[logandavis]

The most stunning outcome here is the apparent internet consensus that Star Wars is better than Star Trek.

This is indefensible.

A Star Wars fan will tell you there are, at most, four good Star Wars movies. A Star Trek fan will tell you there are 6-7 good Star Trek movies, depending on whether you count Galaxy Quest. This might leave us with some room for debate about whether the cultural impact of Star Wars episodes 4 and 5 outweigh Star Trek's larger amount of quality material.

Except that Star Trek is a TV show.

For the movie franchise to not even be the better movie franchise is just... there's... it's not even a question.

[gls2ro]

I also thing that the maybe the reason why Star Wars wins today has to do with the age of the fanbase but also with dilution of movies ability to attract due to TV series.

Even if both of them started in almost the same period, it seems to be that Star Trek was more active (in the sense of promoting it) early (11 movies launched before 2010, only 2 launched after) so it probably has a fan base older.

Also somehow Star Wars seems more modern, in the sense that watching Star Wars seems more 2020 than watching Star Trek even if both of them launches movies (2 Star Trek and 3 Star Wars) in the last 10 years or so (2010-2020).

I know a lot of young people who saw Star Wars, but not many that watched Star Trek.

I am not saying Star Trek is better, but I am saying that maybe a lot of the fan base is not active or does not care enough to vote or contribute to this debate :)

Also even if I am a big fan of Star Trek I also really enjoy Star Wars. Both of them brings me different things like for example: Star Trek is exploring more what humans can become while Star Wars explores more the effects of human flaws on politics, culture and societies.

I think both of them explore current events or are influenced by current geo-political events or cultural shifts.

I also think that Star Trek should try to be back to its visionary origin and not try to compete with Star Wars on apocalyptical events.

[tigen]

It's just because those first couple of Star Wars movies were just so exciting/imaginative etc. The universe was so lived-in and fantastic.

Trek has its moments, but it's just more boring. A lot of talky talky and slow and/or repetitive sequences. Even if it's more intellectually interesting as a whole, story-wise.

Even Star Wars was kind of slow by modern standards but the audiovisual design was just monumental.

[crdrost]

Yeah. You can try to compare the mass of quality material in one vs the other and I can see why Trek would win that faceoff. But the universe of Wars is just more relatable and this sort of kneejerk biases that way.

• Gritty vs clean

• Thieves and scoundrels vs naval officers

• Genuine clothing vs color coded uniforms

• Misfits save the world from pervasive evil vs bold leaders discovering some weird new thing

• Magic vs Science

• Jumping into a gun turret and swinging it around at your enemy vs “Mr. Worf, target their ships!”

• Swordfights and maulings vs redshirts getting blown up.

I think each of them has its own milieu that it speaks to more, but the internet is for sure gonna pick Star Wars over Star Trek if they just are asked “X or Y?”. Star Wars still has a cool factor while Star Trek still has a dorky factor.

And a lot of that factor comes back to the fact that Trek is better known as syndicated TV. The constraint is that the episodes may be shown in random order, and so every episode or every two episodes, the state of the crew and the ships needs to be returned back to the baseline. The dorkiness comes in part from that aspect where the system gets returned back to where it was.

That's not all of it because Deadliest Catch also has the same aspect where every Deadliest Catch episode is basically the same thing, hah. Firefly kind of can be viewed as the attempt to take Star Wars’ grittiness and somehow make it syndicatable, “we finish the job and you see us a month later seeking out the next job.”

[etripe]

To me the stunning part is the assumption the common denominator can decide on what is or isn't quality entertainment. Going by that metric, the Bachelor, Love Island, the various talent shows and the Great British Bake-off are all beacons of culture.

Star Wars is pop culture, knights-in-space, high-octane, good vs evil. Of course it wins a popularity contest. To be clear: I'm not dissing Star Wars. It was just made to appeal to the masses and sell action figurines. It targets broader audiences. Star Trek has always been niche.

[cableshaft]

Great British Bake-off is pretty entertaining (at least the celebrity version). Of course I watch all these British celebs in a bunch of comedy panel shows like QI, 8 out of 10 Cats Does Countdown, Would I Lie To You, Taskmaster, etc, so seeing them flail around trying to bake something is entertaining to me.

[vmception]

lol, now listen to this alternative perspective that may match an actual objective crowd

Despite the better and more coherent world of star trek, the original show is preachy. Its too preachy. Almost every episode was to be an allegory to a real world issue at that time and its slow, and awkward. Die hards appreciate it more so for the “bold exploration” than what actually happened!

Later on the themes began self referencing and evolving into their own lore, while largely retaining a self-contained episodic format.

The movie are just fan service or the dream conflict.

But remember the human in the audience. They dont want to be preached to, they dont want the origin story of a particular character to be anything more than scifi, instead of the plot piece for now contrived bigotry.

Star Wars provides this desired entertainment. A heros tale, over and over again. The classic formula for the acceptance of the masses. Star Wars is not a satisfactory chronicle when completed, but the world building in all of its other shows and actual tv series is more engaging.

The original lore in star wars is fantasy and audiences want that.

The original lore in star trek is allegories to a real world social issue, and audiences dont always want that.

[laristine]

This is easy. At least for me and I bet many people believe the same thing as me.

I'm a diehard fan of BOTH Star Wars and Star Trek. And I can say Star Trek has better influence, especially to the fandom who understand accurately what its messages are.

[thenoblesunfish]

Honestly, I think that people have just been exposed to more Star Wars, lately. In my opinion they are different enough that being asked to choose one seems contrived. The cold take is that they are different genres, despite both involving spaceships: Star Trek is sci-fi, Star Wars is fantasy.

[anikan_vader]

It’s very hard to sit through Star Trek: The Slow Motion Picture, though. Like 20 minutes of footage of the Enterprise docking. I don’t think much of the Star Wars prequels, but they’re leagues ahead of Star Trek 1 and 5.

Star Trek 2 and 4 are really good though. Especially the whales in 4.

[mellavora]

So I guess you would love 2001, for the really slow shots of spaceships moving from one side of the screen to the other.

[puzzlingcaptcha]

I don't see why this is a numbers thing. A total utility of a franchise? Come on.

[crate_barre]

You are just going to have to start being comfortable with the fact the kids have more exposure to Star Wars now days than Star Trek. It’s okay, one day no one is going to remember the stuff they liked either.

[gspr]

> Except that Star Trek is a TV show.

A category in which it loses handily to Babylon 5, the best sci-fi show, nay, the best show in general, ever to have been made.

[TheRealDunkirk]

It's really too bad that Lucas didn't make any more movies after the first 3. It seemed to me that there was a lot of ground he could have explored after that. Oh well. Maybe some day he'll sell the franchise to a studio that will do great things with it. Here's hoping!

[marcosdumay]

There are the series, those are interesting.

[wickedsickeune]

It's not the quantity but the quality. Peak Star Wars >>>> everything. Yes, now, Star Trek is more consistent and better on average, but for me the best Star Wars is some of the best storytelling ever, so it wins.

[rimliu]

My take is: the love for SW is cultural. When you grow up in the culture where it is adored (no matter how justified that adoration is) you keep it in higher regard. I am not from US, I was not exposed to SW or anything around it as a kid so the movies were "meh" at best.

[notatoad]

so we're judging it by the count of good movies included in the franchise, and not actually how good those movies are?

[rtkaratekid]

Prior to the Disney takeover I would’ve argued with you, but now? :(

[dwighttk]

If you count Galaxy Quest there are two good Star Trek movies

[goda90]

I voted Trek, but there are some good Star Wars TV shows.

[Stevvo]

Star Wars fans will also tell you about some of the greatest video games of all time. None of the Star Trek games ever made much of an impact.

[couchridr]

But Baby Yoda!

[dylan604]

>Except that Star Trek is a TV show.

Last I checked, there were several feature films with the title of Star Trek. Do I live in a fantasy world where this isn't true for you?

[subroutine]

Let me paraphrase OP: Star Trek is mainly a TV show but also made some movies. A Star Wars fan will tell you there are 4 good Star Wars movies. A Star Trek fan will tell you there are 6 good Star Trek movies. For Star Wars to not even be the better movie franchise (and definitely not the TV franchise) means these responses are just... inexplicable.

[Dylan16807]

Are you/they implying that having more good movies makes something better?

Maybe I think the best sci-fi series is one with only two movies and no notable TV presence, but they're two outstanding movies. I don't think there's anything wrong with an opinion like that.

[subroutine]

I'm just translating. Personally I think debates about things that are opinion-based personal preferences are fun but fruitless.

[dylan604]

What about something like Stargate? There was only 1 movie, yet multiple TV series.