Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

How do!

It’s a question not as old as time. Not even as old as nerddom. Certainly I don’t think I’ve ever seen it framed this way.

But anyways, for mainstream entry to Nerddom, Star Wars and Star Trek form the main pillars. Typically, they’re the most recognised and accessible nerd properties. Often there’s kinda tragic debate about which is better, or who would win in a fight.

Both have recently returned to the fore via big and small screen. Both to….mixed reception. But which is more enjoyable? Star Wars when it’s bad, or Star Trek when it’s bad?

For example. Which would you rather have to watch, The Acolyte, or the third season of Discovery. Is Into Darkness a worse film than The Last Jedi? Is Section 31 more enjoyable than Solo?

If you read my guff on Dakka, you’ll know I find Lower Decks a steaming pile, but mostly because the art offends my eyes, and I fething hate the voice over acting. Which means I’ve not seen enough to say whether its stories are any good. So I’m not including it here as Bad Star Trek. The rest above are just examples and not set comparisons.

Right, off you go. And no copping out about “I don’t want to watch either”. I’m looking for considered opinions, not non-opinions. There’s nowt inherently wrong in having a non-opinion of course, but it doesn’t make for interesting conversation.

Oh, that's really unfair to bad Star Trek. Trek, at it's best, has some philosophical meaning, and grand statements of hope. It might not necessarily get deep, but it does address very big questions and get you thinking. Star Wars is a moving fantasy fairy tale with laser swords and spaceships.

Badly executed philosophy is just flat out bad. Without that, you end up with action in space, and even bad Star Wars has better action than great Star Trek. Because Laser Swords, even goofy ones with laser crossguards or inexplicable laser whips, are cool as hell. I'll give you book of Boba Fett, Trek lovers- the moped cyborg gang is nowhere near as cool as the director thought they were. Though even in that big fight, you do have Boba Fett riding a rancor.

So I say that bad Star Wars is more watchable than bad Star Trek, because Star Wars almost always does action better, and that is fun to watch even if the plot is bad.

So in general I feel like Star Trek has wound up with a lot more problems than Starwars in that its had people specifically not just trying to change the story, but also the very tone of the show.

They've really tried hard to force it from fairly intelligent reflection and commentary and such into high action low intelligence. They've also tried to reject having a multi-cast lead and instead focus on single heroes - often trying to force them into that role via them being the only ones who can make any good choices. Take the new films they did, instead of at least focusing on the core trio; they instead have everything lavished on Spock; McCoy is relegated to a side character and Kirk is basically a teenage fool who everyone around him respects, listens too and adores because -- of potential or something. There's almost zero chemistry between the three of them.



Starwars, for all its current problem with plotting and writing; at least has maintained its general tone and style. They've not tried to make it something that isn't instantly "Starwars". Now yes the 3 sequel films under Disney were horribly plotted out with no overarching plan; yes they've had some duff shows - but overall its all maintained its identity as Starwars.



Meanwhile until fairly recently the most Star Trek Trek is The Orvil - which started as a spoof and isn't even on-brand.
edit - also Lower Decks forever! It's honestly a great fusion of the core 4 Star Treks - Original Series, TNG, DS9 and Voyager. It's basically a huge mine of nostalgic references and extrapolations.



Both of them do suffer from plotting, script and other writing issues whilst having insanely high production values that the original creations could only dream of. However I'd say Starwars is getting the better end of it at present.

I care more about Trek, so obviously it annoys me more when Trek is bad.

Didn’t actually offer me own thoughts.

Given I adore DS9, and a fair chunk of TNG? I think bad Star Trek irks me more.

At its best? It’s futurist moral quandaries. Even the oft relied on trope as to whether it’s morally right to obey the Prime Directive, or how to best mediate between hostile species with cultures wildly different from your own.

Like Pratchett, it explains why the episode’s conclusion was the moral conclusion, without exactly speaking down to anyone.

The trial over whether Data is alive. The one about the half-Romulan crew member and resulting witch hunt. In The Pale Moonlight. Heck, even when Wesley is faced with the death penalty over what is essentially a Nothing Burger Offence. When Commander Arsebrain has a problem with Data as his temporary commanding officer, especially when Data disobeys orders to expose the Romulans. Jake and Nog’s shenanigans allowing us to explore how a capitalist approach and understanding of commerce can work in semi-ethical ways (Nojay Consortium, Self Sealing Stembolts, and of course the Great Material Continuum), and so showing the Federation’s strength, that each constituent culture brings something new to the table, which can solve a problem in a way another culture might simply not consider.

And so whilst I enjoyed the first couple of series? Disco and Burnham Explains It All (nah nah, nahnah! Nahnah nahnah nah nah, let’s do it!) and no actual moral quandaries to be resolved and even when she’s clearly in the wrong and then goes about it in completely the wrong way here’s some Deus Ex to not only get her out of deep poop, but with a promotion (word is Harry “The Eternal Ensign” Kim suffered a schizoid embolism when he read her file whilst bored on Voyager) and it’s just…..blech.

Star Wars = Nonsense, with the occasional serious high point (Return of the Jedi, Andor, Ahsoka’s ongoing saga and Skeleton Crew for me) and lot of silly action. As long as I get a blaster or lightsaber scrap along the way? I’m gonna be pretty satisfied, because that’s what I’m here for. So even when a wonky offering is offered? There’s still plenty there to enjoy.

Let's math this out...

Star Trek: 837.5 hours

Star Wars: 200 hours

StarGate: 574 hours

The more you have, the better the odds you're going to have some horrible filler mixed in with the gold.

☆☆☆ ☆☆☆

Ronald Moore and Rick Berman both said, one of the issues with Trek is continuity. When writing episodes and movies, they had to wedge their stories into set times/places/methodology.

They were hamstrung by certain things that made Star Trek great, but the medium did not allow for.

But all that should have been cleared up for Discovery. It didn't have to worry about network censorship, or worry about competing shows (See Enterprise v. Battlestar Galactica)... but it did have to worry about the "continuity issues of Trek."

(Which it ignored and hit a solid wall of Trekkie/Trekker rage ((See Discovery Season 1 Klingons)).

And then there's the Great Bird of the Galaxy issue: Gene Roddenberry. Should Star Trek follow the hope for humanity that Gene laid out in TOS and TNG?

Current (Nu) Trek likes to ignore the Gene ideals for drama and action.

But, I digress...

TLDR; There is so much of Star Trek and Star Wars (and demographics have changed over the years), that you will find things you don't like, the more something exists.

And bad Stargate saddens me the most.

To be fair "bad Stargate" was mostly their writing formula getting stuck in a rut of "we need a super-special-superbad which must be more deadly than the previous" but also "it must be defeated by 4/5 people"

It had a formula and it stuck too it just a little too much even though it was a great formula.

I think you’re doing Stargate a bit of a disservice there.

Sure, a handful of Thieving Little Tech Monkies rattling around really don’t seem likely overthrowers of Empire.

But….

Look at the structure of the Goa’uld. They’re essentially individual Warlords, with slave armies.

When Ra got squished over Abydos, a major mover and shaker was gone, leaving territories up for grabs. This lead to Goa’uld System Lords jockeying for position and resources, costing them troops and ships.

Then, the Tau’ri kept striking blows, experiencing success in doing so. Which, when the Goa’uld have set themselves as Literal Gods and All-Powerful? Caused many of their Jaffa to question their beliefs and loyalties.

As each Goa’uld was slain? It’s another round of land grabs and jockeying for position, expending ever more resources to become Mr Big Pants. Even lower ranked ones saw fighting to take their holdings and position. And all the while, more and more Jaffa (the backbone of the Goa’uld Military) are asking “are you sure you’re gods? Only you seem to be getting your arses kicked with increasing regularity”.

By the time Apophis has fallen, risen, and then met his final doom? The Goa’uld as a whole have been through a period of rapid social hierarchy change.

And so came Anubis. And another round of incredibly destructive internal fighting as others sided or stood against him, with mounting losses on both sides.

All the while, the Tau’ri and their allies continue to make surgical, highly strategic strikes. And for the Tau’ri in particular, pinching pretty much anything they came across.

The Replicators were another wild card, a foe the majority of Goa’uld just….didnt really know how to handle. So that’s further losses.

Eventually their empire collapsed utterly, as the majority of their former armed forces ended up in open rebellion, with incredible knowledge of exactly where to hit their former masters.

The Ori arc? Yeah. OK. Kind of a speed run of what came before. Kinda. They never sent all that many ships through the Supergate. And as soon as that was shut off? They seemingly never bothered making another one for reasons we don’t really have explained. Then the anti-Ori weapon does its job, leaving just Adria. Who whilst incredibly powerful still isn’t omnipotent, and needs to remain in that other galaxy to orchestrate everything, as there’s no-one else to do it - and she can’t act freely in the Milky Way, lest she get mobbed by the Ancients, which is the same reason the Ori couldn’t/wouldn’t pay a visit,

Tiny pebbles? Yes. But they still caused an unstoppable avalanche of interconnected events which lead to the Goa’uld and Ori falling.

In the whole Star Wars vs Star Trek debate I can only really comment on the films. While I have watched a lot of the Disney Star Wars series I have shied away from Star Trek series since Deep Space 9.

I can definitely see flaws in the newer Star Trek films, especially for people who love the setting. Even so I found the films entertaining enough to watch. If you forget the films that the original cast made and the films from the Next Gen crew, the new Star Trek is entertaining enough, though not exactly thought provoking.

The Star Wars sequels on the other hand are just terrible in pretty much every aspect. Slick production values and lots of money spent on them of course. That doesn't make the films entertaining though. Whether you're a fan of Star Wars or not the story just makes no sense, which makes these films far worse than new Star Trek.

Rogue One was a great film, so I definitely wouldn't class it as Bad Star Wars. Solo was fine as a sci fi film so I'd hesitate to class it as Bad Star Wars too, even though it didn't really add anything to the setting.

In answer to the question, neither. I'd rather watch nothing at all if those were my only two choices.

I fell out of love with Star Wars. My wife and I grew up as Star Wars enjoyers but have washed our hands of the whole thing.

I realized the only Star Trek I actually like was 2, 3 and 4. The rest is completely unimportant to me.

I prefer Stargate or Farscape over Star wars and Star Trek.

Farscape was great but I kinda got a little jaded with the whole "Scorpious in my mind I'm going insane" arc which felt great, but like it overstayed its welcome a bit too much.

Animatronics in it there were top rate!

Bad Star Wars is far more enjoyable than back StarTrek.

Bad Star Wars is still a Space Opera with action and stuff blowing up.

Bad Star Trek is just boring. The worst thing bad media can be is boring.

Star Trek needs to be good to be good.

Star Wars is often bad, even when its good.

If I must, I'll take bad SW over bad Trek.
At least it's still SW.

 LunarSol wrote:
Star Trek needs to be good to be good.

Star Wars is often bad, even when its good.

I think LunarSol nailed it here.

Revisiting as reading back through the replies, we seem to not only have a consensus, but the underlying reasoning seems shared.

I definitely agree that Peak Star Wars has nothing on Peak Star Trek.

Now ok, they’re not exactly analogous outside of both being sci-fi. Star Trek is kinda of Moral Plays, asking questions about what is Right, where does a normally pretty moral person draw the line. Star Wars is “zoom zoom pew pew laser swords!”.

Both of course have their own appeal.

But when Star Trek really hits its beats? It’s nothing short of superb. And Star Wars, even on its best and most reflective days cannot hold a candle to it.

Because when Star Wars does moral plays? It’s not about the human condition in the way Trek is. It’s not “what would a moral person do in this situation” rather “what would a Jedi do” type stuff.

And so, when Star Trek goes off the rails and gives boring or nonsensical answers to interesting questions, it sticks in the mind. And disappoints all the more because we know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, it’s full potential.

And this is why Andor/Rogue 1 are so important!

 Flinty wrote:
And this is why Andor/Rogue 1 are so important!

Because Rogue One ties into Star Wars Rebels?

Or because Rogue One contradicts The Last Jedi on how Hyperspace Collisions work?

One of the cornerstones of good Sci-Fi is that it makes you look at life through a “what if” scenario. Stat Trek does this a lot more, often with a heavy hand, sometimes more subtle. Star Wars does it a lot less. It’s there to tell a fun story, not make you think about things like government, politics, or religion. Not that it doesn’t have it’s moment. The “recruit the hacker from the casino” was very heavy handed.

Andor, by it’s very nature, dealt with a lot of issues, that make you consider life today. Not just space wizards with laser swords going on adventures.

For me, bad star wars is usually 2-8 hours spent watching, with some great visuals and some decent action thrown in.

Bad Trek can be 20 hours, with decent to bad visuals and a lot of talking.

So, in terms of commitment, bad Trek will eat more of my life.

But pound for pound? Like, if I had to watch exactly on hour of either bad Trek or Star Wars, I'd gamble on Trek, because it's more likely to be bad in an interesting way.

Like, look at an episode like "Spock's Brain," which is bad but at least explores some interesting themes. I'd contrast that with "Rise of Skywalker," (or the first two prequels) which has some moments but is overall a bewildering film.

Wars can be bad in an interesting way, at least for me. "The last jedi" has many flaws, but it plays with some interesting ideas like intergenerational violence and the nature of institutions as bulwarks of a society.

 Nevelon wrote:
One of the cornerstones of good Sci-Fi is that it makes you look at life through a “what if” scenario. Stat Trek does this a lot more, often with a heavy hand, sometimes more subtle. Star Wars does it a lot less. It’s there to tell a fun story, not make you think about things like government, politics, or religion. Not that it doesn’t have it’s moment. The “recruit the hacker from the casino” was very heavy handed.

Andor, by it’s very nature, dealt with a lot of issues, that make you consider life today. Not just space wizards with laser swords going on adventures.

I've never really held that "sci fi" has to have this kind of superior attitude of "what if reality went this way" approach to it.
That is a type of sci-fi for sure, 100%.

And you get modern novels that do the same
And historical ones
And fantasy
And scifi

It's not anything special to sci-fi nor is it anything sci-fi requires to be good.
I have seen others share this view and honestly I think a lot of it stems from the impact of series like Star Trek. Of being a "what if this happens tomorrow" approach to the writing. There's nothing bad nor good about that; its simply one choice of many.

Heck by definition Starwars cannot ever achieve that as its technically set in the past of a galaxy far far away. It's technically entirely removed from reality and thus could never achieve what you propose. It can never ask the question "what if this is humanity tomorrow". That doesn't make it any less science fiction nor does it make it any lesser than those which do ask that question; nor superior either. It's simply a choice of approach.



For an individual well read in sci-fi it could 100% be a criteria by which that person enjoys and thus rates science fiction in general. However at that point you're more down to personal preferences alone.

I think if you change the word "good" to "literary" then his point makes more sense. Books like A brave new world, or Fahrenheit 451, or Player Piano, or even Frankenstein use technology to raise questions about human nature, or society, or some other big picture concept.

Most of what is called sci-fi uses technology as an interesting way to tell human stories. And it can still be quite good! You could take "Firefy" and rewrite it to be a traditional western, or even set in the Homeric Bronze age.

"Balance of terror" was pretty explicitly just a submarine movie set in space. It's a great episode, but it's a timeless story. You could not set "Measure of a Man" in a world without artificial beings. It must be sci-fi to tell the story it's trying to tell.

Indeed, at that point "sci fi" is a generic term and you're using further terms to subdivide the whole of sci-fi into smaller niches within itself.


And that's exactly how it should be. Sci-fi and fantasy are super generic terms that have a whole roster of subthemes underneath them. Subthemes that are not always distinct and can merge/cross over with others and so on.


So you have that big generic concept of sci-fi on top and then you subdivide. You can't subdivide at the level of "sci fi" because any attempt to do so starts to push things out.

 Polonius wrote:
I think if you change the word "good" to "literary" then his point makes more sense. Books like A brave new world, or Fahrenheit 451, or Player Piano, or even Frankenstein use technology to raise questions about human nature, or society, or some other big picture concept.

Most of what is called sci-fi uses technology as an interesting way to tell human stories. And it can still be quite good! You could take "Firefy" and rewrite it to be a traditional western, or even set in the Homeric Bronze age.

"Balance of terror" was pretty explicitly just a submarine movie set in space. It's a great episode, but it's a timeless story. You could not set "Measure of a Man" in a world without artificial beings. It must be sci-fi to tell the story it's trying to tell.

This. I think it was just beat into my head by my high school English/Lit teachers.

Not to look down on non-literary sci fi though. It’s all well go good to have a gander at human nature via future parables, but sometime you just need a dogfight though an asteroid field. And I love both.

I don't have Disney so not seen the newer Star wars stuff but Discovery is truly awful tv that started ok and devolved more and more until it reached the depths of Season 2 - on the other and the Last Jedi was one of the worst, most boring films I have ever seen - and I think Boring is worse than simply bad written given that they are both supposed to be for entertainment - and usually offer little more than that in their history.

A bad show is a bad show - why watch either - its not like there is a shortage of better shows to watch. - its not really a non opinion its a choice when life is short.

 Mr Morden wrote:
I don't have Disney so not seen the newer Star wars stuff but Discovery is truly awful tv that started ok and devolved more and more until it reached the depths of Season 2 - on the other and the Last Jedi was one of the worst, most boring films I have ever seen - and I think Boring is worse than simply bad written given that they are both supposed to be for entertainment - and usually offer little more than that in their history.

A bad show is a bad show - why watch either - its not like there is a shortage of better shows to watch. - its not really a non opinion its a choice when life is short.

Well, as far as Last Jedi is concerned, it's not like I was going to walk out of the theatre part way through....
I suppose there might be something out there that would elicit that response from me, but I haven't seen it yet & it's definitely not bad SW.
Besides, I didn't drive for that one. So other than hanging out in the foyer or going across the street & wandering around Walmart, I didn't really have any better options of where to be.

 Overread wrote:

I've never really held that "sci fi" has to have this kind of superior attitude of "what if reality went this way" approach to it.

Eh that's not the real division. I've not even seen any claims that sci-fi needs to be speculative futurism, from that point the tech in Trek makes it just as impossible as Wars.

The, er, "snobbish" argument you're probably thinking of is that the "science" in "science fiction" isn't referring to the high tech, it's referring to the analytical approach to the setting and story, ie. trying to realistically portray the political, sociological, ethical... etc. consequences of whatever fictional element it introduces to the world.

The most charitable way to answer the question is by asking yourself what new ideas did you come away with after watching?

Great sci-fi fantasy inspires, stirs the imagination, possibly gets you to consider the possibilities and ramifications of different ways of life. The early works in each franchise were noted for these qualities.

For the new Star Wars / Star Trek media, I came away with thoughts about nihilistic storytelling, over-monetization, brands becoming their own nemesis, and the nature of media as a tool of indoctrination and isolation instead of informing and inspiring audiences.

Killing off Max von Sydow in the first few minutes of The Force Awakens set the tone and made me realize the man made a career dying in movies. The special effects work came across as eye-porn, always present but absolutely devoid of any novel treatments - we'd seen it all before. The actual narrative seemed to function as a cocoon for the idea of sons slaughtering their fathers as a means of radical re-interpretation of identity and the notion of the self. I hadn't expected the eradication of the pater familius as an end to itself to be the key focal point of the trilogy, but there we go. And the idea that the main character of the original trilogy was replaced at the end by the daughter of his nemesis - the theme that evil prevails through generations - was a powerful commentary on the pointlessness and futility of any effort to cast off powers-that-be because power is self-justifying on a long enough timeline. As a propaganda piece, it's perfect.

Whereas with Star Trek media, the most notable feature is the absence of fidelity to established science. Physics is treated as an additive principle where conservation of mass doesn't apply, DNA is treated as a magical repository of identity and experience, terms like quantum singularity and quantum fissure are treated as meaning the same thing, and there are astronomical impossibilities are abundant and on display every few shows. Recent films / shows seem more like an indictment of reason as a means of understanding the universe than something meant to get people to think about their world. So I guess they got me thinking about the nature of superstition and the dark ages, how (despite the fact there were all these monumental advancements going on), few could understand them and very little capacity for sharing ideas existed.

To pick one as most enjoyable, for me, means choosing between a universe where all effort is meaningless and one of abject, fundamental illiteracy bent to the service of emotional spectacle. Each is the exact opposite of the original franchise material. The hopelessness displayed in the Star Wars narrative is just so much more acidic and acrid compared with the knuckle-dragging idiocy of recent Star Trek. I guess I would say I like Trek more, but take that to mean Star Wars is so corrosive there are fewer identifiable redemptive qualities to it.

The big idea I take out of each franchise: were the narrative taken out a few centuries, yeah, I suspect Trek's writers would arrive at the same conclusions as Star Wars, the franchises could combine to become Trek Wars or something else that can be marketed as ideological dogma for a new generation of revisionists, and no one would notice. Or perhaps it all becomes the 40k universe, not impossible to weave them all together. Does feel like the narrative strands touch one another at key points.

ccs wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
I don't have Disney so not seen the newer Star wars stuff but Discovery is truly awful tv that started ok and devolved more and more until it reached the depths of Season 2 - on the other and the Last Jedi was one of the worst, most boring films I have ever seen - and I think Boring is worse than simply bad written given that they are both supposed to be for entertainment - and usually offer little more than that in their history.

A bad show is a bad show - why watch either - its not like there is a shortage of better shows to watch. - its not really a non opinion its a choice when life is short.

Well, as far as Last Jedi is concerned, it's not like I was going to walk out of the theatre part way through....
I suppose there might be something out there that would elicit that response from me, but I haven't seen it yet & it's definitely not bad SW.
Besides, I didn't drive for that one. So other than hanging out in the foyer or going across the street & wandering around Walmart, I didn't really have any better options of where to be.

That's fair - I also considered walking out but I wish I had done - it was so tedious..

I have not watched a Star Wars thing since - but also I don't have Disney so... its not major loss.

for me Trek and Star Wars were always just entertaining - and now they seldom do that.

Bad Star Wars, by a mile.