It's a comparison of two completely different things.
Trek is a serious work of introspective and speculative science fiction, focusing on key issues that face societies and their development. It is a hopeful show that highlights both the successes and failures of humanity and other species as they continue to grow and develop.
Star Wars is a silly space opera involving space mages for 12 year olds, with about as much depth and character development as an episode of animaniacs.
I just don't understand how people can even compare the two.
But both of the JJ Abrams-era trilogies for both Franchises are trash. Star Trek 1 was the best of the lot.
Interesting. I love Star Trek, but I've never met a fan of the first movie before. It was a pretty intellectual film with little of the space swashbuckling the series was known for
But both of the JJ Abrams-era trilogies for both Franchises are trash. Star Trek 1 was the best of the lot.
Interesting. I love Star Trek, but I've never met a fan of the first movie before. It was a pretty intellectual film with little of the space swashbuckling the series was known for
I believe he was referring to Star Trek 2009, the first reboot film. As for TMP, the original Star Trek 1, I really enjoy watching it because it is so different from most other science fiction films. There’s something compelling about an ambitious failure. It’s not my favorite Star Trek movie by far, but it is probably the one I’ve rewatched (parts of) the most.
If you haven’t seen the Star Trek Ships Only edits include Youtube, I recommend them.
I personally like how cerebral ST:TMP was. It was kind of nice to see them get back to exploration and solving a problem with something OTHER than Phasers set to Castrate.
for me it really depends what I feel like, if I want a cerebral show, trek scratches that itch, if I want a blam blam pew pew space action, SW is better
Back in the day definitely Star Trek, but these days Star Trek is pretty awful except from the movies and Star Wars has the Mandalorian. Still a Trekkie but love both.
I'll take the universe that looks like it has more going on, over the one where it's more political backstabbing and subterfuge.
Though if you ask me to choose what setting I like more for it's characters. Then I would definitely choose Star Trek TNG over much of what else I have access to.
Say what you want about Star Trek, but Juan-Luc was one of, if not, the most influential sci-fi characters of the time. Right up there with his predecessor Shatner's James T. Kirk.
The universe of Star Wars wins out by just appearing far more interesting.
Star Wars has two good movies (the first two), the rest are just garbage. Pretty brainless as well if you're an adult. Trek has some good movies and TNG and DS9. So, Trek for me, but new Trek is just as garbage as new Star Wars.
dream archipelago wrote: Star Wars has two good movies (the first two), the rest are just garbage. Pretty brainless as well if you're an adult. Trek has some good movies and TNG and DS9. So, Trek for me, but new Trek is just as garbage as new Star Wars.
Wait- so the only good Star Wars films are A New Hope and The Holiday Special?
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BrianDavion wrote: for me it really depends what I feel like, if I want a cerebral show, trek scratches that itch, if I want a blam blam pew pew space action, SW is better
To me, Trek always felt like a sort of quasi-cerebral show. It purported to explore philosophical and ethical questions, but ultimately relied on oversimplification and Gene Roddenbrrry's idealism too much to actually address any of the issues it brought up. Also, the insistence that Kirk must be right all the time- even when all evidence and logic seem against him- is really detrimental to all of the story telling. It is like the universe bends to the will of Kirk.
Star Trek is the embodiment of pro-colonialism in science fiction. Every alien species that they come into contact with has a lot that they could learn from the human's western neutral culture- even seriously more advanced races like Q. When Gene Rodenberry died, some of the new writers took the chance to present a dark side to the Federation, and it became quickly obvious that Rodenberry's utopia was a dystopia all along. But it seems like most of the fans really hated that.
Star Trek generally has better writing and it undoubtedly has more consistent writing. DS9 as a storyline trumps anything Star Wars has done in live action. The best episodes of TOS and TNG are up there as well.
As a secondary part of writing, Star Trek has much better characters, particularly in DS9. Also, Star Wars places far too much emphasis on the Jedi and Sith. You could argue it's more of a heroic fantasy, but it's also questionably elitist.
Star Wars has a much better world. Both franchises do a good job of world building, but I prefer Star Wars. It's not anywhere near realistic in terms of science or politics, but it also doesn't become a slave to technobabble at times.
Star Wars has hands down better visuals across the board. I think this is Star War's greatest strength, the producers nail design like no one else.
dream archipelago wrote: Star Wars has two good movies (the first two), the rest are just garbage. Pretty brainless as well if you're an adult. Trek has some good movies and TNG and DS9. So, Trek for me, but new Trek is just as garbage as new Star Wars.
Wait- so the only good Star Wars films are A New Hope and The Holiday Special?
The Holiday Special was the epitome of a TV variety show, not a film.
Star Wars has a much better world. Both franchises do a good job of world building, but I prefer Star Wars. It's not anywhere near realistic in terms of science or politics, but it also doesn't become a slave to technobabble at times.
I would argue that both settings have some major world building problems, but that Star Trek actually has more.
What it comes down to is that Trek was created with ludicrous optimism about the future of humanity. Dedication to science has allowed humans to solve every problem that every could exist. There is no scarcity of resources, no inequality, no money or capitalism, etc. So now that the humans have done everything perfectly, it is up to them to spread their cultural norms across the galaxy. I think the moment that I hated the most was when they had Mark Twain criticize and then completely approve of this colonial idealism.
That colonial idealism is exactly the kind of colonial idealism that led to several genocides of native peoples on our planet, and it seems silly to hold it up as if it represents the epitome of philosophical advancement.
Star Wars is the opposite. and essentially pessimistic instead. It is founded on the belief that all democracies can be exploited and eventually turn into oppressive fascist dictatorships. Technology and even magic does not solve humanity's problems.
Later Star Trek started dealing with this issue somewhat. But as this thread has shown, Star Trek fans don't always accept those shows as part of their canon.
The propaganda of Star Trek is exactly the kind of entertainment that Emperor Palpatine would approve of in his galactic police state as it supports the kinds of human supremacy attitudes that help the Empire's expansionism and military rule.
I grew up on both star wars and star trek. So they were both relatively important when it come to Sci-Fi in my youth.
However over the last few years I feel burnout towards them. Star trek still going to places no man has gone before and Star Wars just feels like too much these days.
I voted "No strong opinion". Both are equals in my book, star trek appeals more to my feminine side and star wars to my masculine side.
What I mean by this is, Star Trek (to me anyway) is this goofy adventure series which is lighthearted enough to watch casually, and always tries to emphasize humanity striving to become better than the violent cavemen we are. Whereas Star Wars is this WW2 influenced tale of fight against tyranny and most of the events on the screen point towards eventual catharctic moments of battle. Star Wars takes itself quite seriously, which is both its blessing and its curse.
Best Star Trek series IMHO are
• Original series
• DS9
• Enterprise
• The Orville (Its not officially part of the franchise but it nails the "Star Trek" genre better than most official series not listed here)
(Sorry, STNG doesnt make my cut; sure it was awesome seeing it as a kid, but it hasnt stood the test of time)
Best Star Wars movies for me are the original three, because real miniatures were used. Maybe being exposed to those film shots of stunningly made miniatures is what still draws me to the GW hobby? They still look superior to me. Never cared much for Star Wars storywise, its just endless blaster/lightsaber pron, although it cannot be denied the movies redefined the genre and canonized scifi as something adults can watch. It has been speculated that without Star Wars, Blade Runner and Alien might never have existed, not sure if this is actually true but even such speculations mean what Lucas made was gamechanging.
Recently, I've enjoyed the Mandalorian series here and there, and been rewatching DS9 for the giggles.
Star Wars has a much better world. Both franchises do a good job of world building, but I prefer Star Wars. It's not anywhere near realistic in terms of science or politics, but it also doesn't become a slave to technobabble at times.
I would argue that both settings have some major world building problems, but that Star Trek actually has more.
What it comes down to is that Trek was created with ludicrous optimism about the future of humanity. Dedication to science has allowed humans to solve every problem that every could exist. There is no scarcity of resources, no inequality, no money or capitalism, etc. So now that the humans have done everything perfectly, it is up to them to spread their cultural norms across the galaxy. I think the moment that I hated the most was when they had Mark Twain criticize and then completely approve of this colonial idealism.
That colonial idealism is exactly the kind of colonial idealism that led to several genocides of native peoples on our planet, and it seems silly to hold it up as if it represents the epitome of philosophical advancement.
Star Wars is the opposite. and essentially pessimistic instead. It is founded on the belief that all democracies can be exploited and eventually turn into oppressive fascist dictatorships. Technology and even magic does not solve humanity's problems.
Later Star Trek started dealing with this issue somewhat. But as this thread has shown, Star Trek fans don't always accept those shows as part of their canon.
The propaganda of Star Trek is exactly the kind of entertainment that Emperor Palpatine would approve of in his galactic police state as it supports the kinds of human supremacy attitudes that help the Empire's expansionism and military rule.
The entire premise behind the Federation, with the exception of some amoral outliers, was to give everyone a choice, up to AND including things like the scientist who was getting euthanized at age 60. I'd love to see examples of the Federation subjugating populations in such a way. There's enough guilt driven programming to choose from, you don't need to project that garbage into Trek...
If it wasn't for the Mandalorian I'd easily say both are absolutely fething terrible these days.
Also the Prime Directive is created in Star Trek to specifically stop something like a colonialist imperialism sort of thing on planets with native populations.
I love the story of Starwars more. There is a better fantastical story of epic heroes and daring battles that range from the macro to the micro. It's fun to see how superhuman space wizards influence galactic politics, and how the light side and dark side are not always easy to distinguish. Good v evil has a lot of grey area in this universe, and the series does a decent job of wrestling with the downfalls of non-objective morality and how becoming a branch of the government destroyed the Jedi. Lots to unpack here and the.movies and the expended universe.
Star trek is a bit different. Following around the crew, we get to see the greater universe through the lens of kirk, Picard, etc and their crew. This tends to be more of a leadership style/leadership course for me as we compare the different styles of command of the captains, and how that compares and contrasts with others and affects their crew in their daily adventures. This is much more of a micro story telling event, where we learn of the greater universe from the adventures of the enterprise. This story is much more grounded in sci-fi reality vs the sci-fi fantasy of starwars.
Both are great, but starwars is more of an epic saga, thus I tend to enjoy it more.
I liked Farscape, Stargate and Firefly most and was a fan of the new Battlestar. But when younger, I very much liked Star Wars (the original three and parts of the prequel trilogy.)
I did not bother with the two later ones in the new trilogy.
Although I never liked Star Trek so much when I was younger, I recently decided to give it a go; I quite liked parts of Enterprise and some of TNG; I am currently watching DS9. I did not like the Discovery one apart from the bits it turns into the Captain Pike show; which makes me hopeful for the new series they're doing with him. The Picard show was angsty and dull - which is when I think most (not all perhaps) sci fi is at it's weakest - when it takes itself too seriously. Farscape was too off-the-chain to do this. Stargate's best villains were gold-clad cartoon characters, and so on.
ST:TOS and DS9 and the episodes 4,5,6 are the best of both.
ST:NG is ok, but Picard gets overly rules lawyery vs. Kirk and Sisko's directness. Voyager, Enterprise, and Picard are all worthless. With neither the SCIFI story telling of the initial series, or the seasonal deep dives into character of DS9. They are indistinguishable from the many, many star trek clones over the years.
Star Wars has it's own charm, but Lucas screwed up the prequels with his hamfisted directing and the Disney sequels were written without a plan and by people who hated starwars fans. They are big budget busts. Compared to The Mandelorian, which understood the material and never tried to tell fans that their favorite characters were losers, instead trying to show what is cool about various characters and not shoving in diverse and multi-ethnic cardboard cutouts in lieu of actual writing and character development. Even for minor characters like Bill Barr's, there is care.
Trek. At it's best there no contest. A show dedicated to dealing with serious issues of human nature, society, politics, philosophy, etc.
Star wars is good space wizards with blue laser swords vs evil space wizards with red laser swords.
I'm talking classic trek, not the abrams abominations or the disco/piccard travesties.
The best of star wars were some of the novels, the heir to the empire series was the best of it i've ever seen, i heard the thrawn novels were good too.
IMO Star Wars is more a fantasy story set in space, whereas Star Trek leans a more towards the real scifi genre.
Therefor i don't think it's a fair comparison?
I've never really got into Star Trek, tried to watch TNG a few times but it never really pulled me into the series (crazy Q guy and weird settings).
Many years ago when H.B.M.C. and i were on the spacebattles forums we talked endlessly about scfi and fantasy stuff and the "big 3" universes at the time were Star Wars, Star Trek and Babylon 5.
Wars had the epic universe, trek had the rabid fans and technobabble and B5 had the story arc.
At that time there was only the original 3 movies and EU books for SW, there was only TOS/movies and DS9 was just gettign started for Trek and B5 had the TV series.
This was long before Disney destroyed SW, ST got destroyed by STD and the general influx of the anti-fan started ruining all the other fandoms.
So when you break it down in the ranking for me
Babylon 5 edges out the other two for a bit more focus on harder scifi physics, a strong focus on character development, soft sciences and the big story arc.
Star wars comes in a close second followed by Star Trek mostly coming from the Kirk era movies 2 & 6 being the high points of the franchise. with some fond memories of TNG episodes.
The only thing that has come close for me in the recent past is the expanse, while i enjoyed farscape, SG1 and the reboot of BSG they are not as high on my list.
Phyrexius wrote: whereas Star Trek leans a more towards the real scifi genre
Lol no. Throwing some technobabble nonsense in to "explain" the magic doesn't make it scifi, just like "explaining" the force with midichlorines or whatever doesn't make Star Wars "real scifi".
Phyrexius wrote: whereas Star Trek leans a more towards the real scifi genre
Lol no. Throwing some technobabble nonsense in to "explain" the magic doesn't make it scifi, just like "explaining" the force with midichlorines or whatever doesn't make Star Wars "real scifi".
I agree. Star Trek is terrible science fiction.
TOS works great as an allegory for modern (at the time) social issues and an idealized version of humanity, but the actual science fiction elements are awful and never improve with the following series. I think Star Trek has actually been a net negative for mainstream science fiction because it codified "space science fiction" tropes to the point where nearly every mainstream series copies core elements like having species exist only as a 'Planet of Hats', technobabble, and an emphasis on social allegory over the impact of technological developments. Even shows with much harder sci-fi elements like The Expanse aren't 'pure' science fiction, but more akin to space operas.
Star Wars is even worse science fiction, but I don't think it should be considered scifi at all so that point is moot.
I was always much more of a SW fan than a ST one. However, recent offerings have steered me in the opposite direction with SNW and Lower Decks being superior to most recent SW offerings.
LONG LIVE THE EMPIRE!!! The rebels are terrorists who kill our sons, murdered innocents on the Death star, led rise of many mafias, and made a corrupt government that's losing control of the galaxy, LONG LIVE THE EMPIRE!!!
