Following on from the success of Star Trek: Picard, another franchise figure now apparently wants to get his own spotlight. George Takei has commented on why a Star Trek spinoff focused on Hikaru Sulu would be a great idea, citing the fan love for the character, as well as previous ideas for original productions. What, then, might a Sulu series look like, if it ever became a reality?
Well, according to Takei, the basis for a Sulu show comes via his role in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Here’s what he had to say in an interview with StarTrek.com:
“As a matter of fact, in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Sulu got his own captaincy. The first scene is a shot of this huge, magnificent starship called the Excelsior, and then it zooms in on the bridge, and there’s a brand new Captain seated confidently at that center chair, elegantly sipping his cup of green tea: Captain Sulu. There’s this huge explosion in the galaxy, and the sound waves come rippling over and turn the ship into turmoil, and I shoot shields and the drama begins. That’s a nuclear explosion on the Klingon nuclear planet.”
The actor goes on to describe Sulu’s role in saving Captain Kirk at the end of the Undiscovered Country, and how the film should have been titled “Captain Sulu to the Rescue.” Of course, there’s a good chance here that Takei is being more than a little tongue-in-cheek, which may also apply to his description of a fan campaign for a Sulu picture after the sixth movie in the series.
“That’s what the fans thought it was going to be. They mounted a huge tidal wave of letter writing, and by then we were in the email age, too. When we were on television, they were fan mailing us with pen and paper, but after that movie, fans inundated Paramount with email pleas for a new spin off series called The Excelsior with Captain Sulu. Those executives at Paramount didn’t see and didn’t hear, [so] they missed that opportunity. But the fans thought it was a great idea, and it surely would have been a huge, monstrous, galactic success.”
It therefore seems that the most likely source for a Sulu program or big screen adaptation would be centred around his time as Captain of the USS Excelsior, and his adventures in the intervening years since. Sulu did pop up as a holographic portrait in Star Trek: Voyager, while we met his daughter Demora in Star Trek: Generations. Furthermore, there’ve been several novels following Sulu’s missions onboard the Excelsior, a run of audiobooks, and non-canon decisions to make him alternately an Admiral and President of the Federation.
Unfortunately, we’ll likely never see the 83-year-old Takei back in Star Trek, although he has recently stirred up controversy by suggesting an on-set rivalry between Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner.
What do you think, though? Would you like to see a Picard-style spinoff with Sulu? As ever, let us know in the comments section down below.