I’ve finally seen the most recent Star Trek film and it has my enthusiastic approval. No it’s not the original series. But, IMO, that’s a plus. The major weakness of the first two post-reboot movies were the ham-handed attempts to tie this Star Trek to that Star Trek. This is the first of the three to admit that it’s its own thing. Almost. There’s a couple of callbacks that were made necessary by the premise of the reboot, and they still feel as weird as characters from Tim Burton’s Batman making cameos in Christopher Nolan’s. The good news is that this movie seems to be explicitly closing the book on that. It finally feels comfortable being itself, and gets to rank itself in the upper tier of Trek films.
Also, the Sulu = Gay thing: I can’t imagine something being more a non-issue from any side of it you’re coming from. You’d be hard pressed to find a less empowering or more ambiguous way of representing a gay character on film. Not only is it a fraction of a second that was probably added in post to get some social media buzz, but there’s no context, and no impact on the plot or Sulu’s character. If the guy in the scene is Sulu’s gay husband (and there’s no confirmation in the film that this is the case), Sulu seems a little less concerned about the guy’s possible demise in the subsequent attack than he should have been. Contrast with Uhura’s attitude toward her ex, Spock. Or Scotty’s attitude toward hot alien chick. If you just want to drop some gay representation without making the story about that, watch some Doctor Who episodes, and don’t film it like you’re embarrassed and plan to cut it later.