I wish to discuss the age old question… are you a fan of Star Trek or Star Wars?

If you follow this blog, you may have noticed that I love both. I have written many a post about both franchises. But I am in the minority that I like both- many people are either firmly in one camp or the other. So, let’s discuss the similarities and differences of both these space westerns, and I hope you will share why you like one vs the other.

Star Trek started on television in 1966. It’s supposed five year mission lasted only three. An animated series followed in 1973 and the first movie with the original crew debuted in 1977. It presented an idealistic and Utopian future, with Earth moving past it’s racial and cultural differences, and ready to explore space. The tagline was “Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no man has gone before!”. The franchise was reinvigorated with the new television series The Next Generation, which was then followed by Deep Space 9 (DS9), Voyager, Enterprise and most recently Discovery. The movie series was rebooted in 2009 with new actors portraying TOS crew, but on a different timeline to avoid canon issues.

This is minus the new Discovery crew!

Star Wars was an immediate hit in 1977 when it debuted on the big screen. Set in the past, this more swashbuckling series also had a strong spiritual component and was a straight up adventure. Two more hit movies came out in 1980 & 1983, making stars of Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher. But that seemed to be that until the series was  given a new prequel trilogy starting in 1999 which established how Darth Vader came to be. Again a pause, but starting in 2015 Disney continued the journey of the original three stars with a new trilogy plus stand alone movies set in the Star Wars universe. With the Disney machine behind this franchise, it is set for years to come.

This is minus the newest trilogy !

Here are but a few of the differences between the two series:

Science vs Drama

Future vs Past

TV series vs Movies

Logic vs Spiritualism

Gene Rodenberry vs George Lucas

JJ Abrams vs JJ Abrams

( Ha!- He has directed movies from both franchises!)

 Paramount vs Disney

Now I shall reveal my favorite of the two…Star Trek!  While I might have grown up on Star Wars, it was discovering Star Trek: TNG that established my nerd cred. Star Wars was cool to like then, and still is today. For me to admit that I adored Star Trek took some spunk. My sorority sisters in college were kind of shocked that I liked it so much but they loved me so they put up with my “eccentricities”. I could talk about the various series for hours and eventually wore down my boyfriend (now my husband) into watching the episodes with me. The Star Trek fandom might have less numbers but they make up for it in kindness, as the Star Wars fandom can be toxic at times.

So…are you a Live Long & Prosper fan or a May The Force Be With You? Tell me why!

-Nancy