George Takei on Star Trek’s 60th Anniversary, the Vulcan Salute, and Fighting Injustice SpaceCon '25

Recorded live at SpaceCon San Antonio on October 25, 2025. George Takei (Hikaru Sulu from Star Trek: The Original Series) sits down for an hour of stories that hit fandom, history, and responsibility as a citizen. Takei opens by thanking the crowd for keeping Star Trek alive for nearly 60 years, pointing ahead to 2026 as the 60th anniversary of the franchise. He talks about creator Gene Roddenberry and the core idea of IDIC — Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations — and says the cast itself was meant to show a future built on diversity, cooperation, and shared purpose. He shares how Leonard Nimoy came up with the Vulcan salute. According to Takei, the original script just had Spock greet alien visitors with a standard handshake, but Nimoy argued that reaching forward like that could read as aggressive. Nimoy suggested an open hand, fingers split, as a peaceful way to show “no weapon.” The director loved it, and that gesture became one of the most famous images in Star Trek. Takei then goes personal. He talks about being a Japanese American child during World War II and being forced with his family into U.S. incarceration camps behind barbed wire and guard towers. He explains that his parents were American residents building a life in California, and that armed soldiers still showed up, took them from their home, and held them without charge or trial. He describes how that experience shaped his lifelong push for civic engagement, participation, and speaking up any time the government crosses constitutional lines. From there, he connects that past to the present. He urges fans to stay active in democracy, vote, volunteer, and defend due process so constitutional rights aren’t taken away from the next generation. He credits his father for teaching him that freedom requires work and that silence is not neutral. He also talks about building Sulu: insisting the character reflect not a stereotype, but a capable, skilled Asian American officer on the bridge of the Enterprise. He tells the story of lobbying to fence with a rapier in “The Naked Time,” taking his shirt off, and loving every second of it. He laughs about mispronunciations of his last name (“It’s Ta-KAY — ‘Takei’ means ‘expensive’ in Japanese”) and still throws up the Vulcan salute to close. Recorded and posted by Tales From The Collection. Subscribe for more celebrity panels, live Q&As, and convention coverage from SpaceCon, GalaxyCon, Fan Expo, and more.