by design? (Score:2)
This happened with Independence Day 2 as well.
"We have a gay couple in the film. We don't make a big deal out of it. You start small and then you get bigger and bigger and bigger, and one day you have a gay character as the lead and nobody will wonder at it no more."
-- Roland Emmerich [hollywoodreporter.com], speaking of Independence Day 2.
So we have the director gently ushering society 'towards the light' -- some ideal that he has in mind. Great!
ID4 (the first film) had 2 writers: Dean Devlin, and Roland Emmerich (in that order).
Why Simon Pegg? (Score:2)
Then again I think the same about Abrams and his magic belt movie with a Trek name on it.
Star Trek: The New Voyages: much better Star Trek (Score:2)
The fan-made movies referred to as Star Trek: Phase 2 did a much better job of capturing the original series. And they did _fantastic_ task of exploring social issues that would have been unthinkable for Gene Roddenberry. The response of Captain Kirk to an openly gay crew member in their "Blood and Fire" episode was priceless. These fan made episodes are much better than the last few movies. And they pay loving homage to the original seies' work, with cameos by actors involving their older selves such as Wa
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If they can survive the mere existence of milo, they can handle that.
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You too are caught in the same binary thinking. The whole point of not putting yourself into a box is that you should feel free to be attracted to whomever. If you’re only attracted to males or only females, that’s fine. If you’re attracted to both, that’s fine too. What if you’re attracted to lots of females but only the occasional man? That’s fine too. This is about FREEDOM by eliminating the boxes. It’s about freedom to not be judged, freedom to make your