6 Reasons ‘Star Trek’ Is Superior to ‘Star Wars’
(Photo: Marcin Wichary/Flickr)
It’s probably the most contentious argument in all of nerd-dom: Which is the superior space opera, Star Wars or Star Trek? With both series being reborn for a new generation (in case you haven’t heard, Star Wars: The Force Awakens is hitting theaters Dec. 18, and Star Trek Beyond is coming to theaters in 2016), there has never been a better time to revisit this battle between the two most iconic franchises in science-fiction history.
Fighting for the Force is Yahoo Tech’s lead writer and Jedi-in-training, Daniel Howley. In the Star Trek corner is Yahoo Tech’s former editorial director, current editor in chief of Make magazine, and author of The Official Star Trek Trivia Book, Rafe Needleman.
(And if you’d rather just fight amongst yourselves, feel free to skip directly to the comments section. No phasers or lightsabers allowed.) Engage!
My mother introduced me to Star Trek. When I was a kid, we watched it together on our old black-and-white TV. The show fanned my love of science fiction, which directly led to my fascination with technology, space travel, and computers. That’s the biggest reason Star Trek beats Star Wars for me. Because, by its very nature, it inspired me (and many, many other people) to pursue fields of study we saw mirrored in the show.
The original cast of The Original Series, circa 1968. (Photo: Wikimedia)
And Star Wars? It’s great. I love it. In 1977, when the first movie came out, I stood in line with my friends for six hours to see it on opening day, and I was not disappointed. Since then I’ve rewatched all the movies with my son, and we even try to get in a Clone Wars episode on weeknights after homework.
But while Star Wars is fun, I can tell my boy is not getting inspired to study harder because of it. Maybe he’ll take his love of tae kwon do and extend it to kendo so he can practice lightsaber moves at some point. But I’d rather see him to go MIT on an academic scholarship than an athletic one.
Here are some of the other reasons Star Trek is a better series than Star Wars.
1. Star Trek explored serious social issues
At its best, Star Trek was social commentary wrapped in a tasty sci-fi morsel. It attacked racism directly (the first interracial kiss on TV, in “Plato’s Stepchildren”), pointed out the insanity of culture-based wars (“Let That Be Your Last Battlefield”), and even questioned the nature of humanity, when machines became better at the tasks we thought a human was needed for (“The Ultimate Computer”).
Lt. Uhura and Capt. Kirk about to mash face in The Original Series. (Photo: GeeksOfDoom)
Star Wars, in contrast, is simply the hero’s journey in space. It’s fun and rich storytelling, but the story is as old as Gilgamesh. There’s nothing really current about it.
The only time Star Wars tried to get into bigger issues was in the title crawl in Episode I: “Turmoil has engulfed the Galactic Republic. The taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems is in dispute.” Yep, Star Wars kicks off with a trade dispute — which no one cares about.
2. In Star Trek, your enemies can become friends
The Klingons started out as baddies on the series and into the first movies, but by the time The Next Generation rolled around, a Klingon was an officer on the bridge. There’s hope, Star Trek says, for all your broken relationships.
Worf, son of Mogh, in The Next Generation. (Photo: Memory Alpha Wiki)
In Star Wars, once heroes go to the dark side, they don’t come back. (OK, with one minor exception.)
3. Star Trek inspires leadership
The heroes of Star Trek are starship captains: men and women who have worked their way through the ranks to build their skills, cunning, and teamwork chops to bring out the best in others.
In Star Wars, the heroes are conflicted loners. (Except for Yoda: That little muppet is the real deal.)
4. The technology is based on actual science
The handheld communicator directly inspired the first flip phone, the Motorola StarTAC. Scientists today talk about quantum teleportation, and you know it’s Star Trek’s transporter than inspired them. And, heck, transparent aluminum (The Voyage Home) actually exists, though it has yet to be used to save any whales, as far as we can determine.
From left: Star Trek communicator circa 2260; Motorola StarTAC circa 1997. (Photos: Wikimedia)
Star Wars’ weapons are really fun but ridiculous. Nobody’s building a real lightsaber. Why would you? It requires mystical knowledge to wield. It’s a weapon of snooty elites. And — as Zachary Feinstein, assistant professor of computer science at Washington University, argued in this scholarly paper— building a single Death Star (let alone two) would bankrupt the Galactic Empire.
5. Star Trek’s robots have soul
Literally. Lt. Cmdr. Data’s “humanity” is put on trial in The Next Generation’s “The Measure of a Man.” The show constantly forced us to examine the complex relationships between science, culture, and humanity.
Lt. Cmdr. Data and his evil twin, Lore, in The Next Generation. (Photo: Memory Alpha Wiki)
Star Wars’ droids are comic relief or soulless (if highly functional) automata, like the show’s medical bots.
6. Because love triumphs in the end
And finally, Star Trek wins because its best episode ever was a love story: “The City on the Edge of Forever.” It was heartbreaking and beautiful and yet still really good sci-fi. By contrast, the best love story Star Wars could come up with was in Episode II: Attack of the Clones, and that was about as horrible and fake as Jar Jar Binks.
Now read this:
