Debating which is better, Star Wars or Star Trek, isn’t likely to be more productive than debating which is better, my religion or yours, because both sides have fans who are devoted to their favorite franchise and thus unable to see issues from the perspective of the other side. However, while Star Wars and Star Trek share a futuristic setting, there are differences between them that could be basis for objective assessment of their relative merits.
It appears that the essential distinction between both franchises is their different perspectives of the possible social and political conditions of future societies. Star Trek adopts an idealistic and optimistic view that technological progress will be accompanied by moral and ethical advancement, and a drive towards social and political Utopian ideals.
Star Wars suggests that technological progress will not by itself push social and political progress and that primitive conditions could co-exist with extreme levels of technological sophistication. This suggestion in the Star Wars franchise explains the quaint admixture of the old and the new which imbues it with the qualities of fantasy.
Regardless of the relative merits of the alternate perspectives, fans will continue to debate which is better only because it is fun to do so. It is with the attitude of debate for the fun of it that we consider 20 Funny Memes That Show Star Wars Is Better Than Star Trek.
Everyone Has Seen Star Wars
The Star Wars and Star Trek media franchises, including movies, comics, books, TV series and video games, are global phenomena in their respective rights, but Star Wars is even more so than Star Trek. This explains why the Star Wars film series has achieved greater global commercial success compared with Star Trek. According to Box Office Mojo, the total worldwide box office earnings of the Star Wars movie franchise since A New Hope (1977), are about three times the total box office earnings for the Star Trek film series since Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979).
The Star Wars franchise holds a Guinness World Records title for the “most successful film merchandizing franchise.” The total value of the franchise makes it one of the highest grossing media franchises of all time.
Star Wars Rules Social Media
The Star Wars Facebook page currently has more than 19.6 million followers, while the Star Trek Facebook page has only 3.6 million. So if we are to judge which is better in terms of social media popularity, Star Wars is the obvious choice. Forbes reported last May that a survey of more than four thousand three hundred Americans conducted by PayScale Human Capital from April 14-April 27, found that 46 percent said they liked Star Wars more than Star Trek, while only 14 percent said they liked Star Trek better. Another 14 percent said they liked both, while 12 percent said they hated both.
A surprising 14 percent of respondents were not sure that Star Wars was different from Star Trek, apparently because of the similarity of the names.
The survey confirmed what we already know, that Star Wars is significantly more popular than Star Trek.
Star Wars Video Games Are Better
The Star Wars franchise has produced better game titles than the Star Trek franchise. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Star Wars: Battlefront video games are popular. While it has been quite some time since the Star Trek franchise produced anything that could pass as a good video game, we’ve had many great Star Wars video games, such as Lego Star Wars, Super Star Wars, and Star Wars: Jedi Knight.
A GameSpot review described the Star Trek video game (2013) as uninspiring and riddled with bugs and glitches. IGN was even blunter, describing it as among the worst of the franchise’s long list of bad video games characterized by bad animation, pointless storylines, and boring action.
Star Wars merchandize, including books, comics and toys, are also popular. According to CNET, more than $3 billion worth of Star Wars merchandize was sold in 2015 alone.
Disney Bought Star Wars Not Star Trek
Disney has been acquiring the rights to the most valuable media properties in recent years. The company bought the Star Wars franchise and not the Star Trek franchise because it assessed Star Wars as the more commercially viable option. In the world of capitalism where value is measured in terms of market value or the estimated ability to generate revenue in the future, Disney’s decision to buy the Star Wars franchise instead of Star Trek settles the debate over which is better, Star Trek or Star Wars, in favor of the latter.
While Trekkies often argue that the Star Trek franchise is better without Disney, Star Trek needs reinvigorating funding that acquisition by an entertainment conglomerate like Disney would bring.
Star Wars Has The Millennium Falcon, Star Trek Has A… Pizza Cutter
Star Wars fans have pushed the argument that the Millennium Falcon deserves the title of the most iconic fictional spacecraft because it was able to make a major impact on popular culture after appearing in three Star Wars movies, A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. The Enterprise, on the other hand, has appeared in every Star Trek TV show and movie in the last three decades.
Besides, Star Trek fans have to admit that the design of the Enterprise isn’t particularly creative. The spaceship looks like a cross between a pizza cutter and a bottle opener.
No wonder it took more than 30 years of constant messaging for the Enterprise to make the same impact on pop culture as the Millennium Falcon did through only three movies.
Star Wars Movies Have Better Special Effects
In addition to the superior iconic design of the Millennium Falcon, Star Wars movies have far better special effects achieved through professional film-making skills and cutting-edge technology. When Star Wars was first released in 1977, it incorporated special effects that were groundbreaking. The special effects for Star Trek: The Motion Picture, released two years later in 1979, were comparatively mediocre.
Star Wars’ (1977) special effects were the result of painstaking effort that involved building realistic and detailed scale models, and the application of cutting-edge technology to the film-making process.
Star Wars has sustained the tradition over the years and the franchise’s film series continues to play a major role influencing the direction and pace of development of special effects techniques and the technology supporting it.
John Williams’ Star Wars Main Theme Is Iconic
The score for Star Trek: The Motion Picture, composed by Jerry Goldsmith, and James Horner’s score for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, are memorable. However, John Williams’ theme for the Star Wars film series is masterful and iconic. His masterful score for Star Wars, including “The Rebel Fanfare” from A New Hope, “The Imperial Match” theme, “The Emperor’s Theme” from Return of the Jedi, “Cloud City March” from The Empire Strikes Back, “Triumph Fanfare” from Return of the Jedi, are the epitome of perfection with regard to emotional tone-setting music.
Star Wars: In Concert has proven to be a crowd-puller. Thousands of fans and lovers of good music have turned up to watch the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra – conducted by Dirk Brosse – performing compositions from the Star Wars film series.
Star Trek has no comparable treats for its fans.
Star Wars Has Better Starfighters And Starships
Trekkies often argue that Star Trek is better than Star Wars because the physics of its fictional universe is more accurate than Star Wars’. However, the argument falls flat because nobody goes to the movies to see “accurate physics.” People go to the movies to see great movies. Besides, Star Wars is essentially science fantasy and not science fiction.
The Star Wars film series delivers greater entertainment than the Star Trek film series with its array of creatively conceived and designed starfighters and starships. TIE fighters, X and Y Wings, are part of the astounding variety of small, highly maneuverable fighters in the Empire’s fleet. The universe also includes a unique collection of starships, such as Star Destroyers and Super Star Destroyers. Ground combat forces field drones and tanks, All Terrain Armored Transport (AT-AT), and All Terrain Scout Transport (AT-ST) vehicles unknown to the Star Trek universe.
Lightsabers Are The Coolest Personal Weapons Ever
Kids almost always chose a lightsaber over a phaser gun because the concept and design makes them the coolest personal weapons ever. Star Trek’s phasers on the other hand, look like a handy man’s electric drill. The lightsaber is also a product of cool technology. It is composed of a beam of pure plasma that can cut through anything like a hot knife through butter.
Phaser guns are also the products of advanced technology, but the concept is not unique in science fiction or fantasy. Star Wars characters, such as Han Solo, also wield laser and plasma weapons similar to Star Trek’s phasers. Thus, Star Trek doesn’t have anything on Star Wars in that area of personal weaponry.
However, lightsabers are a unique invention first popularized by Lucasfilm in Star Wars: A New Hope (1977). A further innovation was the double-bladed lightsaber first used in The Phantom Menace by Darth Maul.
Star Trek Tried To Pass Off A Dog As An Alien
While Star Wars invests painstaking effort in designing and creating its aliens, Star Trek takes the lazy and unimaginative approach. A human with a bumpy forehead becomes an alien Klingon, one with pointy ears becomes a Vulcan and still another with a V-shaped ridge on the head becomes a Romulan.
Star Trek once tried to pass off a dog with a plastic cone attached to its forehead as an alien life form.
Compared with Star Trek’s comparatively sterile universe, the Star Wars universe teems with an almost endless variety of amazing sentient and intelligent species, such as the Hutts (Jaba), the Wookies (Chewbacca), the Ewoks, the Jawas, the Tuskens, the Rodians, the Twi’Leks, the Roonans, the Siths, the Togruta (Ahsoka Tano), the Arkanians, the Yaka, the Kitonaks, the Besalisks, the Utai, the Kaleesh…
Star Wars Has Better Protagonists And Supporting Characters
Star Wars fans fell in love with the smuggler Han Solo, who played a supporting role to the main protagonist Luke Skywalker. The appeal of characters such as Solo lies in their fierce independence. Unlike Captain Kirk and Commander Spock, Solo is not the paid agent of big government (aka United Federation of Planets). He is a swashbuckling character who asserts his independence by freely taking up causes he deems worthy. In Star Wars: A New Hope (1977), he chose without compulsion to support the rebel cause and a “stuck-up, half-witted, scruffy-looking nerf herder" became the hero of the movie.
In the same vein are several other minor characters who won the hearts of the fans. Bobba Fett, a bounty hunter, roams the stars in search of adventure. Lando Calrissian is also a smuggler and gambler who runs his own city in the clouds of Bespin.
Star Wars Has R2D2, C-3PO, Triple-Zero And BT-1
Not only does Star Wars have a greater variety of alien species, spacecraft and personal weapons, it also has the best creatively conceived robot or droid characters that played major roles in the films. Star Wars’ droids R2D2 and C-3PO could easily lay claim to being the greatest robot characters in cinematic history.
R2D2 has appeared in every Star Wars movie to date and played a major role in A New Hope as the droid in whose memory Princess Leia secretly stored the blueprint for the Death Star. C-3PO is a protocol droid designed as a specialist in customs, etiquette and translation. C-3PO has also appeared in all Star Wars films. The droid claims to be fluent in more than six million forms of communication.
Star Trek’s Data is hardly comparable with Star Wars’ droids, being a halfhearted attempt to explore the idea of artificial sentience.
Star Wars Has Darth Vader, One Of The Most Iconic Villains Ever
Star Wars’ Darth Vader is widely considered to be one of the most iconic villains ever and, as Vader notes in the meme above, Star Trek has no comparably villain.
Vader and Emperor Palpatine went into the business of domination big time and weren’t satisfied to dominate a corner of the galaxy. Vader voyaged across the galaxy laying waste to entire worlds and systems. He Force-choked is own commanders and eliminated rebel leaders. His children, Luke and Leia, soon fell victims to his relentless pursuit of absolute power.
The uniqueness of Vader’s villainy lies not only in the fact that he is bad to the core, but also in the fact that unlike other villains, his unalloyed malevolence did not detract from his appeal. The menacing anonymity of his expressionless mask could be the secret behind the power of his villainous presence.
Star Trek Has Even More Annoying Characters Than Jar Jar Binks
Jar Jar Binks is definitely the worst Star Wars character ever, but Star Wars had only one Jar Jar Binks. Star Trek on the other hand has subjected its hapless fans to an array of insufferable characters. Besides Wesley Crusher, Star Trek’s own Jar Jar Binks, Star Trek: The Next Generation also has Dr Katherin Pulaski and Lwaxana Troi, not to mention entirely pointless characters such as Travis Mayweather from Star Trek: Enterprise.
And if you still believe that Jar Jar Binks is the most annoying alien ever, then you haven’t met Star Trek’s Ferengi who liveon insects, crabs and slugs, and have a 10,000 year-old culture centered on the idea that profit-making is the highest endeavor that imbues life with meaning, and that greed is the noblest expression of the state of existence.
Only Star Wars Has The Force
The subject of the centrality of the Force in the Star Wars universe bring us back to those odd Trekkie memes that push the argument that Star Trek is better than Star Wars because its physics is more “accurate,” and that the Star Wars universe is intrinsically inferior being governed by magical principles, such as the Force.
However, Star Wars fans understand that the Force is the Star Wars universe’s essential cool factor. Darth Vader scolded the technological nerf herders who underestimated the awesomeness of the Force when he scoffed at the Empire’s prime technological achievement, the Death Star, saying that its destructive power is insignificant next to the power of the Force.
Even if you doubt Vader’s wisdom, you would at least admit that the Vulcan nerve pinch is insignificant next to the power to choke a foe from a distance.
Star Wars Has Many Beautiful Female Characters
Rey (Daisy Ridley) continues the Star Wars franchise’s long history of strong and beautiful female characters that the Star Trek franchise has never had. The inimitable tradition began with Carrie Fisher’s Princess Leia Organa who passed on the baton to Natalie Portman’s Padme Amidala.
Ridley summarized fans’ impression of Rey when she described her as a smart, strong, adventurous, and independent character. Rey, according to Ridley, is a role model for young girls. She said she hoped that young girls will learn from Rey that they can make a positive and strong impression on the screen without having to take off their clothes.
John Williams also commented that he found Ridley’s character intriguing and that composing an appropriate theme for the strong, adventurous, and Force-empowered female character proved to be challenging.
Star Wars Has More Exciting Action Than Star Trek
Star Wars is more fun than Star Trek because it is much more action-packed. The film series has some of the most memorable space battle scenes ever. The dogfights are intense and fast-paced, and the ground battle scenes awesome and memorable. The Battle of Hoth from The Empire Strikes Back, for instance, includes memorable sequences showing AT-ATs in action. In A New Hope, the memorable moments include the scene in which Luke, Han, Chewie, and Princess Leia, escape from the Death Star on the Millennium Falcon with TIE fighters in hot pursuit. In The Force Awakens, we see Rey and Finn’s spectacular escape from Jakku.
However, Star Wars’ lightsaber duels are the best: Anakin vs Obi-Wan in Revenge of the Sith, Luke vs Darth Vader in The Empire Strikes Back. Rey vs Kylo Ren in The Force Awakens, and Vader’s rebel massacre scene from Rogue One.
Stormtroopers Always Beat Red Shirts
Star Wars’ stormtroopers couldn’t hit a barn door from two meters, so you’d expect that they would lose every battle. However, when the enemy is a company of Enterprise Red Shirts who feel obliged to die first, the stormtroopers find themselves facing a new kind of enemy.
So, although the stormtroopers are the epitome of battlefield incompetence, they would still win a firefight against the Red Shirts because they don’t have to hit them to take them out. But the Stormtroopers couldn’t be that bad. The Empire used them successfully to impose its authority Galaxy-wide. Finn, a First Order Stormtrooper – codenamed FN-2187 – who defected from service under Kylo Ren, was at least able to hit Ren’s shoulder in The Force Awakens, although he used a lightsaber.
Millennium Falcon’s Hyperdrive Is Faster Than Enterprise’s Warp Drive
As the meme shows, the Millennium Falcon’s hyperdrive is faster than the Enterprise’s warp drive. Star Wars fans don’t need to have the technicalities explained to them to understand that hyperdrive is faster. It is faster because of the Force.
However, going by Han Solo’s explanation to Skywalker in A New Hope, the Millennium Falcon’s hyperdrive allows it to translocate instantaneously by taking a short cut through another dimension called hyperspace. Thus, depending on the accuracy of calculations, you can travel a 100 light years in the same time it takes to travel 10,000 light years.
However, warp drives do not rely on taking a short cut route through another dimension of space. A ward drive works by physically distorting or folding up the local spacetime continuum.
Star Wars Isn’t Just A Movie, It’s A Religion
Robyn Faith Walsh, a professor of religious studies, noted in 2016 that the devotion of an increasing number of Star Wars fans to the franchise shares a lot in common with devotion to religious beliefs and cults. One of the elements of the franchise which imbues the subculture of the Star Wars fandom with the character of religious cults is the distinction between the light and dark sides. According to Walsh, there is no reason why Star Wars fandom could not transition in time into the status of a religious cult, with the main characters, Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker, as deities of Jedism.
Australian census data from 2001 has 50,000 citizens identifying their religion as “Jedi,” and there were more Jedis in New Zealand that Hindus and Buddhists.
There is a temple of the Jedi Order in the U.S. which is tax exempt.
–
Do you know of other funny memes that prove Star Wars is better than Star Trek? Let us know in the comments section.
