cripes

You asked how it could/would have been altered. I say a thousand ways…we’ll never know, since the Shat took it upon himself to decide for everyone.

Still, TWOK’s central plots–all having nothing to do with Sulu’s promotion–still carried the film, which is still considered the best Trek movie by far. All of that accomplished WITHOUT a minor sub-plot about a supporting character, which goes right back to any observations about TOS, and why Shatner and Nimoy were the necessary focus, whether by the hands of Roddenberry, et al, or Shatner (and/or Nimoy).

I certainly can. If Shatner had not admittedly tanked the Sulu promotion scene in TWOK, the course and fate of Takei’s character would most definitely have been altered.

Thanks all.

“The Bond comparison is pretty off base – How many people became a secretary because of Miss Moneypenny? Or a CIA agent because of Felix Leiter? Because I know many engineers, scientists & doctors that credit their career path to Scotty, Spock & McCoy. Martin Luther King, Jr. himself spoke of the importance of the Uhura character with Nicelle Nichols – a black woman on the bridge of a starship, sharing equal footing with her male co-stars, regardless of color. How many children in Japan or Russia were inspired to see former enemies sharing a common mission in the form of Chekov & Sulu?”

We’re not talking about influence OUTSIDE of the series; Takei’s rants focus on how his character was allegedly short-changed WITHIN the series by Shatner–how the Sulu character should have enjoyed more scripts and screen time. That’s a personal, entertainment career / character growth discussion, so the Bond supporting player comparison is on the mark.

“Those characters – regardless of their screen time – were important, and not merely backdrops to the adventures of James T Kirk.”

No one ever said they were backdrops, but again, the heart of TOS IS the relationship and point of view of Shatner’s Kirk and Nimoy’s Spock, (and in the long run, Kelly’s McCoy). Any continuing drama has its leads and supporting players; whether actor C resents his treatment is a dead issue, because many TV dramas work to create central leads to be the eyes and ears of the series–the vessel the audience uses to explore that fictional world. Shatner and Nimoy were that vessel for TOS, TAS and the TOS movies.

This is not a situation like 1966-67 series The Green Hornet, where star Van Willians argued in favor of his co-lead Bruce Lee to recieve more lines and screen time. In that case, it was more than justified, as Lee was the “other half” of the crimfighting duo–the actual stars of the series in every sense of the word. That was simply not the case on Star Trek where the SUPPORTING cast was concerned.

The Bond comparison is pretty off base – How many people became a secretary because of Miss Moneypenny? Or a CIA agent because of Felix Leiter? Because I know many engineers, scientists & doctors that credit their career path to Scotty, Spock & McCoy. Martin Luther King, Jr. himself spoke of the importance of the Uhura character with Nicelle Nichols – a black woman on the bridge of a starship, sharing equal footing with her male co-stars, regardless of color. How many children in Japan or Russia were inspired to see former enemies sharing a common mission in the form of Chekov & Sulu?

Those characters – regardless of their screen time – were important, and not merely backdrops to the adventures of James T Kirk.

I’m talking about Shatner, not the fictional Kirk, and to address the following:

“Shatner’s approach to his career has been everyman for himself. That’s fine, but there are consequences to that approach in life, not the least of which is the fact that occasionally, some of that behavior is made public.

He nicked lines from co-stars. He intentionally tanked scenes centered on other characters. He also never paid Takei the respect (due any man) of pronouncing his family name correctly in 40 years of knowing him. And these are just the things which HAVE been made public. As Chris Doohan pointed out earlier in this thread, not everything has. What has been portrayed by some as “overreaction” on the part of George Takei, may actually be genuinely “restrained” in the greater context of the whole truth. Chris seems to believe that such stories and alleged beefs are a lot less nasty than they could be. For the most part, Shatner’s co-stars on Star Trek have been very restrained in keeping those issues private. But George’s feelings are his to do with as he pleases. Bill isn’t complaining about it. He knows he has been an ass. He also knows this business. He understands that such things have some entertainment value, and thus have, in turn, some marketing value for Takei. Bill doesn’t need or deserve defending on these issues. he seems more than content to take it in stride, even if he has to reap a little bit of what he has sewn.”

If he was as guilty as you are suggesting, then the segment about his relationships to the co-stars as coverd on the “Mind Meld” DVD (with Nimoy adding his own perspective not too dissimilar from Shatner’s) would have no need to exist. Clearly, the big two were treated and handled themselves in a way not shared (or intended to be shared) with the others.

Can anyone argue that a swiped line or scene from the supporting cast really altered the course and fate of their characters’ TOS (or TAS & TOS-movies) “lives?” Even in a fantasy timeline where the supporting cast had every scene as oiginally scripted, every bit of dialogue, there is no evidence pointing to the TOS–or franchise’s legacy playing out in any different manner.

Scenes and episodes deliberately written for Kirk and Spock (as performed by the respective actors) still would result in the characters’ global popularity. There’s no getting around that; it was the way TOS was structured, so in complaining, Takei seems unusally bitter over a situation he realized was DESIGNED for other actors.

Hypothetically, petty complaints of this kind would be no different than the James Bond actors behind the Q or Miss Moneypenny characters complaining about Connery, Lazenby, Moore, et al, for the same reason–when they all damn well knew the films were about BOND–with occasional support from the aforementioned characters…not the other way around.