Why is Star trek nerdy but Star wars Cool?
- Thread starter Infern0
- Start date
Same here. Of course, the worst is my family, so I can't really avoid them! Thank God my father-in-law and brothers-in-law are sci-fi fans!
I'll take that comment one step further! The original Star Wars (in its original form) is great. It's just a well made movie. No doubt about that. The Empire Strikes Back is generally considered a good movie (though lately I've had issues with it). And there are two really good, not commonly known radio dramas (Star Wars is great, again Empire is merely good). Beyond that, what has this franchise produced?
The Star Wars Holiday Special
Return of the Jedi
Droids
Ewoks
The Ewok Adventure
Ewoks: The Battle for Endor
The Phantom Menace
Attack of the Clones
Revenge of the Sith
The Clone Wars
...and of course an almost limitless supply of books and video games that expand the "universe" and gives every background character in the cantina a name and a story.
I look at that list and you know what I see? Nothing cool and a serious lack of quality. Star Wars is clearly mass market junk, and I'm sad to say, that has far more mainstream appeal. So yes, between the two, Trek seems to be for the outsiders. If that's the case, I'm proud to call myself a Star Trek fan. Star Wars can go "F" itself.
Neil
Well you're lucky! Nobody in my circle -- family and friends alike -- are into Trek (tho' they do like "SPFX" sci fi.
Even my brother's 11-year-old twins think I'm a geek!
You nailed it, Neil! The first two and half films were great...but the rest? Crap. Craptacular crap!
Lucas has done his best to destroy any possibility of Star Wars maintaining it's "cool factor" -- not to mention any possibility of his franchise remaining any kind of timeless classic.
Star Trek has had it's lapse of quality, but it's never sunk to the Ewok/Jar-Jar Binks level...
Come to think of it, we owe Rick Berman and Paramount a debt of gratitude for that...and I'm no fan of Berman, but I have to give him his props!
That's why you got us.Well you're lucky! Nobody in my circle -- family and friends alike -- are into Trek (tho' they do like "SPFX" sci fi.
Even my brother's 11-year-old twins think I'm a geek!
So... expand your circle.
What city of the world are you in? Anyone from the board from the same place?
My icon location reads "Sydney, Australia", and I've met some great new friends - Aussie, Rosalind, Caprica6, OracZen, AdamJ, ElimParra, and others - right here from TrekBBS since about 2002! We meet up at restaurants, go bushwalking, watch ST episodes together, travelled to conventions... Even though some of them have since moved interstate, or no longer frequent the board, they are part of my circle of friends.
Your icon location only tells us you're stalking Tucker!
I'm pretty sure fans of both are considered nerdy. But at least we Trek fans are in a club that includes NASA engineers, Stephen Hawking and Barack Obama. Yup. The next president of the United States is one of us!
I knew there was a reason I liked him.
I don't like him on policy, but I think it's cool that he's a Trek fan.
I wonder, if future Trek work comes out during his administration, do you think he would be kind enough to allow footage of him to be used, or perhaps even make a cameo appearance of some sort?
And I wonder...do you think it would alter the perception of Trek fans if a US president who (so far) is held in such high regard were to make a guest appearance?
I don't want the president in my Trek. It will taint my Trek if he starts bombing the crap out of Iran or is revealed to have instigated clandestine dealings to further his nations agenda. It's okay if Sisko does this but I don't want too much RL in my Trek.
You wouldn't even want to see him do something cool, such as something NASA related?
No. A president is not remembered for what they did for the space program, they are remembered for who they invaded. Seriously what if he turns out to be/do something heinous? And he's in Trek as a Great Man ala Zephram Cochrane? It will be embarrassing for future generations of Trekkies, a joke. Think of the children!
There is one RL presidential reference in Trek that is awesome, that is enough.
"Only Nixon could go to China."
See? Awesomeness. We can't get greedy. We don't know what future scripts Obama will end up in.
Are you suggesting that Lincoln beating up Ghengis Khan in The Savage Curtain wasn't awesome? Star Wars doesn't have anything that cool.
That presidential reference comes nowhere close to the sheer annoyance and badness (I use that word in the traditional form...not "bad" as in "good") of the Ewoks and Jar-Jar.
There is no comparative character for those in Star Trek...the closest they got was Neelix...and he's a distant third in comparison.
There is no comparative character for those in Star Trek...the closest they got was Neelix...and he's a distant third in comparison.
Considering the success and mainstream acceptance of franchises that are as or even more nerdy than Star Trek (Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings), I'm beginning to think that it's less about content and more about how "into" it people get.
Star Trek was (mostly) weekly television. Over the course of a year, a casual fan could be expected to watch around 20 hours of it. More, if there was more than one spin-off running at the same time, or if one of the many movies was released that year.
With Star Wars over that same year you could expect a casual fan to see either none of it, or two hours worth, depending on if there was a movie released that year. Yeah, Star Wars has a gigantic expanded universe, but the average joe is barely literate, proud of the fact that he hasn't read a book since high school, never set foot in a library or bookstore and completely unaware that the SWEU even exists. So that doesn't really hurt Star Wars the way oversaturation hurt Trek.
Clone Wars, you could say? Well, yeah, but no one over the age of twelve is going to watch it. The animation is so terrible it's barely even recognizable. It's only tangentially associated with "real" Star Wars.
If the rumored live action TV series ever sees the light of day, I think we'll see Star Wars lose the last of it's mainstream appeal.
Star Trek was (mostly) weekly television. Over the course of a year, a casual fan could be expected to watch around 20 hours of it. More, if there was more than one spin-off running at the same time, or if one of the many movies was released that year.
With Star Wars over that same year you could expect a casual fan to see either none of it, or two hours worth, depending on if there was a movie released that year. Yeah, Star Wars has a gigantic expanded universe, but the average joe is barely literate, proud of the fact that he hasn't read a book since high school, never set foot in a library or bookstore and completely unaware that the SWEU even exists. So that doesn't really hurt Star Wars the way oversaturation hurt Trek.
Clone Wars, you could say? Well, yeah, but no one over the age of twelve is going to watch it. The animation is so terrible it's barely even recognizable. It's only tangentially associated with "real" Star Wars.
If the rumored live action TV series ever sees the light of day, I think we'll see Star Wars lose the last of it's mainstream appeal.
Although I did like Revenge of the Sith, Star Wars pretty much jumped the shark for me with the Ewoks...and all the trite crap that was listed earlier...
Clone Wars has easily been the coolest new show for me this year, I never thought I'd be so into a cartoon series again.
The whole hut baby premise killed it for me. It just smacked too much of typical Lucas crap...you know...Young Indiana Jones....Jar-Jar...pod races...
I'm getting nauseous...excuse me whilst I go barf.
