It’s a question that could keep fans of each franchise arguing for days… Which franchise is better… Star Wars or Star Trek?
Roger Ebert posted the following videos on his blog, bringing my attention to the debate started by William Shatner and kept alive by Carrie Fisher as each obviously prefers their franchise to the other. Of course, there will be people that wonder why you should even compare the two considering the Star Wars franchise is more of a sci-fi fantasy while Star Trek is closer to just plain sci-fi, but I think if worded “Which one do you prefer?” it’s a fair enough question and Shatner begins making his case saying, “Star Wars is just effects. It was ILM at it’s best.” Immediately after that he adds, “Star Wars is derivative of Star Trek… by… what? 10, 15, 20 years, something like that?”
Watch the video and we’ll continue after that…
Carrie Fisher got word of this rant and seems to somewhat back-up Shatner’s case saying, “All the stuff we had was amazing — you’d never seen it before. Now show me a special effect — maybe they’re just effects [in Star Trek] they’re not called special effects.” Then she goes into a syndication discussion and a costume discussion, but before I send you off to this video, let me just add… CELEBRITIES NEED TO STOP ALTERING THEIR FACES! Fisher looks scary ridiculous in this video as she inches closer to looking like Joan Rivers than the actress any of us remembers from Star Wars.
After that, Shatner couldn’t leave things alone and agrees in his latest video, “It’s true, Star Wars did have the best special effects,” while talking over images of Jar Jar Binks and the digitally inserted Jabba the Hut from the Star Wars special edition. He then adds, “I envy the special effects, the only thing is, you guys forgot about story and character and plot development. Those kind of basic things.”
So now I ask you, which do you prefer Star Wars or Star Trek? And, yes, you can take television shows, cartoons, books, movies, etc. everything into account.