WI Star Trek: Excelsior

Jason222

Banned
It real good deal depend how it was done more anything else. If they play cards right it could easily have stood as well DS9 maybe even little better as hard that sounds. For example going why Romulus and UFP relations fell a part. During Star Trek undiscovered country the Romulus star Empire and UFP very close allies. Going important politics why allies fall a part example turn into enemy. Start out during Star Trek undiscovered country leading to the Tomed Incident. SHow smell problem can slower turn bigger once tell war break has important thing remember till day. Ton mordan day example could massive impact on public it self.
 
Takei says that he always thought of Sulu as being straight. Therefore Sulu is straight.

If Excelsior had ever happened, IMHO it would have been a tremendous loss of some devastatingly good tv possibilities not to have run with Sulu as gay, or coming out throughout the life of the series as gay.

It would have been a natural evolution of the social consciousness shown by the original series.

1993 was the start of the don't ask, don't tell policy for the US military. Can't see how such a plot theme wouldn't have been relevant.

A 1993 Excelsior series would have predated the Generations movie, so a daughter could easily be retconned (preconned?) away. Better yet, give him an ex-wive and a kid. Would add to the idea of him coming to terms with his own sexuality.

IMO a gay Sulu takes nothing away from the daring, swashbucking, exceedingly competent character we all loved from the original series.


Ultimately the decision of a gay or not gay Sulu would have come down to 1) the series executive producers/writers, 2) Paramount having the guts to run it, and 3) George Takei saying whether or not playing a gay character is a deal breaker. It probably would have been gutsy for him in 1993 to have said yes.
 
Takei may say yes to it. I think that Takei likes taking risks. Also, I think that having a gay Captain would seem like the equivalent of having an interracial kiss in TOS. The Original Series had the first interracial kiss on prime-time television, so maybe Star Trek Excelsior can have the first gay kiss in prime time TV.
 
Okay, guys, seriously? (Be warned that the list below contains examples of strong language.)

1) Takei didn't even come out in real life until, what, 2005? You think he would do it sooner if he had a whole TV series depending on him? That makes no sense.
2) Even if Takei was up for it, Rick Berman would not be. And even if Berman somehow got a complete personality change and was up for it too, Paramount would not be.
3) Look at how OTL's Star Trek handled the issue of gayness etc.: i.e. they didn't. They danced around the issue and occasionally tried some hamfisted allegory for which they'd pat themselves on the back for their courageousness, all the while refusing to have any actual gay characters. Reed could've been gay -- but no, he loved T'Pol's nice bum. Garak (not even in the friggin' opening credits) was pretty much played as gay from the beginning -- until he was hastily forced into a relationship with Ziyal, a woman a generation younger than he was, just to make totally sure the audience saw he totes liked the ladies. You think that in ANY universe, they would dive right into it with a gay CAPTAIN?!
4) And even if somehow everyone got hit with the Personality Change Mallet and they actually did make Captain Sulu gay... it would've killed the show. No question about it. It was the 1990s. A time when Will and Grace was considered edgy. And doesn't anyone else remember the big shitstorm that erupted around Ellen Degeneres? Y'know, the one that killed her series?
5) And before someone comes back with "Well, it's a sci-fi audience. They're more open-minded, more inclusive..." No. When it comes to LGBT inclusiveness, in many ways your average straight male nerds can be worse. Because, as ostracised and disrespected they may be, at least they know that they're not one of those dirty sissy faggots.

Tl;DR: it would never happen.
 
Tl;DR: it would never happen.

Agreed, for most of the run. It's possible they'd do an arc near the end though. Once they know they're on the way out than perhaps.

I think the only possible way would be to do the "you're attracted to the person" plotline. Show Sulu have a male lover despite an ex-wife or something. Heck, reverse it and give Sulu a male lover before he falls in love with his wife. That would allow the gay on screen but also fall into the redeems his ways trope that would appease much of the American television audience.

It's not a great message I know, but in the mid 1990s that's about all one can hope for. (Heck TV 101 only a few years earlier got cancelled in large part because a woman on the series got pregnant and (SHOCK! GASP!) went with an abortion.)
 
I don't believe it would have been a good move to make a TV series that takes place 90 years before TNG and is full of aged actors and characters the public had seen hundreds of times.
But, going along with it anyway, I imagine it could work out if they let the show go in different directions from the earlier series. Revisiting some of the sillier planets that were created in the 60s shouldn't be done too often. DS9 did it once, that I'm aware of, and it was played entirely for laughs.
 
I don't believe it would have been a good move to make a TV series that takes place 90 years before TNG and is full of aged actors and characters the public had seen hundreds of times.
But, going along with it anyway, I imagine it could work out if they let the show go in different directions from the earlier series. Revisiting some of the sillier planets that were created in the 60s shouldn't be done too often. DS9 did it once, that I'm aware of, and it was played entirely for laughs.

You forget, TNG and the TMP-era ran simultaneously until 1991 when the last Original Series film was released. And even then, in the comics and all, the TMP era was still en vogue with Star trek fans (and still in comics and books and so on). Star Trek straddled the 23rd and 24th centuries just fine.
Likewise, Picard wasn't a spring chicken either.
 
As to the whole "Sulu sexuality" issue - while the character was not explicitly gay, there was definite subtext there, going all the way back to the original series. He was the only one of the six male regulars with no love interests; even freaking Scotty had a few! And the Sulu from the Mirror Universe? You know, the one where everyone is different from their normal selves? Well, would you look at that, he's blatantly heterosexual and lusting after Uhura like nobody's business. Apparently Takei's sexuality was an open secret even then, and these two seemingly random facts do make a lot more sense if you take that into account.

Then there are the movies - Sulu just happens to love San Francisco, now does he? And then Kirk being surprised at Sulu having a daughter? Granted, in the context of the story this is played up as Kirk being totally ignorant of anyone in his crew not named "Spock" or "Bones", but I think all these isolated incidents do constitute winks at the audience, or in-jokes, or what have you. Takei may well say that Sulu is straight, but the evidence on-screen suggests Ambiguously Gay instead; in a very low-key, tasteful way, of course.

I agree that sexuality will not come to fore as long as Berman is in charge. Everyone has made it quite clear that he's the reason it never did IOTL. I mean, really, as ColeMercury mentions, having Reed pull the Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today routine, even after it had apparently been discussed with Keating, who was ready, willing, and able to play him as gay; and in the new millennium, no less, on a show that's part of a franchise renowned for its progressive attitudes... To put it diplomatically, Berman was (and probably still is) obviously uncomfortable with the notion; I'll leave it at that, because name-calling won't solve anything.

As to the topic at hand, I don't think an Excelsior show launching in place of DS9 has enough lead time after the release of Star Trek VI. The obvious opportunity, ITTL and IOTL, was in place of Voyager instead, and I think that would satisfy the most people.
 
Each show was an attempt to be something different. TOS started it all and Gene kinda set up what was later fleshed out in TNG. TNG like I said fleshed out TOS and established what was the Federation and its policies and everything else. TOS for example if memory serves made different references to what was actually above the ship in Hierarchy etc. So this makes TNG as the real basis of everything else. DS9 and VOY both set in the same era as TNG were meant to grow the universe and try and not do just another ship in the fleet during TNG. DS9 was a space station and became dark, like it was mentioned VOY was meant to not be as dark and still different than previous shows and still on a ship. Instead of VOY why not do a show about a Planet or a Science Ship or something like that during or slightly later than DS9. Set itself apart from the others?

A show about a colony planet in the Federation, or even a show that takes place from maybe one of the other powers perspective would be very interesting and something not done yet in the series.
 
After the final new ST trilogy is aired, I hope they attempt another series, even if it is in the same TL as the movies. If they do, it should be a colony planet, from the Romulans point of view, or another race that has a chance to grow to prominance because of the change in the TL. I'd really like to see the Federation from an outside source. Maybe even a show about the Excelsior but in this new timeline. Hey, maybe they'll discover transwarp even sooner in this TL, avoid the occupation of Bajor.
 
He was the only one of the six male regulars with no love interests; even freaking Scotty had a few!
Actually, the episode "This Side of Paradise" was originally written with Sulu having the love interest, but Leonard Nimoy convinced them to rewrite it for Spock because of the whole emotion-thing with the spores. It's probably circumstance more than anything else. (And did Uhura ever get a love interest either? I mean, apart from the salt monster posing as an attractive guy for like two minutes in "The Man Trap"? Being made to kiss Kirk under alien influence doesn't count as a love interest either.)

Then there are the movies - Sulu just happens to love San Francisco, now does he?
Again, that's for actual reasons that make sense in context. George Takei was annoyed that Sulu wasn't getting enough screen time in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home so he suggested to Harve Bennett that they include a scene in 1980s San Francisco of Sulu running into a small boy who happens to be his great-great-(etc.)-great-grandfather. The setting of San Francisco is simply because that's where Starfleet is based, as established seven years earlier in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The scene unfortunately ended up being cut because the kid who would've played Sulu's ancestor had a horrendous stage mother who made it impossible to get any filming done, because the kid was too nervous to actually do anything with her bossing him around. Sad story.

I know my Trek history.
 
I know my Trek history.
You do indeed; no argument here. The thing about subtext is that it's very personal and subjective, and open to interpretation and debate. I think there's enough there, cumulatively speaking, that there might have been a little bit of in-joking going on; you're taking everything at face value, which is the simplest explanation, and obviously the onus is on me to challenge the canon. Well, I won't. I don't want to be one of those people. We agree on what's relevant to the topic of discussion, and that's what counts.

Just thought I'd throw the obligatory Wacky Fan Theory (TM) out there.
 

Tovarich

Banned
She did like Spock.

Also, Uhura was clearly banging Scotty in the Fifth movie (I don't blame anybody for forgetting that, because the film sucked so bad, I wish I could erase it from my memory too!)

And the Sulu from the Mirror Universe? You know, the one where everyone is different from their normal selves? Well, would you look at that, he's blatantly heterosexual and lusting after Uhura like nobody's business.

Yeah, but that'd mean everybody else in the MU were 'Evil Queens', the MU Spock would've resembled Rimmer from the Red Dwarf MU.....actually, that would've been truly terrific telly, I wish they'd done it! :D
 
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