As questions go, this might be the biggest. In science fiction at least, there might be no bigger question. I don’t even know where to start on this one…
I have my own personal preference, but I’m not going to go into it lest I skew the results. Because I am super curious to which way this one will fall.
Star Wars or Star Trek. Which is better? Which is more important? Which is more culturally relevant? All of those questions, shrink wrap them into one single value judgement and then vote!
Comments
73 responses to “The Big Question: Star Wars Or Star Trek”
Star Trek, always Star Trek. I still think the KotOR games are the best thing about Star Wars and don’t have a whole lot of love for most of the movies.
I’ll concede that Star Wars has the better music… only just. John Williams and Jerry Goldsmith are both pretty excellent though. Then again, Michael Giacchino’s new Star Trek music is pretty great!
Star Trek. As a kid I was a fan of Star Wars – when I grew up I got into Trek
Star Wars because Empire > Klingons..
Romulan Star Empire > Vader’s Empire. :p All you guys have is plastic troops who’s aim is so bad, they couldn’t hit water if they fell outta a boat, and a leader with a severe asthma problem. Where’s your goofy bowl cut hair styles and your grossly overpadded shoulders?? Bah, some empire you have there! I have two words that’ll clinch the argument for me: cloaking device.
Bam! 🙂
Star Wars all the way – but Star Trek is still great 🙂
Stargate > StarTrek for TV
Starwars > Startrek for movies as long as we don’t count ep 1 2 3
then you should discount the naff Star Trek movies as well
Stargate definately was doing TV way better than the latter years of Star Trek.
I miss Stargate still, I don’t miss Star Trek on my TV though.
It’s high time a new series came back. Been far too long 🙁
Unfortunately it looks like they’re going to reboot it for film. Possibly a reboot which is a recast sequel to the first film. Don’t get me wrong, I look forward to that.
I just miss the TV show and would love more of that in any form I could. Even if they just did a miniseries or something to wrap up Atlantis and Universe. Through in some SG1.
Come on Netflix, do it!
haha are you me?
Yeah, that was the big variable here, for me: ‘Does this include eps 1,2 &3?’ Because if it does, then Trek all the way. No question. The enormous drag factor of those three toy commercials far out-craps Star Trek V or Star Trek Nemesis.
Definintely Star Wars
TV = Star Trek
Movies = Original Star Wars
Cultural Relevance = Star Trek
2/3 – My vote has to be Star Trek
Trek. Star Wars is big and flashy and fun to watch, but Star Trek has heart. And as the great Philip J Fry once said, it gives us hope for the future.
I love the ambition and world creation of the original trilogy though. That right there is a thing of beauty! How it all feels lived in and a sort of black and white world view too. (Which isn’t usually a good thing, but often is here…)
Yeah, they really killed a lot of that spirit by making everything so shiny in the prequels. I’m assuming it was part artistic choice to show pre-empire/fall from grace, but also just to fit in more CGI, in which dirt and grime and being beat-to-all-hell is harder than showroom floor polish.
There was a great essay at the back of “Invasion! The Final Fury” (the last of a 4 part Star Trek novel series) which I think sums up why Star Trek is so important. Quoted below, it’s why I voted Trek. Not to diminish from Wars, but this is far more important.
Trek for me. Ignoring what JJ’s done to the new films, the universe is just more believable, makes more sense and has better cliffhangers. Han frozen in carbonite or Picard being turned into a Borg. I know which was better at the time and still is. Plus in Best Of Both Worlds when Picard says “We have engaged, the Borg” with the Borg Cube on the viewscreen behind him getting larger, that’s my absolute favourite piece of television/film ever.
Don’t get me wrong, Star Wars is great fun and will always be a blast watching the films (I don’t even mind the prequel trilogy) or reading the books, but Star Trek just has the edge in almost every possible way
I deny that the universe was more believable. I mean, I’ve only watched a few episodes of Trek (usually by accident/coercion because godamn I couldn’t stand it), but the crew and scenarios were kind of a joke, like they were living the 80s-90s in the future.
Somewhat (but not all that much) over-the-top harshness ensues: Die-hard fans may want to look away.
The first episode I ever saw, the crew of a federation vessel are being attacked by or encounter a superpowerful but now-damaged/dormant alien entity/ship (borg), which is repairing itself. So what do the humans do? Beam over the entire frickin’ chain of command onto the ship to go for a leisurely fucking stroll, poking at things and saying, “Ooo-err! Advanced!” No sense of urgency whatsoever. Believable? They were able to teleport, there should’ve been squads of marines being beamed to strategic locations to set up god damn space-nuke time-bombs and they should probably have been moving with a sense of urgency slightly greater than when you’ve opened the fridge for the fourth time to see if anything more interesting has materialized since the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd times you looked.
My brother and his partner then go on to tell me that the Federation is somehow a government which doesn’t use currency of any sort, where people simply do the jobs they want to do, in some sort of socialist utopia.
I’ve since seen a couple episodes that cement the universe and attitude of the show in my mind as a preachy, unrealistic ‘moral high-ground’ soapbox / wish-fulfilment universe where being a total nerd actually results in some kind of payoff. And the Klingons… god. They came across less as an actual warrior-caste-dominated society of formidable soldiers to be feared, than as hapless straw-men to knock down for the hapless weenie feds to look good, covered with a thin veneer of what a geek might think an honour-focussed society might look like to keep the nature of their straw stuffing from being too obvious.
“Oh, these guys are super-tough and scary and are totally a huge threat, even though we always kick their asses without fail, we are in no way complacent about what utter jokes they have always turned out to be on-screen.” The suspension of disbelief can only stretch so far, and what I saw of Star Trek has always broken it.
And yes, I am baiting @dc somewhat. 🙂
People from the 24th Century can’t be baited. How’s that for moral high ground. 😛
Always preferred Star Trek.
A couple years ago I would have gone straight down the line Star Wars, no contest, but these days I am more firmly neutral. i think Star Trek is a better example of science fiction and has been doing better and more audacious things for the last decade- a total timeline reboot being one of them.
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away….and a much better galaxy at that!
I’m torn on this one, because Star Wars at it’s very best (pre-“Greedo shooting first” version, pretty much all of The Empire Strikes Back, the final duel between Luke and Vader, etc.) outstrips the very best of Star Trek (“All Good Things…”, The Dominion War). But Trek at it’s very worst (Enterprise, the Final Frontier) is nowhere near as bad or downright dull as the worst of Star Wars (the Phantom Menace, the complete mishandling of Anakin’s fall to the dark side, the post-prequel edits to the original trilogy – and let’s not even talk about the worst of the expended universe).
I feel like Star Trek has given me more quality entertainment over my lifetime, if only because there’s so much more of it. But when I think about Star Wars, I remember the Star Wars of my childhood, and nothing compares to that.
Indiana Jones meant way more to me in my childhood. Here’s a shocking confession. I didn’t see Star Wars original trilogy for the first time until I was 19. First Star Wars movie was The Phantom Menace. D:
I probably saw Indiana Jones and Star Wars around the same time, I’d say they’re about equal in my mind (though as a child I thought Raiders was boring and Temple of Doom was the best – may I someday be forgiven for my folly).
I can’t imagine what it would be like to see Star Wars for the first time as an adult, especially if it was the remastered version.
Probably terrible.
Seeing the prequels first? My god.
I loved Temple of Doom more than Raiders as well as a kid. So crazy!
I guess Temple of Doom had the more action-y bits whereas Raiders of the Lost Ark had more drama and tension building. Our little attention spans had trouble following the plot.
Personally Last Crusade is my favourite these days. There’s so much going on in it I almost think of it as two movies.
Agreed. Love the music from Last Crusade too. Still think Marion’s Theme from Raiders is the best music John Williams has ever scored.
Depends which parts of Star Trek and which parts of Star Wars we’re comparing.
who was more creative? Gene Roddenberry or George Lucas?
Star Wars (and by that, I mean pre-prequels era Star Wars), mainly because I’ve had little to do with Star Trek other than a random smattering of movies and clips of the TV series.
This, I’ve seen all the Star Wars movies (the original trilogy many times, the prequel trilogy once), but I’ve only seen two Star Trek movies, IV when it first came out in the 80’s, and the reboot (which I quite enjoyed). Never seen any of the Star Trek TV series, my Mum was a fan of the original though (had a thing for William Shatner).
So yeah, I’m gonna have to go with Star Wars, purely because I’ve seen more of it (even if it was multiple viewings of the same movies).
Interesting. Most comments are Star Trek but Wars has more votes. I guess Star trek fans are just more vocal.
For me its Wars simply because its what i grew up on and I love it. I know the new ones were pretty average but the start of the “the phantom menace” (before they land on the planet and meet the Rastafarian) was like crack to me. “They’re Jedi knights” … “We will not survive this”
I find it hard to go back to the old Trek movies but I must say the new reboot for Star Trek is awesome and I can (and have) watched it many many times. If they keep it up and the new Wars is average again I will probably switch camps.
Why cant we have both?
Agree. I find Star Wars more generally enjoyable to watch (of course the first three that is), but Star Trek deals with more socially relevant and ‘realistic’ issues, so I picked Star Trek
http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/538/731/0fc.gif
THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE.
*lops head off*
star wars jumped the shark big time. Lost its charm in the 80s.
star trek is filled with bad writing, a boring universe and propped up with ridiculous pseudoscience (some rare exceptions apply, of course)
Trek by far. Deals with a lot more human issues, and is just better in my opinion. Still miss TV series being on air, and I wish we had had a non vajayjay version of star wars test reel (ie star trek) the new movies are good action movies in their own right but there not star trek.
Star Wars. I also think I’m one of the only people who actually like Phantom menace. Has one of my favorite scene ever in movies (Epic final battle scene).
Star Wars but I’d be down for a new Star Trek tv series.
the big answer – both for there own reasons 🙂
In the original question “Star Wars or Star Trek”, you seem to have misspelled “AND” in the middle there.
Star Trek – a much more satisfying universe.
A better question is: Kirk or Picard? To which my response would be Janeway :p
Judging by the picture you posted with the article, I think it’s pretty obvious which way you lean. Also, Trek has Scotty.
So it’s a choice between an unrealistic setting whose adherents pretend is ‘scientific’ but really is simply fantasy, with social structures and cultures that appear to have been developed by a developmentally-challenged 5 year old
and Star Wars?
Ahaha. You totally had me there, too. Well done.
Lost In Space … (tv series, not the movie)
I grew up watching Star Wars, so naturally I voted for that.
I wish I could get into Star trek but I don’t think I would enjoy the early episodes being fairly dated now, I mean if I grew up watching star trek then it may have been different.
I enjoy the new Start Trek movies since they are made to cater to ‘non trekkie’ fans.
there were times when I would try to get into star trek but I found that there was a lot of standing around, analysing and talking lol, Probably why I opted to watch Stargate instead – pre universe (universe was the worst thing I had ever experienced)
Star Trek: TGN > Star Wars > Star Trek: DS9 and TOS. Can’t speak to the other series, as I’ve not yet seen them… But I shall. One day…
But don’t mind me – I’m biased. I liked Patrick Stewart’s acting before I ever saw TNG, and don’t particularly like Shatner’s ego.
No contest, Picard was the better captain. A scholar and a gentleman.
Star Trek. Reason? Jean Luc Picard.
If you’d asked me this in the 90’s, I’d have said Star Wars in a heartbeat. But now? After all the crap Lucas has pulled in the last decade or so? I really don’t know.
Personally I enjoy both equally 🙂
Star Wars all the way – I used to DM Star Wars under WestEnd Games, still love it and wouldn’t change it a bit.
I like Star Trek, but in a question like this, my loyalty clearly belongs to the people with the Death Star.
both
How about Ronald D. Moores Battlestar Galactica?
Trek for sure.
Just… Shhh… Nobody mention “Threshold”.
That show had an awesome premise, not to mention that in it’s final episode the person they were looking for at the start of the episode shares my name, with same spelling (which is unusual for my surname).
WIN!
Don’t hate me…
Babylon 5
Battlestar Galactica! SO SAY WE ALL!
I loved B5! It was kinda super cheesy (especially at the start) but a great show none-the-less 🙂
Wars.
Stargate.
Stargate ?
Star wars all the way
This argument always disturbed me…..
They are apples and oranges. They are both space sci-fi, and that’s pretty much where the similarity ends.
Star Wars is Opera. Dramatic and pure entertainment.
Star Trek is a more reflective, speculative look at sociological aspects of a technological life.
I enjoy both for VERY different reasons.
I always abstain from this vote.
I don’t know how they can even be compared fairly.
Looking at the comments above, many of the people who voted for wars made a key point:
– As long as we are only talking about the original 3 movies –
So essentially, we are comparing a trilogy (considering the fans themselves want to ignore everything else) against 6 separate television series, spanning 30 seasons, over 700 individual episodes, plus 12 movies made over almost 50 years!
It would seem to me comparing Star Trek with Stargate, or perhaps even Dr Who would be a better comparison. No?
They are also worlds apart in intention. Star Wars was all about war. Action movies, big explosions, special effects with story and drama there to hold it all together. They really were great movies.
Trek on the other hand is a story of future earth and humanity. Starfleet command is non-military, and all efforts are made to avoid conflict where possible. The stories told are about relationships, difficult decisions and cultural and moral issues like slavery and discrimination, but inevitably conflict arises sometimes as well.
They really couldn’t be much more different, but even so Wars cannot even begin to touch the depth that Trek has, and certainly never shook up the world quite like Trek did especially in the early days. Roddenberry assembled the first multi-ethnic cast, then put a Russian pilot on the bridge in the height of the cold war, they portrayed the first interracial kiss worldwide, and touched on environmental issues (like whaling in “A Voyage Home”).
May you all live long, and prosper. Trek all the way
^ What he said x2
” Which is better? Which is more important? Which is more culturally relevant?”
Given that one, imho, lands squarely miles ahead on the middle and latter questions, I can and must go with Star Trek. It’s effect is felt by most if not all of us every single day – smartphones, tablets, the physics of Star Trek (Lawrence Krauss, an awesome dude), the motivation for so many across multiple generations to go out and explore space and that’s just to name a few.
Now I am a huge fan of both, and if the question was just which is better or which is your favourite or along those lines, I would answer Star Wars without hesitation (though I need to mention that I rate Star Trek only the smallest fraction of a bee’s fart behind SW but I do rate it BEHIND SW).
Vader alone, hands down, puts SW in the lead on that one. Then factor in the single most awesome aspect of the newer trilogy, Darth Maul, and even though they killed him off in the first episode he almost made up for Jar Jar… Almost.
These two put SW so far ahead that they almost carry over and influence the middle and latter parts of the OP’s query. But they don’t, because, well…
Khan.
Say no more.
Star Trek, definitely.