Star Trek Vs. Star Wars
Since I was a little kid, I've always been more of a Star Trek guy. I had practically memorized every episode of The Next Generation, owned all the action figures and playsets, and even had a Halloween costume or two. But no matter how hard I tried, I could never convince my friend Jon that Star Trek was any good. For him it was Star Wars or bust. He must have seen each of the movies over a hundred times, and when the original three were re-released he made sure we were all first in line at the theater.
I would say forcefields, he would say the Force. I would say phasers, he would say sabers. I would say warp speed, he would say hyperspace. I couldn't figure out why until I realized that for almost every aspect of Star Trek there exists a counterpoint in Star Wars, and vice versa.
I tell this story because the teaser for J.J. Abrams' new Star Trek has come out just as George Lucas has been tantalizing fans with images from his new CGI Clone Wars. Rumors of a pending live action television series could send the competition into another dimension! Are we heading into a SciFi showdown between the two franchises?
Could Star Wars ever trump Star Trek on the small screen? Could Captain Kirk beat Han Solo in a battle of brain and braun? Is the Prime Directive a better motivating force than, well, the Force? Is there really a difference between the two? Or are these just two parallel universes?
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They're both awesome and silly for their own reasons, and I don't think you can really compare a series to a trilogy. Star Wars has one, final, rapturous climax, while Star Trek has hundreds of mediocre ones. Star Trek is more about technical gobbledeegook, Star Wars the mysticism of the cosmos. They both have one thing in common though, besides their vast throngs of nerdy followers: their character's dialogues are horrendous. One would assume that Mark Hamill couldn't act his way out of a paper bag, but how can any full grown man pull off the line: "This just isn't fair!" without sounding rediculously juvenile.
Still though, you can't resist either one of them.
@Ezzy: You said so much, I don't know where to begin. To start off, I agree with you that they're both awesome for their own reasons. But then you go on to completely trash Star Trek! Are you sure you think they're both awesome?
I assume when you say Star Wars has one resounding Climax, you're referring to the destruction of the first Death Star...or was it the destruction of the second? Or was it the fight between Anakin or Obi-Wan? Or perhaps the completely pointless endings of the other three movies? Yes, as films rather than television, their endings have more of a sense of finality to them.
But I would say there were some extremely satisfying endings to Star Trek, and I'm not even going into the fact that after this December there will have been almost twice as many Trek movies than Star Wars. Think about the TNG episode "Best of Both Worlds," where Picard turns into a Borg, or "Yesterday's Enterprise."
That last example brings up also another point I want to make. I agree: the Star Wars dialogue is abyssmal and proof positive that George Lucas can not direct or write his way, as you say, out of a paper bag. But I think Star Trek was extremely well-written, especially TNG. In "Yesterday's Enterprise," right before the climax Picard says, "Let's make sure history never forgets the name, Enterprise." That was an extremely poignant moment. Hell, pretty much every time Patrick Stewart had a line he delivered it with such bravado it was instantly believable, no matter how much "gobledegook" it had.
Give Star Trek another chance as a story, not just a SciFi spectacle. Especially the episodes written by Ronald D. Moore, who now writes Battlestar Galactica. There is some extremely smart writing in those episodes with some deep messages.
Definitly Trek, Star Wars had incredible effects and was actually remade mythology.
Star Trek dared to say 'what if.." we all stopped fighting and worked together, where would we go, what kind of gobbledygook, could we invent. Have to remember the original came out while our country was in the middle of war it didnt want, and home was being torn apart over racial differences.
Even today you see signs everywhere that one mans dreams inspired the future generations, need an example, take out your cellphone and look at a picture of a communicator.