Space, Seas, and Sulu: Trek Trivia You Never Knew

Ready to boldly go beyond the familiar boundaries of Star Trek? Join us as we uncover one of the franchise's hidden gems - the captivating radio drama "A Mirror for Futility."

As lifelong fans of science fiction storytelling, we were thrilled to discover how this 1975 Peter Pan Records production captures the essence of Gene Roddenberry's visionary universe using only audio. The story follows the Enterprise on a routine patrol when Mr. Sulu detects mysterious radiation readings, setting up a classic Trek adventure that unfolds entirely through sound. What makes these productions particularly special is how they expand the original five-year mission with new storylines that feel authentic to the characters we've grown to love.

Our conversation takes an unexpected turn as we explore the fascinating history behind the character of Sulu himself. Did you know his name derives from the Sulu Sea in the Philippines? Roddenberry specifically chose this name because the waters touch multiple Asian nations - a perfect representation of his vision to create a character embodying all of Asia. This thoughtful approach to diversity makes Star Trek's legacy all the more meaningful today. We also share surprising connections between Star Trek generations, from George Takei's incredible 87-year journey to John Cho's modern interpretation of the iconic helmsman.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Melancholy Mentor

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello everyone and welcome to Melancholy Mentor, where classic literature meets the vibrant world of radio plays. I'm Fran and I'm joined by Evan from Mystery Mythos. Together, we're your guides on this creative journey. During each episode, we'll dive into stories featured on the Melancholy Mentor channel, allowing fresh ideas to flourish, inspiring you to dream big and unlock your creative potential. Get comfy, open your mind and embrace curiosity. Let's get started. Hello, I'm Fran and I'm Mephan, and today we're going to talk about Star Trek. Yeah, so we've got a few Star Trek episodes on our YouTube channel.

Speaker 1: 0:53

So the intention of this podcast is to highlight radio dramas that we've got on one of our YouTube channels, which is Melancholy Mental, and we've got a few of the Star Trek ones on there. They're not from the TV series or the films, they're kind of separate, because there was a lot of spinoffs, wasn't there? Comics and things like that. So this is like these are standalone stories. And today we're going to talk about a mirror for futility. Yes, okay, we've got a little bit of spill to say about it. Join us on a thrilling journey through the vast expanse of the final frontier, oh, as we delve into the depths of the Star Trek universe. Yes, the Enterprise is on a routine patrol on the outer fringes of Federation territory. Mr Sulu reports readings of radiation. So that's kind of like the beginning of the story. Yeah, so they're kind of just out on patrol. So this is based on the original series.

Speaker 2: 2:16

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 2:17

So the original series. So right, a little bit about Mr Sulu. So Mr Sulu is the helmsman of the Enterprise and in the original TV series, Sulu is played by George Takei. Yeah, Now that name is spelled T-A-K-E-I, so we're going to pronounce it Takei, because initially I wanted to say Taki-I, but yeah, takai, so that's the actor, and his first appearance was in the Mind Trap in 1966. So we're talking about the TV version now of Star Trek. George Takai was born in 1937 to Japanese-American parents. He was actually born in Los Angeles, in California, so he was born in 1937. I presume by that both his parents were Japanese and then actually had him in America. He's currently, at the time of this recording, he's 87 years old. Wow.

Speaker 1: 3:27

I know, amazing, amazing, yeah, wow. And then in the rebooted film series Sulu, the character of Sulu is played by John Chull, and John was born in 1972 in South Korea and he moved to the United States when he was six years old and he's currently, at the time of this recording, 52 years old, so which is quite interesting, interesting. So you've got somebody of Japanese descent playing Sulu and somebody of a South Korean descent playing Sulu. Yeah, and I kind of looked a little bit into this, um and the character. Apparently the character is named Sulu because the creator of Star Trek, gene, I'm going to say Roddenberry, roddenberry, that's how I say it.

Speaker 1: 4:22

Yeah, gene Roddenberry. So Gene Roddenberry created Star Trek and he wanted a character to represent all of Asia, so just that encompassing kind of all of Asia. And apparently this is something to do with the Sulu Sea in central Philippines, where the waters touch all the shores, oh, crikey, yeah, and that's how the character got the name of Sulu. So I hope that's true because that's quite a story. Yeah, maybe you know Jean was looking at a map, you know, of Asia and just sort of thinking, and then saw this sea on the map in Philippines, yeah, where the waters touched all the shores, and thought, oh, that's all encompassing of the, you know, of all of Asia. Yeah, we call the character Sulu.

Speaker 2: 5:17

Very clever.

Speaker 1: 5:24

Very clever, very creative, very creative, yeah, yeah, so I like that. In 1994, the movie Star Trek Generations, um. So Star Trek itself it's an original. They call it the original series. Yeah, original tv series. There are so many spin-offs of star trek. It's just a whole multiverse, isn't it of of creation. So you've got movies, you've got different kind of, you've got next generation, you've got voyager. You know there's all different ones over the years and they were tv series, um and movies. And then also you had um, probably fan fiction. Uh, yeah, it's comics based on it. There's radio dramas based on the stories of it as well. So there's lots of different spin-offs. So in the actual um movie, star trek generations, um, there's a character um I'm going to pronounce this as as demora sulu.

Speaker 1: 6:26

So demora sulu is a female character who is apparently the original sulu's um daughter oh wow, cool, cool connections now I've seen a few of the Star Trek movie adaptations and I can't have seen this one because I'm sure I would have noticed that that was actually news to me. So somewhere along the line I don't quite know what the storyline, the fictional storyline of Sulu is, but somewhere along the way it's a daughter who then featured um later on one of the um star trek kind of you know, spin-off of it yeah, oh, that's really cool, isn't it?

Speaker 1: 7:08

little bit about that, because the actual story itself, um, I presume, did it. Could you know if it came from a comic, this, this?

Speaker 2: 7:20

story um, this um, I'll give you a bit of info about it. This was the seventh of 11 um Star Trek stories that was produced by Peter Pan Records. Um, and this one was actually written by somebody called Alan Dean Foster. It was initially released in 1975 as an audio production, along with like three other stories. After that it was released with a seven page comic book, and this one was the last of seven of a seven story set during Captain James T Kirk's first five yearyear mission aboard the Enterprise, and the fourth of six with an associated comic book. So that's that's kind of how it was done. I guess they like put it out first and then they kind of reissued it with the comic books afterwards. So the video itself was filmed by you at Sandbanks and story is just under 12 minutes long and we've got 71 views on it so that's not bad because we're a little channel.

Speaker 1: 8:29

so by that it's we get the audio for the radio dramas um, and on the melancholy mental channel they're put on there with a video, usually filmed by me, and it's usually the woodland or the seaside. So, as mentioned in previous episodes, I'm based on the South Coast predominantly in a county called Dorset, which has got a beautiful Jurassic coastline, absolutely stunning white sandy beaches, and that's where I do a lot of the filming and then they're put onto the channel. So we've got another um radio drama channel which is mystery mythos and that features um radio dramas but they're slightly. Sometimes there's a bit of a crossover um, but they're more on the mystery and the alien kind of side of it.

Speaker 1: 9:21

Those videos are AI generated and we're very clear about that as well. We're very transparent about that. So thank you very much for joining us today to talk a little bit about Star Trek. There are other Star Trek episodes that we have, so we delve into it a little bit more. It's slightly challenging sometimes to bring more information about the radio dramas themselves, because we're not always sure who the voice actors are, or you know much information about it, so you know. Each time we delve into something that leads to do with the, the topic of it, and today it was um helmsman sulu amazing. Thank you very much for joining us. Bye, bye. Thank you for tuning in. Contact us, melancholymentorcom. Until next time. Keep your minds open and stay curious.