New Sulu Revealed as Gay, Called Unfortunate By Original Sulu (Updated)

In an interview promoting Star Trek Beyond in Australia, John Cho revealed to the Herald Sun that his character of Sulu is gay. Cho said “I liked the approach, which was not to make a big thing out it, which is where I hope we are going as a species, to not politicise one’s personal orientations". The previous movie revealed the character had a daughter in a brief scene so wouldn't be surprised if handled in a similar blink or you will miss it manner. The choice to make the character gay was made by Beyond co-writer Simon Pegg and director Justin Lin as a nod of respect to George Takai who originated the character of Sulu. However it seems the effort somewhat backfired as the actor was not pleased. Takai told The Hollywood Reporter, "I’m delighted that there’s a gay character. Unfortunately, it’s a twisting of Gene’s creation, to which he put in so much thought. I think it’s really unfortunate."

Takei first learned of Sulu's recent same-sex leanings last year, when Cho called him to reveal the big news. Takei tried to convince him to make a new character gay instead. "I told him, 'Be imaginative and create a character who has a history of being gay, rather than Sulu, who had been straight all this time, suddenly being revealed as being closeted.'" (Takei had enough negative experiences inside the Hollywood closet, he says, and strongly feels a character who came of age in the 23rd century would never find his way inside one.)

Details from Star Trek Beyond Fan Event, On Set Articles, Simon Pegg Interview

The release of the second trailer for Star Trek Beyond means various media focused websites received the clearances to print articles from their Vancouver set visits while the movie was in production last year. In most cases the information is light since the whole point of the set visits is to literally sell the movie with a lot of cheerleading talk so what is said is rarely much different then what is said in interviews and the promotional talk show circuit. Below are the highlights and links to the full articles.

The full articles on io9.com and Collider. In addition Simon Pegg talked about working on the film with Collider. At last week's reveal of the trailer, Paramount also showed off a few scenes set early in the movie. If ok with spoilers you can find a description at TrekMovie.com. Last but not least, here is another poster for the movie whose look is designed to invoke the Star Trek: The Motion Picture poster.

Highlights

Pegg On Writing Trek and Meeting Director's Vision

In an interview with Collider, Star Trek writer Simon Pegg discussed how important doing Trek justice was to him while also incorporating the action elements that Jusin Lin (Fast and Furious films) is known for. Below are two key quotes, the rest can be found here.

PEGG: Being given the keys to the Star Trek universe was an extraordinary privilege. It was extremely important to me that we did it justice. I know Star Trek means a lot to a lot of different people. It means an enormous amount to some people. And at the same time, it should be something that everyone can enjoy as well, so you have to look at the means of writing a screenplay as well, which is an invitation to the un-inducted of the Federation Fan Club, and those who have been watching the show for fifty years and knowing it and loving every element of it. And also what’s available to us now and the state of cinema now, and the spectacle to bring people in. It was, “Let’s combine it. Let’s combine the philosophies and tenets of the Star Trek universe with bigger set pieces and exciting stuff. Let’s see Kirk and the guys doing stuff we haven’t seen them do before because we just literally haven’t been able to do that.” But that’s not at the expense of the other stuff. Star Trek is a very thoughtful story. It’s a very intelligent, hopeful projection of our own futures, and that’s something we have to hang on to.

PEGG: Justin had clear ideas about a few of the set pieces in the movie, and we would work with Justin to make sure the story tracked through those moments so if there was a big event, Doug and I would make sure we tracked every character in that event and make it track with Justin’s idea for the visual spectacle, which he is very good at. So once we hit all the dialogue and all the story beats, Justin would work with the pre-viz guys and the VFX guys and whoever else, the stunt teams, to bring it to life.

Memory Alpha Provided Assist In Star Trek Beyond Script

In an interview with Star Trek Beyond co-star and co-writer Simon Pegg, he spoke a little bit about the writing process with his co-writer Doug Jung. Specifically he commented on his use of a long time Star Trek wiki site to help during the scripting stage.

“We had the entirety of ‘Star Trek’ history at our disposal and it’s always there online. There’s an amazing Wikipedia online called Memory Alpha. It became Doug [Jung] and my resource and the place that we’d turn to whenever we wanted to know, ‘What kind of weapons does an NX vessel carry?’ Memory Alpha has it. We actually wrote to the Memory Alpha guys and got them to name a certain device in the movie. I sent them a letter saying, ‘Can you come up with this for me?’ In two hours, they came back with an entire etymological history of what the thing was. It’s beautiful. It’s fantastic to have that support network.”

Long time Trek fans have probably been aware of the depository of all things Star Trek called Memory Alpha that focuses on in canon continuity (as in TV and movies) of the universe. Its name is derived from the home of the Federation's central library that was introduced in The Original Series. Its partner in data is Memory Beta which focuses on the non-canon details like the novels, comics, and other licensed works. Basically you need a refresher on a character, planet, ship, race, you name it, between those two sites you answer can likely be found with a little digging. For example, the NX vessel reference is detailed on the website. If the class sounds familiar it is because NX-01 Enterprise is from the Star Trek: Enterprise series as the prototype ship for warp ships to use in exploration and defense that would be the standard design (later the letters NX would be used to denote an experimental ship design). The Constitution class NCC-1701 Enterprise from TOS is its successor (unofficially NCC means Navel Construction Contract, officially it means nothing).

Long story short, its nice to see Star Trek powers that be appreciate fans efforts (those mysterious minds that keep the Memory sites current). From a movie news perspective, it means nothing as likely it was for a Scotty ramble as he repairs something. The actor also commented on the new TV series saying:

“Star Trek has existed for 50 years in very different iterations. There are so many different points from the history of the Federation, from the very beginnings in ‘Enterprise’ to much later on with ‘Voyager’ and ‘Next Generation’. This is a story that will go on and on. It’s a continuing mission. It must have life on television as well as film. It started out as a TV show. It’s home was television. I’m overjoyed at that news and I can’t wait to see what they do.”

Simon Pegg Talks Scripting Star Trek Beyond

Below are excerpts of an interview Simon Pegg did while on the Star Trek Beyond step with Nerdist. In the interview he talks about breaking story, goals he hopes to achieve while writing the story and how trying to balance Trek for fans and new fans. I have admit I am enjoying the more open take that is occurring when talking about Star Trek Beyond. You can tell from reading recent interviews that those involved are not feeling the pressure of maintaining the cone of silence where every itty bitty tidbit, no matter how irrelevant, must be kept secret less the wrath of Abrams descends. Without his involvement, the openness isn't "here are some spoilers!" but just more open with longer and relevant answers to questions without fear of a slip-up. If you can't tell, never a fan of Abrams cone of silence because it was absolute to the point of idiocy. There is middle ground and he just refuses to find it.

How got writing gig
"It was kind of something that came up at the end of the year when I was in the middle of Rogue Nation, and Bryan Burke — who is the producer on that movie and the producer on the previous two Star Treks and Star Wars as well — he was saying they were thinking about blue skying the screenplay and going in a different direction. We just talked about it a lot on set, and then he just pulled me aside one day and said, “Do you want to write it with a co-writer?” I sort of said, “Okay.” I knew it would be difficult, but for some reason I said yes and that was it. Then in January we all met. I never read Bob [Orci]’s script and neither did Doug [Jung]. We started out in a room at Bad Robot that’s just got white boards around the room, just blank white boards. Which is a terrifying thing to see. Then we just filled them and kind of went through so many iterations and so many story ideas. Eventually we began to hone in on what we have now, and it was a very accelerated, kind of intense process—and a difficult one."

Simon Pegg Tells Fans to Be Patient, There is 'Star Trek Stuff" in Beyond

In an interview with HeyUGuys (via TrekMovie), Simon Pegg commented on the recent trailer and basically said what many fans (including myself) were thinking. More importantly the co-writer and star of Star Trek Beyond essentially said not to worry, that the movie is packed with "Star Trek stuff".

"It was very action packed. I was…it was surprising. I found it to be kind of…the marketing people sort of saying ‘everybody come and see this film, it’s full of action and fun’, when there’s a lot more to it than that. I didn’t love it, because I know there’s a lot more to the film. There’s a lot more story, and a lot more character stuff, and a lot more of what I would call ‘Star Trek stuff.’ But, you know, they’ve got to bring a big audience in, they’ve got to bang the drum. So to Star Trek fans, I’d say hang in there, be patient."

Final Chance to Donate to The Boldly Go Charity

Simon Pegg closes the final hours of the Star Trek Beyond charity from Omaze that ends in (now) 24 hours. In the video Simon Pegg shows off a few outtakes as the cast was filming the series of videos promoting the To Boldly Go charity. If you wish to donate, click here.

New Video for Star Trek Charity

Simon Pegg and Anton Yelchin have appears in a new video to promote the Star Trek: To Boldy Go Omaze charity that gives (now) five fans a chance to win a visit to the Star Trek set and one a chance to get a walk on role for Star Trek Beyond.

Pegg: Shatner Not in Star Trek 3

In an interview Simon Pegg confirmed what we all already knew to be true - that William Shatner will not be in Star Trek Beyond. "William Shatner is an amazing actor, and has such an incredible body of work which transcends his time as Captain Kirk. It's always about whether the stories right. It's pointless crowbarring these things in as a gimmick. That does the story and the film a disservice. I have no doubt in my mind that he could play Captain Kirk until the day he goes off to the final frontier", the co-writer told Digital Spy in the video below.

He also objected to stories that said that Roberto Orci's script was rejected for being too Star Trek-y, saying "This Star Trek will be as much Star Trek as it can be." (aka a Paramount mandated action film in space with Star Trek names). Unless plans have changed, Star Trek 3 will take place at some point during the Enterprise's first 5 year mission to explore strange new worlds, seek out..., etc. with the goal of trying to create an original story that doesn't rely on previous Star Trek villains or episodes. As such it would make sense that Shatner would not have a role in the film that wasn't just fan pander. Something Shatner already said he had no interest in when he turned down a role in the first movie.

Pegg Confirms Star Trek 3 Title, Paramount Wants to Avoid Too Trek-y Film

Apparently Simon Pegg accidently kicked a hornet's nest when he gave an interview to "The Radio Times" and expressed his honest opinion on the subject of movies by saying essentially saying we need more of these big summer tentpole type movies to have "challenging, emotional journeys or moral questions". It is one I agree with but outside the scope of this blog (but feel free to discuss in the comments). Long story short film nerds took offense and so Pegg was forced to walk the interview back and apologize on his website. In doing so it appears he accidentally verified that the title of the next movie when he wrote "I better climb aboard the old hypocropter and fly back to writing Star Trek Beyond."

In addition he confirmed that Paramount did not want the Star Trek films to be too Trek-y and that played into why Roberto Orci's script was scrapped and he was ejected from the director's chair. From Pegg, "They had a script for Star Trek that wasn’t really working for them. I think the studio was worried that it might have been a little bit too Star Trek-y. ...People don’t see it being a fun, brightly coloured, Saturday night entertainment like the Avengers." One possible solution he suggested for that perception problem is "make a western or a thriller or a heist movie, then populate that with Star Trek characters so it’s more inclusive to an audience that might be a little bit reticent."

Star Trek 13 To Get New Original Villain

Simon Pegg, one of the writers on the next Star Trek film, spoke with MTV on his upcoming projects including Star Trek. The new nugget of information is the film will have a new original villain that isn't tied into the series a la Khan which may be played by Idris Elba. Below is the video of the interview.

"It will be [an original character], yes. This is the five-year mission now, we're out there. We don't always have to keep bumping into the same people… So we're gonna try and reflect that in the movie."

"We can invest in it the spirit of the show and get back to the essence of what it is, and so what we're hoping to do is make a Star Trek for today that doesn't forget where it came from."

Simon Pegg Comments on Star Trek 3

While promoting his next film in an interview with Comic Book Resources, Simon Pegg briefly commented on Star Trek 3 which he is co-writing. The key bit of information is that he is hoping to capture "the spirit of the TV show" and rumors indicate the film will take place at some point during the five year mission.

What got you excited about the opportunity to write the next “Star Trek” movie, and can you talk about the sensibility you want to bring to it?

It just came out of conversations I was having with J.J. [Abrams] and Bryan Burk, and they decided to kind of like restart the process. Because I’d been on the set with Burk-y on “Mission: Impossible,” he said, “Maybe you should come on and write it with Doug and Justin and him and Lindsey Weber. And I was a bit, “No. I don’t want to – it’s too much pressure!”

But I think we just want to take it forward with the spirit of the TV show. And it’s a story about frontierism and adventure and optimism and fun, and that’s where we want to take it, you know. Where no man has gone before – where no one has gone before, sensibly corrected for a slighter more enlightened generation. But yeah, that’s the mood at the moment.

Simon Pegg Co-Writing Star Trek 3

In a bit of news from left field, Deadline is reporting that Simon Pegg has signed on to co-write Star Trek 3 with current writer Doug Jung (Dark Blue, Diamond). The script is being re-written after Paramount was so unsatisfied with the Bob Orci draft that they fired him as director (replaced with Justin Lin) and essentially removed any influence he has on the film probably only retaining the producer credit for contractual reasons.

Simon Pegg will retain his roll as Scotty in the movie. Past writing efforts from the actor include Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and The World's End. If watch those (low budget) movies Pegg's brand of humor clearly comes across while retaining strong characterizations and interesting situations. They were also all co-writing efforts. Combined with Pegg being a long time and vocal Trekkie and one of the few new movie actors to show up at conventions and the whole thing comes across as a win.

It will be interesting to see what the final product will be which is rumored to be set at an undetermined point in the Enterprise's first five year mission. The new duo is probably already neck deep into a draft as Star Trek 3 is aiming for July 1, 2016 release date so filming needs to start by mid-summer if want to allow enough time for the likely heavy visual effects post production process. It seems like a ton of time but generally on big budget films the pre-production process, including the script takes about 6 months to a year, filming is around 3 to 5 months and post-production tends to average out to a year (but on VFX side it is really just a continuation of pre-production) so the average summer film needs about two years or more from start to finish to nail a release date. Star Trek 3 is now has 18 months plus whatever time pre-production started minus whatever time and effort was lost with the script and director changes. It is still do-able, its just going to get harder to hit the release date the longer they take to start and complete principle photography.

More Star Trek Into Darkness Cast Interviews

Star Trek Into Darkness has premiered in North America but that doesn't mean the marketing campaign stops. In an interview with Collider, STID producer Bryan Burk discussed editing the film, screening the film while maintaining secrecy, easter eggs and a whole lot more including other Bad Robot projects like the various TV shows from this season and next. Simon Pegg remains the example on how to do interesting interviews as he seems to just cause interviewees to ask better questions rather then the generic ones Pine and the rest tend to get. In his interview with Collider, he was in a blunt mood as he talked about maintaining film secrecy, his dislike of people dinging Abrams about his lens flares, and talked provided a few behind the scene antedotes. As for Karl Urban, he talks about trying to add more to McCoy then just sarcasm, film themes, the costumes and more. Alice Eve discusses how her character has a British accent, deleted scene and more. The links to the interviews are below.

Bryan Burk (Collider)
Simon Pegg (Collider)
Damon Lindelof (Collider)
Karl Urban (io9)
Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto (TrekMovie)
Karl Urban and Simon Pegg (TrekMovie)
Alice Eve (TrekMovie)
JJ Abrams (TrekMovie)

Saldana, Pegg Interviews, Movie Stills and Featurette

Star Trek Into Darkness is now less then a day away from release in the US. The marketing campaign continues. Collider has posted their Zoe Saldana interview from the London premiere here. She spoke about the set jokers, that learning Klingon was harder then Na'vi (from Avatar), and few other things.

Simon Pegg was interview by i09.com and as seem to be the case with him, the interviews seem more details (and somewhat spoilerish) and open then with the other actors. Its like his inner geek causes the interviews to geek out more instead of the often generic nothing questions the others get. In his interview he goes from talking about his "futuristic leisure suit", to talking about some of the Trek nods in the film, the motivation of Scotty pushing Kirk, how movie explores Kirk's too quick promotion, the utopian future of Trek, and Scotty's friend Keenser. That interview can be found here.

Pegg On Filming STID

It took a while but finally have a somewhat interesting interview for Star Trek Into Darkness. Simon Pegg actually says stuff of substance. None of it spoiler but much more then the vague nothings the cast has been perfecting for the last few months and just repeating in 25 different ways. To be fair, most media reporters tend to ask the same 10 questions cause their knowledge on any given subject wouldn't fill an index card. Any case in this interview from io9, Pegg talks about taking antigravity on set, filming at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, the cast as the "Mirror Universe", and about a deleted scene that was one of the first filmed for the movie. Highlights below, full write-up is here.

Highlights

4th Clip, 3 TV Spots, 2 Featurettes, and 1 Poster for Star Trek Into Darkness

Star Trek Into Darkness is just days away from its Europe premiere and 10 days from the North America premiere. That means lots of videos. The latest is a new clip that introduces Carol Marcus, three new TV spots with new scenes, features and a poster. The 1st feature is mostly a sales pitch from JJ Abrams while the other one focuses on Scotty with Simon Pegg talking about the character and the movie. As for the poster, it features the enormous USS Vengeance as it attempts to destroy the Enterprise. For a spot-by-shot breakdown of each TV spot hit the links - Reputation, Vendetta and World.

Simon Pegg On Scotty, More Screenshots

In the newest issue of Star Trek Collector's Edition magazine out now (or via an iTunes app), Simon Pegg talks about how Scotty has evolved in Star Trek Into Darkness. In addition the actor spoke with Empire Magazine for their newest Trek centric issue that has just come out in the UK. Highlights below along with pics from the Empire issue.

Scotty's in sequel:

"He’s still very proud, and he thinks he owns the ship. He’s very principled, and those principles define his role in the film."

Adding, then removing "scotishisms"

Alice Eve Denies Khan Rumors, Pegg Wants Abrams for Trek 3

Sunday was the British Academy Film Awards which honors films from around the world. Attending it were to native UK Star Trek Into Darkness cast members Alice Eve (Carol Marcus) and Simon Pegg (Scotty) who answered a few Trek questions. Alice Eve is flat out denies the Benedict Cumberbatch as Khan rumors saying "He is not playing Khan." Simon Pegg discloses he thinks that JJ Abrams "will do Star Trek [3]" after he completes Star Wars while voicing his support of preventing spoilers from leaking. Keep in mind this is a hope on Pegg's part and not inside information. Discussions on Star Trek 3 are probably not even going to start until after Into Darkness comes out. Videos below.

I suspect Paramount will take a wait and see stance until the schedule of Star Wars Episode VII becomes clear. They might wait on Abrams but if the Star Wars gets bumped to 2016 (which I think is all but inevitable), I just don't seem them waiting until 2017 for the next film to come out so will move ahead with a different director. It execs are really on the ball, once the numbers come in on 2 to judge its level of success, they need to get aggressive on at least prepping a script as Paramount should claim summer 2015 when Star Wars gets pushed back as coming out in 2016 against Wars is a non-starter and 2017 just means they might as well wait for Abrams. In short, any Abrams directing Star Trek 3 talk is idle speculation until two things happen - 1) Star Trek Into Darkness is judged a box office success and 2) the official release date of Star Wars Episode 7 is announced.

New Uniform for Star Trek Sequel

New pictures from the Star Trek sequel set made their way online reveal a few more costumes from next year's movies. The photos will uploaded under child actress' Anjini Azhar's IMDB profile who plays the daughter to Noel Clarke (Doctor Who) and Nanzeen Contractor. The photos were since pulled probably due to JJ Abrams' cone of silence. Simon Pegg and Anton Yelchin's modeling of the new uniforms, complete with hat, should provide cos players with something new to create for Trek conventions. Other than being a curiosity I am not seeing anything that tells me squat about the story or the characters. Below are a few photos, the rest can be found here.