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Jessi Ridley
Cloninger
Pd 4
12 February 2016
Star Wars vs. Star Trek
The rivalry between the two cultural phenomenon series, Star Wars and Star
Trek has been on going for the past 4 decades. Even though the debate is between
fantasy vs science fiction, the argument continues to rave on. Questions like,
Which is more intellectual, or which has the better villains, and what about the
characters are asked constantly. Star Trek provides more valuable life lessons,
has more intriguing and diverse characters, addresses more social issues and
more dedicated fans, which makes the Star Trek franchise the better one over all.
The character Spock, introduces and teaches valuable life lessons.
Throughout the series he practically provides a piece/ a slice of life. For even
though Spock is a fictional character, and one not even from the planet Earth, he
illuminated some of the more interesting contractions in human life-specifically the
conflict between Logic and emotion, states Sean Kilcarr in Lessons from
Mr.Spock. Spock is half human, half Vulcan, and Vulcans arent able to feel or
express emotion. For instance in Star Trek from 2009, when Captain Kirk is mocking
Spock about having no emotions and mocking Spock, eventually Spock decides to
act on emotion and attack Kirk, making Spock emotionally compromised. While this
was not a logical thing to do, Spock did it anyways. This shows how Spock teaches

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the world that no one is perfect, and emotion can take over logic at times, which is
essentially a valuable life lesson.
Along with Spocks life lessons, The Star Trek Universe has one thing that
star Wars doesnt; more diverse characters. The crew of the USS Enterpirse is
more culturally diverse than Star Wars was ever close to being. For instance, there
is Chekov who is Russian, Sulu who is Asian, Uhura who is a woman and African
American, and Spock being half human and half Vulcan. The shows writers
frequently addressed moral and social issues such as discrimination, states
Wikipedia. The most common target though, for racism was Mr. Spock, and the
writers of Star Trek were, able to show the ignorance of racism and racist
comments, when showing how, Dr. McCoy regularly berated Spock and his halfVulcan/half human heritage. Since none of the shows viewers were from Vulcan no
one was offended, Jason Self, in How Star Trek Addressed the Issue of Racism.
This shows how Star Trek provided more diverse characters, and essentially
better than Star Wars because it was addressing and showing how social issues
such as discrimination and racism were irrelevant and dumb, whereas Star Wars
never attempted to show anything so complex.
The Star Trek fandom who call themselves Trekkies are more dedicated
and involved with the series than Star Wars fans are. While both have several TV
shows that branched off from the movies, Star Trek fans take the time to learn all
about the science behind the stories, and learn a whole new language dedicated to
Star Trek, and there are more quotes that are usable in any given situation. At least
[Star Trek] celebrates science, a discipline that is often underrated and
underplayed in pop culture, Leslle Gornstein. Along with celebrating science,
Star Trek has given the world catch phrases like, Live long and prosper, and To

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boldly go where no one has gone before, and as Leslle Gornstein says,Star Trek
has brought us highly quotable quotes for any occasion.
It has been shown that Star Trek is better than Star Wars in that it has
more life lessons, more diverse characters, addresses more social issues,
and more dedicated fans than Star Wars will ever dream of having. Next time you
are watching either one of these series, I challenge you to think about which series
is better.

Works Cited
Gornstein, Leslle. "20 Reasons Why Star Trek Is Better than Star Wars."
Www.cnet.com. Paramount, 28 Nov. 2015. Web. 12 Feb. 2016.
Kilcarr, Sean. "Lessons from Mr. Spock." Fleet Owner 2 Mar. 2015. General OneFile.
Web. 13 Feb. 2016.
Self, Jason. "How Star Trek Addressed the Issue of Racism." Jxself.org. Creative
Commons Attribution,

2015. Web. 12 Feb. 2016.

Wikipedia. "Cultural Influence of Star Trek." Wikipedia-The Free Encyclopedia.

Wikimedia Foundation,

22 Sept. 2015. Web. 12 Feb. 2016.