Star Trek or Star Wars?

[Temporal Renegade]

Let's see ....
Which do you prefer, Star Trek or Star Wars?

For me, Trek. Mainly because I've watched it since 1966; it's the show that got me hooked on Sci-Fi in the first place.

 

[Czarzy]

trek: cerebral: moral dilemmas (but hokey acting & effects)
wars: visceral & sensory: action (but less complex moral dilemmae)

result: I can't choose one over the other



Well, okay: wars (definitely NOT 3rd of output, though)



trek's premises plus wars' actors and tech: the total much more than the sum of the parts

 

[clarsct]

Like both.

If it came to war, I would definitely put my money on the Empire, though.

 

[Mycroft]

Trek.

Mostly because there is so much more material to it. Back in the early 80's I might have voted Star Wars, but since then we've had TNG, DS9, Voyager, Enterprise and ten movies.

Besides, Spike TV just started playing DS9 from the first episode. I plan to TIVO them all and watch the entire story arc from beginning to end.

 

[Skeptic]

Am I the only one who considers both to be so abyssimally stupid they would insult the intelligence of a ten-year-old?

Let's see:

1). In both cases, the scripts were totally derivative. With "Star Wars", whatever is good in it was stolen from Kurasawa's "Hidden Fortress". With "Star Trek", it is a a ripoff of Captain Cook's (Kirk) voyages to strange new worlds in the south seas (other planets) on his ship the HMS Endevour (USSS Enterprise).

2). That something is derviative doesn't necessarily mean its bad, but the originals in both cases here are so incredibly superior that it isn't even funny. What's left in "Star Wars" is nothing more than "Snow White" with the sexes reversed, with Snow White (Luke Skywalker) being hated by her mother (Darth Vader) but being saved by the fairy godmother (Obi Wan Kenobi, later Yoda). With "Star Trek", the excitement of exploration is smothered under "moral dilemmas" that are both trivial and uninteresting.

3). William Shatner ("Captain Kirk") and Mark Hamill ("Luke Skywalker") are just about the two worst actors in the world!!! The average detergant-commercial actor has a better emotional expression, which is understandable, since their material is not nearly as idiotic.

 

[Fungrim]

Trek. Although I'm not a real trekkie, and I do love the original star wars (and recently got my hands on laser disk copies of 4-6, meaning no digital addons/changes, yesssss!). But Trek is science fiction, SW if fantasy. I prefer real moral problems, solving them without magic (most of the time), and real people (alieans and humans) that colaborate in solving them, just as in real life.

 

[disfunkster]

trek

The truth be known, I didn't really like any of the star wars movies (old or new), was always more of the trek fan

I'm not all hardcore trekkie or anything, but I watched lots of the next generation as a kid, totally dug deep space nine (still think it was the *best* trek), never really got into voyager at all, and I'm one of those people that totally loved enterprise and was really bummed when it got canned

 

[disfunkster]

Trek.

Mostly because there is so much more material to it. Back in the early 80's I might have voted Star Wars, but since then we've had TNG, DS9, Voyager, Enterprise and ten movies.

Besides, Spike TV just started playing DS9 from the first episode. I plan to TIVO them all and watch the entire story arc from beginning to end.

I own the DVD-sets for all seven seasons, me and some friends watched it from the beginning to the end every day or two for a couple months, it's freaking awesome Avery Brooks is a really good actor.

 

[disfunkster]

Am I the only one who considers both to be so abyssimally stupid they would insult the intelligence of a ten-year-old?

I could not help but notice all your Star Trek references were to the original series or William Shatner (I agree with you on his inability to act) -- I didn't like any of the original series at all, but some of the new series were actually quite good. Watch Enterprise's last season if you want proof of that

My god, i'm defending Star Trek in a internet fourm. I never thought i'd come to this

 

[Temporal Renegade]

I could not help but notice all your Star Trek references were to the original series or William Shatner (I agree with you on his inability to act) -- I didn't like any of the original series at all, but some of the new series were actually quite good. Watch Enterprise's last season if you want proof of that

My god, i'm defending Star Trek in a internet fourm. I never thought i'd come to this

You think that's weird, check out this:
http://www.st-v-sw.net/
It's a site, doing comparisons between technologies of Trek & Wars.

And, you think *you* might have too much time on your hands...?

 

[Ladewig]

1). In both cases, the scripts were totally derivative. With "Star Wars", whatever is good in it was stolen from Kurasawa's "Hidden Fortress". With "Star Trek", it is a a ripoff of Captain Cook's (Kirk) voyages to strange new worlds in the south seas (other planets) on his ship the HMS Endevour (USSS Enterprise).

Oh, please! The two are nothing alike. The partially naked women that Cook encountered were brown and the partially naked women that Kirk encountered were green.

Actually, I think your analogy might make for fun TV. We could grab all the Star Trek-TOS scripts and rewrite them for Cook's 1770's voyages. I can see it now, Cook and his first officer wearing electronic collars and fighting with some battle-axe type weapon while hokey music plays in the background.

I bet 5000 quatloos on Cook.

 

[Upchurch]

The Star Trek Wars:

Several centuries after Star Trek's demise, it grew from a loose following of nerds with skin conditions to a full blown religion. Like anything that gains power, world leaders were scared stiff of the idea and banned the show and movies. This prompted the Star Trek Wars*. The followers lost and the remaining members were killed in volcanoes and the tapes were sent to Omega 3, the forbidden planet.

* Not to be confused with the Star Wars Trek, the mass pillgrimage of Star Wars followers.

 

[Scottch]

Well -

I actually liked Trek over Star Wars simply because it would give me some hope for our present-day "timeline". A little like looking into the future and telling what could be. It satisfied my need, as a teen, to know that "everything will be okay."

Star Wars was a long time ago and in a galaxy far, far, away.

 

[Kaylee]

Trek -- for the same reasons Mycroft and Fungrim gave.

...
1). In both cases, the scripts were totally derivative. With "Star Wars", whatever is good in it was stolen from Kurasawa's "Hidden Fortress". With "Star Trek", it is a a ripoff of Captain Cook's (Kirk) voyages to strange new worlds in the south seas (other planets) on his ship the HMS Endevour (USSS Enterprise).

I knew about the Star Wars/Hidden Fortress connection but had no idea about the Kirk/Cook's. Did a google on Cook and just put a bio of James Cook on my to read list. Glad you posted Skeptic!

I had seen the Kurasawa movie a few years ago, really fascinating! And I don't usually remember movies, most of them are so trivial.

 

[Ryokan]

Oh, please! The two are nothing alike. The partially naked women that Cook encountered were brown and the partially naked women that Kirk encountered were green.

Actually, Captain Kirk never encountered a partially naked green woman, that was Captain Pike in the original pilot, The Menagerie, that was made into the two-parter TOS episode The Cage

Star Trek is better than Star Wars, but I love them both.

And, oh yeah, DS9 is absolutely the best Trek there is.

 

[JLam]

Am I the only one who considers both to be so abyssimally stupid they would insult the intelligence of a ten-year-old?

You are not alone. But I can't stand science fiction in general.

I have never enjoyed an episode of Star Trek or any of the Star Wars movies.

I guess I'm not as big of a nerd as I had hoped.

 

[Bikewer]

Sci-Fi fan here since the 50s. First things I read were pulp magazines like Amazing and juveniles by Heinlein, Asimov, and others. I watched all those hokey series from way back when, including space cadets.
I was in the army in Germany when Trek hit the little screen, and came back home itchin' to watch "real" science-fiction on TV.
Alas, my parents didn't watch it, and I had to wait for summer re-runs. (No VCRS in 67....)
Sure, Trek had it's flaws; hokey acting, cheesy effects, etc. Still, some of the stories were quite good (written by some of the better sci-fi writers around at the time) I enjoyed it thoroughly. I think the episode where the crew encounters the Romulans for the first time was greatly derived from the old submarine movie, The Enemy Below.

As for Star Wars, I saw it with my wife in 1977, and came out of the theater wanting my 73 VW to be an X-Wing, and desperately wanting a lightsaber.
Sure, on reflection, my critical sci-fi senses kicked in, but I (like many others) simply said, Space Opera, not Sci-Fi.
Part of the attraction was that we simply hadn't seen anything quite like this before.
The subsequent films have been bigger and splashier, but didn't have quite the same visceral feel for me.

 

[ruach1]

Huh?

How can this be so unbalanced in favor of Trek?

 

[Ryokan]

Huh?

How can this be so unbalanced in favor of Trek?

I suspect it's because people here are so intelligent, and recognize that Star Trek is much closer to real science fiction than Star Wars, which is closer to fantasy than science fiction, is.

I like both, though, but as a real science fiction fan, Star Trek is closer to my heart.

FIAWOL!

 

[El Greco]

Trek of course. I hadn't watched Star Wars until last summer when I watched the 3 first ones and tried to watch episode I as well. It was boring. Oh man, it was so unbelievably boring that it set new, broader boredom borders.