Star Wars vs. Star Trek : Part 7 of 7

Fans get mad when people confuse Star Wars and Star Trek. They get mad because outsiders don’t understand the fundamental differences between the two shows. In the past several week I have made these differences clear.

Star Wars is an action / adventure based on old war movies and pirate films. It is full of strange aliens, mythical planets, and you can enjoy it without having to philosophize.

Star Trek is about exploration, science and ethics. It has a multi-ethnic cast and gives hope for the future of humanity. Star Trek is science fiction at its purist, it predicts the future.

Both shows are great at what they do and comparing them is pointless… except when it isn’t.

Today J.J. Abrams gave us a little tease of the new X-Wing model from Episode VII set (Which seems to be based on an old Ralph McQuarrie X-wing design from the mid-seventies). In the wake of this I would like to present my final battle between the franchises: Spaceships.

This is a good finale because both franchises have some cool spaceships. It’s a enough fair fight. Let’s examine Star Wars first.

In the first film alone you have such iconic ships as The Millennium Falcon, the Star Destroyer, the X-wing, the Y-wing, the Tie Fighter, and the Death Star. Even people who haven’t seen the films probably could recognize these ships as being from Star Wars.

Admittedly, the shapes of the ships are pretty basic. The X-wing and Y-wings are just what they say. The Tie-Fighter is pretty much an H. The Star Destroyer is a triangle and the Death Star is a sphere. People say Lucas designed the Falcon by attaching a olive and toothpick onto a half-eaten hamburger. It may be these basic designs that make these ships so recognizable and iconic.

Beyond the first film Star Wars gives us Slave I, the Snow Speeder, the Cloud Car, the A-wing, the B-wing, Jabba’s Sail Barge, and many more awesome designs.

So can Star Trek compete with this wide-range of vessels? The Enterprise is certainly iconic. It’s so iconic that they reused the exact same design when they re-launched the show in 1987. And again in 2001. And in all twelve movies. Enterprise is so iconic that most other Starfleet ships, including Voyager, look very much like Enterprise.

Beyond the enterprise Star Trek gives us the Klingon Bird of Prey (Which is not a metaphor, the ship literally has feathers) and the Borg Cube (Though the Borg Cube seems to be pretty much a rip-off of the Death Star)

I said that this was going to be a fair fight and I think it was. Both franchises have had decades to provide audiences with really, really cool ship designs. Yet even though the fight is fair, I don’t think it's that close. Star Trek tends to use the same design over and over again and kind of squanders opportunities. Star Trek doesn’t take any risks and therefore loses this battle.

It doesn’t matter much that Star Trek loses this battle, or the war overall. This is a Star Wars blog, so the contest was rigged from the start. But it was nice to compare these franchises and really understand what makes them unique. And perhaps you now have some ammunition to use when debating your Star Trek friends.

Next time I want to spend some more time looking at that new X-Wing design and talking about Ralph McQuarrie in general. See you then!

Final Score:
Round 1 -Aliens & Robots (Star Wars)

Round 2 -Human Characters (Star Trek)

Round 3 -Action (Star Wars)

Round 4 -Science (Star Trek)

Round 5 –Planets (Star Wars)

Round 6 – Cultures and Languages (Star Trek)

Round 7 – Spaceships (Star Wars)

Overall Score:

Star Wars = 4

Star Trek = 3