Trek Vs. Wars: Who’s Cooler Now

Written by Adam A. Donaldson Monday, 20 April 2009 12:57

Star Trek

Crazy Fans

Remember the name Barbara Adams? She’s the nice bookbinding lady that served as alternative juror at one of the Whitewater trials, and arrived at court one day, dressed as a Starfleet officer. For years, the word ‘trekkie’ was synonymous with fanatical fandom. A trekkie was someone that spoke Klingon fluently, wrote explicit and descriptive internet fan fiction and fought furiously over who was the superior Enterprise Captain: Kirk or Picard. The fact of the matter is that at its height, over 20 million people watched the weekly adventures of Star Trek: The Next Generation. To put that in perspective, that’s a little less than the total number of people that watched American Idol last week.

But Star Wars fans weren’t ever that nerdy though, except maybe they kind of were all along. Remember when stores opened at midnight to start the sale of Phantom Menace merchandise and the furious clash to be one of the lucky few to secure a Darth Maul action figure. And then in 2001, people started identifying their religion in national censuses as ‘Jedi;’ including 20,000 right here in Canada. Then, perhaps most sadly, was the 2008 publication of a letter written by a broken-hearted boy to his ex-girlfriend Jessica where-in he says that he can’t let her go, just like how “Even Darth Vader, an evil Sith Lord, couldn’t leave his son to die at the end of ‘Return of the Jedi.’” He then went on to say that she made him feel safe and how he wanted to crawl inside her like Luke and the tauntaun in Empire Strikes Back. It was proof that Star Warriors had the market on Zodiac Killer-like creepiness.

Movies > TV

One of the biggest differences between Trek and Wars is that their greatest successes were in two different mediums. The Star Warsfranchise spawned six of the highest grossing films of all-time, while Star Trekruled the TV medium with only half of its movies being considered qualified successes. Or put in another way: the highest grossing Trek film, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, only grossed a third as much as the take of the original Star Wars. And although Trek launched five TV series for a total episode count of over 700, Hollywood has since the invention of television applied a stigma to the medium. In short, success on TV is not as good as success on the big screen.

In an interesting reversal now, it’s Star Wars that’s now moved to the small screen, while the fortunes of Trek are now being gambled on a big budget motion picture. In the case of Wars, TV’s

been far from good for the galaxy far away. Think the animated Droids and Ewoks; think the two made-for-TV Ewok movies; and lest we forget, the abomination known as the Star Wars Holiday Special. And while the CGI Star Wars: The Clone Wars has arguably faired better, there’s been trouble in launching the live-action companion, a series taking place during the time period between Episode III and Episode IV.

Fresh Blood Makes the Difference

If you sense that there’s a startling difference to the upcoming Star Trek film over previous film instalments of the franchise, it’s because it all comes down to two letters and a word: J.J. Abrams. Abrams didn’t grow up as a Trekkie, but he saw the potential the franchise held. And besides, he knew a couple of Trek fans that could help him shape a Star Trek that both appeased fans and attracted new faces. He first recruited Damon Lindeloff and Bryan Burk, the co-creator and producer, respectively, of Lost to oversee the project. Then Transformers and Mission: Impossible III screenwriters Alex Kurtzman and Robert Orci were brought on to write the film. Turnover is nothing new when it comes to the Trek films: original series creator was removed from creative control of the films following The Motion Picture leaving Harve Bennett to produce Star Treks II-V. Producer Rick Berman has overseen every film since Generations.

But anything concerning Star Wars has began and ended with one man: George Lucas. Even when he wasn’t in the director’s chair, he had the final word on the direction of his franchise and ain’t no one going to tell him differently. Remember the first Clone Wars animated series by Samurai Jack creator Genndy Tartakovsky and how great it was released in the wake of two underwhelming prequel films. It’s possible to think that one of the reasons it was so successful was because of the limited creative input from Lucas. Starting with certain choices made in re-releasing the original trilogy in 1997 – decisions like “Jedi Rock” and Greedo shooting first, for example – many have argued that Lucas may not be the best person to decide what’s in the creative best interest of Star Wars anymore. And the fact that the new Clone Wars series, which comes with Lucas’ oversight, more or less supersedes Tartakovsky’s in cannon, adds more fuel to those speculative fires.

All the Cool Kids like it

When once asked by Entertainment Weekly which he holds in higher esteem, Star Trek or Star Wars, Quentin Tarantino answered, “Star Trek.” Tarantino even has a 35 mm print of Wrath of Khan, but do think the guy that gave us Pulp Fiction has a pair of Vulcan ears in a drawer some where? Doubtful. Ben Stiller throws a great many Trek references into his films, like how Mugatu from Zoolander is named after the giant ape with a poisonous horn in the episode “A Private Little War.” Even wrestler Chris Jericho and James Bond Daniel Craig count themselves among the Trekkie elite. Of course, this is Star Trek, and the nerdy are drawn. But can you think of any better nerds to have on your side than Stephen Hawking and Vice-President Al Gore? I thought not.