Beat me too it.

This was a welcome surprise this morning!

They should reform Orion pictures to make this and another Weird Al movie.

Perhaps explaining Rufus' absence is the place from which the darkness comes?

There needs to be one of those Keanu Reeves posters that says "Whoa!  Ziggy Piggy and Ziggy from Quantum Leap are the same person?"

Why not Cumberbatch?  Just because you can do a thing, like casting a white guy as Khan, doesn't mean it's a good idea.  The justification is basically just there to take a well-deserved opportunity away from non-white actors, like in M. Night's Avatar movie.

Exactly.

Even though there's no question mark, I know you meant that as a question.  It is actually the answer to your question.

Reading the Tasha Yar article on Wikipedia lead me to the Kara Thrace article and the booing Katee Sackhoff got at early convention appearances. Props to her as well.

Today's feature article on Wikipedia is Tasha Yar, a role that was originally called Macha Hernandez inspired by Vasquez in Aliens.

It might not matter in the initial casting, but it certainly once writing the stories.  In Deep Space Nine and Voyager the commanding officers were cast in a race and gender blind fashion, but once Avery Brooks and Kate Mulgrew were cast it had a huge impact on how the stories were told.  This was true when the change…

It's a bit of a chicken and egg thing.  But FWIW, the idea for the plot came before the idea to use Khan.  Which is all the more reason they should have ditched Khan when they couldn't get Benicio Del Toro or a Bollywood star such as Shahrukh Khan.

JJ Abrams did ask George Takei for approval on John Cho.  Takei said that Roddenberry wanted Sulu to represent Asia, not specifically Japan, and so he named him after the Sulu Sea, something that wasn't owned by any specific country.  If Takei was fine with John Cho, then I certainly am, especially since Cho has been…

I found that interesting because to me that name seems like a cross between Mark David Chapman and Michael Lindsay-Hogg (director of Let it Be, Two of Us).

Milos Forman had it down to Carrey and Norton and let Universal decide.  They went with the gigantic star.  I thought he was certainly committed to the part anyway.

Alan Alda as Mussolini

I liked seeing Asians as Vulcans in Star Trek III.  It's not like at least some kind of precedent hadn't been set already.  Besides a ton of white people played Klingons over the years.

I'm reading The Eugenics Wars Volume I by Greg Cox.  According to that he was born around 1970 to an Indian scientist named Dr. Sarina Kaur.  But at the very least his canon origin is 1990s Asia.

Probably.  There was an interview with someone from Run DMC who said he thought Sgt. Pepper sounded like a rap album.

Then soaps, Doctor Who, Star Trek, and a tour of news shows.