Because the original Star Wars trilogy was an epic good-versus evil struggle with archetypical characters brought alive by excellent actors (including a princess who kicks more ass in the first movie alone than all female characters in TOS and TNG combined, while wearing her princess dress) employed enough pseudo-philosophy to provide a semblance of depth and stuffed itself full with cool aliens, locales and actions sequences such as sword fights and ship combat. And early Star Trek had episodes like Mudd's Women, and when they had action sequences they looked like the Gorn fight. That's why.
Great points about Star Wars! I do want to throw in a couple pennies; "Mudd's Women" was speaking against sex trafficking and drug abuse, but it was a bit clunky and clumsy, and hasn't aged well. On the flip side, the topics it was discussing were pretty adult if not actually gritty for 1966, and not the sort you'd expect. Carmel's performance is simply iconic and the character makes for a solid villain - and IMHO, Discovery did a rather good job with him as well (Rainn Wilson being spectacularly good casting for the role too...) Being made (slightly more than) a decade earlier, TOS couldn't complete with Star Wars' tighter action scenes. Then again, the way people griped about the Obi Wan/"Darth" saber fight being "too slow"*, that's one instance of TOS being better overall - despite the lack of special effects, while fighting a big walking tire factory given all that rubber used in the Gorn costume. That said, Star Wars' use of stunt doubles were a lot more thoughtful, and one didn't need the 35mm film restoration or a TV set made after 1997 to notice the stunt doubles (and the number of medium- and close-up shots to doubly ensure the audience knew they were doubles.) And, of course, Star Trek never had a "Holiday Special" made within a year of the franchise's premiere... * which it arguably isn't considering Obi Wan and Vader were both two sides of a coin with chivalry-based traditions and all that. Pretending the prequels didn't get made helps as well, since they weren't considered when the 1977 movie was made.
Star Wars has a reputation for being action-adventure while Star Trek has a reputation for being intellectual. Action is always the more popular of the two.
Trek vs Wars, Superman vs Batman, DC vs Marvel...geeks are conditioned to get into these tribal debates in grade school, I think.
Trek Batman DC Coca-Cola Democrat . . . Shit... They really did get to me. Back in the days of mullets and shoulder-pads, when I was least prepared. "Just Say No!"
I disagree with that. The episode seemed to be concerned mostly with showing the male crewmembers of the Enterprise swooning over the women's beauty and drug-fuelled sex powers. And Mudd's dragging them around on his ship wasn't sex trafficking, but iirc the women where there on their own accord because they were looking for wealthy husbands, which they got by the end with the miners and the main woman's crigney speech going "Oh I will be a greedy bitch and you'll love me, because that's what you secretly want!" As to it being anti-drugs, I think it was more a message of "the women don't need a drug to enhance their beauty, they are beautiful because of their charms and confidence and because they park in with boys at night" Sorry but I have to disagree with that too, I thought the Sword Fight was pretty well done, real life swords are very heavy and even so, I cannot imagine anybody preferring the awkward flailing of the Gorn Fight. And as to Star Trek being a decade older...that would work if TNG didn't have many of the same problems. Of course TNG still didn't have the budget of Star Wars, but even in TNG the few fight sequences were still awkward flailing (especially when Tasha was involved) And not even that Holiday Special, and not even the Donny and Marie Osmond Star Wars special was even half as terrible as Star Trek V Don't get me wrong, I like Star Trek (I wouldn't be here otherwise), and you raise many valid points, such as time, medium and target audiences of the two different franchises resulting in their differences in characters, production value and scope. But I think the point still stands that the epic scope of Star War naturally drew more people in. Like you mention enjoying Mudd's character, but when Star Wars created a character that's somewhat similar (Lando Calrissian) the movie went to an absolutely gorgeous city floating in the atmosphere of a gas giant, advanced the plot so that it led both to a turning point in Han and Leia's relationship and to a climactic showdown between Luke and Vader. While Star Trek had us watch people flirting with each other and for a whole episode.
I lived through the dreadful Berman/Braga years, which ended with the punch in the face to the fans called the Enterprise series finale. I thought that was the end, period. Looking back, I'm still shocked when I think about how since then there have been three excellent movies, a new compelling live-action TV series, a TNG sequel series starring Patrick Stewart, and a clever, well-written animated series. Yeah, Trek is in a good place. Better than I ever imagined it would be again. Comparing it to Star Wars is irrelevant - they have always been completely different and it's not a zero-sum game.
Yeah Superman's better than Batman, but only marginally. I always thought the only thing interesting about Batman are his villains (though whether you can really call Poison Ivy or Catwoman "villains" is debatable). Though I always preferred super hero teams over single super heroes, more interesting to me to have stories based on a group of characters who work together than one guy (and possibly a sidekick) who's just good at everything (which is a fault with both Supes and Batman, imho) Leader!
I've met people in real life that are strongly one or the other. Never understood why as I enjoy both, although Wars is more action adventure with less thinking so maybe that's part of it
People will overthink anything. So even if there is less thinking in the films the fans do all the thinking.
I didn't grow up on either (got into TOS in high school, just finished TNG for the first time last week) but Trek just tickles my nerd senses in a way that Star Wars doesn't for whatever reason. The world, stories, and (at least from TNG onward with the exception of Spock) characters just interest me more. It's not a zero sum thing, though -- I'd watch Star Wars with my friends if they wanted to and my Star Wars fan friends and I somehow manage not to bite each other's heads off...