Star Trek vs Star Wars

[Too Much Fun]

Movies:
"Star Wars/The Empire Strikes Back/Return of the Jedi" - Respectable, but forgettable.
"Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace" - Simply forgettable.
"Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones" - Never saw it.
"Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith" - One of the worst movies I've ever seen. Terrible dialogue, direction, writing, and special effects.

"Star Trek II, IV, and VIII" - Tremendously smart, clever, and entertaining movies.

"Star Trek: The Motion Picture", "Star Trek: The Search for Spock", "Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country" - Very flawed movies with both some awful and some wonderful parts. Despite all their problems, still significantly better than most movies that come out in a given year.

"Star Trek V: The Final Frontier", "Star Trek: Generations", "Star Trek: Insurrection", "Star Trek: Nemesis" - Terrible, but still more watchable than the Star Wars prequels I've seen.

"Star Trek" (2009) - Maddeningly sloppy in the special effects and story departments, but characters/acting still elevate it above Star Wars prequels and make it at least as good as the original trilogy.


TV:
"Star Trek", "Star Trek - The Next Generation", "Star Trek - Deep Space Nine" - Have all reached incredible heights and shameful lows, but at their best ten times more intelligent, emotionally involving, exciting, and original than Star Wars has ever been close to.

"Star Trek - Voyager" - The one thing in Star Trek that is inferior to Star Wars. It takes an immense amount of suck to be inferior in that way.

"Star Trek - Enterprise" - Don't know much about it, but those mirror episodes sure are spectacular.

General consensus is that the new animated Clone Wars TV series and movie sucked. Haven't seen them, but I bet I'd agree with that consensus.

VERDICT:
So, to summarize...

"Star Wars"= At its best, just okay. At its worst, tortuously lame.

"Star Trek" = Has its fair share of junk, but also a massive volume of superlative television and film productions that are good, great, or brilliant. The victor is obvious.

 

[Rush Limborg]

"Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith" - One of the worst movies I've ever seen. Terrible dialogue, direction, writing, and special effects.

Agreed--not necessarily about the effects, but everything else--CERTAINLY!!!

Honestly, the first half of Revenge is...bearable...but the second half I find totally unwatchable!

 

[Skywalker]

Movies:
"Star Wars/The Empire Strikes Back/Return of the Jedi" - Respectable, but forgettable.

 

[I am not Spock]

The thing is, with Trek, there's just...more of it. With Star Wars, once you've seen the six movies a billion times each, played a few of the videogames, read a couple of comics (couldn't really be bothered with the cartoons, or books), that's it.

Trek offers many more hours of entertainment.

 

[SilentP]

Movies:
"Star Wars/The Empire Strikes Back/Return of the Jedi" - Respectable, but forgettable.

I know

"Forgettable"? Say what you like about the quality of the original trilogy, but it's effect on popular culture is frankly hard to deny.

 

[Skywalker]

Yeah, and if they were so forgettable, none of us would be posting on this board right now. Or at least the vast majority of us wouldn't be. This would likely just be a barely-known niche board.

 

[Saquist]

^Perhaps it does...but there is Obi-Wan's line in Revenge that, "Only the SITH deal in absolutes!"

That's a pretty...non-conservative viewpoint--to say nothing about self-contradictory ("ONLY the Sith"--isn't that an absolute?)

That is a very good point.

 

[Too Much Fun]

Honestly, when I call those movies forgettable, I'm speaking from personal experience. I watched all three movies back to back when I was a teenager and when they were over I could barely remember a thing about them. I just didn't care about any of the characters or find anything that happened to them interesting.

Don't get me wrong, I don't deny that they are very well-made movies with cool production design and I understand why many people love those characters, but they just didn't do anything for me. I respect the original trilogy for at least having some characters and stories that I can understand appealing to others, even if they failed to make much of an impression on me.

"Revenge of the Sith", however, was just pathetic in how routine its story was, how hideously crowded and incomprehensible its special effects were, and how awful its acting was (aside from Ewan McGregor...just 'cause I thought it was cute how he spent the whole movie doing his best impression of Alec Guiness). "The Phantom Menace" was just boring.

 

[Saquist]

No I agree RoTJ was forgettable. It doesn't mean it wasn't good. It was really just the natural ending...no twist or surprises.

 

[Too Much Fun]

The funny thing about "Return of the Jedi" is I hear Star Wars fans always say they hate the Ewoks and yet that was one of the few things in the trilogy I remember liking. So they were cute, fuzzy creatures. So what? What's so bad about that? At least they didn't have annoying dialogue like that CGI character in "The Phantom Menace". I actually have a friend who argued in favour of the Ewoks, saying it was a really effective, almost powerful scene when one of them died, but apparently no one agrees with them.

 

[Skywalker]

I never really minded the Ewoks, but that could be because I was but a wee lad when I saw ROTJ for the first time. The movie came out in May '83, and I was born that October, so I wasn't quite able to see it at the time it was released.

I still think it would have been cool if Endor had been Kashyyyk and the Ewoks had been the Wookiees, but no big deal.

 

[Corallis]

Following up to a post significantly earlier in the thread.

One of the things I've noticed about my generation IS:

Whenever I bring up Star Wars, it's always they like it, they can connect with that, it's, "Hey, I like Star Wars too, you seen Clone Wars, isn't that AWESOME," etc.

Whenever I bring up Star Trek, their eyes glaze over and they try to look for an excuse to walk away.

NOW--there is hope.

Some kids who previously wouldn't go near Trek see JJ's film, and they come back to me, and BEG my forgiveness, saying that Trek is cool, and they'll learn to love it.

I'm satisfied.

While I seldom come across many fellow Trekkies in person (just the area I live in, I suppose), in the instances where I do come across these newly 'converted' fans, I actually find their attitude to be more eye-rolling than gratifying. My inner commentary usually goes as follows: 'Right, so now that it's become 'cool' to like Trek after years of making derogatory comments about it out of fear of ridicule, you're going to hop right on the bandwagon? Pathetic.' This becomes even more irritating among newly-spawned fans of the Abrams generation are those behave as though loving the new Trek as well as the old inherently makes them a 'truer' or 'superior' Trekkie and that those who don't like the Abrams-verse are nothing more than close-minded fanboys. Excuse me? I'm sorry, but logically-speaking if it wasn't for the support for people like me and many others on this site, the franchise would never have lasted into the 21st century and you wouldn't have a reboot to enjoy! I didn't give a damn about what the 'in' crowd said; I sat down and watched the shows with a fair, critical mind like any other show I would give a try, was impressed with what I saw and continued to engage with the franchise no matter how many jokes it prompted from others. Yet people still have the gall to claim I am somehow a lesser fan? Ridiculous.

Anyway, enough of that tangent. Time to contribute to the primary thread topic.

At my current age (17) I can safely say that although Star Wars was a large part of my childhood and I recognise the significant influence of the films in cinema history, I am beginning to almost grow out of it while my appreciation for Trek has only intensified. Whilst it is not entirely accurate to make the 'Trek is sci-fi, Wars is fantasy' divide as a significant amount of the Star Trek universe is rather implausible from a realistic standpoint, it is certainly true that mythical/fantastical elements are far more prominent in Star Wars (The Force is magic and Jedi are wizards; there's no real way to get around that!) and all-in-all, I find Trek's thematic depth to be much more engrossing than Wars' 'swords and sorcery in space'. This is not to say I am entirely disinterested in Wars - in fact I frequent Wookiepedia quite often for Expanded Universe trivia - but overall, I'd say Trek is by far the more valuable.

 

[Rush Limborg]

I never really minded the Ewoks, but that could be because I was but a wee lad when I saw ROTJ for the first time. The movie came out in May '83, and I was born that October, so I wasn't quite able to see it at the time it was released.

I still think it would have been cool if Endor had been Kashyyyk and the Ewoks had been the Wookiees, but no big deal.

Maybe that's why I don't mind Jar-Jar's slapstick routines.

I first saw Phantom when I was a wee lad--and liked it.

Now...not so much. But I still don't mind Jar-Jar.



BTW, Corallis, many a novice here has given a testimony lately that basically runs like so:

"I was never really that into Trek--I barely even knew that it really existed. Honestly, I never really got why so many people were so passionate about it.

"And then...I saw the new film. And now--I CAN'T GET ENOUGH TREK! I am buying up the DVD sets of the shows, and catching up, and LOVING EVERY MINUTE OF IT!"

Look...does it really matter how long it took to convert? What matters is...they love Trek now. ALL Trek!!!

Taking an example from my Christian faith (PLEASE, no bashing, I'm just making a point)...it often takes many years of patience, prayer, and occasional fasting (which is no fun, believe me ) before we're successful in bringing folks to Christ.

When they're finally ready to accept, do we Christians have the angry attitude of "WHAT TOOK YOU MORONS SO LONG"? Of course not! (At least, we shouldn't....) No, we accept the conversion with joy and thanksgiving, and welcome the newbies as fellow Bretheren.

I'm sure the other religious folks here--Christian or not--can sympathize with my point.

But anyway--it's not the wait. It's the conversion that matters. Now...if Star Trek's ratings fall by the wayside again, and these new guys leave--THEN we can bash them as "unfaithful" and "just here for the fad".

Until then...have faith in your fellow fan. They need it, if we want to see them grow.

 

[Misfit Toy]

Look...does it really matter how long it took to convert? What matters is...they love Trek now. ALL Trek!!!

Until then...have faith in your fellow fan. They need it, if we want to see them grow.

Excellent points -

 

[Rush Limborg]

Thank you, SIR!

(What a tremendous ego-boost, to have one's points endorsed by a mod! )

 

[KimMH]

CORALLIS and RUSH, I am impressed by you both. CORALLIS, for your obvious intelligence and skill in presenting a rational argument, and RUSH, for your courage and faith. It's hard to say that knowing people will fall upon you like wolves. Bravo and thank you.

 

[MEATLOAFr]

oh god not this debate again,

i hear ya

 

[startrekrcks]

I like both franchises

 

[Thor Damar]

I like both franchises

Me too. And Rush, props for the monologue man, there's nothing better than an impassioned speech. Which is why Palps is one of my favorite characters

 

[Rush Limborg]

CORALLIS and RUSH, I am impressed by you both. CORALLIS, for your obvious intelligence and skill in presenting a rational argument, and RUSH, for your courage and faith. It's hard to say that knowing people will fall upon you like wolves. Bravo and thank you.

I like both franchises

Me too. And Rush, props for the monologue man, there's nothing better than an impassioned speech. Which is why Palps is one of my favorite characters

Thank you both--very much!

(Now...I may be dating myself here, but...who's Palps?)