ST or SW: Which is more of an influence on daily life?

[Waddles McGee]

Just like the title, which is more?

[Duckie]

...


None? Alternatively, the most popular one as it thus would have the most watchers/day per capita. I think Star Trek would win by those criteria as it's a TV series that was until recently still ongoing.

[Noble Ire]

Overall, Star Wars' influence on pop culture is far greater than Star Trek's. While both have strongly influenced and shaped the Scifi genre, Star Wars has transcended that field, influencing and being homaged in numerous media. Star Trek's success beyond fans and the recognization of Spock and transporters is fairly limited, especially today. Yesterday, I overheard one of my classmates misidentify as the famous Borg "greeting" as coming from Star Wars. I doubt many would accidentally mix Darth Vader up with Star Trek. In pure name-recognition and beyond, SW wins hands down, and thus has more of an "effect" on ever day life, if mostly in entertainment.

[Kane Starkiller]

This depends on "which" Star Trek and Star Wars we are talking about. I was born in 1983 and have personally heard of Kirk and Scotty long before I ever heard of Darth Vader. I think that "Captain Kirk" as a name is just as recognizable as Darth Vader and there are a few things in which Star Trek is more recognizable, for example warp drive is certainly more reckognizable than hyperdrive.
This of course doesn't apply to The Next Gneration and beyond: who has ever heard about captain Sisko? But the same applies to Star Wars, Darth Maul or Darth Tyrannus are nowere near as known as Darth Vader and never will be.

[Darth Wong]

This is no contest; I have kids, and my kids have friends. You show a kid a picture of a phaser, and he has no idea what it is. You show a kid a picture of Captain Kirk and Captain Picard and I'll give you pretty good odds that he won't know who either of them are. But you show a kid a lightsabre or Darth Vader, and he will know exactly what both of them are. I've tried this; Star Wars has 100% recognition in my experience, while Star Trek is more like 10% or less.

The next generation doesn't give a flying shit about Star Trek. That's the future, gentlemen.

[Ubiquitous]

The next generation doesn't give a flying shit about Star Trek. That's the future, gentlemen.

That's a great shame - ST has for so long been the most popular TV sci-fi. If children aren't interested in sci-fi, then what hope is there for the future of this genre?

[Spanky The Dolphin]

In terms of film and television, Star Wars has had way more impact than Star Trek. Star Wars is perhaps the most revolutionary and influential film of the second half of Twentieth Century cinema, changing the way films are produced and marketed, while Star Trek has had virtually no influence in film or television circles (and no, trival superficial shit doesn't count).

[Spanky The Dolphin]

The next generation doesn't give a flying shit about Star Trek. That's the future, gentlemen.

That's a great shame - ST has for so long been the most popular TV sci-fi. If children aren't interested in sci-fi, then what hope is there for the future of this genre?

You're missing what Mike actually said. It's not that kids aren't interested in science fiction anymore, it's just that they're not interested in Star Trek.

Science fiction isn't in any danger of dying out. It's just that Star Trek's domination of the genre will probably begin to fade out.

[Trogdor]

I think it began to fade out a long time ago, actually.

Incidentally, though, whenever one of the computers owned by my college is booted up, the words "We are borg" come up on the screen, followed by "Prepare to be assimilated!" This isn't even a very widely known fact, as most of the computers in the labs are just left on all the time AFAIK. One of my professors saw it and got all weirded out by it until I told him where it was from.

[Darth Quorthon]

I have enjoyed both in my life, but there's little debate that ST has gone off the deep end.

I'd also agree that it's Star Wars. When was the last time you saw people missing work and lining up months in advance for a Star Trek movie?

[Darth Yoshi]

I was about to say "when was the last time there was a Star Trek movie," but then I remembered that Generations wasn't the last ST film.

[Darth Wong]

I was about to say "when was the last time there was a Star Trek movie," but then I remembered that Generations wasn't the last ST film.

Yes, the last film was "Nemesis" ... which was beaten at the box office on its opening weekend by the cheesy summer fly-by-night comedy Maid in Manhattan.

[Darth Quorthon]

Yes, the last film was "Nemesis" ... which was beaten at the box office on its opening weekend by the cheesy summer fly-by-night comedy Maid in Manhattan.

Ouch.

Personally, I think that if there hadn't been any more films after ST6, we probably wouldn't have missed very much. Except for making fun of them, of course. The sound of this rumored "prequel" that's in the works is already starting to give me the creeps.

One of the things that punctates Star Wars' influence for me is the last scene from Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Could they have pulled off a Star Trek spoof instead? I wouldn't bet on it.

[Kurgan]

I've met lots of people who haven't actually seen star wars, and who's knowledge of Star Trek is based on a few episodes or less. But everybody knows who you're talking about when you say "Captain Kirk" or "Captain Picard" or "Darth Vader" or "Luke Skywalker."

Then again, this is "my generation" I'm talking about (I was born in '78 in the United States).

Star Trek probably had a bigger impact on the baby boomers. I remember most of my friends watched TNG when it was on, at least at the start, whether they admit it now or not. Then again I had a lot of geeky friends (nobody even close to the "Trekkies" you all make fun of course, I have yet to meet anyone like that in real life, I've also never seen somebody wearing Stormtrooper armor in person either).

[Trogdor]

Last year (my freshman year of college), my roommate discovered that one of the guys living on our floor, who happened to be his friend, had never seen star wars. My roommate sat him down and there was a marathon of the OT that day. Indeed, some of the other guys agreed that "Every guy has to watch star wars at least once."

Also, I have a friend from high school who prides himself on his ignorance of trek. He knows that at some point Kirk screamed "Kahn!" really loud and that's it. Once I tried to tell him who Kahn was and why Kirk was so pissed at him and he told me to shut up, seemingly almost panicked at the idea of knowing more about trek.

So yeah, so far as I know, wars wins this easy.

[Stark]

In my opinion, ST has been playing to the core audience (fanservice) for far too long. The SW prequels, while maybe not what everyone our age wanted, are very popular among kids. A whole new generation is going to grow up with SW, and ST has been slamming the door in the face of casual/new viewers for almost a decade.

Star Trek is 'nerdy'. Star Wars is just a fun series of movies. That's the difference.

[Lord Pounder]

I've met several people who've never seen SW yet they still recognise SW elements on TV when they see them, anyone who doesn't instantly recognise the "I am your father" of the "these are not the <blank> your looking for" skits when they happen has been living under a rock and/or deserves to be hit with many such rocks.

[Edward Yee]

Now mind you, Stark, I can't be even that generous to the prequel movies...

But wasn't the flaw of ST a slamming-in-the-face of the fans? (I distinctly recall RThurmont in the reboot thread saying that the casual viewers weren't worth working for, but that the alienated fans were 2/3 of the turned-off and were more key.)

Although These Are The Voyages was prolly bad by any standard...

[Kurgan]

In my opinion, ST has been playing to the core audience (fanservice) for far too long. The SW prequels, while maybe not what everyone our age wanted, are very popular among kids. A whole new generation is going to grow up with SW, and ST has been slamming the door in the face of casual/new viewers for almost a decade.

Who's the core audience of Star Trek though? Is it the teenagers from the late 60's? The kids from the late 80s? The folks from the 1990's? The "casual non-fans" that Enterprise was supposedly catering to?

From the people I've talked to, the casual non-fans thought Enterprise and Voyager were cool. Not the best television ever, but they liked the effects and the boobs. Fights are cool. That's what I've gotten from talking to them or reading their comments online anyway. These are the guys who could care less if there's contradictions, and haven't seen all the other episodes. The nerdy fans are the ones who complain about the contradictions, the recycled plots (how can you know a plot is recycled if you haven't seen the previous iterations before? I honestly liked Enterprise a lot more before I'd seen all of Voyager, and realized how much of a rip off it was).

That's the same thing you've got with the prequel loving kids. They haven't grown up with the OT and memorized the EU like we have, so to them its fresh, new, and they don't worry about all the inconsistencies (and if you read that and want to argue that there are no inconsistencies, you're a nerd, face it!).

Nerds of Trek and Wars nitpick their franchises. The benefit we warsies have is that we have the Expanded Universe being canon, so all of George's oversights can be "fixed" officially (in theory). In Trek you just have to hope that B&B (or whomever is in charge) gets it right in the next episode/movie. All the novels are just so much fan fiction, and all the fan fics in the world can't plug a hole the authors leave or rip into the core story.

Star Trek is 'nerdy'. Star Wars is just a fun series of movies. That's the difference.

This last part couldn't be more wrong. Star Wars is just as nerdy a franchise. The only difference is that most of the material is in printed form, rather than onscreen. Does that mean Star Wars nerds are smarter and better educated because they have to read all their stuff rather than sitting in front of the boob tube? Not necessarily.

Now one could argue, to know the "real story" of Star Wars, you only have to watch 6 movies. But to know the "real story" of Star Trek you have to watch five tv serieses (28 seasons) and ten movies. Since that's a lot of time and effort, you must be "more nerdy" to know Trek, than wars.

Now to the majority of Star Wars fans (I'm including casual fans here, since not all fandom is the fanboy variety), the movies are ALL THERE IS. They don't spend all day arguing the canon policy points like we do. So from their perspective, perhaps Star Trek is more nerdy.

However, does a large body of material necessarily make its fanbase more nerdy?

Is James Bond more nerdy than Predator? Is Dr. Who more nerdy than Firefly? Is Captain Power or Space: Above and Beyond nerdier than Babylon 5? etc.

And we "all know better" anyway. To know the full story of Star Wars, you need to read all the novels, comics, and game storylines, or at least be familiar with all the guidebooks and official publications that summurize those things.

So you tell me... what percentage of Star Wars fans know all the canon material, vs. Star Trek fans who know all their canon material?

I've watched every episode of Star Trek, in their entirety, including all the movies (I haven't read Mosaic or Pathways or seen that TAS episode about Spock's homeplanet, but everything else that's canon I've seen it).

I have NOT read every Star Wars EU source, and probably never will. It would likely take me many times the amount of time to accomplish this than to consume all the Trek material.

And yet, I don't come anywhere close to the Trekkie stereotype. I don't own any Trek merchandise (except one TNG action figure I got as a gift one year and one TOS movie era novel I got as a gift from a friend). I like Wars better, and more than my share of SW merchandise (books, DVDs, games, toys mostly from childhood but also adult, comics, clothing). So does that make me a Trek nerd, but only a casual SW fan?

What are the borders between big fan and nerd? I don't know, but I'd say it has something to do with obsessing over it and something to do with knowing more than the average consumer about it and spending more time than the average consumer thinking and arguing about it. So yeah I guess it's like porn. Can't tell ya what it is, but I know it when I see it!

[Kurgan]

PS: Just wait 'till that TV show takes off... then we can have a really lively discussion about nerds in Star Wars.

[Darth Wong]

You can try as hard as you want to pretend that Star Wars is just as nerdy as Star Trek, but the fact remains that Star Wars has far broader appeal, and as a matter of general principle, it is impossible for something with too much mass-market appeal to be perceived as "nerdy" because the "nerd" subgroup is, like many sociological concepts, defined in relative terms, ie- relative to the general population.

[Utsanomiko]

Using Kurgan's logicimal reasoning, football is nerdy because the games mean a lot more to the people who know all the players' and team's history and track records. And so everything must be nerdy and we can't ever compare appeal to 'nerdiness'

[Civil War Man]

I wouldn't call Star Wars nerdy. Most nerds I know (which are many. Probably 90% of the majors at my school have "engineering" in the name) hold a majority of Star Wars in contempt.

Example: Tonight the Social Committee showed Episode III. At the showing, I saw a total of two other members of my club (which is called the god-damned SCIENCE FICTION SOCIETY, and is easily one of the largest clubs on campus). Beforehand, when I mentioned to some of the other members that I was going to see it, most of them started complaining about how much they didn't like the PT and criticizing Lucas's writing. Walking out of it, most of the people in the audience were in groups ridiculing various parts (mostly the rather painful love scenes and "NOOOOOOOOOO!").

Oftentimes, when discussion of anything Star Wars pops up, particularly in regards to the story, I usually find myself one of the few (sometimes only) person defending it. Usually I throw out some literary analysis. Many nerds can't retaliate against literary analysis.

On the other hand, the few non-nerds I know largely ignore Star Wars. They usually don't hate it, but they also don't expend any energy on it.

[ray245]

I only got to know star trek after i got to this site...before that, I have only heard of the name star trek before and have no damn idea what is it about. The idea of exploring galaxy seem to childish and cheesy to me.
I'm Fifteen years old...

[Hedgehog's Roommate]

If you want to know which is more pervasive, and has the most influence simply look at fashion. Clothing manufacturers are dependent on being able to make clothes that will appeal to a large portion of the population.

Now, when was the last time you saw a shirt with Kirk, Picard, or anyother Trek character on it. Compare that to Wars.