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 Manchu wrote:
Apply my rule of thumb: are their romantic relationships ever relevant to the plots/stories?

Well, are they?

And if so, are their sexual orientations ever relevant to the plots/stories? Or would anything have changed from a plot/story perspective if Kirk banged a green guy instead of a green girl?

37D of 9 was very relevant...

Phasers set to smoking hot!

 d-usa wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
Are you seriously asking me why the actor playing Captain Kirk in the reboot is white?

If so, that is the dumbest thing I have read on the internet all week (so far).

Pick any of the white Heterosexual Star Trek characters from TOS, TNG, DSN, Voyager, Enterprise. Did the story telling and writing do enough to justify their requirement to be white heterosexual characters?

l

I for one would like to talk about the TNG writers and the Early Gray Tea (Hot) Agenda. How dare they shove their beverage of choice down our throats vicariously through Professor Xavier.

And don't even get me started on the Oboe agenda in Voyager! Where does Garret Wang get off?

 d-usa wrote:
Well, are they?

Have you ... ever seen any Star Trek? Like, you can't answer this question for yourself? I mean, you only have to ask yourself: how did you know these characters were straight? Did a Hollywood producer tell you right before the release of a major motion picture? Or was it something you saw in an episode?

 d-usa wrote:
if Kirk banged a green guy

And have you bothered to read my posts ITT? This is getting pretty tiresome.

 Manchu wrote:
And this is why I propose a gay Spock - there is something to do with a gay Spock or Kirk: you have this relationship between them that is already incredibly important to Star Trek and if one or both of them was gay, you're going to have so many new facets to that drama. Whereas Sulu is, comparatively, a background character whose relationships have never been and are not likely to now become central to the franchise. With Spock and Kirk, you would be guaranteed to have gay characters; with Sulu, you get a guy who wears a tag that says GAY.

 LordofHats wrote:
Where does Garret Wang get off?

These days? At conventions mostly, where he usually only has one half of a table.

I'm even willing to be adventurous and talk about Psych's pineapple agenda. Damn subliminal advertising.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Manchu wrote:
These days? At conventions mostly, where he usually only has one half of a table.

Well Voyager was horrible. When the performance a given actor gives in Star Trek Online is better than the television series they first appeared in, something was wrong

 LordofHats wrote:
Well Voyager was horrible.

Add that to the book of things we agree about.

 Manchu wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
Well, are they?

Have you ... ever seen any Star Trek? Like, you can't answer this question for yourself? I mean, you only have to ask yourself: how did you know these characters were straight? Did a Hollywood producer tell you right before the release of a major motion picture? Or was it something you saw in an episode?

Why is Kirk white and straight? Why is Uhura black and straight? Why is Picard white and straight? Why is Sisco black and straight?

 Manchu wrote:
But anyway, to continue with d-usa's example, if some screenwriter were to say, oh "white character X is married to a black woman" and this had basically no impact on film, didn't figure at all into anything, I would be rolling my eyes because it's just that writer doing marketing, exploiting real issues to peddle his goods.

I have watched the shows. Their race and sexual orientation had basically no impact to the story and didn't figure into anything. Did you roll your eyes at their marketing and exploitation of the race or sexual orientation of those characters? Or did you feel that the stories adequately justified the need to have these characters be a particular race or sexual orientation?

That's the problem I have with this argument. Everything has to be justified, except when it doesn't.

 Manchu wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
Well Voyager was horrible.

Add that to the book of things we agree about.

Personally, I kind of like Voyager......

*Quickly warps to the Delta Quadrant*

 welshhoppo wrote:

 Manchu wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
Well Voyager was horrible.

Add that to the book of things we agree about.

Personally, I kind of like Voyager......

*Quickly warps to the Delta Quadrant*

I will stand up and say that Robert Picardo gave one us one of the greatest Star Trek Characters, and one of the best performances of any Star Trek actor (in three different series and a movie no less)!

Even a horrible show has it's likable spots

 d-usa wrote:

 Manchu wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
Well, are they?

Have you ... ever seen any Star Trek? Like, you can't answer this question for yourself? I mean, you only have to ask yourself: how did you know these characters were straight? Did a Hollywood producer tell you right before the release of a major motion picture? Or was it something you saw in an episode?

Why is Kirk white and straight? Why is Uhura black and straight? Why is Picard white and straight? Why is Sisco black and straight?

 Manchu wrote:
But anyway, to continue with d-usa's example, if some screenwriter were to say, oh "white character X is married to a black woman" and this had basically no impact on film, didn't figure at all into anything, I would be rolling my eyes because it's just that writer doing marketing, exploiting real issues to peddle his goods.

I have watched the shows. Their race and sexual orientation had basically no impact to the story and didn't figure into anything. Did you roll your eyes at their marketing and exploitation of the race or sexual orientation of those characters? Or did you feel that the stories adequately justified the need to have these characters be a particular race or sexual orientation?

That's the problem I have with this argument. Everything has to be justified, except when it doesn't.

Dude, the problem is with long running characters being changed. It's why everyone was up in arms when Thor was changed to a woman. Had Sulu been black and gay at the start of the show, no one would care if he was black or gay now. It'd be the same problem as Rocky making Rocky Balboa a lesbian woman from Brooklyn. And yet, notice how Apollo is awesome, because it advances the story and introduces new exciting characters, rather than change existing ones.

So yeah, my opinion has kind of changed on it all... Just by someone mentioning Sulu is "missing his husband and daughter" as the (possible?) line.

I'm basically like, "yep, sure" to it now. We know from Generations that Sulu has a daughter called Demora, my main issue was that sort of feeling that it was changed a character. - Which is why I quipped early on about, "if he was bi instead of gay." - Because that plays into the whole time travel stuff. - Left turn (Original timeline), Sulu settles down with a lady and has a daughter called Demora who helms the Enterprise B. Right turn, Sulu settles down with someone else.

But yeah, if there is still a Demora Sulu in the universe and she's his daughter. Then, yeah, I'm good with it.

Thinking about this more I realized my first post was too much of an angry reaction.

I watch plenty of shows with gay characters/themes.

Again, my issue is with changing an existing character of an established lore/IP just to be inclusive or PC.

Sulu had a daughter and family. Pretty clear he wasn't gay. And this timeline is only 'alternate' once Spock and that romulan ship time travel; the characters are still the same people.

If Sulu is now gay, then this is a truly divergent universe and the first movie makes no sense. It was actually totally unnecessary if JJ is just going to rerwrite characters 'because...'

And if he is going to do that then why even use established characters at all? Why not a completely new set of characters that you can write however you want and no one can argue/complain about trashing established characters?

So now the more I think about this I am realising how lazy and bad JJ is handling the ST IP.

Too scared to strike out an introduce all new characters he has to fall back on known and loved characters but is going to rewrite them how he sees fit. What a douche...

 LordofHats wrote:

 welshhoppo wrote:

 Manchu wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
Well Voyager was horrible.

Add that to the book of things we agree about.

Personally, I kind of like Voyager......

*Quickly warps to the Delta Quadrant*

I will stand up and say that Robert Picardo gave one us one of the greatest Star Trek Characters, and one of the best performances of any Star Trek actor (in three different series and a movie no less)!

Even a horrible show has it's likable spots

Agreed, he is definitely my favourite doctor.

I've assumed Kirk and Spock are lovers in the JJ reboot. It's fairly obvious from their dialog and interactions.

 SickSix wrote:

Sulu had a daughter and family. Pretty clear he wasn't gay. And this timeline is only 'alternate' once Spock and that romulan ship time travel; the characters are still the same people.

Well, that would depend how deep down the rabbit hole you want to go.

We know that Sulu had a daughter and a "family". We were never introduced to a wife, or even a female love interest of any kind for that matter. So there really was never any confirmation of him being straight or gay, we just applied our preconceived notion of what it means to be a family and have a daughter. There is really nothing in the old timeline and original IP that precludes him from having a male partner and a daughter.

If "they never really established him as straight or gay" is not an acceptable viewpoint, then you could always go full Kinsey Scale and try to figure out where the original/alternate Sulu character sits. Was he always somewhere in the middle? Did the alternate timeline simply mean that he did not go on Mission X where he met Eve and instead ended up on Mission Y where he met Steve?

But honestly, they don't have to get that complicated. They can just simply build on the fact that Sulu has always been, he's always had a daughter, and they never established the gender of the other parent. Heck, I don't even think they ever established that there was another partner at all. He could have simply adopted her all along.

 d-usa wrote:
That's the problem I have with this argument. Everything has to be justified, except when it doesn't.

TBH the problem you are having is with understanding the argument. Here's another example, from earlier in the thread:

 Manchu wrote:
Let's drop the doctrinal jargon and just talk about an example: no one can make a conclusive argument that Luke Skywalker is straight (Legends sources being noncanonical). Some may assume so - but it is merely an assumption, no better than assuming he is bi or gay or whatever. This is because Luke's sexual orientation is irrelevant to his story.

Luke: I'm a Jedi, like my father before me. And gay.

Vader: Hold on, that was misleadingly phrased.

If Star Wars was rebooted and the hacks in charge said, well Luke is gay - you can be sure it is just pure Hollywood cynicism. That's what has happened with Sulu, with the added bonus of tying into and exploiting Mr. Takei's real world popularity. (Starting to see why he is not on board?)

Gay romances absolutely should be portrayed in films and on shows, in the same way heterosexual romances are - for the inhherent drama. So this is why I think if anyone is going to be officially outed by the producers, then it should be Spock and/or Kirk. As we saw in Into Darkness, the dramatic potential there is explosive.

 welshhoppo wrote:
Agreed, he is definitely my favourite doctor.

Fine, second favourite doctor.

That's better.

 d-usa wrote:

 SickSix wrote:

Sulu had a daughter and family. Pretty clear he wasn't gay. And this timeline is only 'alternate' once Spock and that romulan ship time travel; the characters are still the same people.

Well, that would depend how deep down the rabbit hole you want to go.

We know that Sulu had a daughter and a "family". We were never introduced to a wife, or even a female love interest of any kind for that matter. So there really was never any confirmation of him being straight or gay, we just applied our preconceived notion of what it means to be a family and have a daughter. There is really nothing in the old timeline and original IP that precludes him from having a male partner and a daughter.

If "they never really established him as straight or gay" is not an acceptable viewpoint, then you could always go full Kinsey Scale and try to figure out where the original/alternate Sulu character sits. Was he always somewhere in the middle? Did the alternate timeline simply mean that he did not go on Mission X where he met Eve and instead ended up on Mission Y where he met Steve?

But honestly, they don't have to get that complicated. They can just simply build on the fact that Sulu has always been, he's always had a daughter, and they never established the gender of the other parent. Heck, I don't even think they ever established that there was another partner at all. He could have simply adopted her all along.

To be fair gay people do have children from time to time.

 Cheesecat wrote:

To be fair gay people do have children from time to time.

Indeed... There was even a stink about it in various media forms because recently a Christian "rock star" came out. He is married and has children.

I would suppose the issue then would be: do we still have those problems in the 2200s or 2300s or whenever ST takes place?

It would be more than suspension of disbelief could stand to feature homophobia within Federation society. I could see it being a problem among Kkingons, I guess.

I know several gay couples, of both genders, that have kids. Being gay doesn't mean no children.

You guys are projecting modern norms on a movie made in the 80s.

Anyways, why are we so quick to assume human homosexuality would still be around in the 23rd century?

What if before then human homosexuality was found to be a genetic defect? What if it didn't exist in the ST time line? We have no evidence to say that it does as far as I am aware.

Let's be objective here and explore all possibilities. Maybe the ST universe isn't all puppies and kittens.


*edited because typing on a 'smart' phone sucks.

 SickSix wrote:
What if before then human homosexuality was found to be a genetic defect?

Erm? What?

What if it didn't exist in the ST time line? We have no evidence to say that it does as far as I am aware.

Yes, and there's no evidence to suggest that black people existed in the first few years of the Marvel universe, but it doesn't mean that they didn't. Lack of evidence for something is not the same as evidence against it.

 Manchu wrote:
It would be more than suspension of disbelief could stand to feature homophobia within Federation society. I could see it being a problem among Kkingons, I guess.

I guess my question could also be answered that, perhaps while there's basically no homophobia in the Federation, there will still be outliers who personally struggle with the identity? I do find even that a stretch because, IMO, the reason why many people have difficulty with their orientation is because of the lack of acceptance and whatnot.

 Manchu wrote:

 welshhoppo wrote:
Agreed, he is definitely my favourite doctor.

3rd favorite:

 d-usa wrote:
So did the reboot manage to tell the story adequately enough to justify having a white heterosexual captain? Or was that just a casting to satisfy marketing goals?

His heterosexuality doesn't come up. However, the tension with Spock is nice and taut.

In the film, Sulu's husband and daughter give the bad buy's planned attack on a civilian target some personal stakes.

I think the best way I have seen lately of portaying a gay couple without pandering is the two scientists on Independence Day: Resurgence. It felt like an old married couple, rather than "look! He's gay!".

Hell, at the end, I felt more emotional for the two of them than for Hemsworth and his fiancee.

 Manchu wrote:
It would be more than suspension of disbelief could stand to feature homophobia within Federation society. I could see it being a problem among Kkingons, I guess.

Now he's having a go at the Klingons !

I'd wager the Empire is more tolerant than you'd think in this regard, Klingons are big on honor and duty, so even Commander Khox'zon'dix would likely sire a few offspring out of a sense loyalty to the continuity of the Empire, even if he didn't personally want to (and I'd imagine a female Klingon might feel obliged to carry a child or two for the same reasons), and as long as he did that and killed enough enemys I doubt other Klingons would much care.

Klingons have rules for literally everything. If there's something in life, they've found a way to ritualize it. So, it would depend on if the Klingon followed the appropriate traditions