Written by Nicole Feleo
The LGBT community has finally hit the final frontier.
The new film, Star Trek Beyond, follows an alternative timeline of the original show, which includes multiple tweaks from the original…including the Trek universes first ever homosexual character.
At a promotional event in Australia, John Cho announced that his character— Sulu— will be the first LGBT character of the Star Trek franchise.
Star Trek has always been considered progressive since it featured television’s first interracial kiss between Uhura and Kirk in 1968, and will continue its legacy as it discreetly introduces Sulu’s family— a same-sex partner whose identity is not known yet, and the already referenced daughter, Demora.
The writer and director of the film, Simon Pegg and Justin Lin respectively, have decided to make Sulu gay as a tribute to George Takei, the original character in the 1960s series, who has become a vocal LGBT activists.
Takei, in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, says the move is “unfortunate” as it a “twisting” of Gene Roddenberry’s vision.
The fact that Sulu is gay will not be a major point of the film, but rather a casual observance. According to Nerdist, Cho told an Australian newspaper that he “liked the approach, which was not to make a big thing out of it, which is where I hope we are going as a species, to not politicize one’s personal orientations.”
Star Trek will continue to celebrate diversity as the film hits the big screen on July 22, 2016.
