Star Wars or Star Trek ? Which would you recommend and why?

[Beloren]

Someone who’s never watched em is thinking of giving them a try. They don’t have time for both because there is so much stuff especially when you count all the series.

You are told to pick one or recommend one. Which would you? Or how would you advise them of the two so they instead can make an informed choice?

Both have a lot of buzz and both are active again, described as the two biggest names in sci fi tv/movies. This has garnered the interest.

[Kyphael]

They're both sci-fi but really, they're night and day. They appeal to very different audiences. If you want high fantasy action/adventure against a sci-fi space opera backdrop, you watch Star Wars. If you want an ambitious science-fiction, hypothetical exploration with intelligently-written characters and more sophisticated drama, you go with Star Trek.

[unbound]

It really depends on what you like in sci fi.

Star Wars is a fairly straight forward space opera. The original trilogy (IV - VI) is by far the most solid. The prequels (I - III) are poorly written, but have a cohesive narrative. The sequels (VII - IX) are a hodge podge of okay (VII) to interesting / divisive (VIII) to a narrative mess but pretty CGI (IX).

Star Trek works best as series, and focuses on daily elements a lot as a result. They are more sci fi dramas with occasional fights. TOS is interesting, but a bit trippy sometimes (product of its times). TNG is the best...just hold your nose for the first 1 1/2 seasons. Voyager and DS9 are both worthy successors for different reasons. Enterprise is okay, but never really seemed to know what it wanted to be.

The recent outings (Discovery and Picard) are obviously newer CGI, but don't fit in the Star Trek universe very well. Discovery is an entirely different sci-fi dressed up as Star Trek, and Picard outright ignores its origins (TNG).

[lionofwar87]

They're both sci-fi but really, they're night and day. They appeal to very different audiences. If you want high fantasy action/adventure against a sci-fi space opera backdrop, you watch Star Wars. If you want an ambitious science-fiction, hypothetical exploration with intelligently-written characters and more sophisticated drama, you go with Star Trek.

Pretty much this. The two franchises are so different, that comparing them seems silly. To OP, just pick one. You're in for a treat either way.

[Dread Pirate Phayde]

I'd say make time to watch the 2 original trilogies, its only around 6ish hours for each set of 3, Episodes IV through VI of Star Wars and Star Trek II through IV, add in UDC if you enjoyed the other 3.

[Beloren]

Pretty much this. The two franchises are so different, that comparing them seems silly. To OP, just pick one. You're in for a treat either way.

Oh I’ve watched all of them and everything they’ve released except for maybe every episode of TOS

I don’t know how to recommend them to this guy or describe. So I thought I’d broker the topic to the gaming community and forward them the link so they can read the comments for themselves.

[Calfredd]

Bit simplified but you could always try to describe one as being more action-based (Star Wars) and the other more drama-based (Star Trek).

[Zenfoldor]

Star Trek, but watch The Mandalorian too. TNG + Mandalorian = great TV. I don't care about movies, but the first 3 Star Wars movies are good. I'd say, watch first 3 stars wars movies, mandalorian, star trek TNG, in no particular order, and then one will be able to decide for themselves. Two of the great sci-fi series, watch them both, imo(though some mediocre content on both sides, it is still mostly in the universe and additive to the overall great lore, so usually even bad stuff is interesting).

On games side, nothing beats KOTOR for Star Wars, but Fallen Order is legit imo.

[Daedius]

If I want Action, Star Wars... if I want a lot of talking, Star Trek.

[Beloren]

Bit simplified but you could always try to describe one as being more action-based (Star Wars) and the other more drama-based (Star Trek).

Thought about that, but then Discovery and the JJ Abrams are very action based, but it's not far off since most of the rest of star trek isn't. Picard is also fairly action based. It felt like watching a movie. Didn't quite like itas much - felt too political and trying to get into my head and convince of something I don't really believe or agree with - but still it had a lot of action, felt very sci-fi.

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Star Trek, but watch The Mandalorian too. TNG + Mandalorian = great TV. I don't care about movies, but the first 3 Star Wars movies are good. I'd say, watch first 3 stars wars movies, mandalorian, star trek TNG, in no particular order, and then one will be able to decide for themselves. Two of the great sci-fi series, watch them both, imo(though some mediocre content on both sides, it is still mostly in the universe and additive to the overall great lore, so usually even bad stuff is interesting).

On games side, nothing beats KOTOR for Star Wars, but Fallen Order is legit imo.

oh yeh.. i forgot the games. I haven't tried fallen order yet.

Do you know what time in the star trek series Fallen order is based? Do you recommend trying it?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I like both.

I love the Original Trilogy for telling a great story about (non-romantic) love and redemption. It's also quite possibly the only big budget film produced in the West with an emphasis on spirituality. Also the aesthetics and characters and music are great.

I like the Prequel Trilogy for the worldbuilding and the mystery plot. Also great aesthetics.


As for Star Trek, I like TOS, TNG, and DS9. Went into depth about it in the other thread.

The Original Series: I like the humanistic tone of the series. Kirk is a thinking man. Also, the main trio of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy was a pleasure to watch. Scotty was also fun. Uhura, Sulu, and later on, Checkov, faded into the background. Great episodes like A Taste of Armageddon, but also a lot of duds. This is also the only series in which the Romulans are actually competent antagonists, rather than being mustache twirling evil buffoons as in every other depiction. Wrath of Khan and Voyage Home are the only good Star Trek films.

The Next Generation: the first two seasons have a few good episodes (like Conspiracy), but overall is mediocre. There is a lot of preaching and sermonizing here. Starts to get good in season 3. I did like Dr. Pulaski from season 2, kinda miss her. Best characters were Picard, Data, and Worf. Riker was fine. Geordi was kinda wasted. I really liked Wesley after he left the Enterprise, loved The First Duty. Miles O'Brian and Barclay are also great when they appear. Troi is bad and Dr. Crusher are forgettable.

Deep Space Nine: by this point, the franchise has had two shows about traversing the stars in a Federation starship. Rather than rehashing the formula a third time, DS9 does something really different and begins to use the universe that has been built up over those two shows to tell a serialized storyline. DS9 starts off as just another episodic Star Trek show, but by season 5 it's pretty much evolved into a serialized drama about a conflict between the Federation, their allies, and the Dominion (an evil counterpart to the Federation). Where DS9 suffers is in attracting new people to Star Trek. TOS and TNG were variety shows, where anyone could tune into almost any episode and be treated to something new, and get a self contained story within 40 minutes. DS9's early episodes are a little like that, but by season 5 the show is firmly a serialized drama where the storylines of the episodes rely on knowledge of the setting, the characters, and the plot as established in prior episodes. A person who has never watched Star Trek before who tunes into "The Siege of AR-558" isn't going to know why these two forces are fighting, what the stakes are, why they should care about these characters, or anything. The other problem with DS9 is that it is where Star Trek begins to be infected with a post-modernist slant, with the Federation being depicted as just the United States but in space, instead of the idealic utopia presented in TOS and TNG.

[Zenfoldor]

Thought about that, but then Discovery and the JJ Abrams are very action based, but it's not far off since most of the rest of star trek isn't. Picard is also fairly action based. It felt like watching a movie. Didn't quite like itas much - felt too political and trying to get into my head and convince of something I don't really believe or agree with - but still it had a lot of action, felt very sci-fi.

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oh yeh.. i forgot the games. I haven't tried fallen order yet.

Do you know what time in the star trek series Fallen order is based? Do you recommend trying it?

Sorry for the misunderstanding, Fallen Order is also a Star Wars game. Very good imo, but a bit souls-like and kinda unique, so it is best to research before buying imo. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

[Ivanstone]

Star Wars is about Wizards punching Nazis. Its not an unreasonable feeling to have.

Star Trek is about exploring the unknown and looking to the future with optimism.

Each stimulates different areas of the brain.

[PACOX]

I hate this comparison. Meanwhile, there are a ton of sci-fi shows of varying quality that came out when during that time TNG, DS9, and Voyager were all being played on TV (reruns of TNG), I kind of want to go back and watch some of those shows because I was too young to appreciate them.

[FuxieDK]

They're both sci-fi but really, they're night and day.

Totally incorrect.
Star Trek is sci-fi, Star Wars is Space Opera.

That said, I'd choose Star Trek any day of the week.

[Endus]

They're both sci-fi but really, they're night and day. They appeal to very different audiences. If you want high fantasy action/adventure against a sci-fi space opera backdrop, you watch Star Wars. If you want an ambitious science-fiction, hypothetical exploration with intelligently-written characters and more sophisticated drama, you go with Star Trek.

The latter is a pretty big pet peeve of mine.

Star Trek is not "sophisticated", or high-ambition. The original pitch was "Wagon Train to the stars". It's as high-brow and cerebral as, say, Battlestar Galactica or Doctor Who (both shows I like, so don't take this as me hating on Trek). It may be "more-sophisticated" than the Buck Rogers space opera stuff, which Star Wars is definitely pulling from, but most of the episodes people point to for being "smart" boil down to really simplistic allegories for morals as deep as "RACISM BAD". The politics usually boil down simplistically too; "we should not fight, we can both see gains through peace!" The big challenge is usually that the enemy faction is either too aggressive (Klingons) or too paranoid (Romulans) or too inhuman (the Borg) to give the offer serious consideration.

It's not as complex and deep as it wants you to think it is. And this becomes super clear if you study real politics, or real science, and see how really shallow the plots are on those subjects.

Add in the silly-ass bottle episodes like "oh noes we're stuck in the Holodeck again" trope, and it's hard to take Star Trek seriously a lot of the time. TNG tries, but it's also got some of the silliest bits ever in there. DS9 goes grimdark to try and be more "adult", but it's hard to not see it as cribbing off Babylon 5's test paper.

I'd put The Expanse's political plots up as far better than anything in any Trek, ever, on that vein. Their science is also generally way better.

The big issue with Trek, at least up to the Discovery/Picard era, has been that they've got an hour or two to tell any story. So they stick to really simple plots, usually just one major plot thread with perhaps a secondary character arc. And there's usually not a lot of uncertainty; what needs to be done is clear, and they do it. They pretty much never make the "wrong" choice, even for good reasons, and there's very little self-reflection to it; the show tends to use aliens and their cultures to engage in metaphorical self-reflection for the audience, but the characters themselves almost never do.

I'm not saying you shouldn't like Trek; it's character-driven sci-fi, and it's pretty darned good in that role. Definitely some of the better sci-fi out there. But it doesn't push nearly as many intellectual boundaries as people seem to think, and it is pretty much as light on actual science as Star Wars is. Things happen because woo-woo there's a space-time distortion let's shoot a polarized tachyon beam at it because science words are big-think cool. That isn't any better than saying "the Force did it". In fact, I'd argue I have less issue with Star Wars because they don't explain it; this is a hyperdrive, it hyperdrives because that's what they do. No "dilithium matrix", no "warp bubble" nonsense, none of that.

And I'm someone who was into this stuff enough as a kid that I still own the Technical Manual for the NCC-1701D. Which is neat, but also tries to justify their own techbabble, which is exactly as bad as every time Star Wars tries to defend the "Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs" flub.

[Beloren]

The latter is a pretty big pet peeve of mine.

Star Trek is not "sophisticated", or high-ambition. The original pitch was "Wagon Train to the stars". It's as high-brow and cerebral as, say, Battlestar Galactica or Doctor Who (both shows I like, so don't take this as me hating on Trek). It may be "more-sophisticated" than the Buck Rogers space opera stuff, which Star Wars is definitely pulling from, but most of the episodes people point to for being "smart" boil down to really simplistic allegories for morals as deep as "RACISM BAD". The politics usually boil down simplistically too; "we should not fight, we can both see gains through peace!" The big challenge is usually that the enemy faction is either too aggressive (Klingons) or too paranoid (Romulans) or too inhuman (the Borg) to give the offer serious consideration.

It's not as complex and deep as it wants you to think it is. And this becomes super clear if you study real politics, or real science, and see how really shallow the plots are on those subjects.

Add in the silly-ass bottle episodes like "oh noes we're stuck in the Holodeck again" trope, and it's hard to take Star Trek seriously a lot of the time. TNG tries, but it's also got some of the silliest bits ever in there. DS9 goes grimdark to try and be more "adult", but it's hard to not see it as cribbing off Babylon 5's test paper.

I'd put The Expanse's political plots up as far better than anything in any Trek, ever, on that vein. Their science is also generally way better.

The big issue with Trek, at least up to the Discovery/Picard era, has been that they've got an hour or two to tell any story. So they stick to really simple plots, usually just one major plot thread with perhaps a secondary character arc. And there's usually not a lot of uncertainty; what needs to be done is clear, and they do it. They pretty much never make the "wrong" choice, even for good reasons, and there's very little self-reflection to it; the show tends to use aliens and their cultures to engage in metaphorical self-reflection for the audience, but the characters themselves almost never do.

I'm not saying you shouldn't like Trek; it's character-driven sci-fi, and it's pretty darned good in that role. Definitely some of the better sci-fi out there. But it doesn't push nearly as many intellectual boundaries as people seem to think, and it is pretty much as light on actual science as Star Wars is. Things happen because woo-woo there's a space-time distortion let's shoot a polarized tachyon beam at it because science words are big-think cool. That isn't any better than saying "the Force did it". In fact, I'd argue I have less issue with Star Wars because they don't explain it; this is a hyperdrive, it hyperdrives because that's what they do. No "dilithium matrix", no "warp bubble" nonsense, none of that.

And I'm someone who was into this stuff enough as a kid that I still own the Technical Manual for the NCC-1701D. Which is neat, but also tries to justify their own techbabble, which is exactly as bad as every time Star Wars tries to defend the "Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs" flub.

Good response.

The Expanse is pretty good. Star trek is more like a space drama, sometimes even soap. They do at least focus on each character well, TNG is what I was thinking of the most here, which is one of the best of the Star Trek series. It's typical entertainment isn't it.

[Ivanstone]

It's not as complex and deep as it wants you to think it is. And this becomes super clear if you study real politics, or real science, and see how really shallow the plots are on those subjects.

The point of Star Trek is to be optimistic about science, exploration and the future. It generally conveys that optimism well even with a shallow story. Even DS9 with its darker setting is generally a story of optimism. Lower Decks takes that optimism to its most extreme end but that doesn't make it bad. It feels celebratory instead.

Star Wars by comparison asks you to be enthusiastic about punching fascists in the face. And do it in less than 12 parsecs.

[Triggered Fridgekin]

As long as Kurtzman is attached to Star Trek it will never be my Star Trek. Dude pretty much invalidates the entire premise and history of the show in order to create something so far away from what Star Trek represents that it's hard to even consider it the same thing. Just throw in explosions, hand-waving exposition, vapid plots, forget everything about everything and you have yourself Discovery and Picard.

That's not to say Kurtzman is the only person who has poorly treated ST but boy he just keeps on digging that grave.

At this point The Orville is a more faithful adaptation of Star Trek.

[Endus]

The point of Star Trek is to be optimistic about science, exploration and the future. It generally conveys that optimism well even with a shallow story. Even DS9 with its darker setting is generally a story of optimism. Lower Decks takes that optimism to its most extreme end but that doesn't make it bad. It feels celebratory instead.

Star Wars by comparison asks you to be enthusiastic about punching fascists in the face. And do it in less than 12 parsecs.

Yeah, I'm by no means crapping on Star Trek, really. It's one of my favorite franchises. I like Star Wars, too, though. I just get irked when I see people think Star Wars is "dumb nonsense" and Star Trek is "smart and intelligent", when they're at like a 2 and a 4 on the "smart sci-fi" scale. I also don't think the divides between Trek series are as great as people pretend, not even Enterprise and Discovery. Neither of which are perfect but I'd confidently put their first seasons, rocky as they are, up against TNG's first season any day.

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Just throw in explosions, hand-waving exposition, vapid plots, forget everything about everything and you have yourself Discovery and Picard.

Star Trek has always been hand-waving exposition and vapid plots. Always. From TOS through TNG and beyond. Why can various alien species interbreed, to make half-breeds like Spock? Fuck you, don't think about it. How does warp drive work? Magical crystals, fuck you. All the alien species have a "hat" because complexity is for suckers. Etc.

The only reason you got less explosions in TOS was budget. You get plenty of explosions in TNG and beyond.