Star Trek vs. Star Wars

My Take on which one is better

Okay I can see the ire from here. I can feel the friction starting to burn as indignation bubbles up to the surface — what is he thinking?

Well, expletives be damned … I love Star Trek. I have been a fan since day one. I would have had the face of Mr. Spock tattooed on my chest, if I weren’t afraid of those damn needles — no way, no how.

But … this is not an article about me. Mostly. It’s about two iconic concepts, movies, TV shows, however you want to view it or conceptualize it. It’s about space and adventure and being beamed up into the USS Enterprise and go where no one has ever gone before.

Come on, how can you not get jazzed about having lunch with Mr. Spock. About picking his brain, asking him about his life on Vulcan, his first kiss, could he teach me how to mind-meld? These are things I have fantasized about since I was 13 and hearing that theme music for the first time in 1966.

Hell, I was still watching Wagon Train and Maverick reruns. I was desperate to avoid another fucking episode of Dr. Kildare and Dr. Ben Casey. I didn’t want to know what went on in Chicago or Brooklyn (I was already living there — I knew enough) I wanted to know what it felt like to be traveling at 186,000 miles per second without being slammed flat against a bulkhead. I wanted to know if there was a tingling feeling all over when you got transported.

Did they actually have sex onboard the Enterprise or was it against Starfleet regulations? Was Capt. Kirk really that, well, Shakespearean all the time?

Beam me up Scotty

And Scotty, with that accent and his unbelievable knowledge of Warp Engines and whiskey. That was someone I wanted to be friends with. I wanted to learn how to run that ship. Take it to places unheard of. Fuck, take it to Brooklyn and beam up and away several people that made life less tolerable for me at age 13. Send them to Weehawken and embed them in the side of a Dunkin Donuts.

I wanted anything exotic, like that beautiful green woman, in Whom Gods Destroy. At 13, I can tell you that green was sexy as hell. Not sure what was causing it — didn’t care. Just to be there, in a place where green women existed was enough.

And Uhura. I had a crush on Uhura. She was awesome. Smart, fearless, beautiful — what’s not to like.

But the captain’s chair, that’s where I wanted to sit. It was amazing. Never understood though, why every person on the bridge was constantly getting whiplash as they were thrown all over the place. Even in 1966 we had fucking seat belts — what was up with that?

But that’s not important. Imagine, sitting in that chair as you approach a planet, hell, an entire galaxy that no one has ever seen before — no one. There you are, senses on high, visuals coming through as Sulu runs down the type of planet it is, atmosphere, likelihood that creatures walk on all fours and you’re waiting to give the next order.

That’s some powerful shit for a 13-year-old to process.

But Star Wars was very cool as well. But different. Different like, sex versus eating a Big Mac for the very first time. Not the same plane of reference.

Star Wars begins by dropping you into an ongoing war. A galactic battle of right and wrong. Familiar territory, right? But amazingly different, familiar territory. Territory that existed in a galaxy far far away. In a place that was never made clear — at least to me. But it wasn’t important. As soon as you were brought into this world, you felt right at home. You were made part of that story; you were among the good. The freedom fighters who were trying to save a galaxy, a way of life.

And then there was Yoda …

And Yoda. Okay, maybe not in the first movie, but come on, Yoda. It was amazing. He was supernatural. He was, like two feet tall and could bend Luke Skywalker into a pretzel … if he had wanted to. These were some incredible superpowers. They were Spock-like, which is why I loved Yoda. He was spiritual. He was all about The Force. That incredibly unknowable, yet fantastically amazing place, that wasn’t. A state of mind, something that you could attain, if you lived in a swamp for an extended period of time — a Yoda style boot camp — and eventually, shit happened. You could lift a fighter spacecraft off the ground. You could become a Jedi warrior.

There’s the whole warrior thing again. The fighting. The constant fighting for freedom. For civilization. For Princess Leia and, well, that was pretty cool though.

But there was so much fighting and killing (though no bodies) and this admittedly turned me off a bit. Hey, it was just two years after Vietnam went into the history books as — What the Fuck was that. So, spare me any sideways looks or puffed up cheeks. Forgive me if I was a little over the whole fighting thing.

But … the special effects were very, very cool. Considering that Star Trek used paper mâché for rocks and boulders on their sets and their computers looked like Gene Roddenberry asked a bunch of fifth graders to make them for him during arts & crafts hours — this is a tough comparison. Not. Star Wars, hands down won this contest.

It was just so new and incredibly different. It won major points with me because of this.

So … Star Trek vs. Star Wars. Is it a fair comparison? Was it really apples to apples? Or more like apples to a 58 Ford Fairlane’s hubcaps? I’m conflicted … for about 5 seconds. And then, the answer seems obvious to me.

Star Trek was a mission: To explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations and (perhaps most famously) boldly go where no man has gone before. Come on, this is a job of a lifetime. You, me and Scotty, Mr. Spock and Bones, flying past Uranus and out into the distant nowhere to uncover amazing things we’ve never seen before.

Or, Star Wars, fight for freedom, fight to save the galaxy, fight to keep Yoda teaching about the Force?

For me the fighting bit tipped the scales. Yes, it was righteous. Yes, it was fucking Darth Vader after all. But fighting and explosions vs. exploration, endless possibilities, and new food to try out.

Star Trek it is.

Joe Luca is a published author and writer of children’s stories, short fiction, non-fiction articles, screenplays and poetry. Including Child’s Life, Children’s Playmate and others. Thank you for stopping by.