20 Things You Didn't Know About Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
12. Hikaru Sulu And Akira Sulu Were To Meet On The Streets Of San Francisco
An idea was pitched to Harve Bennett by George Takei during the scripting process. The film establishes that Sulu was born in San Francisco, which in turn leads to a fateful run-in with an ancestor. Sulu, while walking with Scotty and McCoy, would bump into a child who would address him, speaking in Japanese.
The scene was slated for filming, but the filmmakers ran into a roadblock with the child they had chosen to play the part. He was not a professional actor, and his mother was on-set as well. This led to the young boy becoming very nervous and the footage that was captured was deemed unusable.
Takei was crushed by losing this scene, as he felt that though short, it gave a little more insight into Sulu's character and backstory. The scene does remain in Vonda McIntyre's novelization of the film, which is where the name Akira Sulu originated.