Bill Shatner: Star Wars is shite compared to Trek

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I have to say I agree with him. As entertaining as Star Wars is (the OT anyhow) I always considering it intellectually "lite" since it's basically an age old good vs evil plot. I don't really think there is much more to it and that. There's a special feature on the Blu-ray in which you see Lucas trying to explain "Yoda's philosophy" during a prequel production meeting and you just look at it and think "you're just making up illogical shit as you go aren't you" (and the troops he's talking do don't dare question the fuhrer about it either ).

Trek, on the other hand, has always, when it's at it's based, raised philosophic and societal questions, and for that reason it must be viewed as superior if you like a little bit more than space battles....which is reason that the next movie shouldn't and can't skip on raising questions.

Lucas himself has admitted that without Trek there would have been no Star Wars, but I think it's fair to say that without SW we wouldn't have ended up with an 11 movie run and four spin off shows.

Gene Roddenberry never raped my childhood.

Well, my childhood memories are fond, and will be with me for the rest of my life, but um, yeah..

One landmark film, one actually great film, two okay ones, and two horrible ones,...doesn't stack up to Trek at all.

Trek wins.

I also find it telling everything inspired by Star Wars has been kicking Star Wars's ass.

JJTrek, Lotr, Raimi-Spidey, etc.

Maybe it's a good thing Lucas has been knocked off his godlike perch.

I've always enjoyed Star Wars, it was like a western in space when I was a kid. Star Trek, however, was an institution in my family. You should have seen the spread when the first episode of TNG aired!

Hard to argue with Shatner on this one. On the other hand, both franchises have gone down the gutter in recent years.

Much of my interest in Star Wars died in 1999 with the release of Phantom Menace. And, by strange coincidence, much of my interest in Star Trek also died in 1999 when DS9 aired its final episode.

Hmm....

Jedi and Sith.

I have to agree with Bill. I really like Star Wars (particularly Empire), but Star Trek beats the ever loving Wookiee shit out of it.

If I had to choose to be born in an alternate 'verse with only one or the other, I'd have to keep SW.

As much as I love TOS Trek, SW pretty much shaped a whole bunch of my life from the time I was 8 years old. There's a whole bunch of pilots out there who grew up wanting to be Luke Skywalker and/or Han Solo.

Just to be argumentative, this is a classic self-selecting sample here.

But, heck yeah. Trek, at its best, has always had better story-telliing and hard sci-fi than Star Wars at its best. In a strict Sci-Fi versus Fantasy contest? Give me Sci-Fi every time. It's hard to find that pure choice anymore, though.

They are always being compared but the only similarities are they are both set in space and they both have 'Star' in their names! Star Trek was a science fiction TV series. Star Wars is a fantasy movie franchise.

Also, Star Wars is aimed mainly for kids (especially true of the PT) while Star Trek is for adults.

I've never really liked Star Wars. I found the characters and uninteresting and, consequently, didn't care what happened to them. Shit was blowing up, the fate of the universe was hanging in the balance, but I was bored.

Star Trek on the other hand (in all it's forms), has always given me enough characters per show that I care about to become emotionally invested in what happens.

Star Trek was a TV series that became a major franchine, which includes a multi-picture movie series and multiple spin offs on TV, books etc.

Star Wars is a multi-picture movie series that became a major franchise that produce multiple spin offs, include TV, books, etc.

Both are the two most powerful genre entities in recent history.

I don't think the differences are quite as stark and simplistic as you make out.

Wookie-shit.

That's a cop-out. It's all entertainment. The Shat speaks the truth IMHO. Trek at it's best outshines SW at it's best by a few factors, IMHO.

FTFY

3 and 4 were runners up, with 5 being the win.

I think he's right, they are vastly different. Not in the sense of medium (tv vs. movies) or scince fiction vs fantasy, but in sheer volume. In this respect Star Trek has an unfair advantage in that, if you strip away all fanfic, non-canon, "inspired by" or fringe support fiction, and use ONLY the original, officially sanctioned material, you are left with the following comparison:
Star Wars- six movies, almost exclusively written or conceived by the mind of one guy with questionable storytelling ability and hugely talented FX.

Star Trek- No less than five full television series, a dozen or so movies, and volumes of contribution by some of the top sci-fi and fantasy writers of the last few decades.

It's an unfair comparison, because you're trying to compare George Lucas to literally dozens of topnotch creators.

It's like saying Stephen King is not as good a writer as Harvard Classic Library.

As for Shatner's opinion: it can be said that Star Wars swung foul on a number of mythological and storytelling points. But it can also be said the much of the original Trek was campy horseshit, much of the Next Generation was preachy and overwrought, much of Deepspace Nine was a miasmic directionless mess, and Voyager + Enterprise...let's just not even go there for sake of brevity.

The problem with any speculative fiction and universe-building lies in "going to the well" too often, when fans remember vividly what went before often better than the creator. Lots of chances to screw things up that way...look what happened to "LOST".

Bill Shatner: I'm still relevant! Pay attention to what I say! :lookatme:

Mass effect and wing commander games were better then star wars.

Don't get cocky, it'll happen to Chris Pine, and it'll happen to *starts pointing around into crowd* you, and you, and you, and...YOU!

I agree with this, which is why we really should be comparing the Star Trek MOVIES with the Star Wars movies, and comparing the Star Trek episodes with episodic Star Wars tv episodes.

The only episodes of Star Wars are the Clone Wars cartoons and cgi you see on Teletoon, and the Star Trek episodes kick their ass. It's not even close.

Apples and oranges. Even aside from the fact that Trek exists mostly in TV form and SW in film, Wars never was meant to *be* as deep and insightful as Trek aimed to be. And I say "aimed," because.....um, most of us were alive to see TNG's first two seasons, no?

It might be a bit more fair to compare OT Wars to the new Trek reboot series.

Or we could cut it down to the creme de la creme and compare Empire Strikes Back to Wrath Of Khan.

To be honest... Even Star Trek Enterprise and Voyager are vastly superior to Clone Wars.

Star Wars Holiday Special vs. Spock's Brain

???

Spock's brain has Mccoy giving snarky almost meta-commentary on the proceedings.
SW:HS is sincere to it's saccharine core.
Trek wins again.

As Dr. Smith would say, Oh the pain, the pain!!!!!!

They both come down to their villains, so it comes down to a fight between Vader and Khan.

Vader's bionic strength and Khan's genetic super strength seem just about equal.

Arabic dictators have a kink for swords, so I'm betting Khan got some sword training in, so Khan with a lightsaber would be a match for Vader.

Ship to ship combat, gotta give it to Khan.
Obi-Wan hypes Anakin's piloting abilities, but the prequels show Obi to be an idiot and a liar in this as with everything else.

Comes down to how much Vader's force powers would close the gap, and if Khan could plan for it.

If Khan could find out about Amidala, he could fuck him up with head games, and send him into "nooooo!", mode, and erase him with a phaser.

Although, Vader could telepathically pluck stuff about McGivers out of Khan's head.

Hmm..it'd be a close one...

This brings up the age old question:

Which ship would win in a fight? The U.S.S. Enteprise or a Super Star Destroyer?