Star wars, star trek, which one do you like more?!

[DesiPower]

Saw a similar poll on another tech site, so I thought let's ask ATOT, again! Vote away...

*edit
Excuse the 5th option, is supposed to be "I like to vote". I am positing from my phone... Mods, can it be fixed?

 

[BurnItDwn]

2001 a Space Odyssey > Star.*

 

[SKORPI0]

Space balls>>> Star Trek/Wars... everyone know this...:awe:

 

[mcurphy]

A few years ago I would have voted Star Wars no doubt, but now I am not so sure. I just recently finished watch all the episodes of ST: TNG on Netflix and I really enjoyed the show. With all of the long running TV series that Start Trek has to offer, there is so much more substance than the few movies of the Star Wars universe. Especially consider the last few duds of movies they produced. I guess I would lean more towards Star Trek these days.

 

[angminas]

Star Trek at its best is better than Star Wars at its best, but Star Wars is better on average.

 

[DesiPower]

The star trek reboot background music/orchestra is just pure awesome. Let's see what star wars reboot can do in that category.

 

[Homerboy]

God do I hate Star Trek. Never understood the love for that show.

 

[Captante]

Star Trek

 

[Slew Foot]

original trilogy> TNG > episodes 1,3 > other random ST series > episode 2

 

[Fanatical Meat]

One of the best movies ever was Star Trek Wraith of Khan. The new version not so much.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Star Wars isn't really Sci Fi. None of the plots revolve around science fiction, they are just a pile of action movies. Indiana Jones in space basically. In fact most of the plot revolves around a made up religion which is the opposite of science fiction (Phantom Menace's poor attempt to reconcile the two with midichlorians notwithstanding).

Meanwhile everything done under the Star Trek banner except for the new JJ movies (which are basically Trek in name only) has been real Sci Fi. Some of it is crappy Sci Fi, but it's Sci Fi. I prefer Sci Fi to action so Trek is my pick.

I mean, Star Trek created the entire Sci Fi universe that so many shows take for granted. Warp/FTL drives, transporters, tractor beams, etc. are all commonplace in Sci Fis that have nothing to do with Trek. And often these Sci Fis don't bother explaining what the warp or FTL drive does, we all just kinda know thanks to decades of Star Trek in our culture. Without Trek every new Sci Fi would waste half the first season trying to explain its little world to us instead of getting into the main plot. That is Trek's legacy.

The few times space opera Sci Fis have tried to make it work without the Trek elements have all been failures. Either you have BSGs that are obviously meant to be contrary to what Trek did (and is therefore influenced by Trek) or you get something like Stargate SG1 when they start the series hopping around space through gates (not Trek) but they end the series with battles of spacecraft that have transporters and warp drives (very Trek). Trek is the language in which all modern Sci Fi is written.

 

[sm625]

I like Star Trek simply because there's more of it.

 

[DigDog]

they are two completely different things. trek is a comedy, star wars is *serious* film.

 

[slag]

Trek is Sci Fi as stated above. Wars is its own genre. I much prefer star trek but watch either one as both are entertaining.

 

[Insomniator]

Never got into Star Wars and the first I really saw of it was Episode 1 so I didn't have the best welcome.

Meanwhile TNG was and still is one of my favorite shows of all time. DS9 was pretty good and Voyager was awful but I was young enough to not care at the time and just stare at 7of9.

So for me Star Trek wins by a landslide.

 

[DigDog]

if it ain't got Kirk, it ain't Trek

 

[SP33Demon]

Trek, way more cerebral. Plus the whole jarjar trilogy was lame.

 

[Ruptga]

The few times space opera Sci Fis have tried to make it work without the Trek elements have all been failures. Either you have BSGs that are obviously meant to be contrary to what Trek did (and is therefore influenced by Trek) or you get something like Stargate SG1 when they start the series hopping around space through gates (not Trek) but they end the series with battles of spacecraft that have transporters and warp drives (very Trek). Trek is the language in which all modern Sci Fi is written.

Do Farscape and Babylon 5 not exist in the universe where that's true? There's no question that ST has been a huge cultural influence or that it has made a lot of sci fi vocabulary and tropes common into knowledge, but there's a bit more to it than that.

 

[uhohs]

TOS had a few good episodes
TNG had a lot of good episodes
DS9 had a decent number of good episodes
VOY had a few good episodes
ENT had a great trololoholodeck last episode

 

[JEDIYoda]

God do I hate Star Trek. Never understood the love for that show.

That is OK!! I bet when you are at bat you strike out a lot,,,,

 

[poofyhairguy]

Do Farscape and Babylon 5 not exist in the universe where that's true?

Farscape is basically a spinnoff of TNG's Season 3 "Tin Man." Richard Manning, a co-producer on TNG was one of the main writers for Farscape. And it's not like the rest of Farscape was all original ideas outside of that, the living ships had starburst but everyone else got around via ""Hetch drive" (aka warp drive).

Babylon 5 is even closer to Trek, it is basically a not Trek branded Deep Space Nine ripoff and people have known that from the start:

It has been suggested by J. Michael Straczynski that Paramount, after considering his proposal for B5, passed on the project but then rushed to get a Star Trek-based version of its plot to television first.

http://atomicwanderers.com/2013/09/...5-remarkably-similar-or-similarly-remarkable/

That link lists all the similarities between DS9 and Babylon 5. Is everything in B5 a copy of Trek? No, because they went OUT OF THEIR WAY to avoid using some of the same terms and ideas. So instead of Trek's warp drive they used War's hyperdrive. But the concepts for the show were very compatible, B5 was just another space opera in the Trek form.

I mean I like both shows but they are pretty much exactly what I was thinking of when I said Trek created the language and the mythology of the modern space opera. Something that is not Trek inspired would be Interstellar with its spaceships that you could see some future NASA actually using.

 

[Ruptga]

Farscape is basically a spinnoff of TNG's Season 3 "Tin Man." Richard Manning, a co-producer on TNG was one of the main writers for Farscape. And it's not like the rest of Farscape was all original ideas outside of that, the living ships had starburst but everyone else got around via ""Hetch drive" (aka warp drive).

Babylon 5 is even closer to Trek, it is basically a not Trek branded Deep Space Nine ripoff and people have known that from the start:



http://atomicwanderers.com/2013/09/...5-remarkably-similar-or-similarly-remarkable/

That link lists all the similarities between DS9 and Babylon 5. Is everything in B5 a copy of Trek? No, because they went OUT OF THEIR WAY to avoid using some of the same terms and ideas. So instead of Trek's warp drive they used War's hyperdrive. But the concepts for the show were very compatible, B5 was just another space opera in the Trek form.

I mean I like both shows but they are pretty much exactly what I was thinking of when I said Trek created the language and the mythology of the modern space opera. Something that is not Trek inspired would be Interstellar with its spaceships that you could see some future NASA actually using.

Yeah but, in a word, no. In many words...

Assume for a moment you're wrong about your ST panspermia theory, how would you be able to tell? The way you describe it, everything that doesn't borrow from ST does so intentionally and so is proof that everything is a ripoff of Star Trek; counter-examples are impossible. I don't see how anything can be a copy of another when major parts are intentionally different. You can't say an F-22 is a copy of an A-10 because they both have wings, two engines, and they blow things up.

B5 did not rip off DS9, it was the other way around and that has been known from the start. B5 was ripped off specifically because it was so different from every Trek to date. For simple proof of which one's the original, just compare their first seasons. B5 was good from the beginning, in no small part because it had a plan. DS9 started very slowly and fitfully, they had no idea what they were doing because it was a half-finished idea that they stole from someone else.

Farscape was not a spinoff of one single episode, why do I need to even refute this? They both involved a living ship, that's it, and ST wasn't even close to being the first to market with that idea. There's almost nothing in common with the two shows either, ST is primarily social commentary while FS is primarily drama, ST gets off on technobabble and exposition while FS gets off on world building, ST is primarily episodic while FS is primarily arc-driven, ST has a whole crew of half-developed characters and FS has half as many but better developed characters, their visual and writing styles are completely different, and so on. That they are in space and sometimes use a drive to get around does not mean they're Star Trek.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Assume for a moment you're wrong about your ST panspermia theory, how would you be able to tell? The way you describe it, everything that doesn't borrow from ST does so intentionally and so is proof that everything is a ripoff of Star Trek; counter-examples are impossible.

There are whole categories of Sci Fi that are nothing like Trek. Just in the space/Alien genre there is that whole category of what I call "Area 51 Sci Fi" that is nothing like Trek: X-Files, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, either of the The Outer Limits, etc. Or there is NASA like Sci Fi- Interstellar, Contact, or even 2001.

What didn't exist before Trek was the space opera. That is when you know you are dealing with a directive of Trek. Is a lot of the plot within a spaceship that can travel faster than light or a starbase that can connect to such ships? Are their different but similar alien races with similar ships who interact with humans? Are the humans who serve on the ships paramilitary or outright military? Does the interaction between the races create drama? If yes to all the above then you have a Trek ripoff. That kind of story really didn't exist on Tv before Roddenberry's creation.

B5 did not rip off DS9, it was the other way around and that has been known from the start.

That isn't my point. My point is that if B5 is so close to something in Trek that DS9 can rip it off then by definition it uses the same kind of story that Trek (as in the 1960's Trek) created. I have read quotes that they almost considered doing B5 in the Trek universe if they could have worked out the contracts. That can't happen unless B5 is very Trek like by definition.

Farscape was not a spinoff of one single episode, why do I need to even refute this? They both involved a living ship, that's it, and ST wasn't even close to being the first to market with that idea.

TNG wasn't the first to have the idea, no. But THE guy who had the idea for Farscape had that idea in Trek first. Then he made a show that was a LOT like Treks based around that idea. That is my point.

There's almost nothing in common with the two shows either, ST is primarily social commentary while FS is primarily drama, ST gets off on technobabble and exposition while FS gets off on world building, ST is primarily episodic while FS is primarily arc-driven, ST has a whole crew of half-developed characters and FS has half as many but better developed characters, their visual and writing styles are completely different, and so on.

You are getting to caught up in plot points. Trek is less about plot and more about theme. I mean Star Trek 4 is basically a comedy. Star Trek 6 is a social commentary on the end of the cold war. Star Trek has had serial series, such as the last half of Enterprise. What matters more is "is it a space opera or not?"

That they are in space and sometimes use a drive to get around does not mean they're Star Trek.

Agreed, just being in space isn't enough. Something like Event Horizon or Buck Rogers isn't really based on Star Trek. It just happens to be in space too.

To have a real Trek influence the series needs to focus on the interactions between the races, aka the drama that defines the opera in a space opera.

 

[Ruptga]

That's all so broad that it can and does encompass entire genres, and there's also some other stuff that I could waste my time on, but I won't because we're never going to agree and I'm not enough of an ultranerd to argue this until the end of time. If anything, you're caught up on plot points at the expense of theme or essence.

 

[Ham n' Eggs]

Star Trek TNG > Voyager > Enterprise > Original Star Wars Films. fullstop. The other movies and shows are all bad.

Star wars is entertaining though terribly ignorant writing such as "it's the ship that made the kessel run in under 12 parsecs" really ruin the immersion. I do look forward to seeing what is possible with a non-Lucas star wars film. I can't say I have a clue as I've successfully avoided all previews and discussions of the upcoming Star Wars film. Movies are so much better when you see it as it was intended... previews really destroy everything.