science70:
Members of the cast and the creator of Star Trek attend the rollout of the space shuttle prototype Enterprise, Air Force Plant 42, Palmdale, California, 1976. From left, NASA administrator James Fletcher, DeForest Kelley, George Takei, James Doohan, Nichelle Nichols, Leonard Nimoy, Gene Roddenberry, NASA deputy administrator Geoge Low, and Water Koenig.
artfilmfan:
from “For the Love of Spock” (George Takei talking about the time when they wanted to cut him and Nichols/Uhura out of Star Trek and Nimoy was having none of it)
science-officer-spock:
George Hosato Takei (born April 20, 1937)
I spent my boyhood behind the barbed wire fences of American Ointernment camps and when we came out of camp, that’s when I first realized that being in camp, that being Japanese-American, was something shameful. Star Trek is a show that had a vision about a future that was positive. The starship Enterprise was a metaphor starship Earth, and the vision was that the strength of this starship lay in its diversity
science-officer-spock:
Hikaru Sulu was a Human Starfleet officer in the 23rd century. He served as the physicist and helmsman aboard the USS Enterprise under Captain James T. Kirk during its historic five-year mission and later as helmsman aboard theUSS Enterprise-A. He was later promoted to captain and served as the commanding officer of the USS Excelsior. He was widely regarded as a tactical genius, and an expert on Klingon culture and society
"The second one, where Benedict Cumberbatch played Khan, I thought was unfortunate. Benedict Cumberbatch is a wonderful actor. I love everything that he’s done, but if he was going to be playing that character, J.J. should have made him an original character that’s singular to him. Because the Khan character first appeared in our TV series, “Space Seed,” and Ricardo Montalban was sensational in our second movie – he was the title character, The Wrath of Khan, you know! The other thought that Gene Roddenberry always had in the back of his mind — and that was his philosophy — was to embrace the diversity of this planet. Khan was created as East Indian character. The name is East Indian. We needed a big-name star who was a wonderful actor as well. Ricardo is Latino, but he brought his spectacular charisma and made Khan a singular, iconic character. It’s really owned by Ricardo Montalban, and to cast a white, British, wonderful actor, and name that character Khan, is really not understanding Gene Roddenberry’s philosophy. But I enjoyed the action-adventure parts of the second movie, Into Darkness."
