Possible Merger of Star Trek and Star Wars

[Christopher]

Anji wrote:

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The merger has already taken place. By using the same director for both franchises the movies will turn out stylistically the same.

A Picasso is always a Picasso no matter what medium he worked in. You can't get away from it. Writer, artist, actor...style is style and is not changeable.

Well, that's an incredibly wrong and ridiculous thing to say. Plenty of creators are able to use different styles for different works. In fact, your own example disproves your assumption quite handily, because Picasso experimented with multiple different styles in the early years of his career before settling on cubism. Plenty of directors are able to work in different styles as well -- nobody would say that Spielberg's The Color Purple or Amistad is in the same style as Raiders of the Lost Ark or Minority Report, or that Zemeckis's Contact is in the same style as Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

Not to mention that no film is the work of a single person. It's not like Abrams is going to have the exact same team of collaborators on SW that he has on ST. He's going to be directing and rewriting a film plotted by George Lucas, written by Michael Arndt, and produced by Kathleen Kennedy, none of whom have anything to do with Abrams's Trek films. Naturally that's going to make the films distinct from each other even aside from any differences in style and approach that Abrams employs.

And even if Abrams doesn't vary his directorial style that much, it may not matter to future Trek films, because we don't know if he'll be directing any more. He'll surely produce the next Trek film, but may let someone else direct it, as he did with Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol (directed by Brad Bird) and will be doing with the fifth M:I film (directed by Christopher McQuarrie).

[Nerys Myk]

So, that's why American Graffiti always seemed like a Star Wars film to me.

[Christopher]

^Not having seen that film, I can't tell whether you're joking or not, but I can see how they could've had points of commonality. But one would be hard-pressed to argue that THX-1138 is in anything remotely resembling the same style as Star Wars.

[Nerys Myk]

Christopher wrote:

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^Not having seen that film, I can't tell whether you're joking or not, but I can see how they could've had points of commonality. But one would be hard-pressed to argue that THX-1138 is in anything remotely resembling the same style as Star Wars.

Yes, I was joking. Your post got in before mine, which would read better as a joke if it followed Anji's as I planned.

I think there is some commonality in theme between AG and SW ANH. Curt, like Luke needs to leave his home behind to become more than he would be. Though SW would have to be set during one night on Tatooine as Luke and his pals wander Mos Eisley before Luke decides to leave with Ben.

And of course Han Solo shows up to race John Milner.

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Saul wrote:

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No, just no. Oil and water don't mix. It would tear apart the very fabric of the universe.

I'm with Saul.

Or as Dr. Spengler would say, "Don't cross the streams. . . . It would be bad. . . . Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light."

[Peach Wookiee]

^The streams were crossed long ago. The cantina scene was based on TOS's "Journey to Babel."

[Set Harth]

Gary Mitchell was levitating cups before Vader and shooting lightning before Palpatine.

[Nerys Myk]

And Harry Mudd was a roguish smuggler when Han Solo was in diapers.

[Lindley]

I strongly suspect Mudd shot first.

[CorporalCaptain]

Peach Wookiee wrote:

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^The streams were crossed long ago. The cantina scene was based on TOS's "Journey to Babel."

Really?

[Christopher]

^That particular claim seems unlikely. There were surely plenty of "space tavern" scenes in prose and pulp science fiction over the decades. It would be a mistake to treat either Star Trek or Star Wars as the unique originator of any trope; they both distilled and popularized the pre-existing tropes of the genres they drew on.

However, I've discussed earlier in the thread how a number of elements of Star Wars terminology, and the title itself, were inspired by Star Trek. Lucas is on record as saying (in Eugene Roddenberry, Jr.'s Trek Nation documentary) that it was the success of ST in syndication that helped him convince studio executives that a science fiction film could be profitable.

[sidious618]

CorporalCaptain wrote:

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Really?

I've never heard that before and I've read a hell of a lot about Star Wars.

[EmoBorg]

i would like to see jar jar binks piss off Worf or even any Klingon for that matter.