In your opinion who crafted better stories, characters, conflicts, and futures? Who was more visionary? And who was the better creative master? What was innovative and what was just plain goofy? Kirk or Skywalker? Darth or Khan? Leia or Uhura? Falcon or Enterprise? Movies and shows? Identify the pros and cons of each and speculate on our own future. We know where some of you stand; but can you be swayed?
And if you feel the need to comment on Rogue One, please keep it very SPOILER free! You have the helm...
20 comments:
No contest. Whenever the choice between anything Trek and Star Wars comes up, the choice for me is always and unequivocally Trek and this is no exception. The world, the characters and, if you will, the story-telling engine devised by Roddenberry far surpass any of the equivalent factors created by Lucas for Star Wars.
Gene Roddenberry included black and Asian characters and even a Russian at the height of the Cold War. His vision of the future was inclusive and progressive and I admire him for that. Star Wars was fun but it was just spaceships and robots and didn't amount to anything beyond goodies and baddies and laser guns. Even George Lucas himself has said that Star Wars is aimed at 12 year-old boys...
Personally, I never liked the Star Wars vs. Star Trek debate. To me, they are complementary franchises and I enjoy both equally. When I need something fun and visually appealing, I go to Star Wars. When I want something more mentally stimulating and great stories, I go to Star Trek. I'm a huge fan of both.
Star Trek is better to me. It came first and had better story telling. Star Wars actually bored me. It had a Disney feel even before they owned it. I guess I don't care for Lucas in general. Star Trek always engaged me even though the production value was lower, the great stories shown through. Better characters too.
Perhaps I should have pitted Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace against Star Trek V: The Final Frontier for a more fair fight.
Martinex, after ST10, ST5 is my least favorite of the Trek movies (well, not counting the NuTrek features), but I still like it better than any of the SW prequels.
Edo do you like ST5 more than any of the SW original trilogy? Perhaps we should rank both series together, but I haven't seen them all.
Hm, while I have no problem making across the board comparisons between Trek and SW, I guess I've always adopted Gabe's attitude about making direct comparisons between individual, specific installments of the movies. The first three SW movies (by which I mean the actual first 3 movies made, of course) are entertaining enough, and at any given moment I'd probably watch any of them rather than ST5; I also liked Force Awakens well enough, and I'll probably get around to seeing Rogue One eventually. But those prequels, yeesh, they were just CGI fests and sabre fights interspersed with mostly poorly written dialogue...
I'm with Gabe ... I like both. Each franchise has its merits and its bad points. As for Lucas v. Roddenberry, I'd say both were men of vision who ultimately turned out to have feet of clay.
Mike Wilson
Gene Roddenberry is clearly the more visionary of the two, his future of the Federation is idyllic in many ways, a united Earth forging into the vastness of space, so confident that they can send a spaceship and crew on a five year mission to somewhere, anywhere. The actual episodes got a bit mired in the prejudices of the day (misogyny the egregious sin) but the intent was forward looking.
George Lucas is backward looking, but in his rear mirror are those glorious pulp adventures of Flash Gordon and such and the serials they inspired. The space of Lucas is filled with rogues and the confidence in men and mankind to find a way forward is far less certain.
Star Trek is about explorers, admittedly militaristic in nature, while Star Wars concerns itself with ascetics and smugglers, admittedly kindly rogues at that. The darkness of the Sith is unmatched by anything in the Star Trek universe save perhaps the savagery of Khan, and he's a relic lost in time while the Sith seem to be all too comfortable in the world we see.
Rip Off
Star Trek, hands down. I remember seeing the first Star Wars movie when it came out, and I was really looking forward to a science fiction action adventure. I was appalled at the terrible writing and bad acting. A cliche festival. And while Star Trek has its share of flaws, especially in the movies, the original series was by and large better written, more engaging, and in spite of decades of jokes about Shatner's over-the-top acting, I thought he was great. I really like the last 3 Star Trek movies with the new cast -- they are actually much better than the original cast's feature films.
Star Wars: I grew to "sort-of" liking the original trilogy, but my enthusiasm for it is half-hearted at best. For dumbed down entertainment of this genre, I'd rather watch the old Flash Gordon serials from the 1930s -- at least those can be more easily forgiven for their silliness than Star Wars, which came out almost a decade after 2001: A Space Odyssey, the first intelligent sci-fi movie and still the best.
Terry in Virginia
I think both franchises are better off for having moved on from the guidance of their creators.
If I may pose a question...? I recently started enjoying Sci Fi and have no familiarity with Star Trek since the original series. Were / are any of the subsequent series worth a watch? I'll hang up and listen. Thanks! Joe
I cannot highly recommend The Next Generation enough. An amazing series that will really capture your attention if you like Star Trek. Admittedly, the first 2-3 seasons are a bit tough to get through at times, but the payoff is 4-5 seasons of great and intelligent sci-fi.
Charlie Horse 47- I'm not the most qualified to answer your question, as most of the Star Trek follow-ups are alien to me (sorry, couldn't resist). But Next Generation sure was appealing...
@Charlie Horse 47: I'd say all the Trek series had their good points and bad points.
Next Generation is pretty good overall (though the first two seasons have a few clunker episodes), with interesting characters and stories that try to delve into deeper themes. It's probably closest in tone to the original series.
Deep Space 9 is darker in tone, morally ambiguous, and has more conflict between the characters. Despite (or maybe because of) that, it's my favourite of all the series.
Voyager is almost a mix of Next Gen and DS9; there's conflict between the characters, but also a streak of hopefulness that reminds me of the old show. A lot of people don't like Voyager, but it had some great characters and some great episodes (as well as some crappy ones).
Enterprise seems to be generally hated by most people, but I liked it. There was a lot of fanservice (especially with T'Pol), but generally the characters were compelling and there were some cool stories (although the whole Temporal Cold War storyline was pointless as far as I'm concerned). They also had a bad habit of contradicting/retconning stuff that was established in earlier series. At times Enterprise has a bit of a "raw" feel to it, almost like a Western (though quite different from Firefly), which may be why I like it.
Mike Wilson
All - thanks for your recommendation! Good news(for me) is that Next Generation is on Net Flix. That means I do not need to get it our of the public library system (where soooo many of their DVDs are dirty and hang up while viewing). If anyone else is still listening out there... any other Sci FI recommendations on Netflix or otherwise? Cheers!
Charlie Horse 47, I only recently followed Star Trek and had never seen the vast majority of the original series, but after being introduced to it I have watched much and I too will say Next Generation - particularly after the first few seasons - was really good.
Regarding Netflix recommendations, I did like "Stranger Things"- it did have a Spielbergian 80s feel to it. But I've also enjoyed "Marvel's Jessica Jones". I was surprised by that one but I really liked it and thought the Killgrave the Purple Man portrayal was top notch. And I do like "Black Mirror," that is an intriguing anthology series about technology and the use of information run amok in various ways. Some of the stand alone stories are much better than others; it is a bit hit-or-miss, but when it hits it is really really good. Drones, the Internet, Reality TV, trolling, Facebook, etc are all under fire in a Twilight Zone-like way.
I am hearing good things about a new sci-fi series called "OA" but I have not watched it yet.
Well, who stirred up a hornet's nest comparing these two franchises? Well, I like both of them but if you twist my arm I'd have to go with Trek. Roddenberry's genius was his hopeful vision of a future where humans and alien species coexisted and worked together. Lucas's genius was in reinventing mythology into a modern space saga.
Although .... I have to agree with the good Doctor O - both franchises are actually better off without the input of their respective creators; some of the worst Trek episodes were penned by Roddenberry, while Lucas gave us those tepid prequels and foisted Jar Jar Binks on us! 'Nuff said!
- Mike 'phaser or lightsabre?' from Trinidad & Tobago.
Thanks! While trolling Netflix and their offerings I noticed a show called Black Matter with very high ratings. Any experience? Have a great day and thanks for the blog!
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