Bluesman Mike Lindner Wrote:Roast me over a slow Klingon fire if you will, gang, but I can't see any comparison over STAR TREK and STAR WARS. STAR WARS was a cartoon version of sf for people who didn't know and didn't care about sf. The original TREK had some of the finest sf writers on our little blue world (Sturgeon, Spinrad, Ellison, Bixby) smokin' with =real= people and =real= (at the time, and many still relevent) issues, a =great= ensemble cast... Sue me in care of the board.
I enjoy parts of both worlds, though much of both falls short of what I enjoy in visual sf. (For the best recent sf TV show that never was, check out Firefly. Or, conversely, the first four seasons of BABYLON 5, which kicks STAR TREK's you know what.) Here are my 2.5 cents.
STAR WARS is science fantasy, but taps into deep storytelling and mythic emotions, which created a resonance in both sf and non-sf fans when it first came out in 1977. Until 1999, fans only could point to three movies in the STAR WARS universe, and when the new trilogy came out, most people steeped in the nostalgia of their youth failed to connect with the new movies. Also, George Lucas seemed to care more about effects and the wow factor, rather than story-telling and dialog. Thus, the newer movies seem stilted. The *action* in REVENGE OF THE SITH, however, is superb.
STARK TREK gives us more episodes to choose from, and five major series plus ten movies. Cherry pick the best, and STAR TREK probably beats out STAR WARS. The original STAR TREK had some great writers, but this is TV land, and even Ellison and Sturgeon are powerless when the producers as usual demand more sex and action, so we tend to remember little of the great writing (except "City on the Edge of Forever," and "Trouble with Tribbles"), and instead the fact that Kirk always 1) got the girl and 2) relied on his fists rather than brains. NEXT GENERATION had some great moments, and the best villains in sf - the Borg! DEEP SPACE 9 proved an ok replacement, but in the end did not measure up to ST:NG. VOYAGER had Seven of Nine, and little else ;-) ENTERPRISE took Kirk's fists, but completely lacked direction and chemistry.
In the end, I would say that you can enjoy both, and they are not mutually exclusive.