LogFAQs > #945728580

Star Trek
I wonder what it was like to watch Star Wars in 1977. I imagine people must have compared it to Star Trek, right? I say this as someone who watched Star Wars a billion times as a kid, but watched one Star Trek-related thing before I was eighteen (that thing being Star Trek: Nemesis).

Trek and Wars have many of the same elements, but they differ on the emphasis. Ships in Wars are just vehicles to go from point A to point B, whereas in Trek, they're almost characters unto themselves, and the inner workings of the ship matter way more. There are scenes where like Geordi or Scotty just talks about like engine read-outs, whereas in Wars, the most detailed we ever get about a ship's innards is "this part is broken." But in Trek, phasers are basically just a way to defeat an enemy and end the scene, whereas lightsabers are a whole plot element that are much more thoroughly explored. Same with psychic powers -- in Trek, Vulcans are psychic, just move on, but in Wars, a ton of effort is spent exploring the Jedi and what they mean. Even in ANH, where we learn basically nothing about the Jedi, the logic of the Force matters way more than the basic "there are psychics in space lol" we get in Trek. And again, the cultures of the aliens our heroes visit are important in Trek, even if only for one episode, whereas none of that matters in Wars (at least in the movies). Trek is also generally more nuanced in its morality -- there are virtually no completely evil people in Trek besides the Borg, whereas Wars' Good vs Evil plotline is like the entire overriding morality. None of this is really meant as a criticism of either side, by the way. If you enjoy one more than the other, more power to you. I greatly prefer Trek, but Wars is fun, too.

One thing the series are identical in is how the creators and owners damaged them. Trek and Wars both start with an extremely strong outing: TOS and the OT. Then Gene Roddenberry and George Lucas no longer have people to restrain their terrible ideas and start screwing everything up. Trek gets lucky and Roddenberry dies halfway into TNG, but Lucas manages to make the PT, and the EU just starts coming up with the absolute worst ideas (Luuuke Skywalker, anyone?). Then the franchise exists in limbo for a while before passing into the control of Alex Kurtzman or Disney, who either don't understand or don't care about what the series is supposed to be about. I would still say that Wars is a more damaged brand than Trek, in that even normal people laugh at and complain about the PT and ST, whereas no normal person cares about DIS or PIC enough to make fun of them.

Man, that's a good question. What big name sci-fi/fantasy franchise has the fewest embarrassing outings? Is it Lord of the Rings? I think it might be Lord of the Rings. All it has is that one video game where Shelob turns into a goth chick and reveals that she isn't really evil after all.

Ganner Rhysode
I've never read NJO books, but I'm aware of the Yuuzan Vong. I won't talk about them here, though. I had to read a synopsis to understand this character better. I do like "jerk who things he's hot **** gets humbled and decides to do the right thing at his own cost," I'll admit. Pulling a Leonidas to stop a horde of aliens is also pretty good. I can imagine this guy being a compelling, like, side character? I've never read the books, so I can't say definitively that he's great, but the concept is at least very strong.

Kylo Ren's Lightsaber
Terminator 2. It's a good movie, but once it introduced the idea of "this Terminator is like the old ones, but now it can also do X," the franchise was damaged. Every new Terminator had to have a new stupid gimmick.

Darth Maul's lightsaber. It's fine on its own, but once it introduced the idea of custom lightsabers, the franchise was damaged. I'm amazed I'm saying this, but Lucas knew to keep the special lightsabers on the down-low. In the PT, there's just Darth Maul's, Yoda's (which doesn't even count, it's just tiny), and Mace Windu's purple saber.

When I saw the first trailer for the ST and saw that new lightsaber, I just rolled my eyes. "Fine," I didn't say, but would have said if I was some first reactions youtuber. He's gotta have a special lightsaber.

If the ST had been handled competently, I might have a different opinion. Like, yes, I get it. Believe me, I get the symbolism here, it's not subtle. Kylo Ren is a damaged person, so his lightsaber is also damaged and unstable. The correct way to continue this would be that he gets redeemed and fixes his saber to just be a normal saber, or for his ligthsaber to be destroyed when he decides to stop being evil, or whatever. Since that doesn't happen (I think he chucks it into an ocean? I guarantee that's coming up again in the EU), and all I have to rate the lightsaber by is the lightsaber itself, this falls into the "dumb but not ruinously dumb" category.

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Started: July 6, 2005