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William Shatner On Star Trek Vs. Star Wars
tekgoblin writes "Star Trek Vs Star Wars has always been a hot topic of debate in the nerd world, I honestly don't think there is any comparison between the two. William Shatner voices his opinion on the matter as well and he says they are completely different too. I just don't understand where people get that Star Trek and Star Wars are similar in any way. Lets see what Shatner had to say on the matter."
Has always seemed much more nerd accessible - like being a nerd is almost a pre-requisite to enjoying it. Star Wars is too.. main-stream action. >
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Phaser control is for communists.
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Outsiders don't care about the differences in the movie/show, they just see that the fans are all the same. Just like people who aren't hippies don't see any difference between the Grateful Dead and Phish, or people that aren't Christians don't care too much about the difference between Protestantism and Catholicism, or Shiites vs. Sunnis, or Republicans vs. Democrats, or furries vs. panty sniffers (oh crap did I go too far?)
Star Wars is too.. main-stream action.
Yeah. But then this happened.
My work here is dung.
As of July 2008, the United States domestic box office grosses of Ford's films total almost US$3.4 billion, with worldwide grosses surpassing $6 billion, making Ford the third highest grossing U.S. domestic box-office star.
-Wikipedia
Over here. And you're right, it is highly relevant.
We also need a link telling us what Shatner thinks about his interview being slashdotted.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
One of them is a series of sci-fi films (with a few TV series, book and comic spin-offs), the other is a TV series (with a few TV series, book, comic and film spin-offs). Both enjoyable to fans of the science fiction genre. Both significantly different from each other as to make them worthy in their own rights.
I like roast chicken and prawn curry. I don't feel the need to establish one as superior.
Jim would win because the newly edited Solo would wait for him to shoot first. :P
Fuck you, George Lucas.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Star Wars devolves, Star Trek evolves. Look at that stupid "Clone Wars." My nine-year-old couldn't care less. Sad.
Star Trek was science fiction. Star wars was science fantasy. If you don't know the difference you have to pay more attention.
The Imperial ships are much larger, but they have no shields. After a couple of dozen quantum torpedoes, they'd be burning wreckage. Heck, a runabout could just transport a torpedo into the bridge of a star destroyer and it'd be toast.
Their laser cannons might pack a punch, too, but all the federation ships would have to do is remodulate the shield frequencies, and they'd be useless.
The English word fart is one of the oldest words in the English vocabulary.
"I just don't understand where people get that Star Trek and Star Wars are similar in any way."
They are both Hollywood entertainment franchises that became very popular in the 1970s*, featuring space ships and other advanced technology, settings in space and on other planets, and titles that fit the pattern "Star ????" If you can't see how they're similar, you're trying too hard not to.
*Yes, I know when Star Trek debuted; read that sentence more carefully.
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One thing I've noticed is that most big Star Trek fan also enjoy Star Wars, while big Star Wars fans often strongly dislike and berate Star Trek. I guess the different philosophies attracts different types of fans.
An example can be seen in Fanboys where the Star Wars fan beat up some Star Trek fans for no reason.
It comes across as Shatner trolling the audience, which for those who recognize it for that, is hilarious.
Spock vs Obi Wan would be an interesting matchup.
Getting those two to hostilities would involve some serious mental gymnastics...
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Sisko: Better than all of the above.
Star Wars seemed more about the story. Rebels fighting to live free.
Star Trek to me was interesting because it was more technology based. Yes they had excellent story lines (DS9 in particular) but what got me hooked as a young engineer was "the future." PADDs, Warp Drive, etc.
Okay, I can see your point on Star Trek and Star Wars, but Hitchcock? Anyone who watches Rear Window or Vertigo and doesn't get a sense of the brilliance of Hitchcock has got serious issues. Yes, there were throwaways like The Birds (although the scene where the hero tries to get into that upstairs bedroom still gives me the heebeejeebies), but the great Hitchcock films, well they really are spectacles. I mean, come on, Hitchcock is the guy that managed to turn Jimmy Stewart from his various shades of nice guy into one of the great psychologically damaged anti-heroes in the history of film. Wake me up when someone can do the same for, say, Tom Hanks.
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He can't help it, When he types "shit", it automatically appears as "*beep*" on your screen.
/hunter2
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That is what I took away from it.
He let go years ago. For a bad actor, he's had a rather successful career post-Trek. TJ Hooker may be laughable now, but it was no worse than most cop procedurals, and no matter how hamfisted you may have thought his acting in Star Trek, the man basically reinvented his entire career with Denny Crane, and in his twilight years no less. Is he the greatest actor around? No, obviously not, but he isn't that bad, and even in the Star Trek days there were episodes where you got the sense that he did have some chops, when the material was at its best.
I actually kind of like what the guy has done. I enjoy Raw Nerve, he's a way better interviewer than most, and certainly seems willing to take things to the edge, and you know, he's done damned well for himself in a business that chews up people and spits them out.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I just don't understand where people get that Star Trek and Star Wars are similar in any way.
I just don't understand why anyone cares anymore. The first two SW films were good, but from ROTJ onward, who cares? ST began to lose steam during DS9's run. Maybe the rebooted ST movie series will pan out, and maybe the Old Republic MMO will make SW interesting again. Who knows? I just never got the *obsession* with either franchise. I liked them, still watch an episode of TOS or TNG now and then, but to go on and on about it, debating one made up science over another made up science, I just don't even.
Star Wars is not Science fiction, it's Arthurian Legend. Star Trek is about a possible future of our world/universe and the progress of secular Humanity, and the triumph of reason and science.
Star Wars is like a King Aurthur's knights of the round table, or spiritualist story about good vs. evil, just set in space. It discusses a quasi-religious struggle between right and wrong, and the struggle of rightful Camelot style kings vs. vicious tyrants. It is a fairy tale, or fable.
The reason they're special is because they were very original for their time, and if it weren't for them then the subsequent copiers wouldn't even exist. I've never seen any Hitchcock, but I still love a bit of Star Trek. Stargate SG-1 and Firefly are about the only sci-fi series I'd consider better than any of the Star Treks (pre Enterprise anyway, I didn't see that).
There have been some good sci-fi movies in the last 20 years, but the original Star Wars trilogy definitely are still awesome. They have lightsabers and speeder bikes. Enough said.
Plus, I didn't even ever listen to the Beatles until Beatles Rock Band came out, but now that I've heard more of their music I have to say they're pretty damn good. Definitely a lot better than most other music from that era, and still a lot better than most music today.
which is totally what she said
FTA:
The perfect union between Star Trek and Star Wars would be if Captain Kirk and Princess Leia were to ran off together pursued by Chewbakka.
So in conclusion ... Bill Shatner was high?
Prov 9:8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.
Get Obi Wan to try and convince Spock that midichlorians exist. It'll end in bloodshed, red or green.
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No, but he created Tek War. OK, it sucked, but what have you created?
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Honestly, I think the biggest difference between the two universes was that Star Trek, DS9 excluded and not in a bad way, was generally about hope. That's really the central, core tenant of the show.
In the future, all these worries and burdens and injustices we have now will be behind us. For example, it said (in the 60's) that if you're a woman, there's a place for you on the bridge, just like everyone else. If you're black, eventually nobody will care. If you're blind, you can still be chief engineer of a Starship.
I think this is why Trek appeals so much to the GLBT crowd. The idea -- the hope -- that in the future, life will be governed by tolerance and reason. That there's a place for everyone and replicated food means nobody goes hungry.
Star Wars represents, I think, a more grim picture of the future (again, not in a bad way). There's injustice and authoritarianism everywhere. People will kill you for old debts, for being a member of an almost extinct religion, or for opposing the state. There are wars spanning across solar systems. There is money, corruption, politics, and weapons of mass destruction.
For people who prefer this world, I can imagine why it's appealing. It's adventurous, engaging and realistic; as we can see in the modern day Republican party people don't abandon their preconceptions and hatreds just because technology marches on. In Trek there's no money, but honestly people want to make a buck; the basic idea of currency has been with us for so long we rightly can't imagine a world without it.
So what do I prefer?
I love them both, because I agree with William. They are different, and they give a totally separate picture of the future.
I'm currently writing a sci-fi book myself (shameless self promotion herethe prologue and whole first act is CC-BY-NC-SA so feel free to read it, remix it, share it around if you want) and these are the issues I think about. For example, one of the long-running issues I've had with Trek is... If everything's so egalitarian and racism is a thing of the past, then where are all the Chinese people (1\4 of the world's population)? Instead of the 'token asian', shouldn't each ship have a token white guy?
Accordingly, the majority of the crew of the ships in Lacuna are Chinese. Unlike Trek, people didn't give up their nationalities in this future; and nationalities tend to clump together when all mixed up, like oil and water. Old terrestrial grudges show up occasionally too, something that Trek was only able to explore in allegory.
Sci-fi is such a fun and vibrant setting to write in, in particular because of this tradeoff of hope vs realism. The reimagined BSG, for example, took that far to the extreme of realism and was brilliant; Trek took it the other way. Star Wars is somewhere in the middle.
Check out my sci-fi book "Lacuna" at http://goo.gl/MVxX8
"It's dead, Jim".
Star Wars has only seemed moderately science fiction to me. It's more like Dungeons & Dragons with technology filling in for the magic since the technology is never given scientific explanation. The heroes of Star Wars are all archetypal fantasy characters: knights, princesses, rogues, mercenaries, and the obligatory "chosen one." The whole thing romanticizes the Royalty America and France had revolutions to overcome, with its cynical portrayal of the Republic and idealization of the princess. Star Wars' overall take on humanity is cynical, where, despite living in galaxy filled with technology resembling magic, people are just as unenlightened and motivated by baser desires as they are today.
Good science fiction asks questions that pertain to the human condition and every single episode of Star Trek sets out to tackle the hard philosophical questions. Star Trek takes a positive perspective of humanity's future, with upstanding characters who seek intelligent solutions to social and technological dilemmas presented to them. The humans in Star Trek are the role-models for other species. Earth is the center of the Federation of Planets, the center of a working democratic United Nations on a galactic scale, complete with a Prime Directive to prevent a repeat of Earth's colonialist mistakes. Star Trek gets accused of being "Philosopher Kings in Space" or of presenting an idealistic vision of Communism, but these can also be seen as criticisms of the character's intellectualism and their personal virtue of serving the greater good, as academia is called elitist and humanism accused of socialism in today's society. The fact that we can even have such a debate about the sociopolitical dimensions of Star Trek make it a million-bazillion-times more nerdy than Star Wars' blaster and saber show.
Star Wars is fantasy, Star Trek is SF, and I can rant on and on and on about the differences between the two and why SF is vastly superior in every dimension, with the exception of fantasy making better escapist fare for when you want to turn off your brain for a few hours.
i ~ Celebrating Science, Cyberspace, Speculation
Yeah, all those things suck compared to my favorite story, The Troll Who Hated Everything.
I'd say: Solo would kill Kirk
Only because HAN SHOT FIRST.
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s/SG/5/g
FTFY.
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of course, he'd then whip out his tricorder and tell you *how* Obi was levitating something, that The Force was merely a religious construct explainable totally by physics and in fact related to the mechanisms of the Vulcan Mind Meld. Soon Spock would be levitating things too.
Still, to my mind, Rear Window and Vertigo stand at the very summit of Hitchcock's work. Rear Window because I don't think any film before or since has so successfully embedded the viewer into the story, we are literally invited to share the binoculars with Jimmy Stewart, and become just as impotent as he is. And Vertigo because, well, as far as psychological thrillers go, it's one of the greats. It was certainly one of Stewart's great performances (and this was a man who had no lack of great performances under his belt).
Even some of the earlier material, like Rope and Dial M For Murder are extremely effective thrillers. Dial M For Murder has had its imitators, but none have really come close.
The Hitchcock films I've tired of, to be honest with you, are the quickies like the Birds, and probably Psycho as well, mainly because it's become a cliche (not its fault of course).
As to Wilder, well, he's pretty much my favorite Hollywood director. I hadn't watched Some Like It Hot for the first time in about fifteen years a few months ago, and what a wicked wicked comedy it is. And of course, one of my all-time favorite films is Double Indemnity.
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George Lucas even said so in 1979. He did the equivalent of focus group testing and market analysis. His real genius wasn't the story that was the first Star Wars, it was in making sure he controlled the merchandise and sequels. It has always been about the money, the story was a means to the end.
Hence Star Trek and Star Wars are wholly different regardless of that first word, that simply sets the place.
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Well, that's what you and your girlfriend get for wearing red shirts that day.
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