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Star Wars and Star Trek are both science fiction franchises that had massive effects on pop culture. Star Trek came out in 1966 and Star Wars in 1977, but they both would be popular long after these dates. Both involve space adventures in iconic ships, but a closer examination of the two will reveal that Star Trek is far better. Star Wars is overhyped. While the original trilogy have their joys, they are broadly considered to be far better than they actually are. The plot and its devices are borrowed from Arthurian legend and similar mythos. The chosen one, who is typically male, finds out he has special powers, he gets a fancy sword and a wizard mentor, something awful happens, and he needs to go save a princess and defeat a great evil. While the space part is not from legend, it is in line with broader media trends of the time. There are a few more original twists and turns, but overall the originals are a run of the mill rehash of the long beloved tales. The prequel trilogy has terrible dialogue but a good story and does a solid job of flushing out the broader universe and its inner workings. While they’re quite entertaining, especially if you’re willing to do a bit of laughing at them instead of with them, older fans hate them vehemently and have created a toxic fandom which ruins the experience for others. The sequel trilogy started out fine with the Force Awakens, which while not bad, largely borrowed from stories found in the expanded universe (also called the EU, it consists of video games, comics, novels, and other similar works,) and was far from perfect. However, it did do a good job of setting up for the next movie. The Last Jedi proceeded to throw away the Force Awakens’ set up, and then put more effort into surprising its audience and being seen as progressive than having a cohesive storyline. While somewhat entertaining on the first watch, any analysis will immediately reveal its glaring flaws. Despite its attempts, the Last Jedi fails to be progressive, the purple haired lady who supposedly saves the day is unlikable and a poor leader whose failures can be argued to result in most of the movie’s plot and thus the main character’s failure, the anticapitalistic message is weak coming from a corporation that has thrived on the recent loosening of regulation, and the new POC female character sacrifices herself for one of the male characters she has supposedly been in love with despite no compelling evidence of this. The movie also lacks any queer representation which might have gone at least a little way to helping prove progressiveness. The expanded universe held many of Star War’s gems, and Disney’s choice to declare all of it noncanonical ostracized many fans, but more importantly it damaged the universe’s inner workings. Though small instances can be found in references and visual updates in every pre-Disney movie, it’s most evident in the Clone Wars cartoon series. The series drew on the EU to a massive extent, with everything from weapons and ships to storylines found in books and videogames. While one doesn’t have to have knowledge of the events to enjoy the show, future books, comics and games will have to write around the partial canonicity of these events and items without knowing what happen or why those things exist. The whole of Star War’s canon has been thrown out of balance. Star Trek never takes itself too seriously. The Captain’s chair spins, characters play pretend to break super computers, the star date system was formed using randomly chosen numbers, and the whole crew throw themselves to the floor every other episode in demonstration of obviously fake explosions. One character has personally interacted with both an alien that was obviously a small dog in a costume, and a moving plant that was very clearly made primarily of a hand in a pink glove. In one episode, a character is in romantic relationship with a ghost. A ship creates a new way to travel on mushrooms. Rather than subtract from the franchise, the goofy scenery and plot points and the actor's dutiful commitment to ignoring their silliness gives the franchise it’s charm. Each show and movie reflects the time it was made in and to watch them is to step into a time machine and view the culture of our recent past. The Original Series is full of bright colors, 60s haircuts, and ridiculously fake props. The Next Generation features the leotards and work out videos of the 80s, and the Enterprise oozes early 2000s charm. We can only imagine how obvious the 2010s feel of the Discovery and Alternate Original Series movies will be to future decades. While practically every Star Trek series (except for the Alternate Original Series) has been progressive for its time, what it considers progressive, and more notably where it messes up, brings the time of its creation into stark clarity. Captain Kirk of the Original Series once suggested that every species had a binary gender system, something we now know to be false, bacteria for example and even a type of lizard do not. This would be retconned by later Trek, as the Andorians have a four-gender system. Captain Janeway was called sir instead of ma’am at her own insistence due to the idea of ma’am implying inferiority, something today’s feminists no longer feel. These cringeworthy blunders, instead of suggesting an overall failure, speak of the past and how Star Trek was willing to commit to trying despite the risk of getting it a little bit wrong. After all, Kirk was trying to explain to another character that a cloud of mist had feelings, and Janeway was written to be a strong woman and equal to any male captain. Star Trek simply has an enormous amount of content. The Star Trek franchise is made primarily of shows. The shortest (not ongoing) show ran for three seasons and there’s a tie for the longest, with three shows receiving seven season runs. Due to the episodic nature of so many of its stories, and its tendency to play fast and loose with canon, Trek also escapes being weighed down by requiring new fans to watch everything to understand new content, something which frequently causes other franchises to reboot. This means for every time a Star Trek episode (or movie) is bad or simply doesn’t fit to one’s taste, at least three more episodes of content exist AND the bad episode can be skipped. This also creates a bit of compartmentalization within the fandom with each show having its own distinct circle. Small fandoms tend to be more friendly than large, and the subdivisions allow for all the welcoming nature of a small fandom while still allowing for massive fan expos like Star Trek Las Vegas. It’s also allowed for Star Trek to develop a large queer fan base, which was initially encouraged by Gene Roddenberry himself and his positive comments towards Kirk/Spock shippers, and later rewarded with the franchise’s first openly gay main characters. Star Trek is about humanity. It shows diversity of culture, thought, and physicality. It offers a picture of what humanity can strive to be. For all the plots and morals, ultimately fans keep coming back for the characters and their very human traits. Each iteration of Star Trek offers characters who reflect everyday people and thus feel real. Even with all the outlandish situations and ridiculous creatures, life goes on, and people do mundane things and build very human relationships. Sometimes humanity can be seen better without all the everyday things of life on Earth surrounding it, and Star Trek takes full advantage of that. Star Trek and Star Wars are both very similar and starkly different. Fans of both will be instantly labelled nerds, despite the cultural relevance of the franchises and the masses who gather to watch them. Star Trek consists primarily of shows, and Star Wars of movies. While some may claim to like both equally, I believe it’s clear that Star Trek is superior.