Posted in: Interview, Movies, Star Trek, TV | Tagged: Beam Me Up Sulu, star trek

Beam Me Up, Sulu Directors Talk Takei-Starring Fan Film & Star Trek

Beam Me Up, Sulu directors Timour Gregory & Sasha Schneider spoke with us about the journey of a Star Trek fan film, George Takei, and more.

It's no surprise that Star Trek has become a cultural institution in its 60 years, introducing generations of fans to science fiction since the original NBC series in 1966, its theatrical films starting in the 70s, and several animated and live-action spinoffs since. The love for the Gene Roddenberry franchise inspired generations of creatives, from those who would go on to work on The Next Generation to Seth MacFarlane, a special guest star on Enterprise who would, years later, work with the same creatives on his Trek-inspired series, The Orville. Helping to plant a seed of fan-created content was Stan Woo, who decided to create a student short film in 1985 called Yorktown, a passion project that began during the height of TOS's cinematic era, recruiting George Takei to reprise his iconic role as Hikaru Sulu. Once thought lost, and chronicling its rediscovery, are directors Timour Gregory and Sasha Schneider in Tribeca, and Giant's Beam Me Up, Sulu, which not only catches up with Woo but also the surviving cast and crew, as fans will finally see the fan film come to life. Gregory and Schneider spoke to Bleeding Cool about discovering Woo's film, how Woo recruited Takei and another Asian screen legend, James Shigeta (Die Hard), the importance of representation, and getting stars from Strange New Worlds, Discovery, Voyager, and Deep Space Nine involved.

Beam Me Up Sulu Directors on Bringing 'Yorktown' Fan Film Story to Life, George Takei, James Shigeta & More

BC: What's the inspiration behind Beam Me Up, Sulu?

Schneider: It started with Tim being a lifelong Trekkie, and he read about this short student fan film starring George Takei. [Faces Gregory] Where did you see it first?

Gregory: Just a Star Trek blog that I was following.

Schneider: We decided first to start off doing…we thought it would just be a 15-minute short. The more we got into it…We went to the premiere of [Stan Woo's] Yorktown, which is the backbone of Beam Me Up, Sulu, and we quickly realized after starting talking to people that this was going to be a feature. We wanted to talk with George. That led to wanting to talk about his life, then diversity, representation, and we knew we had to make it longer than 15 minutes.

Gregory: The moment we realized it was going to be a feature was when we kept finding ourselves asking people, "What is so special about Star Trek? What made you do this? What made you make this fan film? What made George be in it?" That was when we realized we can make this about I'm trying to answer that question, "Why is Star Trek so important to people?"

Where did it grow from just being Stan's story from the Yorktown to maybe some other things, like the visibility of underrepresented groups, like Asians in Hollywood?

Gregory: I think on that journey of asking people why they did, so we would ask Stan why he made the fan film, and he would hint that Sulu was a big inspiration to him growing up. We would then ask George why he participated, and he would say, "Well, I wanted to give back to the fans, particularly the Asian American community." That was part of it for George, but actually, I think George would have done it regardless of who was directing that film. For James Shigeta, who is also in the fan film, you might know from Die Hard, that was a big part of his motivation, which was giving back to his community. It seemed that this community, which was the nexus between the elders of the community and the next generation, was very important to the story. It became necessary to explore that and why that's important, and make that clear to the audience why representation is important.

As doing your research and interviews, what was the biggest surprise you had in your journey?

Gregory: Wow, that's a good question. Well, one surprise was definitely that George did not even remember making the fan film [laughs], but we resolved that by showing him some of the footage.

Schneider: I had not been a lifelong Trekkie; I am now, but I came to it later in life. The biggest surprise for me was not knowing much about Star Trek and then connecting especially to fans, seeing how much this show has given them. How much hope, resilience, and community…I was floored by how [much the franchise is such] a big part of their lives, and it's so meaningful in a way that they live their lives to have a better future and better days for all of us, so that surprised me every time.

You've got so many subjects to interview, like Rod [Roddenberry], Christina [Chong], Alexander [Siddig], Ian [Alexander], and Garrett [Wang]. Was there anyone you tried to get who you couldn't secure, and anyone you would have loved to have participate but who is no longer with us?

Schneider: So many…

Gregory: Yeah. When it comes to people who passed on, James Shigeta, who passed in 2014. He would have been incredible to speak to, because he's somebody whose career is not as well-known in the way George's is. George has documentaries about him. We tried to bring something new to this one, but James doesn't have any [documentaries] at all, so we were intentional about giving him a space in the film and going into his story in quite a bit of detail, so that this film, even though it's a short sequence, in this film. It stands as a testament to his legacy in film.

Schneider: So many from The Original Series, of course, Nichelle Nichols would have been amazing. We talked to many fans, and everyone who was touched by her life and Leonard Nimoy. Anyone from TOS would have been amazing, but with that said, we interviewed more people than we were able to fit into the film. We're going to have a Blu-ray on there, we are including some other interviews with people like Chase Masterson from Deep Space Nine, and some extended interviews. There are a few others that we will be able to share later.

What was the biggest hurdle in making Beam Me Up, Sulu, a reality?

Schneider: Probably one of them was definitely getting to talk to George in the first place. It took a solid year, maybe a year and a half, until we could. Now he's a great friend of ours, but to get to that point, Tim bought an autograph at a convention to get in line to even speak to him about this. Thankfully, his husband and manager, Brad [Takei], was taken by it, so getting to talk to him was one.

Gregory: Yeah, that would be one, and then what springs to mind is we've been very fortunate to partner with Tribeca Films on this, because they understand the breadth of the film. Trying to explain the film is already a challenge in and of itself, because you start by talking about this fan film, which is true, it is about that story, but it's out all these other things and so trying to wrap our head around how to explain it to people in such a way that they want to see it has been difficult. We've been grateful for Tribeca for the way they've positioned the film is just great.

Beam Me Up, Sulu will be available on digital beginning on February 17th.

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