Star Wars gets it...Star Trek doesn't

[SFRabid]

Sometimes I think the biggest problem with Star Trek is the fans and this thread highlights a lot of those problems.

"We are smart and they are stupid."
"Why should we want kids to be fans?"
"Star Trek has deep, meaningful episodes while Star Wars has a simple plot."

I wonder if people are watching the same Star Trek I watch. Children's fables are frequently deeper than most Star Trek episodes. Female aliens in miniskirts may be adult, but it is not deep. Morality play with one actor painted black on the left side and another actor painted black on the right side does not need a 3 digit IQ to catch the "deep" meaning.

Star Trek is entertaining, but in truth it is pretty shallow. A lot of importance has been put on miniskirts, cat suits, and bridge officers making out with aliens. I guess that makes ST more adult than SW.

 

[trevanian]

Because Star Wars actually is geared to kids. Lucas has said as much. It's themes and story is very basic. Entertaining and gripping, but basic.

There's more to it than that. The original couple of movies were aimed at teens, but by JEDI, he seemed to be catering more to 7 year-olds. Even with that comedown, people kept buying the stuff (and i just DON'T know why.) But I've also never 'gotten' the magic of SW, or its hold on people. I liked the trappings, but it all seemed hollow. And with the prequels, it got worse, yet people keep eating it up. Box officewise, SW doesn't have a TFF, and yet, from the stated perception of TPM and CLONES, you'd think these things should have had less than glorious box office (why were people going back again when they hated it so much?)

Merchandisingwise ... even more confusing. The only SW toy I ever bought was a SLAVE 1 at a flea market, and that was in order to tear it apart to put it together kind of sideways so that it looked a lot more like what they wound up doing with those lil dominion ships on DS9 years later, which looked a ton better than the actual flying iron SLAVE design.
(in the 90s, I saw somebody else had the same thought, where they put the SLAVE pieces together in this backwards way for a science fiction novel cover background element.)

 

[USS Kongo]

There are certain gravitational difficulties in building a starship out of Lego.....

You tried to build one, too, huh? The engines kept falling off my Lego starship.

This is why I perfer building Ambassador, Galaxy, and Excelsior classes the engines don't fall off and the weight problems can be solved by placing it on one of those flat recdtangle or sqaure pieces.

NOW you tell me! Excuse me, I gotta go buy some more Legos....

Sean

 

[The Boy Who Cried Worf]

Post-TOS Trek is stuffy and full of itself. It overestimates its own importance.

Star Wars is pure fun.

Since nothing in the universe is more important than Star Trek your comment makes no sense.

 

[FordSVT]

Personally, and I LOVE Star Wars, always have, if they had made as many Star Wars shows, series and movies as they have Star Trek, I think that a lot of people would be a lot less enamored of it. One of the problems that Star Trek has, and I LOVE Star Trek too, is over-saturation. There's almost too much of it, hence JJ Abrams "need" to create an alternate universe free of supposed "canon violations".

So, I hear you saying that Star Trek as a franchise might be collapsing under its own weight?

Might be? It did.

 

[MANT!]

Star Trek went on life support when Rick Berman couldn't make a new plot to save his life..Star Trek became all about recycling the same plots over and over again.. From Voyager onwards there was no daring in the storytelling until Enterprise's 4th season..but because of the creative bankruptcy at the top, the damage had been done..They tried to make it Star Trek first and good TV afterwards..when TOS and TNG showed it as the opposite Good TV and good Trek..hence some of the "Violations" in canon (I really hate the word canon..it really should be "continuity" so it has no religious overtones)

Nemesis became a caricature of Trek, directed by a person who didn't have any respect for the source material and that showed in spades... and killed Trek in the movies until Mr. Abrams made his bold move..a good MOVIE first, Trek second.

 

[I am not Spock]

As a kid, I loved both. I could play with Trek or Wars toys.

I still don't understand why one is more popular than the other. The 'oversaturation' argument is a possible reason. But Lucas has really run Star Wars into the ground in the last decade, with hundreds of novels, games, cartoons, etc.

 

[schatenjager]

Actually, Lucas didn't have much of anything to do with the novels, games, cartoons, etc. He was involved directly with the Movies but didn't do much more than generally approve the other stuff. That's one of the reasons that I think that over-saturation is so much a factor.

Some one else mentioned that SW doesn't have a TFF. We kept going back to watch Phantom Menace over and over (I own two copies of it) even though it wasn't that good. If you didn't like TFF, what did you have to choose from, if you wanted to watch Trek? Hundreds of episodes, movies, a cartoon, etc. If we didn't like Phantom Menace, we were left with going back to the other 3 movies and watching them again. And for that matter, we do have a Final Frontier of our own in the Star Wars universe...ever seen the Ewok Adventure? Most Star Wars fans don't even allow discussion of that.

Most casual fans of either Star Trek or Star Wars wouldn't actually read the books. For some reason reading seems, to most people, to be just a little too "geeky"?

 

[FordSVT]

As a kid, I loved both. I could play with Trek or Wars toys.

I still don't understand why one is more popular than the other. The 'oversaturation' argument is a possible reason. But Lucas has really run Star Wars into the ground in the last decade, with hundreds of novels, games, cartoons, etc.

I had a friend who worked at Toys R Us during the launch of the prequels.

The amount of Star Wars Toys that they pushed to clearance or basically sent away to the void was absolutely staggering. Like a third of the stuff they ever put on the shelves. Wasteful.

As far as Star Wars saturation goes, 90% of the general movie going public doesn't give a damn about Star Wars novels, games, cartoons and comic books. To them, Wars is still a big event surrounded by a lot of press that goes away for years at a time.

Trek was oversaturated with a movie every couple of years for almost a decade, reruns on half the cable and local TV channels in existence and TV series after TV series, occasionally running concurrently. It was just enough in the public eye for so long a time that Mr. Q. Public thought Trek required a time investment just to figure out what the hell was going on, even if that perception was incorrect.

Many of you may remember this but WOMEN used to watch TNG in droves. I'm not talking about the women that post here, I'm talking about my current wife and my mom. They loved Data and thought Picard was sexy. They enjoyed stories about characters and villains, action and adventure. Trek used to get on the cover of People and Newsweek. WTF happened to those people, the casual viewer. That's the audience that got sick, turned-off and/or intimidated by too much Star Trek and it's the audience Abrahm's Trek is aimed squarely at. I know a lot of people hate that, but c'est la vie....

 

[Hartzilla2007]

You tried to build one, too, huh? The engines kept falling off my Lego starship.

This is why I perfer building Ambassador, Galaxy, and Excelsior classes the engines don't fall off and the weight problems can be solved by placing it on one of those flat recdtangle or sqaure pieces.

NOW you tell me! Excuse me, I gotta go buy some more Legos....

Sean

You can also build Miranda (24th century version is easier since there is no bar thing on the top) and Nebula class ships since the engines are on the bottom.

Star Trek went on life support when Rick Berman couldn't make a new plot to save his life..Star Trek became all about recycling the same plots over and over again.. From Voyager onwards there was no daring in the storytelling until Enterprise's 4th season..but because of the creative bankruptcy at the top, the damage had been done..They tried to make it Star Trek first and good TV afterwards..when TOS and TNG showed it as the opposite Good TV and good Trek..hence some of the "Violations" in canon (I really hate the word canon..it really should be "continuity" so it has no religious overtones)

Nemesis became a caricature of Trek, directed by a person who didn't have any respect for the source material and that showed in spades... and killed Trek in the movies until Mr. Abrams made his bold move..a good MOVIE first, Trek second.

And we thank him for that.

As a kid, I loved both. I could play with Trek or Wars toys.

I still don't understand why one is more popular than the other. The 'oversaturation' argument is a possible reason. But Lucas has really run Star Wars into the ground in the last decade, with hundreds of novels, games, cartoons, etc.

I had a friend who worked at Toys R Us during the launch of the prequels.

The amount of Star Wars Toys that they pushed to clearance or basically sent away to the void was absolutely staggering. Like a third of the stuff they ever put on the shelves. Wasteful.

As far as Star Wars saturation goes, 90% of the general movie going public doesn't give a damn about Star Wars novels, games, cartoons and comic books. To them, Wars is still a big event surrounded by a lot of press that goes away for years at a time.

Trek was oversaturated with a movie every couple of years for almost a decade, reruns on half the cable and local TV channels in existence and TV series after TV series, occasionally running concurrently. It was just enough in the public eye for so long a time that Mr. Q. Public thought Trek required a time investment just to figure out what the hell was going on, even if that perception was incorrect.

Many of you may remember this but WOMEN used to watch TNG in droves. I'm not talking about the women that post here, I'm talking about my current wife and my mom. They loved Data and thought Picard was sexy. They enjoyed stories about characters and villains, action and adventure. Trek used to get on the cover of People and Newsweek. WTF happened to those people, the casual viewer. That's the audience that got sick, turned-off and/or intimidated by too much Star Trek and it's the audience Abrahm's Trek is aimed squarely at. I know a lot of people hate that, but c'est la vie....

And it worked.

 

[Tanagra]

Because Star Wars actually is geared to kids. Lucas has said as much. It's themes and story is very basic. Entertaining and gripping, but basic.

Star Trek is geared toward adults. Always has been from the original pilot.

Star Wars Episodes 4-6, maybe. 1-3 were definitely for an adult audience, and that's probably the reason they were inferior.

Star Trek may have adult innuendo and philosophy, but the actual on-screen action and language is tamer than Star Wars (probably because it was on TV instead of in the theater).

1-3 for an adult audience? 1 and 2 were absolutely geared towards kids, I thought Episode 1 was the most awesome thing ever when I first saw it in the cinema at 9 or 10 years old, but now watching that movie it seems really bad and kinda lame. The same can be said for Ep 2. Ep 3 definitely takes a darker, more adult tone, but the kid appeal is still plastered all over it - General Grievous and his incredibly bad cringe-worthy dialogue, the battle droids etc..

4-6 are easily more adult-orientated, Ep 5 especially which is probably the darkest film of the series. Ep 6 takes a turn with the Ewoks, but really they are the only thing in the OT that I would say is engineered specifically at kids - and even they aren't as over-bearing as say Jar Jar.

About kids not being into Star Trek, I'm sure it's been said before but there's just way too much of a social stigma attached to it to be honest. When you're a kid or 13/14 years old ST is probably one of the most 'uncool' things you can possibly be associated with. SW still has somewhat of a stigma also, but it's definitely not as bad as ST for that (in my experience anyways). Once you and your peers grow up a bit and people don't really care, that's when people are gonna start to get into ST (I got it into it at around 17ish), I think that with the new films the fan base is hopefully gonna do well. Bring out a few new films and then maybe in the future a new series, and who knows.

 

[schatenjager]

It's telling that, if you look at the Top 100 All Time Box Office movies, adjusted for inflation, all 6 Star Wars films show up in that list while NONE of the Star Trek movies do. If you don't adjust for inflation, which I consider invalid given the cost of tickets has changed, only the newest Star Trek gets on the list.

Whatever the reason, people want to go and pay money to see Star Wars and they don't want to pay to see Star Trek.

 

[SeerSGB]

It's telling that, if you look at the Top 100 All Time Box Office movies, adjusted for inflation, all 6 Star Wars films show up in that list while NONE of the Star Trek movies do. If you don't adjust for inflation, which I consider invalid given the cost of tickets has changed, only the newest Star Trek gets on the list.

Whatever the reason, people want to go and pay money to see Star Wars and they don't want to pay to see Star Trek.

I would say that is owed to the fact that 'Trek is a "TV Show" to most people, why go to a theater when you can stay at home; while Star Wars has always been about going to the theater, it's a day/night out with the family or you pals.

 

[Blue_Trek]

Because Star Wars actually is geared to kids. Lucas has said as much. It's themes and story is very basic. Entertaining and gripping, but basic.

Star Trek is geared toward adults. Always has been from the original pilot.

Star Wars Episodes 4-6, maybe. 1-3 were definitely for an adult audience, and that's probably the reason they were inferior.

Star Trek may have adult innuendo and philosophy, but the actual on-screen action and language is tamer than Star Wars (probably because it was on TV instead of in the theater).

Actually Lucas said that TPM was made for eight year olds, thus the Jar-Jar stupidty for all us adults

 

[schatenjager]

Yes, but even given that Star Trek is more of a TV Show today, if you consider that in the late 70's, after being off the air for a decade, and that was a decade where you couldn't rent the show, couldn't get a trek-fix online, and had to rely on only novelizations and reruns if you could find them (remember, no cable tv either), the Motion Picture was not a TV Show then. Wrath of Khan, Search for Spock, Voyage Home, these weren't TV shows. The only Trek on TV at that time was still the original series in reruns and the cartoon show.

Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi and the original Star Wars, which are from the same time period as Star Trek 1-4 rate a lot higher when looking at box office numbers.

I think that today, you could make the argument that the movies are really not much more than extended tv episodes, particularly the last few TNG-based films. Nemesis and Insurrection could easily have been television episodes and, when you see them on TV now, they do seem to fit really well into the format.

 

[Omega_Glory]

Because Star Wars actually is geared to kids. Lucas has said as much. It's themes and story is very basic. Entertaining and gripping, but basic.

I thought the same thing regarding the new Trek movie. It looks like TPTB want some of that Wars kid $$$.

 

[Mysterion]

Post-TOS Trek is stuffy and full of itself. It overestimates its own importance.

Yup. Space opera with delusions of grandeur. Especially TNG.

 

[Too Much Fun]

Post-TOS Trek is stuffy and full of itself. It overestimates its own importance.

Yup. Space opera with delusions of grandeur. Especially TNG.

I disagree. I don't think 24th century Star Trek (including the movies spun off from TNG) was ever unworthy of the term science fiction until the latest movie. Even "Insurrection" and "Nemesis" were less space opera and more about ideas than the 2009 "Star Trek" movie.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I think they are better than it (I think it's far superior to both, even though I have issues with it), but it's clearly leaning more towards space opera with the absurdity of the 'science' in it, and the focus more on characters, heroics, action, and adventure.

 

[blaXXer]

Because Star Wars actually is geared to kids. Lucas has said as much. It's themes and story is very basic. Entertaining and gripping, but basic.

Star Trek is geared toward adults. Always has been from the original pilot.

Star Wars Episodes 4-6, maybe. 1-3 were definitely for an adult audience, and that's probably the reason they were inferior.

Star Trek may have adult innuendo and philosophy, but the actual on-screen action and language is tamer than Star Wars (probably because it was on TV instead of in the theater).

I find them to maybe geared to an adult audience but exectued for kids, which left me sorely disppointed.

 

[Anwar]

The prequels didn't know whether they were for kids or not. That was sort of the problem. They should have just stuck to one and gone with it rather than go for the "try to please everyone" option. That hardly ever works.