This is an interesting question that I have never considered/come across before.
Hmm, I must give it some serious thought.
Yeah how could we have missed it all these years? OMG! We've never done Hottest Character or Who's The Best Trek Captain either. We're slacking!
There is no deep meaning in Star Wars.
Oh but there could be (and maybe there is, outside the movies - I've only read one of the novels, the first one that was set between ANH and ESB.) You have what appears to be a liberal democracy uncomfortably co-existing with a cabal of warrior monks whose claim to know "the mind of God" is much stronger than we've ever seen on Planet Earth - their ability to tap into the Force must come from something. So a theocratic regime would have much more legitimacy in the
Star Wars cosmos than in our own. How do you reconcile the two? I'm not convinced that you can.
That's pretty juicy stuff. Too bad Lucas is more interested in making movies that are marketing vehicles for kids' toys and video games.
As far as Star Trek goes, there's no deep meaning there either.
Yes there is, in TOS and DS9. Maybe some in TNG, but it's far too easy and one-sided to count as particularly deep. You gotta work for your meaning harder than Picard just giving the aliens a nannyish lecture of the week. VOY and ENT, forget about it.
Very mixed bag, but the deeper meaning is in there somewheres, and someday I hope to see it again. It will have to wait for TV, though. Summer popcorn movies are inherently anti-meaning - there just isn't room to do all the zap-pow and soapy character drama that people expect
and have a substantial message w/n the space of two measly hours.
Star Wars isn't just a set of action-adventure films. The whole thing is also a devastating satire/critique of human culture.
If by satire, you mean the fact that such utterly mindless crap has made billions, I wholeheartedly agree. That's about as devastating a critique of human culture as I can imagine.
