Trek vs. Wars

I met someone new today (hello Luckfest), whom I learned from his Blogger profile likes Star Wars. Good old Star Wars. But of course that brought to mind the old Trek vs Wars argument. You see, I'm a Trekkie - always was, always will be. My beloved and all his minions are Wars fans. That's fine with me, but for the fact my well loved Trek quotes are never understood. (*sigh*)

There is almost always a great division between the fans. Few people can concede that both shows are quite decent (though Trekkies and Wars fans will all agree George Lucas has become quite the sell-out). Personally, I like both - though true to form, if you tell me Star Wars is better, I'll point my little plastic phaser at you and proclaim 'goodbye redshirt!'

Rather than saying awful things about Wars, however, I'll try and have a balanced look at the two (...no promises):

First of all, Star Trek began its life as a low-budget series, and Star Wars had the benefit of time and a bit more of a budget, being born in movie form. Star Trek thus had to make its way with engaging stories and characters, and by not taking itself too seriously. Star Wars also had a sense of humour, but relied more on action and better costumes to grab attention.

Trek always had a knack for dealing with ordinary human issues in a delightfully outlandish, spacefaring way. For instance, in the Original Series, Kirk and Uhura shared the first inter-racial kiss between fictional characters on American television. Ground-breaking stuff there. Over all the series, such issues as racism, sexism, gender identity, global war, occupation and genocide have been tackled, and I can't help but find that somewhat admirable.

Star Wars also has enjoyable, if slightly more two dimensional characters, and the action and real enough issues of war and rebellion made it worth watching. Ewoks winning against armoured Stormtroopers, though. Come on! Who sends ill-equipped Muppets to fight their battles? ... Wait, I'm ranting. But again, there are Wars fans who agree with me on that. I'm told the Expanded Universe contains a more complex view of Star Wars and the politics, characters, races and alliances within its world. Lucas takes a back-seat, letting his concepts meet their potential as his black and white 'good vs evil' writing style gives way to more realistic shades of grey. Not every officer of the Empire is evil, and not every rebel is good.

For me, Star Trek won on the basis of its highly character driven plots. It's a series, after all. You have time to get to know the people, their pasts, their issues, their trials, blah blah, etc. etc. As someone who dabbles in writing, and minored in Psych at uni, I like to get into the heads of characters and see them as being believable. Explosions are fun, but less is more, and they're more effective when you want your characters to live, and their enemies to explode.

Long live the Federation!