Star Trek or Star Wars?

I like both. When people lean one way or the other, I've noticed certain trends.

Star Trek fans are often skeptical humanists. They see the potential for greatness in our species, but they are also clear-eyed about the extent to which we can suck.

Star Wars fans can be just as smart and scientifically inclined, but there is a streak of woo that isn't as prevalent in Trekkies.

Many of the ideas that drive Star Trek pull from secular ways of seeing the world. while Star Wars is inspired by Graves and Campbell's hero's journey with details gleefully adapted from the fieldwork of Colin Turnbull.

 

I like Star Wars. Star Trek is part of my life.

 

Growing up Trek all the way. TNG Ds9 and Voyager were coming of age stuff for me. Original Star Wars triology is a fave but doesn’t touch those shows.

As an adult, I like the new Stars Wars properties (Mandalorian, Solo story, Rogue One) a lot more than the new Star Trek stuff (rebooted Kirk movies and Discovery).

 

I saw the first discovery, and did not like it at all. I thought the Klingons look like a lizards. And I just resented that they sat it so close to the original series. Once I got CBS all access to watch Picard, which I loved. I ended up watching all of Discovery. I don't hate it as much as I thought I would. I do think that Michael Burnham's backstory is an insult to everyone who has watched and supported Star Trek since the 1960s. They wrote it in such a way that it was actually she who was responsible for Spock's humanity as opposed to his enduring and endearing friendship with Kirk and McCoy. I am really reticent about the coming Strange New Worlds that will be Pike's Enterprise. How much else are they going to f*** with the character of Spock, who we've known for 50 years? I don't understand why they have to play in the same sandbox.

 

Especially since ever show has a human observer/Spoke avatar..... Data, Odo, Tuvok/Seven, T’pol.

Is it really THAT difficult to make up a new Vulcan or a new race for that spot (could’ve easily been Saru). I find it extraordinarily hard to believe there’s some large swarth of casual fans out there who will watch the new series if the character Spock is attached but won’t if he’s not

 

I appreciate Discovery because it offers a grittier look at Star Trek that feels more human. For that reason, I forgive the tinkering with Spock. There is a little squinting you have to do to connect Discovery Spock with Original Series Spock, but I feel like some of that comes with him and Pike staying behind as Burnham is shot into the future (sorry for spoilers).

For me, the continuous universe of Star Trek is better than the Star Wars universe, even if Star Wars has a better mythology. Star Trek had misses with the movies and some episodes, but up and down the various series have been solid. Star Wars has its original trilogy and really fell off with its movies with the exception of a couple of one-offs. But the TV series have been great.

 

It is interesting that you use the word skeptical to describe Star Trek fans given the inherent optimism in Gene Rodenberry's vision. Of course, Star Trek really isn't one just one thing. The stories in DS9, for example, are very different from the original series. As creators got deeper into the Star Trek universe, they spent more and more time digging into the darkest corners of it. As they brought more complexity to villains such as the Klingons, that meant creating greater threats such as the Borg and the Dominion. The stories always involved some social commentary, but I do wonder if we lost some of Rodenberry's hopefulness along the way. Part of that relates to the creators driving the storytelling. Ron Moore played a huge role in the evolution of The Next Generation and had an even larger influence on Deep Space 9, and those series took on much darker, more cynical tones than the original. That fits in with Moore's other work, such as Battlestar Galactica. I'm a huge fan of most of what he has done, but he definitely likes to dig into the darkness found in humanity.

Star Wars was a mixture of pure fantasy and science fiction mixed together at the start. Jedi and Sith were present as mythical beings with supernatural abilities at the start. I think that is why so many people from my generation, who grew up on the original trilogy, were so turned off by the introduction of Midichlorians. We didn't want a scientific explanation for the abilities of a Jedi. They worked better as space wizards with laser swords than they did as hosts in symbiosis with microscopic beings carrying around energy weapons powered by a specific sort of crystal. One reason The Mandalorian works is approaching it as a space Western, which helps it get back to the sort of material that inspired the original trilogy. You have people like Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni who embrace all of it, but they also understand the original spirit of the franchise.

 

They wrote themselves into a corner when they insisted on bringing Pike into the mix. We know Spock was with Pike, so they had to make those story lines fit. To your point, they could have brought in a different minor character from the Original Series universe and had a different Spock-like character with him.

 

I know I would have watched it without Spock. The only thing that kept me away was putting the damn thing on CBS All-Access. I only managed to see Picard, which is excellent, because I had a month-long free trial. I know they have been airing episodes on free television, but now I'm so far behind that I'm not sure I want to dig into Discovery.

You are right about them always having a character playing a role similar to Spock, and the storylines for that character almost always revolved around a search for their humanity. Data and Odo so often seemed determined to fit in rather than accepting themselves for who they were, and that seemed to run counter to the themes of acceptance that have always been a big part of Star Trek.

 

Star Trek... the original series and movies featuring the original cast (except 4).
I watched TNG but wasn't a huge fan. I haven't seen any of the TV series after that. I saw and enjoyed to an extent the 2009 reboot movie.

I like Star Trek because it is essentially to me a story about a ship and its crew, just way in the future.

I grew up with the three original Star Wars films. I've seen every subsequent theatrically-released film. I loved New Hope, Empire, and Jedi as a 6-12 year old. I look back on them now, and with the exception of Empire, it's cartoonish.

 

We're about the same age (I was 5 when the original Star Wars came out).

The first two movies (New Hope and Empire) hold up pretty well, and still have enjoyable parts for me.

Return of the Jedi was a two-hour commercial for toy, soda and Happy Meal tie-ins. Even Lucas was embarrassed by the Ewok party ending, changing it when he re-issued the original trilogy in the late 1990s.

 

I'd agree with most of your post but this begs for a comment. Roddenberry approached and sold the original Star Trek as "Wagon Train in Space", so you're talking about the original spirit of that franchise.