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This is fucking cheesey, I know, but if it weren't for those going boldly where no man has gone before, we never would have seen that galaxy far, far away. Yes, Star Wars owes a great deal to Star Trek, theres no doubt about it. But as the years have gone on, Star Wars has by far had the greater impact on movies and pop culture and everything else than Star Trek ever did.
Star Wars came from a completely different pedigree - old sci-fi movie serials and Kurosowa. So it owes little if anything to Star Trek, which was basically a Western in space. Unfortunately, other than in Empire Strikes Back, Star Wars never achieved the anything like the same level of character-driven drama that Star Trek's best moments achieved. But it always looked better.
Michael Kaminski's research supports this: practically no mention of Trek, and in quotes from the period in which he was writing Star Wars Lucas seems oblivious of anything like Star Trek existing, even though he knows about science-fiction dramas like Six Million Dollar Man.
The point being that he was writing Star Wars to give modern kids the kind of sci-fi fantasy serials and westerns that he and his friends had had growing up which Lucas thought children in his day didn't have--the closest example he could think of was Six Million Dollar Man and Kojak (Kolchack?? But maybe his point was that there were no light-hearted shows for kids to geek over. At that time the Steve Austin show was a pretty serious action/adventure/spy drama.)
Star Trek was building a cult audience in syndicated reruns (having already been canceled), but the success of Star Wars was what really gave Trek a boost in popular culture. Not (on the evidence) vice versa.
On an experiential level I can add testimony to this. I was born in 1970, son of a geek father, and my first movies were Godzilla films (vs. Megalon and vs. Gigan). Star Wars was maybe the fourth or fifth movie I ever went to the theater to watch and almost missed its first run because Mom was worried it would be too scary--but bless her heart she was the one who wanted us to see it and was real excited about taking us. She changed her mind while we were eating ice-cream at the local strip mall and we got into the film during the garbage compactor sequence. My brother and I lost our minds for the film, and it was after that that we noticed Star Trek, because it was after that Paramount began a promotion wave for it that kids my age would notice.
Whatever else he may be saying, Wars is not derivative of Trek. The two are as different as night and day; it take more than a similar setting and being made later to make something "derivative"
You know what I'd love to see? Harrison Ford as an Evil Han Solo analog. He hated the Star Wars movies that made him multi-million dollar salaried actor, right? Well there you go: star as a two-bit villain in its rival title.
And get paid for peanuts for it.
JJ Abrams should hire Harrison Ford to play a part in the next Star Trek movie, as a bad guy. Hell, for all I know Cowboys and Aliens could have been the next Trek movie since the story was done in a episode of Enterprise almost 10 years ago.
breaking: I just inserted something horrible into a character's horrible no no place. news at 11.
Ofcourse Star Trek had more developed characters, as they had countless hour-long episodes, while Star Wars only had three movies.
I think where Star Wars has the advantage is in creating an epic story-line with strong mythical under-tones, in contrast to Star Trek's more mundate procedural stories (most of them anyway).
Still not sure what Shatner is saying though, about clothes and ILM.
He fantasizes abour Pincess Leia, Luke Skywalker, and most importantly, vividly, and masturbated most furiously too, Darth Vader. To make this fantasy seem more real, he has now created this non-rumor rumor. For his erection.
So Shatner wants to be in the next movie is what I got out of this.
As far as the Wars vs Trek
It's all about the story. It can be told with sock puppets and if it's a good story I'll watch it. What nearly killed Trek were production costs that were too high for TV and awful stories that were preachy. Star Wars had avoided this by draconian financal oversight and simple stories that are an inch deep and six inches wide.
I don't think this makes one better than the other.
This video may need the insane tag for Shat's improv about how the actors might have been walking around naked while wearing ILM-generated clothing.
In related news: THE T-SHIRT!!! IT DOES NOTHING!!!!!!
(I suppose I should add that I do actually agree with his points in the interview, such as they are.)
Oh, Shatner don't you know that ILM does the effects for the new Star Trek. On another note I can't get the image of Shat and Fisher getting it on.
When reached for comment Darth Vader was quoted responding: "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!"
I was thinking the same thing. There were so many rolls, it took a minute to see what it said.
The Galactic Republic represents a Civilization that existed for multiple Millennia. the Federation is at most on 600 odd years old in its various appearances with The Temporal Cold war and Dulmer and Luxley and the rest. If the EU is to be be believed the The Rakata and The Celestials before them represent cultures millions of years old. A ship as small as NX-74205 could blast the Death Star to pieces and survive the encounter because its shields are designed to deflect and absorb a broader portion of the EM spectrum relative the the shipboard weapons of both the Republic and the Empire.
I have no idea the point you were trying to make, but liked for the rambling nerdiness! :D
