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How Star Wars Trumped Star Trek For Scientific Accuracy
An anonymous reader writes "When George Lucas added the 'ring around the Death Star' effect to his 1997 re-release of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, the revision was almost as hated as Greedo shooting first, and to boot was seen as a knock-off of the seminal 'Praxis effect' in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991). But a debunking astronomer claims that the Federation got it wrong and the fan-boys should thank Lucas for adding some scientific accuracy to his fictional universe."
Magic carpets and wizard spells don't fall into the realm of science fiction. That would be fantasy.
Star Wars uses laser weapons. Any advanced space-race would never use laser weapons as they are readily re-mediated by the use of reflective materials.
Try reflecting a megawatt or even kilowatt laser from a vehicle coating sometime and let us know how it works out. The material needs to be able to survive re-entry and be easily repaired between flights.
- An entire planet existing as a city? This makes no sense from a material logistics point of view, at all. There is nothing like this in Star Trek.
It's been explored repeatedly in Science Fiction, most notably by Isaac Asimov in the Foundation series.
Need I mention the force? Microscopic life forms (midichlorians) giving magical powers to people? It is an interesting plot device, but rooted in any kind of science? No.
Midichlorians were the attempt to root it into some kind of science. I could invent all kinds of bullshit QM explanations for them but I'm not that much of a fanboy. I don't think we need to go into the whole mind-melding thing as a counterexample. Can't we just accept that both are fantasy, and move on?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Star Wars is adolescent nonsense, ... Star Trek can turn your brains to puree of bat guano, and the greatest science fiction series of all time is Doctor Who! And I'll take you all on, one-by-one or all in a bunch to back it up!
- Harlan Ellison
But of course I agree.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.