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Hardcover
Format: Bargain Price
This is the autobiography of one of Star Trek's most popular stars, George Takei. It tells of his triumph over adversity and of his huge success, despite an inauspicious start in a wartime US Asian relocation camp. In his lifetime, he has become an actor, a successful businessman, a writer, and a man deeply involved in politics and the democratic process. His story also includes his early days as an actor when he had brushes with greats like Alec Guinness, Burt Lancaster and Bruce Lee, as well as his first meeting with a writer/producer named Gene Roddenberry. The story continues with his days as Mr Sulu on Star Trek, with tales of what really went on behind the scenes, and a look at the production of the original TV series and the feature films.
Note that this is an abridged edition of this title.
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| Interesting Book |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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Interesting book about George Takei and the life of being a Japanese-American. He told some things about the period that Nikkei were interned in WWII that I didn't know about.
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| He's Not Just Sulu. |
| Customer Rating: 3 out of 5 |
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I just finished reading George Takei's autobiography the other night. This guy has led a fascinating life.
When he was younger, he met Eleanor Roosevelt and Martin Luther King, Jr. His first job in show business was helping to dub "Rodan" into English. Before "Star Trek", he did movies with Richard Burton and Alec Guinness. And during the run of the show, he did a movie with John Wayne.
Till I read this book, I also didn't know that he had spent 11 years on a commission in L.A. that was responsible for getting their subway system built.
Interestingly, he doesn't go into a huge amount of detail about the show, though he makes his (and other cast members') reasons clear for not liking Shatner. And given certain revelations about Takei's personal life over the last few years, any discussion about relationships outside of his family and career are strangely absent from the book. Still, it's a good read.
I do agree with other reviewers, however, that even with a length of 400 pages, this book seemed too short. Given that it came out in 1994, I would love to see Takei update and re-release it.
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| oh myyyyy..... |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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George Takai is great on the stern show, he has such a great sense of humour.
Oh Qua Tanzen Wan...
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| I think it needed more Sulu and less Takei |
| Customer Rating: 4 out of 5 |
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When I saw this book at a used bookstore, I immediately snatched it up. As an original Trekkie, I try to read everything I can about Star Trek and the people who made it. While this is a good book and Takei has led an interesting life, I found myself wanting more information about his life in Star Trek than it contains. This is not to say that Takei has not led an interesting life, quite the contrary. His family was dislocated and interned as "potentially subversive" Japanese-Americans during World War II and he has been a political activist most of his life.
The problem is within me and I am no doubt similar to many others. We want to know all we can about Star Trek, and to that end, the personal lives of the actors takes on a secondary role. This is not to say that Takei doesn't spend a great deal of time discussing his life in Star Trek, he does. It is just that a lot of it is complaints about the arrogance of William Shatner and the personal conflicts in the actor's egos. There is also discussion about Takei's attempts to negotiate higher salaries and a greater role in the series and movies. He has some extremely nice things to say about Leonard Nimoy and his high level of integrity.
I enjoyed the book, the disappointment that I felt was personal, and I wanted less Takei and more Sulu. Takei has every right to make his autobiography about himself. However, more so far unpublished insights into the doings of Star Trek would have made the book more interesting to the diehard Trekkie in me.
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| Interesting autobiography |
| Customer Rating: 3 out of 5 |
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George Takei's autobiography proves to be an interesting reading material as he related to his life. First half of the book dealt with his life as a Japanese-American, dealing with wartime as well as post war racism. His story of his life in the internment camp was quite moving.
Unlike Jimmy Doohan's book, at least Takei remembered why he's so famous and why people wants to read about his life. Takei's book got interesting tidbits and background information on his role as Mr. Sulu and Star Trek material. As a Star Trek fan, I found this part of the book to be most interesting. It was interesting to read his take on John Wayne and the tribute Takei pay to him when Takei was working with him in Green Beret. I think that story need to be expanded a bit more. But Takei tells a good story from how he was initially interviewed by Roddenberry to the Star Trek VI movie when his character finally won the command of the ship of his own (and probably reduced Takei to a bit player on the film).
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George Takei obviously didn't like William Shatner very much. Maybe it has to do with ego clashing or screen time sharing. In that, he joined with Jimmy Doohan in their dislike of Shatner. He probably didn't care about the way his character was being treated and in that he joined with Nichelle Nichols as only two minority members of the crew trying to improved their lot.
But overall, this proves to be a pretty decent autobiography, now that he's out of the closet, maybe George Takei can update his own book and relate to what it mean to be the only gay member of Star Trek (that we know of so far).
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