Star Trek or Star Wars?

[Spock]

Which do you like better, and why?

[nuckles87]

Firefly.

Alright, alright, that's probably trolling. So......Star........Wars. Better games in that franchise.

I don't know, I don't think these can really be compared, at least not easily. When it comes to movies I prefer the original Star Wars trilogy over Star Trek.

[Saturn Memories]

I don't really care for Roddenberry's vision of a utopian future where a rigidly altruistic Federation, without a single warship in its fleet, somehow thrives despite being surrounded on all sides by hostile adversaries. If you ignore the asinine world though, the storytelling tends to be quite strong. Star Wars doesn't have much going for it beyond the original trilogy. The new movies and expanded universe are dreck.

[Barry the Nomad]

Star Wars, no question. I enjoy ST:TNG, but thats about it. The originals are too campy for me to really get into (though I do enjoy it well enough at times), and I watched DS9 and Voyager only because of their connections to TNG. Never got into Enterprise. The Star Trek movies, the old ones, I find too boring to really get into. I enjoy the TNG ones, but not as much as the series. The latest movies are okay, the first reboot film was a blast, the second I hated.

Star Wars though? Fucking love it. Since I was born in '84 I grew up on the OT VHS tapes, but was also young enough to be the prime audience for the prequels, which I also love but for different reasons from the OT. I like the OT for the 70's/80's charm, the old school SFX, the behind the scenes of them, and Harrison Ford. I like the PT for the grand scale, the revolutionary SFX, the saber fights, and the fact that it's a mirror of the OT but everything goes wrong for the hero.

I also love The Clone Wars, probably more than the PT. In fact, TCW makes me appreciate certain aspects of the PT much more. I'm also optimistic about Star Wars Rebels and Episode VII.

[Chaosmaster8753]

I don't think I've seen enough episodes of most Star Trek shows to really make a call.

[Emmett The Crab]

I've seen all the Star Wars movies in their original theatrical run.  Star Trek as a kid was a hokey syndicated show that I would watch if the cartoon opposite was one I'd already seen. 

[max_cady]

Star Wars.

Because Sci-fi fantasy is far more appealing to me. Though I did watch a great deal of the old Star Trek show and enjoyed it.

[mylifewithsega]

I enjoy both franchises equally. Love Star Trek: The Next Generation. Not a huge fan of the original series, though there are some fantastic episodes there. The movies are terrific. My favorites are The Motion Picture, The Wrath of Khan, The Undiscovered Country, Generations and First Contact. Deep Space Nine had some good seasons, and I actually enjoyed Enterprise. Voyager was terrible. A few good stories here and there, but it felt like "more of the same" only with dull characters.

The Star Wars films are fantastic. Yes, I include the prequels. Not a huge fan of the extended universe really. However, there are a few books I love, like Shadows of the Empire for example.

One thing I really like about the Star Trek films is that they touch on several different genres. The Motion Picture is straight-up Sci-Fi, while Khan is like a revenge movie with submarines....in SPAAAAAACE! Undiscovered Country, had it not been set in the Star Trek universe, would have been a great political thriller regardless. As for First Contact may as well be zombies in space, which is somewhat unusual.

Star Trek, I feel, has had greater flexibility in terms of narrative. That being said, I still love Star Wars just as much.

[3raser]

It seems as if I will be different on my opinion in this thread. I like Star Trek better. To be fair, I will make sure to mention how star Wars is better in some ways...
 
Characters:
Spock would beat Jarjar Binks. Star Trek has more of a variety in their alien races. Star Trek also has the memorable languages and cultures - like Klingon - to make the series much more realistic.
 
Sequels:
Star Wars has six (almost seven) episodal films in a sequence, while Star Trek has to revive the series. It is still better in that since though. This is because there are far more Star Trek films than Star Wars. I will say that not all of them are good. For instance, I do not want to see thirty minutes of the Enterprise again.
 
Technology:
I must admit that lightsabers are more cool than the vulcan neck pinch; however, Star Wars only has the lightsaber, spaceships, rayguns, and the force. Star Trek has a wide variety of technology. The iPad was actually inspired by Star Trek before it was invented. The Enterprise was the signature ship in Star Trek. It is much more memorable than the hundreds of ships in the Star Wars galaxy.
 
Video games:
This is probably the reason most people said Star Wars. The Star Wars franchise has far superior games than Star Trek. That is mostly because most of the Star Wars games were produced by Lucas Arts, which used to be an outstanding gaming company before it was purchased by another company.

[Barry the Nomad]

Characters:
Spock would beat Jarjar Binks. Star Trek has more of a variety in their alien races. Star Trek also has the memorable languages and cultures - like Klingon - to make the series much more realistic.

An unfair comparison, taking the most loved ST character and pitting them against the most hated SW character. How about Wesley Crusher against Darth Vader, or Han Solo, or Boba Fett, or Leia, or Luke, or Obi-Wan, or Qui-Gon? As for alien races, given ST has hundreds of TV shows, it makes sense that there are likely more aliens. However, said aliens are mostly humanoids with a few bits of rubber on their faces. Star Trek doesn't beat Star Wars when it comes to originality - Jabba's Palace and the Cantina combined pretty much kick Star Trek alien's collective butts.

I will give a point to ST for the culture side of things, SW isn't really about fleshing out alien cultures to the point where we know the ins and outs of Wookie life. At most, the Jedi/Sith culture is as close to Klingon as you can get in terms of depth and understanding of a fictional way of life. And Huttese is the closest to an alien language that SW has, and it's not very fleshed out.
 

Technology:
I must admit that lightsabers are more cool than the vulcan neck pinch; however, Star Wars only has the lightsaber, spaceships, rayguns, and the force. Star Trek has a wide variety of technology. The iPad was actually inspired by Star Trek before it was invented. The Enterprise was the signature ship in Star Trek. It is much more memorable than the hundreds of ships in the Star Wars galaxy.

SW has a ton more tech than you give it credit for, however they don't get into the ST techno babble behind it all (they leave that for the supplemental material). Ehhhhh.... I'm going to have to disagree on the Enterprise. The X-Wing, Tie Fighter, Star Destroyer, and Millennium Falcon are all very memorable. The Falcon especially, that is pretty much even with the Enterprise in iconic sci-fi status.

[Barry the Nomad]

I wanted to mention too, I'm not a big fan of the EU books and comics, however I really enjoyed the "Tales from Mos Eisley Cantina", "Tales of the Bounty Hunters", and "Tales from Jabba's Palace" books, as well as "Shadows of the Empire" and the Thrawn Trilogy.




Seriously, this and the Cantina and Bounty Hunter books are great reads.

[Saturn Memories]

Star Trek also has the memorable languages and cultures - like Klingon - to make the series much more realistic.

Ehh... I wouldn't say that Star Trek is that much more realistic. It has its fair share of one-dimensional species (especially TOS), battles are all waged with gigantic capital ships (no fighters), the spouses and children of crewman are constantly being put in harms because of their presence on Galaxy-class and Sovereign-class vessels, and there were no enlisted personnel (the backbone of any military) in Star Fleet until DS9 (even then, they were very few in number).

[mylifewithsega]

Starfleet is not Earth's military. Therefore, no need for "fighters" or "enlisted" personnel. Starfleet's mission is that of peace and exploration. While they do have to protect innocent civilians from hostile forces on occasion, and they do have a naval structure, armed conflict is a last resort. Ultimately, they're explorers. That's the main reason they're out there; not to patrol borders and man turrets.

Deep Space Nine and Enterprise (Season 3, specifically) were special cases in which xenophobic species had waged war with the Federation (Starfleet in Enterprise, since the United Federation of Planets did not exist yet).

Star Wars is....well, it's a period of war. It makes much more sense for the Empire and the Rebellion to have massive warships, gunships and fighters.

[Saturn Memories]

Starfleet is not Earth's military.

For all intents and purposes, Starfleet is the UFP's military. They may wish to position themselves as some sort of futuristic NASA, but many of their ships carry formidable arsenals and they alone are the UFP's only means of defense.

Therefore, no need for "fighters" or "enlisted" personnel.

Every military, peacetime or otherwise, needs enlisted personnel. They aren't just soldiers. They're the guys who work with their hands and keep the machine that is the service moving. They're your mechanics, maintenance crews, quartermasters, medics, security personnel, etc.

As for fighters, even if you are going to make the argument that Starfleet's mission makes fighters unnecessary, what about the Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians, or any of the Federation's other not-so-peaceful neighbors?

[mylifewithsega]

For all intents and purposes, Starfleet is the UFP's military. They may wish to position themselves as some sort of futuristic NASA, but many of their ships carry formidable arsenals and they alone are the UFP's only means of defense.

Every military, peacetime or otherwise, needs enlisted personnel. They aren't just soldiers. They're the guys who work with their hands and keep the machine that is the service moving. They're your mechanics, maintenance crews, quartermasters, medics, security personnel, etc.

As for fighters, even if you are going to make the argument that Starfleet's mission makes fighters unnecessary, what about the Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians, or any of the Federation's other not-so-peaceful neighbors?

No, they're not. They carry "hardware" because, while Earth may be a peace loving society in the 22nd century and onward, they're not pacifists.

I realize enlisted personnel aren't just soldiers. I've had family serve both in the Army and Navy, as well as the Air Force. However, Starfleet obviously have plenty of mechanics, medics, security personal and so on. It's simply a different structure. And, again, Starfleet is not a military organization. That is not their classification, nor their central purpose. You may not agree with it entirely, nor do I really. However, we're dealing with people that believe in working towards the betterment of mankind - that are not paid, mind you - in a time where hunger is a thing of the past....

On top of that, it's a piece of fiction susceptible to dramatic license. 

As for the Klingons, Romulans and such not having fighters, I'm not entirely sure. Seeing as how most ships have incredibly strong deflectors that require an immense power to function, not to mention weaken, I'm guessing fighters have outlived their usefulness. I'd imagine it being very much like sending a squadron of jet skis against an aircraft carrier. *shrugs*