[simonh]

For me Science Fiction is about exploring the consequences of technology on society, culture and the individual. It takes some scientific technological concepts and explores their implications.

Star Trek does this is spades. We see the dangers of automates war machines that lack a moral context for their operations, the consequences of ecological manipulation gone wrong, we are shown how absolute power corrupts absolutely, and the social and personal cost of subsuming violent passions within a rigorous rationality. That’s just the start, it’s hard to think of a single idea or trope of SF that Star Trek hasn’t explored many times over in its several generations-long run.

Meanwhile Star Wars is Kung fu wizards in an interplanetary Wild West. I don’t think there’s a single exploration of the impact of technology on society or the individual in the whole thing, although I know little of the extensive Clone Wars material. That’s not a criticism, They’re just different things.