star trek vs star wars in five minutes question

Discussion in 'Science Fiction & Fantasy' started by Gerbil13, Jan 16, 2014.

  1. cooleddie74

    cooleddie74 Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    It's not being a rubber gargoyle spouting Asian martial arts philosophy, but then what the hell is?*



    *SyFy programming excluded from discussion
     
  2. Greylock Crescent

    Greylock Crescent Adventurer Admiral

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    Oh sure, counter a throwaway line of dialogue with something that actually happened.

    I find your lack of faith disturbing. :p
     
  3. Robbiesan

    Robbiesan Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    Star Trek: communicators, automatic doors, tricorders, teleportation, warp drive, etc

    All things discussed and worked on, and with some practical technology created that were inspired by the show.

    There really have been teleportation experiments and successful ones at the atomic level. There really are plans for a warp engine that would fold space, though we won't see it in our lifetime. There really are cell phones that can communicate not only locally and nationally, but portable ones that can bounce signals over satelites to loved ones internationally. There really are plans for portable medical devices as well as working ones that are routinely used.

    There really are portable translators that law enforcement uses to help communicate in Spanish. Star Trek introduced the idea of accessing a huge database from which to gather information, something that enables the forum to work today, as well as allowing the free exchange of public domain literature and knowledge.

    How many technological devices from the Star Wars franchise have come into being?

    While I have a true appreciation of Ki as a result of taking traditional martial arts classes like Karate and Aikido, was anything close to that displayed in Star Wars? NOPE. If anything it was nonsensical and only added to the ridiculous ideas people have about using Ki. Worse, there were seldom any actual katana movements actually seen within the films, nor were the duels anything close to actual battles in history.

    It's not great cinema. It doesn't challenge the mind. It doesn't do much of anything except make money through merchandising.
     
  4. sidious618

    sidious618 Admiral Admiral

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    I've always found the Star Wars films rather moving and inspiring. However, to judge a movie series against a TV series is to miss the point, I think.
     
  5. CorporalCaptain

    CorporalCaptain Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    You guys are losing me. Are you saying that Count Dooku was inspired by Count Chocula?
     
  6. cooleddie74

    cooleddie74 Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    It's just a coincidence that the 20 Lost Jedi and 20 Essential Vitamins and Minerals sound similar. Pay it no mind.

    That's right. Pay no mind.
     
  7. Locutus of Bored

    Locutus of Bored Yo, Dawg! I Heard You Like Avatars... In Memoriam

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    Wait, didn't Lucas use the old scifi cereals from the 30s, 40s, and 50s as inspiration?

    MY GOD. The whole original trilogy was just a ploy to sell cereal.

    Behold the awful truth!
    [yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQljzQ_FpUE[/yt]
     
  8. Mr. Adventure

    Mr. Adventure Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Drone warfare, HUD technology, computerized prosthetics, robots in the workforce.
     
  9. BigJake

    BigJake Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Pretty sure the Terminator movies, Heinlein, The Bionic Man and Isaac Asimov respectively can take the lion's share of the credit for most of those? It's not like I've ever heard anyone say "I went into prosthetics research after I was inspired by Darth Vader." ;) (We'll know Star Wars came into it when our robots are funny and personable. ;))

    I mean really, Robbiesan's observation is true as far as it goes. Scientific aspiration did in fact separate Trek (until the reboot era, when it was actively modelled after Star Wars) from Star Wars, although Trek was never totally literalistic about science. And the Star Wars movies are indeed not Gandhi or Citizen Kane (are there even that many Star Wars fans who think otherwise?). They're relatively uninteresting observations after a certain point, but they're correct.
     
  10. Robbiesan

    Robbiesan Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    Literally none of those things relate to Star Wars. Drone tech dates to early RPV (Remote Piloted Vehicle) projects in the early fifties.

    Gimme a break. If one can't debate, they retort with cereal references. Wow, so impressive.
     
  11. Locutus of Bored

    Locutus of Bored Yo, Dawg! I Heard You Like Avatars... In Memoriam

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    ^ They're called jokes. Not everything has to be deadly serious, like something as inherently ridiculous as SW vs ST "debates," for example. And despite your continued impression that you're the center of the universe, no one was even debating you at the time.

    I'm sure plenty did because of Luke's hand (see below). And tons of people went into robotics because they wanted to one day build their own R2-D2 or C3PO.

    http://www.nbcnews.com/video/in-game/51624640

    http://www.buzzfeed.com/donnad/company-inventing-real-life-star-wars-speeder-bi

    http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/art.../New-prosthetic-arm-born-from-8216-Star-Wars-

    http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/spheres.html

    http://www.cracked.com/article_19115_5-technologies-that-prove-weve-caught-up-with-star-wars.html

    http://www.business-standard.com/ar...inspired-scientific-devts-105061501083_1.html

    I'd say plenty of people in science and technical fields have been inspired by Star Wars, probably as much as Trek.

    I also seem to recall a story from my youth about ARPA coming out to speak with George Lucas about the X-Wing, due to their own concurrent development of an "X-Wing" design. Obviously one didn't inspire the other, but it's still a neat story if true.

    [​IMG]
     
  12. BigJake

    BigJake Vice Admiral Admiral

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    OTOH, it's possible to be technically correct and still be a humorless VaRool.
     
  13. BigJake

    BigJake Vice Admiral Admiral

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    That does make sense, fair enough.
     
  14. teacake

    teacake Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I like my cereal with blue milk!
     
  15. Robbiesan

    Robbiesan Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    I actually worked in automation. The earliest robotics were industrial trains that sent material to remote locations through magnetic floor sensors, photoelectronics, analyzed the magnetic field strength of wire in the floor, etc. Other systems controlled the loading of pallets. Others welded automobiles.

    None of that was the result of Star Wars. It was all prior to Star Wars. In many decades of computer and electronic work, not once did I hear a tech say, "I was inspired from watching Star Wars..." On the other hand Star Trek was almost universally loved and appreciated by those some techs. That also was true of engineering students and teachers I met. Lots of folks in the sciences were inspired by Star Trek.
     
  16. cooleddie74

    cooleddie74 Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    So, Star Wars offers nothing then? Not a thing of any lasting intellectual substance?

    It's all just vapid fantasy aimed at kids and at adults with lowered expectations? I just wanted to try to figure out where we're going with the "Trek Rulz/Wars Sux" argument that's brewing because as I previously pointed out Trek itself is often very, very scientifically implausible and inaccurate because of the demands of fantastic, dramatic storytelling.

    Sure, Trek inspired a generation or two of scientists and engineers, but as Locutus pointed out with his links Star Wars inspired creativity and experimentation as well, fueling the talents and skills of more than a handful of people who watched the Saga. The black-and-white pigeonholing of one franchise as this or that ignores the multilayered texturing and myriad flaws of each.
     
  17. Locutus of Bored

    Locutus of Bored Yo, Dawg! I Heard You Like Avatars... In Memoriam

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    Your streak of being able to appeal to authority on any given topic continues. Mazel Tov.

    Hey, Anecdote Skywalker, I provided several examples from a quick Google search of people in various technical fields whose work was inspired by Star Wars. Just because you didn't happen to work alongside any of them doesn't mean they don't exist.
     
  18. cooleddie74

    cooleddie74 Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Chock full of Vitamin TK-421. Goes down smooth, like silk. Like a proton torpedo through an exhaust port. ™
     
  19. Robbiesan

    Robbiesan Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    The point is that robotics existed before Star Wars films. While a new generation might have seen the films and then desired to enter robotics, they didn't create robotics themselves but entered a field that was established.

    Star Wars is harmless fun about dualism. It's not science fiction but fantasy. It's not original material, but using Japanese cinema and 30-40's serial films. There's nothing wrong with making money, but it's not artistic at all.

    More to the point of the topic, there isn't any evidence to suggest a superiority of Star Wars military to defeat Star Trek species. The original post is rather absurd, and akin to my Battlestar Galactica guys could beat your Firefly (fill-in-the-blank) guys any day of the week.

    The reality is it was a form of entertainment strictly driven to be visually stimulating and mindless fare.

    By the way, feel free to expound upon your extensive knowledge on robotics or electronics to support your theory. Meanwhile I will use whatever experiences I actually have had to support my position in debate as well as evidence.
     
  20. Mr. Adventure

    Mr. Adventure Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I was just trying to offer some examples to your question, no need to be nasty.

    Let's see:

    Automatic doors were in place before Star Trek as well. Transportation, tricorders, warp drive, I don't see these are exactly practical in any way yet.

    Communicators and translators are probably the best examples. Martin Cooper has said he was inspired by Star Trek in his work on the mobile phone.

    I could be all pedantic and say communicators don't exactly function like cell phones and translation works more like Star Wars than Star Trek. There's no point to such arguments though, I love Trek, I know it's been inspiring but I was just trying to find some examples for Star Wars.