Star Trek vs. Star Wars

Hi, this is John Delancey and you are listening

to the Geekcast Radio Network. Resistance is

futile. Opening crawl. It is a period of civil

war. Rebel spaceships striking from a hidden

base have won their first victory against the

evil Galactic Empire. During the battle, rebel

spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire's

ultimate weapon. the Darth the Death Star. An

armored space station with enough power to destroy

an entire planet. Pursued by the Empire's sinister

agents, Princess Leia races home aboard her starship,

custodian of the stolen plans that can save her

people and restore freedom for the galaxy. Thank

you. We intercepted no transmissions, Robin.

This is a consular ship. We're on a diplomatic

mis -gah. Commander, tear this ship up apart

until you've found those plans and bring me the

passengers! I want them! Come on, Sheldon. Star

Wars. I'm pushing plate. I mean it. If we don't

start soon, George Lucas is going to change it

again. Hello and welcome to episode four. of

GCRN Wars. I am one of your hosts, Optimus Solo,

and joining me today is, first of all, Steve

Megatron Phillips. Hello. Hello. TFG1 Mike. Good

day, sir. Hello. And special guest with us on

this episode of GCRN Wars, we have Mike the Birdman

Dodd. Hello. What's up? Yes, sir. And finally,

rounding up the crew today is Pecan Court Michael.

Hey, how's it going? It's going. And today we

tackle one of the biggest debates in all of the

geekdom universe, which is which came first,

the chicken or the egg? Robocop. Wait a second.

Wrong show. Wrong show. Don't you mean the lightsaber

or the phaser? Yes. Which franchise is better,

Star Trek or Star Wars? That's right. We are

tackling this topic. Um, for those of you who

don't know what GCR on Wars is, first of all,

shame on you. You should have been listening

to our previous episodes because we've already

covered, uh, Flintstones versus Jetsons in one

of our episodes. We covered Thundercats versus

Silverhawks. Yes, I said it right. Not Thunderhawks

versus Silvercats. And today we have up the ante

and how this. works is we have 20 different categories

in which we will pit the two franchises against

each other. We'll have a general discussion on

each category. People will get to say their thoughts

and share their opinions. And at the end of each

discussion, each individual discussion, we will

cast our official votes on which franchise did

better in that category. And by the end of the

show, we will have an answer for which franchise

we think is the ultimate franchise. Mike, do

you have anything else to say? Yeah. Probably

the reason why a lot of people don't know what

GCR and Wars might be is because when Steve and

I launched the show, we've recorded and released

one episode per year in the last three years.

Well, that might explain something. And then

I got involved. So GCR and Wars is making a huge

comeback. We plan on having more episodes in

2012 than just this one. Yes, we'll be having

all kinds of fun stuff. This is just the tip

of El Icebergo. Yep. Anybody else have any thoughts

before we get into our categories? Anything that

they want to preface or put out there first?

You said preface. I actually interviewed a guy

who wrote a book on this this past year, a guy

named Matt Forbeck. So I come armed with the

knowledge of the guy who wrote the book on this.

Though I do disagree with some of his points,

but I'm sure we'll bring that up during the course

of this geek dance -off or whatever. We're going

to serve one another. Yes, it's the ultimate

battle royale. And, of course, it's kind of fitting

that the cast of Future Imperfect is here. Exactly.

I do want to make it very clear to all the listeners,

we are not comparing, you know, although we will

do this in the process, this is not just about

a specific show, movie, etc. This is the overarching

franchises that we are comparing and everything

that goes into that. And unlike some of our previous

episodes like Thundercats and Silverhawks, there's

no... There's nobody in here. That one we set

up, we had two people that we knew were Silverhawks

fans, two people that we knew were Thundercats

fans, and then we had someone kind of in the

neutral zone. Here it's kind of a match. Yeah,

here we are all kind of fans. I assume we're

all kind of fans of both of them. Different aspects,

yes. Some may lean towards one or some may lean

towards the other, but it's completely kind of

fair game, mixed match, and we'll just see where

this takes us. Michael Wilson, any thoughts before

we start? No, I'm just happy to be here. It's

my first Wars. It won't be your last. I feel

like there should be, you know how radio shows

have an iconic little sound when somebody says

it's their first call -in. First -time caller,

long -time fan. Ask me in three hours when I'm

falling asleep at the desk. All right, well,

let's just get into it then. Our very first topic,

which we will be comparing the two franchises,

is their iconic ships. Which was the more impressive

ship, the Starship Enterprise, and you can take

whatever version you would like, or the Millennium

Falcon? Who would like to start us off on that

one? Can I? Yes, you can. Okay. Basically, I'd

like to say this is an apples to oranges comparison.

The Enterprise has always been the capital ship

of the Federation, and it just gets bigger and

bigger with each iteration. So the A and the

B and the C and the D and eventually the E, to

the point where you have a flying city in space,

essentially. The Falcon is a tiny freighter with

a crew of two, like a semi -truck in space. You

could park the Falcon in the Enterprise's shuttle

bay. So there's really no comparison here. A

real comparison would be the Enterprise to a

Star Destroyer. I mean, if guns are guns and

shields are shields, then a Star Destroyer is

easily the most impressive of the two. A Star

Destroyer is a floating city that carries bad

guys with enough ground forces to level a regular

land -based city. Or it can just obliterate you

from orbit because that's the only way to be

sure. However, a Star Destroyer carries a hell

of a lot more guys than a Starship. Yeah, because

the Enterprise crew is just a little over 1 ,000,

depending on which version of the ship you're

going with. Whereas the Star Destroyer, I think

has a standing crew of around 20 ,000. I think

it depends on which Star Destroyer you're talking

about. Are you talking about an Imperial class?

Oh, well, yeah. If you're looking at the flagship

of the Imperial fleet, the Super Star Destroyer,

yes. But if we're just talking about a regular

Imperial class Star Destroyer, then that might

be more. Still more than a pitch for the Enterprise.

Well, yeah, because the Star Destroyers are,

I think, 1 .4 kilometers long. The Enterprise,

at its biggest, I think, is about maybe 1 .1,

I think, at its longest. The Executor is, I think,

8 kilometers long. And there's ones that are

even bigger than that. There's the Eclipse -class

Star Destroyer, which was seen in the Dark Empire

comics by Dark Horse. And I think that was something

like 20 kilometers long. I think the main purpose

in just picking the Enterprise, though, and the

Falcon is if you ask any just general person,

maybe not obviously geeks that are well -informed,

but if you ask the common person to name a ship,

a Star Trek ship or to name a Star Wars ship,

these are the two that are going to be named.

So it's not necessarily that they're specs or

that they're size or that their purpose is the

same. It's just out of these two iconic ships,

which is the more badass? You know, Michael said

something about the X -Wing. The X -Wing, yes,

but those are more so... The X -Wing and the

TIE Fighters, that would be like, which one is

better? And we'll be getting into those in our

next category. But I mean, as far as iconic ships

of the series go, X -Wing is probably... That

comes to mind for me more faster than Millennium

Falcon. Well, more people can name smaller ships

from Star Wars as opposed to Star Trek. You can

say shuttle, and that's all anybody knows. Right.

Whereas if you say Galileo or Runabout or something,

nobody really knows unless they watched it. Yeah.

What was the name of Tom Harrison's shuttle?

That's a nice topic. Delta Flyer, yeah. I think

that between the two, between the Enterprise

and the Millennium Falcon, I've watched enough

Star Trek over the years where, I don't know

if I'm just forgetting it off the top of my head,

but I've never actually seen an Enterprise actually

do any kind of really elite maneuvers like the

Falcon has done in the films. Well, that's because

you're comparing two different scales of ship.

Once again, you're looking at a capital ship

versus something that's... basically it's like

comparing a speedboat to a to a huge cargo ship

you know what i mean there's like it's not as

maneuverable for a reason well right but the

thing is like you know in in in any star trek

whether it's the films or whether it's the tv

series the enterprise just sits there set phasers

to maximum you know set you know fire all does

have just sits there Well, I don't know what

version you're referring to, Mike, but they don't

typically sit there. Yeah, they go into orbit

at times and they fight, but they do have a lot

of maneuverability more than what you'd think.

And they do have warp speed, and I don't want

us not to mention the fact that certain versions

of the Enterprise have the ability, obviously,

to separate into two different sections. My thought

is, and the reason kind of why I wanted to bring

this up was, basically, if you could have your

choice to be piloting or to own or to have one

of these two ships in your power or in your arsenal,

which one would you rather have? Which one is

the more badass? Do I get a full crew, or is

it just me? Well, you can have both. For two

reasons. Transporters, replicators. Exactly.

What is the fountain going to do? Oh, look, I

broke again. Where's my damn jewelry? There's

those nice trap doors and hidden sections for

smuggling. And it comes with an Enterprise. It

comes with a Wookiee. And I honestly don't think

it's fair to... compare every single version

of the Enterprise against one Millennium Falcon.

That's not fair. It doesn't matter. You know

what I like about the Enterprise? I like how

it crashes. Hey, that only happens in one and

a half movies. Generations doesn't. I don't think...

What was the last Star Trek movie? Nemesis. Nemesis

shouldn't count because that was only a partial

crash and they fixed it. That was a battery.

shoving up his ass no um but you know if you're

not exactly comparing it you're comparing the

the iconicness of what you associate with the

franchise not necessarily um the apples to oranges

aspect of how different they are you're you're

more so comparing you know culture visibility

yeah the culture And honestly, I would say the

Millennium Falcon has much more pop culture reference

because, let's face it, there's only one. Whereas

the Enterprise changes every assembly line there.

Yeah, I mean, there's an assembly line of them

because, let's face it, they break consistently.

But the Enterprise, on the other hand, not only

does it have a lot more technical advancements

over the Millennium Falcon, But it's more aesthetically

pleasing to the eye. And it not only has that

aspect, but it holds a lot more people. Whereas

the Falcon, you could run on a crew of two people

and be fine. But it's also very rugged looking

compared to anything in Star Trek. Again, it

does go back to that apples to oranges aspect.

Steve, I just had a thought when you were talking

there. I think we can settle this really easy.

Okay? Which ship would you want to go to the

bathroom on? What is more comfortable? I think

it breaks down to that. Would you rather crap

in the back of the space dump truck or on the

Hilton that flies through space? Leave it to

Michael Dodd to leave a ranking up to a bathroom

joke. Hey, think about it. What's more comfortable?

The cramped place where the walking carpet takes

a dump or the place where if they don't like

it, I'm just going to transport it in the space.

The sonic showers, baby. There's no smell, but

it depends on which enterprise you're talking

about. If you're going to compare the toilets.

Oh God. All right. Well, so I choose Falcon overall.

Yeah, which ship do you like better is the vote

here. So Mike is choosing the Millennium Falcon.

Birdman, which ship do you like better? I'm taking

my pimp baby, the Enterprise E. All righty, Mr.

Wilson. I'm going to take the Millennium Falcon

with the deluxe gold -plated Elvis -style toilets.

They do not exist. You are the weakest link.

Goodbye. Steve, what ship do you like better?

Obviously the Enterprise, but my personal favorite

is it's kind of a tie between A and E, so I'm

going to say A. All right. And I am actually

going to select as my favorite ship out of the

two the Starship Enterprise as well. So that

would make it three to two for Star Trek on this

one. Space toilets for the win. Since we kind

of already brought it up, that kind of transitions

right into our other category along these same

lines, which is category number two, which is

vehicles and machines. Which franchise has had

the more badass vehicles and machines overall?

This is all machines, all vehicles, all inclusive.

Which franchise has the cooler vehicles? Who

wants to start us off on this one? You can go.

Thanks. I like how the Star Trek technology includes

an explanation for warp drive. It's powered by

two nacelles that hang off of each ship. And

because of this, all the Federation ships have

a shared aesthetic. Alien ships will veer away

from this, but they aren't nearly as many, as

numerous, let's say, as those of the Federation

ships. And as the timeline moves forward, kind

of like as Steve said, they just get more sleek

and more streamlined and prettier. But Star Wars

ships, on the other hand, come in all sorts of

shapes. And you can usually spot the engines,

but there's all types of engines. Twin ion engines

and whatever's on the ass end of the Millennium

Falcon, things like that. George Lucas really

likes his World War II dogfights. So most of

the ships in the Star Wars universe are, well,

most of them that we've seen, the greater majority,

are single -seat fighters, possibly two -seaters.

Even the ground ships are made for one or two

occupants. The exception comes when there's something

really big, really truly scary, like an AT -AT.

Or in space, it would be a Star Destroyer. The

biggest vehicle of all, the biggest scariest

one, is a planet. With an eyeball. Exactly. I

should have said this beforehand, but before

we get too in -depth into our discussion, you

know, the Star Trek machines, basically the big

difference is which alien race they belong to.

You know, each race has their own style of ships.

Obviously, you have lots of different enterprises,

and obviously, I mean, I'm not talking about

just the, you have your shuttles and you have

your smaller ships, but you have the Enterprise

mainly for the Starfleet and those types of ships.

You know, the Klingon. have their types of ships

uh you know the borg has their it's kind of like

i guess like the death star but each race kind

of has a different ship whereas in star wars

it's it's a lot more diverse within the race

i mean you have your x -wings your a -wings your

y -wings your tie fighters your tie bombers your

like you said they're more notice that you just

named like 30 types of fighter Yeah, but I mean,

you have your AT -ATs, AT -STs, your sand crawlers,

your speeder bikes, your pod racers, land speeders.

A lot of Star Wars technology breaks down to

kind of military things, whereas in Star Trek,

you see a lot more civilian stuff. Like you just

mentioned, we see more individual race things,

like with Cardassians, Ferengi, the Bree, et

cetera, et cetera. It's easier to identify. You

can identify which race a ship belongs to in

Star Trek very easily. Well, in Star Trek, they're

actually, it's funny if you look at them, they're

all color -coded based on what faction they're

on. Cardassians, pretty much the golden -looking

color, the Borg are that metallic -y color. It's

kind of gray and silver for the Federation. It's

green for the, you know, for like an off -green.

uh for like a forest green for the uh Klingons

and then it's like a almost regular green for

the Romulans so I mean it's just um that helps

identify them and whereas in Star Wars they're

all pretty much the same colors uh with the exception

of the uh Rebels having some red stripes here

or there and the other thing is if you look at

Star Trek when you go back from the 60s show

to modern they get more advanced, more sleek

-looking, whereas it's reversed for Star Wars.

Yeah, it has the old look, obviously, since it's

supposed to be beforehand, whereas Star Trek

is supposed to be futuristic. Well, and if you

look at Star Wars, though, in the prequel trilogy,

everything's all shiny and nice -looking, and

you get into the later, you know, series, which

is actually the pre-, you know, whatever. I'm

not getting into that convoluted mess, but it's...

they seem to degrade as it goes on. The idea

there is that there was no innovation under the

empire. It was everything they had was built

back in the old Republic days. And they were

just basically modifying it to keep it running.

I would completely disagree with that, because

if you look in the expanded universe stuff, they

talk about how the Empire has hundreds, if not

thousands, of weapons labs developing stuff.

I mean, one of the primary suppliers for them

was CNR fleet systems, and even the X -Wings

were originally developed for the Empire by Incom

before they defected to the Rebel Alliance. Star

Wars weaponry progresses. The thing is, this

was made in 1970 -something, so they couldn't

have all the really cool toys. have to read the

expanded universe or the role -playing stuff

from west end games and wizards of the coast

to really get a feel for how advanced the weaponry

actually is however if you go by the canon of

what's actually been seen on screen yeah then

i feel star trek wins out overall on it i think

too though the empire even though they were had

their labs and were developing stuff i think

Michael Wilson's point still holds up for everybody

else. Everybody else doesn't have the ability

to progress that much with their vehicles or

their machines. It's almost like they're living

in a post -apocalyptic world where they're just

trying to make do with whatever they can scrape

up. I think it's worth pointing out. for any

you know like if you relate this to a common

person like who can name more ships and i think

star wars easily people could name more ships

from star wars than well there's only like 12

well i think there's a lot more than that well

i mean probably 26 one for each letter of the

alphabet i'm just saying you could name i think

the the star wars vehicles are easily more easily

identifiable um it's almost like they have a

little more personality to them, I think. Whereas,

to me, some of the Star Trek ships, even though

they're badass looking, get lost or blend in

too much with the other parts of what's going

on, you know, the plot and the story and this

and that, where you can somehow lose the individual

characteristics of some of the Star Trek ships.

The big difference here between the two is...

I'm sorry. I was going to say the big difference

here is the Star Wars ship is a toy. When a new

ship makes its debut on Star Wars, they're going

to make a toy out of it. So it's in their best

interest to introduce as many ships as possible

so you have a huge diversity of ships. Whereas

in Star Wars, you get more and more iterations

of the Enterprise. You mean Star Trek. I'm sorry.

In Star Trek, you get more and more iterations

of the Enterprise because they're – You know,

let's face it, if someone's going to buy Star

Trek memorabilia or collectibles, let's say,

so as not to say Star Trek toy, if you're going

to buy a Star Trek collectible, it's going to

be the Enterprise or possibly a Klingon ship.

One of the things to consider about Star Wars

versus Star Trek, and this is something you guys

probably haven't thought about, it comes down

to resources. In the Star Trek universe, they've

only really started to explore the Alpha Quadrant,

and there are places within the Alpha Quadrant

that haven't really even been explored. because

of the limits of warp travel, right? And that's

why some of the Federation starships, et cetera,

et cetera, have such a long service life. I mean,

they're intended to be in service actively within

the Federation for 50, 60 years plus. I mean,

the Excelsior Starship, I think Captain Sulu's

ship, I think it was in service for over 60 years.

Star Wars, they have so much more resources.

They can develop new types of ships all the time.

I mean, I remember reading things when they were

like, oh, look at our new E -Wing fighters. You

know how long it takes to design a new fighter

jet? Stuff like that. So apply the real world

engineering principles to this and think how

much resources, R &D, et cetera, et cetera, goes

in. I think the point is right where they want

to introduce a new toy, but they also have infinitely

more resources than the Star Trek people have

access to. Yeah. I think between the two, I like

the more, I mean, yes, they both are military

organizations, but I like Star Wars military

more. I would rather see a Legion of X -Wings

versus an Armada of Enterprises. And I like the

whole X -Wing versus TIE Fighter. I think that's

a classic aerial space battle. And it just looked

super cool. So I would pick the Star Wars vehicles

over the Star Trek ones. You have started the

voting off, so that is one vote for Star Wars.

Birdman, which group of vehicles do you like

the best? Honestly, as much as I love Star Trek,

I have to give the edge here to Star Wars simply

due to raw power, adaptability, and they're more

specialized. Like, the ADAT's developed for land

warfare. It's impressive. You get other vehicles

like the Mountain Walker, which is like a spider

version. Honestly, Star Wars wins under intimidation

and raw firepower. Mr. Wilson? I have to agree.

I'm going to go with Star Wars. I am also going

with Star Wars. And Steve, which group of vehicles

do you like the best? On the one hand, Star Trek

has... I still love the ships more. I don't care

what you say. I still love the ships more, and

I still think that there's more innovation than

what is being given credit for. However, they

do not have any land vehicles whatsoever. Well,

there was that stupid dune buggy from Nemesis.

Oh, there was a dune buggy. But I thought we

all agreed that Nemesis doesn't count. Only when

it comes to starship crashes. I agree with Steve

that the Star Trek ships look awesome. They're

very sleek. They're so much more maybe sophisticated

looking. They're basically science platforms,

though. Right. But there's just something so

personable and likable about all the different

variety you get from the Star Wars universe as

far as their ships go. I mean, there's so many

ships that I would have loved to, you know, if

you're picturing yourself owning or flying or

being a part of, like, there's so many of them.

I don't know. Don't get me wrong. The Star Trek

ships, like I said before, I do love those. However,

a lot of the parts are cookie cutter of a previous

model ship. Whereas in Star Wars, everything

is unique. There's not one part that's recycled

from another machine. Which must make repairing

these things a pain in the ass. Yeah, whereas

Starfleet, they're like, oh, let's just recycle

it from this class ship. Or replicate it. Problem

solved. So I guess I'll have to give this Star

Wars, even though I don't want to. There's no

coercion here. You can vote however you would

like. I know. I'm voting Star Wars, though, just

because of land and diversity, whereas Star Trek

doesn't really have either. That makes sense.

Sticking with our theme of stuff made of metal

and other things like that, I guess, our third

category is the weaponry of the two franchises,

and which franchise had the more impressive array

of weapons. This is not going to be limited to

the ones I'm mentioning here, but some of the

weapons you might see in Star Trek include your

phasers, your disruptors, your pulse cannons,

photon torpedoes, all the different Klingon weapons.

weapons and swords, as well as all the other

different races and the weapons they bring in.

If you're thinking Star Wars, we're thinking

about blasters, thermal detonators, crossbows,

and obviously the lightsabers. Who would like

to talk about some weapons? Well, the proper

term is bowcaster. Sorry, I'm a bit of a Star

Wars nerd when it comes to this. Actually, I'm

going to start this off. Go for it. Star Wars,

I think, is going to take this one for one reason,

raw power. And the reason I mention that is there

was an article I read some years ago, and it

was mentioned that a Star Destroyer could cut

the hell out of the Enterprise, simply because

the Enterprise's shields are only rated to a

certain terawatt, right? Whereas the turbolasers

on your avid Star Destroyer, I think is something

like 240, and I think the Enterprise's shields

max out at around 10. So in terms of raw power,

Star Wars is going to take this. I mean, the

fucking Death Star. Another one to mention is

in the Jedi Academy trilogy by Kevin J. Anderson,

there's a weapon called the Sun Crusher. It fires

a torpedo into the heart of a sun. Boom. dead

now star trek does have red matter whoopie doo

it is smaller just as destructive but star wars

also has ships which you could call this a weapon

too technically there's a a coating on the ship

called uh quantum armor or something like that

this thing can go into the gravity well of a

gas giant and be fine and the pressures in those

things well i don't know how science nerdy you

you guys are but let's just say it's a lot and

have a ship go into the middle of a gas giant

and just hang out for fun. That's something no

Star Trek ship will ever accomplish. Well, I

guess if you count the whole Pegasus thing, but

that's a phase thing. I realize I know entirely

too much about this. I'm going to drink. Good

night. I think of a couple things when I think

of the weaponry. First of all, like you said,

with Star Wars, I think two things. Number one

is, like you said, the raw power. And number

two for Star Wars weaponry is, again, the diversity

of what you get. Tons of different styles, types

of weapons, et cetera, et cetera. And obviously

the iconic lightsaber. If you were going to go

on the most badass looking weapons, it's everything

that the Klingons have ever used. Those things

look amazing. Yeah. And they just look like I

would kill myself trying to learn how to use

one of those things. But, I mean, if you take

the Klingon weaponry out of it, to me, the Star

Trek weaponry is a little plain and a little

simple. I mean, there's a beauty in the simplicity

of it, but you just get such a diversity in the

Star Wars weaponry. I mean, just, and of course,

we're going to have all these pictures in the

post on the website so people can see the different

categories, but just looking at these first two

guns in Star Trek, they're essentially... two

different versions of a pistol i mean like one

could be a 38 the other could be a 22 i mean

that's really what those pistols look like to

me those were from to be fair those are from

the original series those are not the the next

generation okay but what i'm saying is just looking

at them by the images they look like two different

sizes. Basically Godfathers. You can see how

the weaponry evolves in Star Trek from, from

the type one to the type two to the type three.

Steve can back me on this one. When you look

at the next generation, when you look at a type

one phaser, it's very small. Type two is what

we call the Braun mix master. The phaser rifle,

the type three is just a bigger type two with

an extra four grip. So the small one, the type

one. phaser is the little personal one the little

one it's essentially a noisy cricket it although

significantly underpowered actually a type one

phaser can't fire that many shots and won't i

think has a very limited kill setting before

it actually runs out of power yeah basically

it's meant for personal defense Basically, the

phasers and the blasters are very comparable

to the point that they are just your basic weapons

and everything. The thing with the Star Wars

universe is you have so much more after that,

whereas the Star Trek, you just get mostly phasers

because they're not doing as much battle. hand

-to -hand combat type thing. I do like the part

of the phaser that you can have your different

settings as far as stun, kill, etc. The phasers,

as far as the Federation is concerned, are more

civilized, whereas if you go to the Klingons,

they have disruptors that's just meant to kill,

basically like the blasters in Star Wars. Star

Wars, every weapon is meant to kill one hit,

KO. Whereas Star Trek, there's a little bit more

safety involved. It's a little bit more... It's

more civilized. Well, yeah. It is, and it's more

like Honorbound, whereas Star Wars is like kill

or be killed. Star Wars is more like the Wild

West, whereas Star Trek is more the civilized

city, so to speak. And you look at some of the

weaponry in Star Wars, for example, I mean, looking

at the Bowcaster, that's basically a rail gun.

So they, you know, I mean, there's different...

Technology is at work in there. There's weapons

from different species. I mean, there's one weapon.

I think the book is called The Truce of Bakura,

which happens literally 10 minutes after Return

of the Jedi. And a race called the Sisayru have

a different kind of directed energy weapon. There's

also light whips and stuff like that, which I

think you can see in Star Wars, the old Republic

and stuff like that. There's just a lot more

variety there. As much as I hate to admit this,

Blanchard's got a point. You can see the grandfathering

in the Star Trek weaponry. I mean, even with

the kind of Klingon weapons, you see how they

evolve over time. You can see the different steps

of calibers or this evolved from this, blah,

blah, blah. Star Trek weapons are more utilitarian.

They're not meant to cause massive damage or

harm. Although there was one documented case,

I think me and Steve talked about this during

one of our Future Imperfect shows, where five

guys took on the equivalent of the Roman army

in like five hours with like three phasers. So

they do get the job done in that sense. Or if

you want to talk about the Prince War torpedo

that Janeway massacred an entire civilization.

And I think the difference in the weaponry for

the two franchises is that every bit of Star

Trek stuff that I've seen, minus maybe a few

of the 66 episodes, because I watched TNG as

a kid, every part of Star Trek that I've seen

has had them consistently going to negotiate.

And negotiations sometimes work, sometimes they

don't. Where in Star Wars, they go to negotiate,

they end up getting attacked, and then they have

to fight for their lives. It's called weapon

-facilitated negotiations. Well, evidently you

have not seen DS9. I have, but it's been a while.

I think it kind of breaks down to the kind of

names, though, guys. I mean, Star Trek... it's

about the journey of exploration and diplomacy

star Wars. It's a straight up con. I mean, it's

basically, it's, it's a war movie for me. Yeah.

I mean, their weapons are more destructive. Doesn't,

doesn't star Wars win just for the sheer fact

of having lightsabers. It should. Yes. You know,

it's funny. In Matt Forbeck's book, he wrote

Star Wars versus Star Trek. There is a chapter

on phasers versus a lightsaber. And I think the

phaser may win because you can change the frequency

of it. So it could, in theory, pass right through

the beam of the lightsaber. So that's something

else to consider, too. Star Trek weaponry is

more adaptable, whereas in Star Wars, it's a

blaster bolt powered by blaster gas, or it's

a bolt propelled by a magnetic rail system. But

then again... If you ask anybody on the street

which one they would rather have... A lightsaber,

of course! Okay, but my question to you, Dodd,

is that you just mentioned about the phasers'

different settings. Now, my question is, and

I'm kind of combining Star Wars and... Green

Lantern Corps here, but the lightsaber is an

extension of the Jedi Knight. Would that kind

of be like sort of the same thing with like a

Green Lantern ring where it's an extension of

your will? Because we saw Qui -Gon Jinn in episode

one phase through the core. Well, okay. How a

lightsaber works and it basically... A lightsaber

can be wielded by anybody, although it takes

a degree of skill to use it. I mean, an untrained

person could use a lightsaber, though not effectively

as a Jedi, to deflect blaster bolts. There are

several characters in the EU that do wield lightsabers

that are not Jedi. A lightsaber is basically,

it's a hilt that can project energy through a

focused crystal to produce the blade. It's adjusted

through magnetics, I think. I'm not 100 % sure

how they adjust blade length. Where he would

be accurate is if you were talking about the

actual force and what you can do through the

force, that would be an extension of the person.

That's not a weapon, though. Right, I don't know,

I'm just saying. I think the only thing that

we never really saw the destructive power of

that I really wanted to see was the thermal detonator.

You do in the Star Trek role -playing games,

I mean, in terms of dice power, they're very

powerful. And the only thing comparable in Star

Trek, I know there are, like, I suppose you could

set a phaser on overload. Yeah. It'll do a fair

chunk of damage, but a thermal detonator is meant

to be directed. Yeah. It's a mini Death Star.

It probably is. I mean, you know, because they

could have said, oh, well, I have a big effing

grenade here. No, they said thermal detonator.

And when I first watched that movie, when I first

saw that, the first thing I thought of was, you

know, as a kid was like, oh, it's going to melt

everybody. It's not just going to explode. It's

going to melt everything in that room. I think

a thermal detonator. I think if I remember the

errata correctly, I think it's basically, it's

a pocket nuke. I really think it's a nuclear

explosion. So if that were to go off in Jabba's

palace, where we first see this, it would probably

level Jabba's palace or definitely several floors

thereof. This thing, they're very destructive,

way more destructive than unexploding phaser.

It packs a punch. Anybody, any other thoughts

before we go to votes on the weaponry? Mr. Wilson,

you got anything? I had something prepared, but

I think you guys covered it. Yeah. I like that.

Just go over top of you. Well, no, I mean, I

think that, you know, like with the starships,

Starfleet has a certain aesthetic. when it comes

to weapons. And the phaser has been the standard

since its inception and hasn't changed much since

then. Even the phase rifles, like you guys are

talking about, the number one, the number two,

the number three, the phase rifles just look

like long phasers with two handles. And the only

thing that's really interesting is when you start

getting into Klingon hand -to -hand weapons,

because those are really cool. But, you know,

there's a lot of hand -to -hand weapons in...

in Star Wars. I mean, Star Wars has no restrictions

when it comes to weapons. Each species carries

its own preferred type, but there's a lot of

species. So you've got everything from laser

pistols to pointed sticks. And the best pointed

stick of all is the lightsaber. An elegant weapon,

not as crude as a blaster, but as far as I'm

concerned, lightsabers win hands down. I love

that cheap shot at blasters in... In the prequels,

when Obi -Wan says, Blaster's so uncivilized,

or whatever he says. Mike, why don't you start

us off with your vote? Which franchise has it?

Hands down, simply because of the lightsaber.

I also do like, you know, I like the threat of

the thermal detonator, just because I like that

entire scene in Jabba's Palace. The whole thing

with the electro staffs and the... And the gaffy

sticks, that was cool too, but simply for the

lightsaber, Star Wars wins for me. Birdman? Once

again, it's going to come down to destructive

raw power and what it can accomplish. Like I

said, Starfleet has a certain... I don't know

whether you would call it an ethical code of

conduct, but their weapons are not built for

mass destruction. Whereas Star Wars, a blaster

bolt or a bowcaster bolt is going to tear through

you the same way, and it's going to leave you

dead. So my edge goes to Star Wars. As does mine

and Steve. As much as I don't want to give it

to him, and the only reason I'm giving it to

him is because of the lightsaber. I don't...

Particularly care for the rest of the designs,

but the lightsaber, that's kind of hard to argue

with. Alrighty then. Moving on. Obviously, these

are two sci -fi franchises, so we have a lot

of sci -fi type categories. just like our fourth

one, which is just the overarching technology.

Which franchise had the more impressive technology?

And before people jump in here, just some quick

examples of what we're talking about here. In

Star Wars, you have stuff like the electrobinoculars,

the holojam projector, carbon freezing chamber,

the organic gill that we saw in the prequels,

jetpacks, etc. Star Trek, you have your cloaking

device, your replicator, transporter, warp drive,

communicators, trackers. tractor beams, Geordi's

visor, tricorders, the holodeck. I think this

one's going to be fairly easy, but who wants

to start off with the technology here? I think

I'm going to because you skipped over something

you wrote in the script. I looked at this and

I was like, how the hell is a breath mask a piece

of technology? Well, because it would convert

whatever ambient gases are into oxygen, and that's

technology that would help us breathe. Right,

it is, but the breath mask, I assume when Kevin

wrote that in there, is because of Vader. I was

thinking Princess Leia inside the space slug,

but okay. They use examples of different types

of breath masks throughout the franchise, whether

it be on a planet where you can't breathe, or

whether it be because of, like you said with

Darth Vader, where you're physically not able

to breathe as easy. There's been use in different

things, but as far as a coolness factor, I mean,

how much better would our world be if we could

have a transporter and a replicator. Right. Or

even a holodeck. I mean, because, you know, sure.

Speaking of that, Microsoft has already kind

of halfway developed that. Well, and they've

talked, there's so many things, it's almost like

Back to the Future in a way. There's so many

things in Star Trek that were written before

they were even, you know, it was thoughts in

these creative minds of these. individuals that

have come true or that are on the verge of coming

true as far as a lot of these things you know

you think about the communicator and how that

has basically translated you know with modern

day cell phones bluetooth etc um you know geordie's

visor and the advancements that they've made

with different types of uh you know uh i i don't

know how you want to term it but Not laser technology,

but there's different things that they've been

able to do. The holodeck, I mean, it's just a

matter of time before a holodeck is an actual

thing that exists. Right. I think for me, and

I'm not going to vote here, but I'm just going

to say that out of what's listed here, the only

thing that I really enjoyed, two things I enjoyed

out of the Star Wars technology was the hologram

projector and the... The carbon freezing chamber.

I thought those were two very, very cool things.

Could be useful. Yeah, very useful. When it comes

to Star Trek, they do have the better technology.

I mean, just think of replicators and transporters.

If you have a transporter, the powers are obsolete.

Gasoline is almost basically obsolete. You save

how many hours of your life? that you no longer

have to spend traveling. I mean, as long as you

don't pull the Spaceballs thing and have half

of your body face in the wrong way, you're good

to go. There's a reason. Sorry, Doug. I was going

to say, there's a reason here that the Star Trek

tech is so much different from the Star Wars

tech. And that's that Star Wars technology is

future technology as imagined by someone in the

40s. You've got 1940s. I mean, you've got a lot

of Flash Gordon in there. There's jetpacks, water

-breathing apparatus, space binoculars. This

is all stuff that people in the 40s thought that

we would have today, whereas Star Trek technology

is future technology as imagined by someone in

the 1990s. Well, and it's also thought of somebody

– again, this goes back to just like what we

were talking about, but flip when we were talking

about the weaponry. Star Wars is built to fight,

built around this – revolution this battle this

rebellion whereas star trek is the more i guess

scientific uh you know exploration and an advancement

type thing so you're gonna just naturally get

more items that are geared towards you know progressing

or making that next leap technologically i'll

buy that yeah boils down to what each franchise

is aimed towards In my mind. And that's why we

see so... But again, a lot of it is just great

thinking by the people that were doing the creative

work and the writing in Star Trek to come up

with all the stuff that actually is more feasible

in our world. Whereas some of the stuff in Star

Wars, it's just not stuff that you could ever

see happening with some of their technology.

Or never needing to happen, I guess. Star Trek

technology is actually solving... or providing

solutions for transportation, for food, for that

type of thing. Whereas Star Wars, it's not really

solving problems. It was just they needed it

for this specific use. Yes. Todd, you were about

to say something a little bit ago. Yeah, I've

got one thing, and it's something that a lot

of people don't think when it comes to Star Trek.

And everyone says Star Trek will win simply because

of transporters and replicators. And it's funny.

Star Trek technology actually scares people for

one reason. I want you to think of character

Reginald Barclay from Star Trek TNG. He has something

known as transporter phobia. How many of you

know how the transporter technology essentially

works? Just so I can make this argument. Well,

it's almost like it's kind of comparable to how

a television works. It scans you in. Yeah, it

scans you in and then reassembles you. It's almost

like a television. Yeah. Now, is that really

just a sophisticated way of murder? Yeah. I'm

serious. Think about that because you're being

reassembled. Because they can scan them in and

delete them. Yeah, or alternatively. No disintegrations.

Or alternatively, this is like the existential

question here. Is it you that's being transported

or is it simply just a copy who remembers who

he was at the moment of transport? Just the thing

to put in your head. That's all. Technically,

you're just being replicated at the other side.

Technically, yes. So it's not really you anymore.

And you can be replicated as many times as they

want. They could essentially create a slave workforce

on any planet just by duplicating you a thousand

times. But the benefits far outweigh that because,

I mean, come on. You have a family member in

another country. You want to go visit this. There's

no driving. There's no airplane. It makes everything

possible. Just like boom, up there. Let's not

even talk about religion. And teleporting. But

yeah, it's just one of those things to keep in

mind. I've always seen Star Trek technology as

more advanced than Star Wars, because I think

you made a very good point. It's very much the

pulp artist versus the futurist in terms of what

we're going to have. Star Trek is wonderful for

showing what scientific advances can do in terms

of medical technology, leisure. communications,

etc., etc. So I think Star Trek's going to get

the edge here simply because of all that it's

accomplished. Plus, looking at even other races'

technology, look at what the Borg have done.

I mean, assimilation aside. Yeah, or the cloaking

device, which is something Star Trek does, or

sorry, Star Wars does have, but it doesn't function

in the same manner. Once again, the expanded

universe. I think it was in... The Thrawn trilogy,

which came out in the early 90s by Timothy Zahn,

they were using cloaked asteroids like a cloaking

device to assault Coruscant. But they weren't

as sophisticated as in Star Trek. You can move,

you can even fire out of a cloak if you know

how to do it right. But in Star Wars, it's very

primitive cloaking. That's another example, too,

of something that we're getting to in real life,

too, now. Yeah, I mean, we do have the adaptive

camouflage for tanks. We even have, technically,

for all intents and purposes, we have the Harry

Potter invisibility cloak. It works like the

Predator because it bends light around you. So

it's kind of like in Ghost Recon Future Soldier,

a game that just came out a few weeks ago. That's

how that technology is meant to work. But anyway,

I think technology... in star trek is definitely

superior simply because it can do wonderful things

like replicators transporters warp drive is not

as fast as light speed because light speed accesses

hyperspace which is technically another dimension

you can travel clear across the galaxy in like

a couple of days in star trek that would take

you hundreds of thousands of years i mean well

i think it just Or a wormhole. It's like you

were saying before, the Star Trek is the more

realistic ones as far as... Oh, yeah. You know,

I mean, Star Wars is more out of this world,

like, with no limits, whereas Star Trek is trying

to kind of be in a universe with some rules,

you know, almost like this could be what civilization

would eventually go through and it's still abiding

by those rules. Yeah. Whereas Star Wars, it's

like... They take physics into account. I mean,

one of the things I love in the Star Trek Transporter,

there's something called the Heisenberg Compensator.

And the Heisenberg Compensator, it's basically

that random element in life, in reality and physics,

that says your molecule, like we were talking

about how it scans you in. The Heisenberg Compensator

makes up that random element. So when you transport

it, like in Spaceballs, your ass doesn't end

up in your front. It has to compensate for that

random chance element that something could move

on you. And that's what I like about Star Trek.

Like you said, they try and base it more in reality.

We've seen elements of this come to fruitation,

such as cell phones came out of the old flip

communicator, stuff like the Tupac hologram.

When you think about it, that's basically the

holodeck coming to life. part of it. And as video

games are progressing and we're getting more

virtual reality, that's why I'm saying the holodeck

is not that far off. A place where you can go

or a room that you can create in your own house

or something where you can totally interact with

the computer or the video game, etc. Or even

video communication as far as webcams or through

phones, Skype or whatever. All the web. or video

communication like you could see in both Back

to the Future or in Star Trek. Now, in Star Wars'

defense, there's some wonderful technology there.

For example, one of the things that was introduced

in the Dark Empire series of comic books was

something called the World Devastator. It was

basically a factory the size of a city that would

go down the planet, such as Mon Calamari. eat

it, and convert its raw materials in the TIE

fighters, ADATs, etc. Also, look at the cloning

facilities on Kamino. In Star Trek, cloning is

very much frowned upon. I mean, look what happened

with Khan, for example, and the eugenics wars

of the 1990s. Whereas in Star Trek, or sorry,

Star Wars, rather, they created an entire army,

trained them in utero. by implanting flash memory

onto them so they would grow up, they'd train

some more, they'd be fully grown in like five

to seven years. So certain technologies in Star

Wars are light years more advanced than Star

Trek. I'm trying to think of other really cool

tech. And that's again because there's no limits,

so to speak, in Star Wars. Yeah, I mean, they

have weapons that can create black holes. There's

a weapon someone creates that they steal an old

Death Star prototype and turn it into... the

dark saber, which is basically a mobile death

star laser. I mean, you're right. They're not

limited by physics or anything else. They, if

they want to make something that can blow up

a sun that fits in the size of your hand, they

can do that. Right. Um, I guess we can vote on

this one then. It sounds like, uh, Mike, you're

voting Star Trek on this one. Birdman. Yes. Yes.

Mike Blanchard. Star Trek. Mike Wilson. I'm going

to go with Star Trek. There's too many mics here.

I'm going with Star Trek as well, and that should

make Steve happy. Star Trek. All right. Sticking

with our kind of an example of technology here,

which franchise has better artificial life? the

artificial life forms, whether you want to look

at, like, a data or a lore in a Star Trek, whether

you want to look at all the different droids

in Star Wars, just any artificial life in general,

which franchise does it better? I know everybody

really hates the prequels in Star Wars, okay?

But I'm sorry, the best part of... those prequels

is the fact that you say R2 flying, you're going

to die. R2 fucking flies. And that's fucking

awesome. R2 actually gets in on the action. And

that was fucking awesome. I don't care what you

stupid fucking Canadian think. That was fucking

awesome. That was just offended a country. I'm

from Indiana and I didn't like that. I'm not

from Canada. So, no, I didn't like that at all.

We're talking about a droid that got stuck in

a sand dune. Why did he fly away? I don't know.

You know, it doesn't make any sense. Coming from

someone that likes Transformers animated, I thought

you would love that. I'm just kidding. Here we

go. On the other hand, I will say that I would

have preferred, I know this will never happen,

but back in the day, I would have preferred the

team -up of Data and R2 versus C -3PO and R2,

because C -3PO, honestly, he's not that good.

He's essentially a rust bucket falling apart

translator. And I think in one way, you're looking

at artificial life in Star Wars where it's more

quantity versus quality. And in Star Trek, it's

less quantity but really good quality. There's

barely any quantity. Does Star Trek have artificial

life forms outside of data and lore? The EMH?

Well, okay, we'll take the EMH, but he's a hologram

and not a robot. I really liked the EMH, and

one of the best parts for me of Voyager was watching

Robert Picardo's character evolve. But, you know,

still, you're looking at slim pickings here.

Well, then again, how do you determine our artificial

life? But I look at it as sentience, and one

of the things that's going to... put my factor

towards Star Trek in this one. Star Wars is really

cavalier with the way they treat droids. Because

let's just say, let's, okay, let me, let's go

around the room. Do you presume C -3PO and R2

-D2 as sentient beings? Do you see them as I

think, therefore, I am? I would say yes. Okay.

Star Wars at the end of, at the end of episode

three. Will this mind wipe them? What? That's

murder. They don't get mind wiped. Well, artificial

life in Star Wars consists of droids that haven't

had a recent memory wipe because they develop

personalities outside of their initial programming

by gaining experience in the world. So experience

shapes their outlook just like real people. And

you could, tell me if I'm wrong here, but couldn't

you also, wasn't it referenced that you could

wipe the memory of data as well? You could, but

data, would be able to defend himself, whereas

C -3PO and R2, they just accept it. Well, not

defend himself if you turn him off at the neck.

Doesn't matter. He still has preventative stuff

in place. Right. I'm just saying it could be

done. Right. And that argument makes a perfect

point because actually C -3PO wanted his memory

erased. He wanted to forget all about everything

that happened in the prequels. Well, there's

a conspiracy theory that... No, he didn't. Well,

regardless, whoever owns them is going to wipe

his memory if they're smart. There's a conspiracy

theory that says that... Yeah, exactly. They

say that R2 -D2 is actually a secret agent for

the Rebels. All the way back from the prequels.

And that's why he never got a memory wipe. Right.

Or no one thought he or no one respected him

enough because he was only an astromech. So there's

second -class citizenry there. Well, I think

it also goes to kind of what we were talking

about with the last point a little bit, too,

with technology is, you know, in the Star Wars

universe, there's no limits. It's just like we

could easily create this stuff. Droids exist

everywhere. All races seem to have access to,

you know, dozens and dozens of a variety of droids,

whereas the Star Trek... you know in their universe

it's something like it should be that's much

more hard harder to to build to create to you

know bring into existence which is why we only

have a couple because it's not something that's

so easily done and replicated what i meant earlier

about that c -3po wanted his his memory erased

didn't he say in the beginning of episode four

i hate all this war stuff i just wish that they

would erase he said something to the effect of

he wanted his mind wiped when they were on the

ship in the very beginning Not that I can recall,

unless someone wants to pull up the script right

now, it'd be in the first 10 pages. But I don't

think so. Now, there was a comic book series

where someone reprogrammed him to be the leader

of a droid rebellion, I think, once again from

Dark Horse. But I think Star Trek treats it a

lot better because there's an episode of Star

Trek The Next Generation where Captain Picard

has to defend Data's right not to be disassembled.

And then the doctor appeals to the Federation

Council to recognize photonic life forms as a

new form of life, as he is an artificial intelligence.

And they ruin his favor that he's not necessarily

a sentient being, but they recognize his play

as a protected work of art, which means he's

an author and protected by law. I feel the Star

Trek universe respects artificial life more because

there are artificial intelligence. Think how

many episodes have the holodeck going nuts and

creating holographic characters for all intents

and purposes are alive. Whereas Star Wars, they

are tools meant to be used. And if you don't

like them, just mind wipe them. Who cares? Yeah.

Disposable citizenry. I realize I'm taking the

high moral road on this, a very geeky discussion.

I recognize that. But I think it's something

to think about, too. I mean, data, lore, the

EMH. There's several EMHs that have gone on.

There was an EMH that got left in the Delta Quadrant

that was part of a doctor's backup memory pod.

There was copies of the doctor left behind in

a world where they didn't have music. I don't

know. I feel like artificial life has more of

a chance to explore and grow its character potential.

I think partially due to the strength of the

writers from Star Trek, whereas George Lucas,

as much as I enjoy a galaxy far, far away, doesn't

know anything about character development, truthfully.

For me, what it boils down to is who is the more

valuable asset? Data or any droid? Data. I mean,

it's hands down. Yeah. Data. So that's why, as

far as a likable character, a character with

incredible amount of depth, like Mike was referring

to, I just like the way artificial life is handled

by Star Trek better, and that's who gets my vote,

is Star Trek. Blanchard? Star Trek. And I will

say, I just finished listening to the Nerdist

podcast episode with Brent Spiner. He does a

perfect impression of Patrick Stewart. Brent

Spiner's awesome. Birdman, who's your vote for?

I have to go with Star Trek because of Data and

because of the EMH. Mr. Wilson, I just like calling

you that. You can call me that. Blanchard does.

I'm going to have to go against you guys and

go with Star Wars just based upon personality

alone. Because Data doesn't have a personality.

He's got zero personality. No, he's got a personality.

Whereas even R2 -D2, who doesn't speak, has more

personality than Data. Data's personality evolves

as the series goes on, as does the EMH. So it's...

I'm still going Trek. Alrighty. So that settles

that one. And we're moving away from... We've

talked about vehicles and weapons and technology

and artificial life. So now we're going to move

into... actual life here and get away from metal

and all that stuff. And our first category for

that is the different alien races and which franchise

had the better alien races, better creations,

etc. So with Star Trek, we're talking about stuff

like the Bajorans, the Borg, Betazoids, Cardassians,

Ferengis, Klingons, Romulans, Vulcans, etc. Star

Wars, we have the Ewoks, the Gungans, the Hutts,

the Jawas, the Tuskens, the Wookiees. Mon Calamari,

Neimoidians, Mandalorians, et cetera, et cetera,

et cetera. It's a trap. It's a trap. It's some

crap. Can I start this one off? Yeah, go ahead.

I want to get out of the soapbox for a moment

here because this is near and dear to my heart.

It's fun, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. All right, here

we go. Without a doubt. Star Wars has better

aliens. And I'll back this up here. The problem

with the Star Trek aliens are that they almost

always look like humans with stuff on their heads.

And I understand that that's because this is

a TV show and they're limited in that way. But

also each alien species has an underlying trait

with little exceptions for each character within

that species. So Klingons are ruthless barbarians.

Ferengi are greedy and conniving. Vulcans show

no emotion. And that is their character, for

the most part. Star Wars has a lot of variety

in its alien species. They come in all shapes

and sizes, and they speak all sorts of languages,

because there's no universal translator here.

So they have slug people, they have Bigfoot people,

they have teddy bear people. Humans are the standard,

and the Empire is even prejudiced against aliens.

I mean, they hate aliens. Would they hate them

as much if they all looked like us with stuff

on our heads? I don't know. So the Empire is

racist. They are all racist, yeah. Way to go,

George Lucas. You racist bastard. That's not

a slight against George Lucas. I know, I'm just

saying. Not that at all. But does Admiral Ackbar

look like a human? Well, no, because his hands

are huge and webbed in his head. I was convinced

I was going to be all about Star Trek in this

one, and you're making me think about stuff now.

It's a trap. You can tell that Ackbar's from

a water planet just by the way he looks. But

he wouldn't develop two legs, though. He can

swim like a motherfucker. His personality, what

does a fish guy act like? No, he's a general.

Exactly, yeah. He's a general. He acts with authority.

Do all Calipharians sit around and go, it's a

trap? No, it's just him. Do all Borgs sit around

and go, you will be assimilated? Yes, because

with little exception, that is their character.

Okay, then why do all the Nemoidians sound like

stereotypical Japanese people then? Well, they

might sound the same, but I understand what he's

saying, but I think the argument there would

be the Tusken Raiders and possibly the Jawas,

because they do basically have a trait, so to

speak, for their race, and all of them fall into

that, so to speak. I understand what you're saying,

and it applies with a lot of the other alien...

that we encounter in Star Wars, but there are

a couple that would fit into your Star Trek mold,

too. There are reasons why all the Star Trek

aliens look alike. There was an episode in Star

Trek The Next Generation where Captain Picard

and the crew of the Enterprise are looking for...

There was a guy called Professor Galen, and he

left behind all these clues, and there was traces

of an alien civilization that seeded the entire

galaxy. Boringest episode ever. I thought it...

I thought it was cool in the idea. But think

about that. That's why all the Alpha Quadrant

races look the majority the same. And you could

expand that to the Delta Quadrant and Gamma Quadrant

too, I guess with the exception of the founders.

But stuff like that. I mean, that's a possible

explanation, and I realize that's a cop -out.

I really do. But there are races in Star Trek

that are not. the same there's like dolphin people

and stuff like that like they they have to fill

quarters with water for them to be on the enterprise

there actually is a kind of a funny article over

on toplessrobot .com uh it talks about some of

the lamest star trek aliens and it's whenever

they try and break the mold of hey we're just

people with shit on our heads um so i mean There

were plenty. Yeah, I think it's only fair that

we there are plenty of Star Trek villains that

that are more animal like or more creature like

more monster like they just none of them were

able to get a, you know, a main recurring, you

know, presence in the television budget. Right.

But I'm just saying, I mean, let's not say that

all aliens in Star Trek are human looking or,

you know, this or that, because obviously there

were plenty that were pretty ferocious or weird

or. ridiculous looking whereas there's really

no human almost no human like i mean there are

but there's a very slim pickings as far as human

like villain or alien races in star wars yeah

a lot of diversity five off the top of my head

that's what i'm saying there's a few but it's

it's a much more slim picking than i mean you

could name 20 or 30 of the more monster slash

animal like aliens yeah i i and The only place

you really see the super weird aliens is in the

comic books or in the novels. Or in Jabba's Palace.

I mean, there were a lot of weird aliens in Jabba's

Palace. Yeah, but in the end, they're just kind

of stupid -looking Muppet people. I mean, I'm

looking specifically at Yakbait. Oh, God. Oh,

God. He did not just go there because the first

thing I thought of was Empire had the better

ending. All Jedi had was a bunch of Muppets.

It's true. See, I hate Jedi. fucking muppets

but honestly though i take it you're not a farscape

fan then not oh well that that blue guy is kind

of cool um but you know there's just things about

star wars and some of their and like i said i'm

a huge star star wars nut really you should see

my bookshelf it's depressing and sad um but i

don't know I'll have to take a picture, dude.

It's buckling under the weight of all the Star

Wars graphic novels. Anyway, moving on. Aliens,

yes. I think Star Wars has more fantastic and

more creative people, but alien races in Star

Trek, they're cultured, there's a reason why

they're the way they are, and there's more...

more politics at play than, oh, you broke our

blockade and trade tariffs. You know what I'm

saying? That's all there is is politics. Every

episode is them sitting around a table politicking.

So let me see. Better written versus dramatic

action. That's a different section. Then it has

to do with intelligence levels. Yeah, I mean,

although I think some of the alien... Oh, sorry.

I was just going to say, as far as intelligence,

I mean, both franchises have some very, very

highly intelligent alien races. And both have

some very low, on the intelligence scale, intelligent

alien races. I don't think there's... I just

had a thought. Do you know why Star Trek wins

this argument for one simple, for two simple

reasons? Q, the Borg. Q, I invite you. Gone.

But true, he exists. And there's the Q continuum.

What do you guys have? As you put it, teddy bear

people. You stole my joke, damn it. The Borg.

I don't like you. Exactly. I would be offended

if there was an omnipotent god character in Star

Wars. It's wicked. To me, that just isn't...

I don't know. I'm partially offended that it's

in Star Trek. I mean, it's literally just such

a sad cop -out. And they did it so often in the

60s series. I'm on a planet and I can't get off

the planet because there's an omnipotent god

creature here. They only had an omnipotent being

once. Well, no, it's like Scooby -Doo. They always

find out, oh, it's not really a mummy, it's actually

a guy in a mask. Oh, there's a mirror over here

that's the source of the power, and if I destroy

the mirror, oh look, there's a computer that

gives him, you know, omnipotency. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, and that happened like ten times in the

original series. Pay no attention to that Wookiee

behind the curtain. I'm starting to think that

Mike is here only for comedic relief. I'm just

kidding. I don't know, I think you all bring

up... Excellent points. Man, I like the alien

races of both franchises for completely different

reasons. The more I think of it, though, in the

alien races in Star Wars, the only reasons I

like some of them are more... for individual

people within those alien races and the personalities

that they have, you know, like a Chewbacca or,

you know, like a Wicked or some of the different

Ewoks, et cetera, or Jabba the Hutt. Like, it's

more of the individual personalities, whereas

in the Star Trek, if you're looking at alien

races, I like them for the alien race in general.

Like, Klingons are just badass. Like, Klingons

are awesome. I like that. You know, Vulcans and

Romulans. Backing up my argument. Right, but...

It still leaves me in a conundrum as far as which

alien race I like better as far as which franchise

did them better. I mean, one put more emphasis

on the individual and one put more emphasis on

the race as a whole. I'm torn. Someone convince

me. Come to the dark side. We have cookies. Resistance

is futile. We have cookies. I mean, it's clear

that, Wilson, you're voting for Star Wars. I'm

going to go with Star Wars. And I think it's

clear that either Birdman or Steve, one of you,

is going to go for Star Trek, I know. Oh, yeah.

Trek all the way. I'm going Trek all the way.

I just can't sit behind teddy bears and these

goofy -looking fish people that are pretty much...

I mean, seriously. They got a giant freaking

blob. They got teddy bear people. They got people

that wear hoods. And then they've got fish people.

And not one of them looks like a dude with a

thing on his head. Yeah, compared to humans with

wrinkles on their face. I can deal with that.

I'd rather have something where they don't go...

The point is, they're aliens. They should be

alien. They shouldn't look like us. All right.

I'm voting Star Wars. And, yeah, dink, dink,

dink, dink, dink, dink, dink, dink, dink. Yeah,

you're a dink, dink, dink, dink, dink, dink.

I'm double -edged. Worthy of assimilation. I

almost should eliminate Star Wars just for Jar

Jar Binks. Shut the hell up. He's the exception

that proves the rule. So let me see. You have

annoying Japanese stereotypes. You have annoying

Jamaican stereotypes and fucking teddy bear people.

We have John Delancey and the Borg. Yeah. I think

as far as who created the more, I think there

was more creative as far as in the actual physical

characteristics and the look and the creation

aspect of the Star Wars alien races. But something

is just cool, though, about Klingons and Romulans.

And, you know, yeah, not all of them had their

specific. But who's your favorite Klingon? Worf.

Well, he doesn't count. You have Worf and Spock.

So, I mean, you do have some that has some individual.

I'm not talking about Spock as a Klingon. I'm

talking about in their alien races. You do have

some. You get your personality in a few of them.

I'm going to vote for Star Trek on this one.

There's something cool about Klingons and Vulcans

and Romulans, etc. I don't know. It's bullcrap.

It's bullcrap. We can't repel assets of that

magnitude. I am learning, though, through this.

I did not realize, Steve, that you're so pro

-Star Trek in this argument. Oh, he is. He is

very pro -Star Trek. Hence Future Imperfect.

I know, but Birdman's a part of that, and he's

huge Star Wars. I love Star Wars, too. But I

love Star Trek more. Moving on. For this one...

If you go to any geek outlet or anybody that's

ever tackled this question, it's always hands

down. This is like one of the biggest landslides

for one franchise ever. And I'm interested to

see how we discuss it. But the women of the different

franchises, we're talking about Star Trek hotties

versus Star Wars hotties. Not just limited to

the ones we're talking or, you know, that we'll

picture in the post. And you guys can mention

some of your favorites or whatever. But as far

as when it comes down to the women in the two

universes. Mike? Um... Ah, God. Don't limit it.

Just by these pictures, because this is really

all that I know, I have to go Trek, because...

Goddamn right you do! The simple fact that Queen

Amidala is the whitest albino I've ever met,

outside of Snowball Sailor. Padme, without the

makeup, she's essentially a fake Leia because

they had to put on those earmuffs. Leia herself,

while the bikini is all well and good, there

are so many damn people that cosplay as Leia

in the bikini and it just ruins the illusion.

That's hot ass bitches in a metal bikini. Natalie

Portman's hot. The problem, this is one of George

Lucas' feelings though, is he did not put...

hot women in his universe. No, he did not. Star

Trek would have them all over the place. Not

only do you have some of the main crew members

of Star Trek, but just look at the fact that

you always had Captain Kirk or Captain Picard

or whoever macking on some chick or coming across

some chick, especially Captain Kirk. He had hotties

of the week, it seemed like. Even in the movies.

That's just something you can appreciate of Star

Trek. I mean, I don't see the appeal of... I've

never seen the appeal of Princess Leia and I've

never seen the appeal of Counselor Troi. I don't

get it. I don't get why people think those two

individuals are hot. I'd still boner. If you're

pitting those two, I'd still say Leia over Troi,

but... But I mean, I know a lot of people that

are huge fans of one franchise or the other point

to those two as the hottest ones or something.

But Star Trek, I mean, look at Zoe Saldana in

the last movie. She's freaking hot. And it's

seven of nine, Jerry Ryan. Jerry Ryan is hot.

I actually met Jerry Ryan once, and I almost

hyperventilated. That wasn't all he did. I mean,

it's basically like you have dozens and dozens,

maybe even hundreds of women on the Star Trek

side, and you have like two or three on the Star

Wars side, and then you have to go into weird

-looking aliens. Yeah. Although, weird piece

of trivia, the woman who plays Isla Secura, the

blue Twilight chick, I think her real name is

Amy. She's actually... Model. No, she's an ILM

artist. She worked on episode two. That's why

she's in the movie. she's like guys we need somebody

okay i'll do it there was a few models somewhere

in the prequels i think in in the queen's group

or this or that i mean so there was a few but

i mean as far as actual yeah well and besides

her too but you know if you want to actually

talk about characters with names and personalities

it's you don't have a lot to choose from for

star wars i don't know why there wasn't more

women in star wars well okay not not going off

screen time Well, not going off Expanded Universe

for either franchise, just looking at the TV

shows and the movies of Trek versus six Star

Wars films. You're not going to have a lot of

hot women in six films. Because you don't have

a lot of time for character development. Exactly.

And one of the reasons why I can't pick Star

Wars in this is because, I don't know, and Steve

and Dodd can correct me on this, I don't know

if there was ever any incest. in Star Trek, but

there's plenty of incest in Episode 4. There

was one kiss. What are you talking about? It

was a kiss on the cheek. It's not like she blew

him. There's no incest. Incest is... There's

a connotation there that you know. There's a

connotation there that you know the person's

related to and you decide you don't care. You

can't accuse someone of being incestual if they

don't freaking have a clue. I mean, we're all

incestual. I think that was episode five, by

the way. If you want to be... She kissed Luke

to make Han jealous. Yeah, but if you want to

be nitpicky, aren't we all incestual in some

way or shape or form as part of the human race?

No, not me. We all come from the same descendants.

Come on now. I was grown in a test tube. Thank

you very much. Is anybody even contemplating

throwing in a test? I hope Canada comes and fucks

you in the ass. That's okay. It will be the ultimate

day when Chad Groger comes to his door and says,

stop fucking talking about us and walks away.

I think I'm going to write him right now. I know

his agent. Hold on. Celine Dion's going to come

and mess you up. Is there anybody that's going

to venture and try to put themselves out there

and vote for Star Wars in this category? You

know, there was a day when I found Celine Dion

kind of hot, actually. I am right that this is

unanimous vote for Star Trek, right? Anyways,

voting time. No, it's just unanimous for Star

Trek, right? Yeah. Speak now or forever hold

your peace. The terrible things I would do to

Seven of Nine, just saying. There's only one

worth a damn in Star Wars, and that's... Natalie

Portman? Yes. Natalie Portman is a less curvy

Kira Knightley. I can't get down with that. They're

both hot. I've seen them both hopeless. I'm totally

cool with that. But for the purpose of this,

I'd have to go Trek. For the purpose of this

discussion, I just want to throw one thing out.

I'm going to vote for Star Trek. Star Trek gets

the win for me because... Basically the same

reason that they lost in the last category, which

is all the aliens look like people with stuff

on their heads. But we can let this slide because

that's so attractive. Really hot people with

stuff on their heads are still really hot, right?

It helps that the standard Starfleet -ish uniform

for women is a catsuit. And sometimes it's low

-cut with a miniskirt, which doesn't hurt. There

is something we should mention. I mean, we are

basing this purely on looks. I mean, should we

look at them as individual characters as well?

Because Princess Leia, I mean, I don't find her

a particularly strong character, all things considered,

when you compare them to some of the other Star

Trek characters. She's a princess and a general.

She's just not very pretty. Yeah. And a Jedi.

She's a Jedi. Come on, we're all Jedi. It's all

based on that. We're all shallow, basically.

Well, no, if you look at a lot of the Star Trek

characters, if you look at the Star Trek characters,

their progress, their character development,

it's like seven of nine goes from being Borg

to somebody halfway normal. Well, you can't really

say Zoe Saldana, but if you look at like T 'Pol,

her character, there's a lot of character growth

there. up until they mercilessly cut that series

short far beyond this time. I think we had a

GCR and Wars foul, though. Mike just mentioned

bringing class into a geek debate. That's not

allowed. Oh, we're not classy here, no. You can't

have any class. All right, I vote Star Trek.

All right, it's a clear -cut winner there in

that category. This next one is going to seem

kind of a bit... I don't know, manipulated or

weirdly juxtaposed or whatever you want to say

here, but we've put for Category 8 Starfleet

versus the Jedi as far as which was the better

organization. We wanted... a way to talk about,

you know, not just all the captains, but Starfleet

in general as an organization. And we wanted

to be able to talk about the Jedis and their

organizations. And Steve brought up some good

points as to, you know, they are both kind of

like the peacekeeping organizations of their

respective franchises. So that's who we're pitting

against each other in category eight. Does anybody

want to take a stab at starting this one? Can

I? Sure. All right. I'm going to fall back on

my apples and oranges again. It's hard to make

a comparison here because these are two very

different organizations. Starfleet is a government

operation organized like a military organization.

They have a guy at the top, followed by a set

of admirals, followed by the commodores, and

then the captains, and then the crew. So it's

roughly analogous to our current Navy. Whereas

the Jedi Order is a group of individuals that

take leadership from a council consisting of,

I think it's nine Master Jedi. The only ranks

involved are that of learner, knight, and master.

You can have different specializations of Jedi,

but they're all beholden to the council. So it's

more like a religious order than a government

organization. So you can't really say... There

is also no... What? One at a time. It's hard

to say which is better. It depends on if you

think orders should come from the top and filter

down, or if you think that each person should

decide his or her own destiny with training and

consideration from a mentor. One of the things

I don't like about the Jedi and the Jedi Council

in general is there is no democratic process.

Think about it. People are not elected. They

choose. They're an order unto themselves. They

are not responsible to the people. And I think

in Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic, they're

a separate faction, which means they can pretty

much do what they want. They listen and advise

the Galactic Senate, as far as I understand.

They are both there, though, to try to keep peace

amongst their respective galaxies. But it's not

to say they couldn't do something wrong. Well,

not to say either. Jedi can be corrupted. Right,

and Santa Captain could be traitorous. Yeah,

but the dark side is a mystical side of the force.

When someone decides to go bad, it's because

of a very earthly reason, greed or something

else. If someone turns to the dark side, it could

be something mystical entirely. I'm not sure

I want us a super -powered army of mystical individuals

who could kick my ass at a distance in charge.

Starfleet, there's at least a process to it,

and they do have their own internal security

to weed out threats and Section 31. And I think

what we're forgetting here is that between the

two franchises, as Mike just said, they are a

governmental body. Whereas by the time Episode

4, 5, and 6 have happened in the continuity of

the films, they've destroyed the government.

They've destroyed all order when it comes to

the Galactic Senate and all that stuff. So that's

the other thing to think of. I guess, I don't

know. To me, though, to me, I don't know. The

Jedi Order, it's so... well put together and

I know there's much more of a hierarchy in Starfleet

but you could have one Jedi way off in this corner

of the world and one Jedi way off on this planet

and there still is that like the overarching

principles that they live by keeps them as one

and they're even though they're so spread out

they're capable of so much whereas Obviously,

Starfleet is a lot more dependent on a large

number of people that are making this whole hierarchy

and the crews and all these ships everywhere.

It requires a lot more manpower. Who said the

Jedi was like a religious order? Me. Oh, okay.

I was going to say I hate you, Dodd, because

I thought it was Dodd that said it because the

first thing I thought of was Anakin's a bad priest.

Well, have you noticed that, like, basically

the basic uniform of a Jedi is a Jesuit robe.

That's not a mistake. I mean, they're supposed

to be religious. Right. They're warrior monks

with laser swords. Oh, God. But I guess, I mean,

if you... are going to be living in a universe

that is protected by Starfleet versus living

in a universe that is protected by the Jedi Order.

Which would you prefer, I guess, is what it comes

down to. I think we have to look at their greatest

failures first. Let's look at the Jedi. The Sith

Uprising, they didn't see happening in their

own fucking backyard. Starfleet's greatest failing.

Well, there are several. You could look at the...

Wolf 359, where we lost against the Borg, or

I'm thinking failure as an organization, the

Maquis from DS9. Oh, good call. Yeah. So their

greatest strength will be determined by their

greatest weakness. The Jedi were blinded. Let

me see. Count Dooku. He's not capable of this.

He's not in his character. Did you fucking talk

to anybody? Do you not realize he's a fucking

Looney Tune with all your missing cars? You didn't

see this shit coming? You have clairvoyance of

the future. Maybe you should use it. Oh, yeah.

And there's like nine of you. Starfleet. There's

like, what, a thousand, if not more? But then

again, planets. But that nine, you know, whether

it be nine or however many few it dwindled down

to, you know, if you go into expanded universe

or this or that or during, you know, really delve

into the Clone Wars period. with that limited

number, look at what they were capable of and

eventually, you know, obviously, you know, blah,

blah, blah, restore an order or, you know, coming

out on top. And then they got taken out by clone.

And then they got shot by poor clone troopers.

No, I'm talking about afterwards. I'm talking

about long term they were successful. Yeah. Look

at the technology they have as well. We've already

said that, like, light speed is faster than warp

drive. So, if I had a problem on my planet, I

could either, you know, have, a Jedi here tomorrow

to settle things, or I could wait two weeks for

Starfleet to send the Enterprise. No one's ever

used ludicrous speed before! You are the weakest

link, goodbye. No ludicrous speed, exactly. So

you've got one Jedi flying into the system to

take care of business, right? Versus, you know,

an entire ship coming in. Unless they get over

their head like in episode one. Or Episode 2.

Or Episode 3. They weren't over their head. They

were cool. They're always over their head. This

is what I don't trust. And maybe it's just my

political science background, etc. But there

is so much more red tape, politics, and government

bureaucracy to deal with in Starfleet that I

don't necessarily... If I want to pick who to

be protected by or which universe to live in,

I trust... what the Jedi can do and what they

are capable of without having to go through all

the proper channels and the red tape and the

corrupt politicians that could be taking place

in Starfleet. Now I realize that there are some

people that defect and there are some, you know,

there's, it's not just a happy family in the

Jedi order, so to speak, but to me, I don't want

to be protected by a political body as much as

Starfleet is way more political than the Jedi

order. I trust people that I voted for. Well,

you're not voting for Starfleet, though. Well,

the people still have a kind of voice in it,

though. Starfleet is not a political body as

much as it is a military organization. It's the

Navy. But if you applied to the Federation...

Well, you think the League of Planets has an

army? Or is it just the Navy? Well, there are

Starfleet Marines. politicking organizations

going on here. Not just the Navy. I like the

idea of a group that is in charge that has just

this body, this council, whether it be nine people

or just a small number of people. I like that

so much better than this. We have this guy at

top and then he funnels down and makes the orders

for these six down here and then that goes down

to 24 and then down to 50 and it's just this

whole hierarchy where I just... there's always

more opportunities for corruption or for people

who are out for personal gain or for where the

Jedi, they live by these principles that, for

the most part, I know the movies highlight a

few people that fall from those graces, but for

the most part, live by these principles that

do not fail. Right. You know what I mean? They

all live by their own principles, and that is

the most important part for them. Whereas I just

don't know if I can trust. I love the captains.

I think the captains are awesome in Starfleet.

You know, Kirk and Picard and all those guys.

But you can't trust that many people and that

much of a chain of command, I don't think. Maybe

that's just because I live in our planet where

that does not work. All right. On that note,

let's vote. Alright, who would rather live in

a galaxy ruled or protected by the Starfleet?

I'm going Starfleet because I trust the organization

of people that are just like me and are not mystical

supermen. Ditto. For the opposite, I want the

Jedi because I'd rather have people that have

almost godlike powers protecting me. So I will

go for Starfleet. But they can abuse it like

the Sith. Yeah, but they're here to protect us

against the Sith. Star Wars hands down for me

on this one. Same for me. Take your chances,

Palpatine. Star Wars. Alrighty. We got two more

categories before we take a small break here.

And the first one, since we kind of introduced

characters here in the last couple, I just want

to take all general good, heroic... characters

here in category nine, the major good characters

of each franchise. So anybody that you can think

of that was the heroic or good characters in

Star Trek versus the heroic or good characters

in Star Wars, which franchise did a better job

with the heroes? Oh, is this even a question?

Star Trek, Star Wars. Well, let's discuss. Alright,

explain to me how Mannequin Skywalker improved

the lives of people across the galaxy. How many

people had this guy? He brought balance to the

force, ultimately. Okay, fair enough. Yeah, by

having kids. Oh, they got a whole series called

The Clone Wars that talks about how Anakin was

a good guy before he became evil and killed all

his friends. Okay, so let me see. So you have

six films, maybe thirty... to 40 episodes of

a series versus seven seasons of Star Trek TNG,

three seasons of the original series. I think

there's a lot more time for Star Wars, Star Trek

characters to create more good in the universe.

Plus, Picard is the master of diplomacy. And

Benjamin Sisko stopped the war. Captain Maul

from Firefly, first off. Han Solo is one of the

best characters ever. But think, really? look

into his character though think about that i

think han is the anti -hero he's not really first

huh only in the first movie though well right

but okay but that's what i'm saying when we first

meet him he is an anti -hero that's what establishes

him and then he eventually joins the I wouldn't

necessarily even call him an anti -hero because

it means he'd have to have a personal stake in

it. It isn't until he becomes anti -hero until

he rescues Luke from being shot by Vader. Other

than that, he's a mercenary. True. He's fighting

for money. Whereas in Star Trek, you don't see

a lot of merc characters. You see mercenary -like

races such as the Ferengi and the Rules of Acquisition,

but that's just capitalism gone rampant. But

what I'm saying is Star Trek... accomplished

so much more for their heroic characters. Heroic

characters had arcs. I mean, think about how

well -defined any of the characters are in Star

Wars. It's the story, but the characters, when

you think about them, are actually kind of bland.

I'm just real curious to go around the table

here. Your favorite good character from each

franchise? Mine would be Han Solo and Commander

Riker. Obi -Wan and probably Janeway for me.

Steve? Do you have a favorite good character

in Star Trek? I have multiples in Star Trek.

You fence sitter. Come back to you. Blanchard,

do you have a favorite in either one? I would

have to say Captain Picard and Old Ben. Old Obi

-Wan. Gotcha. How about you, Mr. Wilson? I'm

having trouble thinking. Who's my favorite captain?

I'm still on the fence as far as Picard versus...

Kirk. Although I would be leaning toward Picard.

Me too. Yeah. But yeah, I don't know. I think

there are a lot of cool, good characters in Star

Trek. Obviously you have, you know, you first

and foremost think of the crew of each ship.

And I am a huge Next Generation fan and just

Geordi and Worf and Data and... Riker, and I

mean, there's so many good characters to love

or to really get into. You know, Star Wars, I

love old Obi -Wan, and I love Han Solo and Chewbacca,

but after that, I mean, does anybody really love

Lando? And what have we here? He's a fluent Jedi,

at least. Eh, boo. I think both franchises have

good characters. You know, have good characters,

if that makes any sense. They're strong and multi

-layered. And Star Wars, what differentiates

it, I believe, from Star Trek is that it sticks

pretty closely to the hero's journey for its

good guys. I mean, and this works well for movies

versus television. Television, you have a long

series that you have to slowly build. You have

character development over a long period of time

versus in a movie where stick to the hero's journey.

You can't fail, right? Star Trek gives you a

whole bridge crew of leading characters, and

they're all good guys, and they all have their

agendas and such, and they all grow over time.

But Star Wars is more fantasy. versus Star Trek,

which is more realist. So if you like science

fantasy versus hardcore science fiction, then

you're going to go with Star Wars. It just depends

on your preference. For me, I don't know. For

me, I think it just comes down to the number

of good guys that I really felt connected to

or attached. I know that there was multiple,

lots and lots of different series of Star Trek,

and there's lots of movies, etc., etc., but I

really only paid attention to a couple of those.

So for me, the number of characters to choose

from is not that different, even though for most

people it would be. But I still find more likable,

good characters in the Star Trek universe. So

my vote will be for Star Trek on this one. Blanchard?

Who do you like? Which good characters do you

like better? I gotta go with Star Wars. Fair

enough. Michael Wilson. I'm just gonna leave

you with this. How many of these characters have

you actually cheered for? Everybody should have

cheered for Luke. Everybody cheers for Luke.

And, you know, it's like, I can't count on one

hand how many times I've cheered for a Star Trek

character. You know, maybe... Possibly Data at

the end of First Contact. Nemesis? What? No,

First Contact. Nemesis doesn't friggin' count.

Nemesis doesn't count, yeah. At the end of First

Contact, I may have cheered for Data. But, I

mean, literally, how many times have you stood

up and just cheered? Like, yeah! You know, no.

When the Death Star blew up? Yeah! When Luke

swings across the chasm with Leia and she gives

him a kiss for luck. Yeah! You know, I mean,

there's just so many times where you just want

to get up and rise to your feet and go, you know,

just express your disbelief and gratitude at

how awesome these guys are. When Chewie nearly

took Luke's head off. Yeah! Yeah! Let the rookie

win. Yeah! You know, I mean, there's just so

many awesome moments where you just want to...

Express yourself. And I don't get that with Star

Trek. My main problem, though, is the headlining

good characters on Star Trek, for me, are likable.

And my favorite characters are some of the headliners.

Whereas Star Wars, your two headliners are Luke

and Anakin. And to me, those are two of the least

appealing good characters in the whole universe

for Star Wars. Because they're not developed,

really. Well, it's not just that. Luke is developed

to a certain point, though. It's not developed.

Luke is, well, Anakin is more developed than

any of them, but it's not just the development

standpoint. I just don't think they're likable.

No matter what stage of development you are in,

I've never been a fan of Luke Skywalker. Everybody

liked Han Solo better, or everybody liked Obi

-Wan better, or Yoda better. Where, as in Star

Trek, I mean, Picard and Kirk and some of these

headliners are so likable. I don't know. I think

the major flaw for me for good characters in

Star Wars is probably first and foremost with

Luke. I know everybody disses on Anakin, and

I think it's just a cop -out to just diss on

him and Hayden Christensen and all this other

stuff. But Luke, for me, is the problem. He just

wasn't a likable character for me. I don't want

him to be stupid. It's a hero's journey. He's

not supposed to be likable in the beginning.

In the beginning, it's... Well, at the beginning,

he's, you know, I was going into the Toshi station

for power converters, you know. It takes three

movies to get to the point where it's like, you

know, I am a Jedi like my father before me. And

you go, yeah! You know? At that point, it's like,

wow, look at where he's come from. Now he is

the man that he was meant to be. It's hard to

say. I didn't like Luke in the first movie because

he changes. He grows. He evolves. I don't like

him in any of the movies. I'm one of the biggest

Star Wars fans in the world, but he is one of

my least favorite characters in the Star Wars

universe. I'm assuming Birdman and Steve that

you're both voting for Star Trek on this one.

I have to, simply because of character development,

character arcs, and I think outside of, I mean,

Luke and all of them did one great deed, saving

the galaxy. How many times have the Star Trek

guys saved reality itself? More time to say.

Don't drag Q into this. Jesus. No, not even saying.

That's a great cop -out is what Q is. Actually,

I'm not even talking about Q. Actually, that

argument doesn't work, though, because the Jedi

have been around for so many thousands and thousands

of years that if you were to add it all up. No,

but I'm just saying if you were to add it all

up, the Jedi have saved the universe or the galaxy

far more than Starfleet, Enterprise, or Star

Trek could ever hope to. Like, that's not an

argument. And how well did that work out for

them? Yeah, but how many times have they been

overthrown? There was the Sith War. Hold on,

though. They were fine for 5 ,000 years. Neither

universe has been destroyed, so they both were

successful, and one has been around for thousands

more years. You can't say that the Jedi failed

because that's a bad argument. They succeed in

the end. They're still there. They're still present,

and things are still in order in the long run.

You can't take one battle and say... that they

failed. I mean, there was times I'm sure that

Starfleet failed that you've mentioned even.

Well, I'm looking at the history of Star Wars.

Okay. Well, in turn, you have to put it in relative

scale. The Jedi have failed more often than not.

Not if you count the number of times that they've,

I mean, we're talking about thousands and thousands

of years that they have been battling and battling

and battling. And there's no way if you were

to take a percentage wise, you would say that

they failed more times than they succeeded. But

you have to look at Star Trek. They're still

a relatively new world. I know, but I'm just

referring to the statement that you guys made.

You guys made the statement that Starfleet or

Star Trek has saved the universe more times than

not, and that's a bad argument because the Jedi

have saved it way more often. And my vote was

for Star Trek. Don't get me wrong here. But Star

Wars and the Jedi have saved the galaxy and their

universe exponentially more than anybody on Star

Trek could have. I see a vote change. I still

like the good guys in Star Trek, but I just want

to point out that that's a bad argument, because

Jedi have been around way too far and have done

way too much good, and in the end, both groups

have been successful. One Sith uprising versus

how many assimilations from the Borg? Well, it's

been many more than just one Sith uprising, if

you look at the entirety of Star Wars history.

I'm not saying it has been. There's like three

in there, I think. All right, well, let's flip

it to the other side of this. Which franchise

has had better villains? Which franchise has

had the better bad characters? And I'm going

to start this one off, because to me it's almost

a flip side of what we just talked about. To

me, Star Trek did better with the good characters,

but Star Wars did way better with the bad characters.

The bad characters... They're just more memorable,

I think. Star Wars, bad guys are more memorable

because they're so visually striking. Yeah. Like

Vader, your Palpatine, your Darth Maul, Count

Dooku, Darth Revan, Darth Plagueis. It just goes

on and on. But in Star Trek, you get villains

like Gul Dukat. He's a mastermind, I'd say, on

level with Palpatine in terms of intelligence.

Not necessarily pulling cool shit off like a

galaxy -wide coup, but he did do some pretty

impressive things. If he had a force, he might

be able to pull off a galaxy -wide coup. I'll

give him that. To me, it's weird because Star

Wars always obviously gets bashed on for character

development and this or that. And granted, a

lot of that is worthy. But as far as... It seems

almost that... The villains in Star Wars are

actually more developed than you see with most

of the villains in Star Trek. And that has to

do mainly because Star Trek is a TV series, so

you have a villain on usually for an episode

or for a couple episodes. So you don't have a

lot of time to develop individual villains because

it's more, not villain of the week, but it's

more, you know, they come and go so much. They

develop their alien races as a whole. But individual

villains that are memorable, you just don't see

that many of in Star Trek. I would argue that.

Because you look at villains like Khan, the Boar

Queen, Gol Dukat. Let me see. The exception of

the rule. The exception that proves the rule.

Not that many memorable bad guys on Star Trek.

On the other hand, you have... Darth Vader. Well,

I don't know. We'll put it this way. The Borg

Queen, I believe, could be totally trashed by

Darth Maul. And Darth Maul was totally trashed

by Obi -Wan, who was totally trashed by Darth

Vader. And Boba Fett could take out Khan. That

should have been in right there. Boba Fett. Boba

Fett, Khan, no contest. Boba Fett would kick

his ass. Boba Fett didn't. But Boba Fett didn't

get cool until the expanded universe. On film,

he's an idiot. Yeah, he got taken out by a blind

guy. The first time I saw that uniform, Boba

Fett was cool. Exactly. I don't care what color

it is. If it's a Macquarie white or a green or

any Mandalorian color. It didn't even have to

be Boba Fett. It's just Mandalorian armor. Cool.

Period. He could have been a cameo in one episode,

and that's all we ever would have saw of him,

and he would have never spoken. He still would

have been cool. Even in the Christmas special,

he was cool. Oh, wow. Damn. I don't know. To

me, this is just opposite. I think Star Trek

does better with the good guys. I think Star

Wars does better with the bad guys. I think Star

Wars has more memorable, but I think Star Trek

villains are maybe more... I think they, I don't

know. It's hard to compare, once again, because

of the scales we're talking about here. Galactic

Genocide versus, I don't know, like I said, I

think the Borg are a pretty convincing fucking

bad guy. I think they'd wipe out the Sith quite

heavily just due to sheer numbers. I mean, you

were saying Darth, or what was it, Darth Maul

could take out the Borg Queen? Yep. You know

why he couldn't? Because he's arrogant. The Borg

adapt. lightsaber is energy the force even technically

is energy itself the board palpatine would just

like send a lighting bolt down on the board and

it would just be done but it's energy yeah exactly

but yeah i mean it depends on how technical you

want to take this but in terms of sheer pop culture

memorability yeah darth vader he's fucking awesome

but when you think about it he got taken down

pretty easily in the movies I wouldn't say that.

Who are you referring to? What part of the movie

did he get taken down? I mean, he got taken down

by choice at the end. Think about how fierce

he fought, though. I mean, now, admittedly, because

it was a behind -the -scenes thing, they couldn't

go hardcore in episode four, and then it wasn't

until they brought in Nick Galliard for episode

five and six that the lightsaber fights stepped

up, but I'm probably... Nerd background, never

mind. It's, I don't know, just I don't see Vader

as much of a physical threat. He's basically

implied to be a huge physical threat. But I think

Grievous is a much more physical threat than

Vader, I guess. Well, physically, yeah, because

Vader is destroyed before he becomes Vader as

far as physicalness, you know, physicality goes.

But his power of the force is basically unrivaled

and it's not until he decides. But we never really

see it. well never really see it are you kidding

me did you not see the force choke scene in the

beginning of episode four okay so there's one

keep going you could do that i will yeah but

i'm saying other star trek characters okay q

let's compare them against q where's your vader

now there you go trying that dead horse back

out but it works does it not it doesn't count

Q is a writing crutch. Vader's power is there,

and nobody really takes him down. He lays his

life on the line to unify and bring balance to

the Force in the end. That's his own choice.

Nobody ever takes Vader down. Nobody ever defeats

Vader. The argument could be made that his will

gave out after Luke kept bashing him over the

head with the lightsaber, but... He sacrificed

himself to save his son. Right, that's true.

But what I'm saying is what led up to that is

the fact that Luke kept bashing him over the

head with a lightsaber. Right, because at any

point he could have choked the fuck out of Luke.

He wasn't trying to kill him. He wasn't trying

to kill him. He never intended to kill him. Right.

He couldn't have at any time. I'm saying if Vader's

such a badass, I never really saw it. And I love

Vader. Vader's one of my favorite all -time bad

guys. Let's let Steve weigh in, because I know

Steve wanted to say something. What do you got,

Steve? Well, for one, Don already said most of

what I was going to say. I do have to argue.

I mean, yeah, the Star Wars villains are more

memorable. You've got Vader and Palpatine. Those

are pretty much the... key too. The rest of them

are completely absent -minded for the most part.

Nobody cares because those were established back

in the 70s and so that's what everybody knows.

Whereas Trek has a long standing line since the

60s of continuous villains and then they didn't

actually get good until the 90s. It's not about

individual personalities. I understand. I talked

about the franchise overall. I'm not naming like

you were Borg or Klingons or whatever, but the

Star Wars villains, everybody kind of knows them

frontward and backward, whereas the Star Trek,

not so much. So in that sense, I can see Star

Wars winning, but I still, I don't know, I'm

kind of torn between the two at this point. You

have a strong bias. I have a strong bias on both

sides because I have a love for the villains

on the Trek side, and I have a strong bias for

the two Star Wars villains. I can see that. I

will wait until official voting begins before

I decide which way. Before we vote, I do want

to bring up one thing about one of the bad characters.

Actually, the family of bad characters here.

Worst deaths ever. You got decapitated and then

you got... And then your son got thrown to the

Sarlacc. Are you serious? The Fets are the worst

bad characters. We also didn't talk about Jabba

the Hood, too. That's true, but Jabba really,

he doesn't do anything. He's essentially the

fat Tony of the Star Wars universe. He doesn't

do shit. And Quark would honestly talk circles

around Jabba. It's true. rules of acquisition

Cork could be fed to a Rancor oh you're fucking

killing me Cork here here meet my Rancor meet

my Rancor and the Rancor's keeper who cries after

the door destroyed my pet I really did feel bad

for him I mean he really loved his Rancor Let's

get our actual official votes, though, for the

bad characters, starting with Mike Wilson. I'm

so Star Wars. As am I. Same here. Dodd? It doesn't

matter what Dodd thinks, because Star Wars clinches

it. See, on one hand, the Star Wars villains

are much more memorable. On the other hand, Star

Trek villains are much more capable. You know

what? Steve, you vote first, man. I've got to

think about this one. Let this percolate for

a minute. Percolate. Nice. Percolate it. Oh,

shit. It's harder. You two can vote for Star

Wars if it's possible. It is a tough choice.

I mean, look at how stupid Darth Maul was, all

things considered. Well, the only one... He came

back. The only one with a set of balls through

the entire thing of Star Wars was Palpatine.

I mean, granted, he was practically in all of

them except for one. Just because Vader had no

balls because it got radiated out of him. Oh,

God. I left my balls on his lava flow. He left

them so that Palpatine could twirl them in his

hand. You know, Velpatine is the puppet master.

So, I mean, in that sense, whereas Trek, they're

much more individual. So I'm going to have to

go Trek. I think I'm actually going to have to

agree with Steven. I think it comes down to capability.

Looking cool is one thing. Getting the job done

is quite another. Which Star Trek villain got

the job done? The Borg Queen. assimilated an

entire quadrant. Yeah, but she failed in the

end. Well, she failed herself. That was one head

figure. I'm just saying, neither franchise's

villains are successful. no you could argue and

i it's almost a personal preference bias yeah

right right well you could argue as far as like

which trek villains really got it done you could

argue and i've i've seen the film enough times

i should remember the damn dude's name but from

the abrams verse uh you know destroying yeah

yeah i want to say nemo jeez Nero. Destroying

Vulcan with red matter. I mean, that really got

the job done. That got Spock to pay attention

to shit. Yeah, he wiped out pretty much... There's

only 4 ,000 Vulcans left in the universe. Yeah.

I could say that Nero got it done. Palpatine

did annihilate entire races as well, so... That's

true, and he essentially disbanded the entire

governmental body. But some got away. There were

still... Jedi running around. And some Vulcans

got away as well. That's just the Jedi, the Senate.

Right, yeah. Yeah, that's getting the job done.

Alright, so with that I think we're going to

head to a break where you're going to hear some

Star Trek and Star Wars sound effects and musical

clips and whatever else and maybe some ads thrown

in. We'll be back after this. Hey, Shell. Oh,

good. You picked me. You picked me. No. I just

got a text from Stuart. Brent Spiner's at the

party. Brent Spiner? Yes. I don't care. Really?

Brent Spiner, Mr. Data himself, you love him.

I did, but I think I've kind of outgrown Star

Trek. Stock characters, ludicrous plots, beam

me up, what a load of hooey. I'm going. Live

long and prosper, Sheldon. Yeah, even that. You

look like a dork. Hey, Chuck. Hey, what's up,

Wright? You know how we talked about doing a

podcast? Well, I have some ideas run past you.

Yeah, what do you got? I thought we should base

it on comics. Well, there's thousands of podcasts

about comics. You kind of want to narrow it down

a bit. Well, what about Star Wars? Still, there's

a ton of those out there. What else you got?

We could always do G .I. Joe comics. There's

still a ton of those out there. What about the

80s franchises? There's already a few of those

as well. Well, let's forget about comics. Let's

focus on toys and action figures. Dude, then

we're back to thousands of podcasts. Well, is

anyone covering all those things I mentioned

in one podcast? No one would be crazy enough

to do that. Then that's what we'll do. Are you

serious? Yep. Come and listen to Star Joe's podcast.

You can find us at starjoes .com or find us on

iTunes. Yeah, we cover comics, TV shows, and

movies based on Star Wars, G .I. Joe, and all

your 80s favorite franchises. And don't forget

about the toys. How can we forget about the toys?

We also do tour reviews to help you decide what

to add to your collection. So come listen to

Star Joe's, where we hold nothing back, provide

quality entertainment, and remember, the Force

will be with you. Because knowing us is half

the battle. You can now hear the Geekcast Radio

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promo code geekcastradio when you register. All

right, the bathroom break is over, and it's time

for the second half. And we are starting it off

with category number 11, which is the overarching

universes of Star Trek and Star Wars. We're talking

the final frontier versus the galaxy far, far

away. Which universe was better? We're considering...

You know, animals, we're considering environments,

planets, terrain, species, everything and anything

that went into the creation of the actual universe

that these two franchises take place in. Who

wants to start us off here in the second half?

And on the eighth day, Lucas rested. As he decided,

back and forth, flip -flopping, who shot first.

oh god do we really have to get in that debate

and then he handed off the most cool aspects

to people who weren't himself just saying just

saying um we're not talking to no hold on i want

to i want to put a disclaimer here because we're

not talking about anything to do with you know

writing writing or anything else we're talking

about the the actual universe the planets right

universe that was created that these two things

take place in right For me, it goes to Star Wars.

Because of all of the different aliens that I've

seen within the six films, within the video games,

within all that stuff, within whatever animated

series was running at the time, even that crappy

Genndy Tartakovsky thing in 2005. I just enjoy

A Galaxy Far, Far Away more than The Final Frontier.

I think... I love them both. I think they're

both epically, you know, incredibly created universes.

They both have so much to offer. There's just,

I don't know, this one is hard. on some respects,

it kind of, if you're talking about the different

planets and really delving into the, the environments

of the planets and, and the, the plant life of

the plants and the species and the animal life

of the planets. I mean, Star Wars obviously does,

seems to do a better job with that because, you

know, we really get into what each planet consists

of. But if you're talking about, I don't know,

like the Star Trek, it seems like such a, I'm

torn here a little bit. Go ahead. It's a more

realistic universe. Star Trek is more, there's

gas giants, there's astronomical phenomenon.

Stuff makes sense. Star Wars is more fantastic.

There's worlds where there's entire cities made

out of crystals. There's cities that sing. There's...

you know, it's a much more interesting and complex

world where anything can literally happen. I

got to say a galaxy far, far away in terms of

an interesting place to see exist and live in

is better than the final frontier. As much as

I enjoy, you know, looking at quarks, pulsars,

neutron stars, et cetera. It's honestly, I'd

rather have a water world with a fantastic underwater

civilization than I would rather than looking

at a magnetar. If you were offered a guided tour

of one universe or the other, it would be more

appealing to go see all the different stuff that

the Star Wars universe consists of. Absolutely,

because there's nothing like that in Star Trek.

I mean, what's the coolest planet in Star Trek

that everybody knows? Risa, because it's a pleasure

planet. And as cool as that is, yeah, and the

holodeck, and that's not even real. Yeah, that's

some technology. In terms of things to see and

experience, it's got to be Star Wars. I've got

a question for you guys before Steve and Michael

give their thoughts. This just occurred to me.

In the Star Trek universe, there is a planet

Earth. Yeah, that's where the Federation is.

It is the planet Earth. Exactly. In Star Wars,

where the fuck do humans come from? As far as

I know, there's no planet Earth in Star Wars

in the universe. Because it is a galaxy far,

far away. Well, they're not... I guess they could

have just come from any number of different worlds

where they happen to share a common ancestry.

Because they can travel so much faster. That's

true, but I mean, if we're going to really debate

this as far as where did humans come from in

Star Wars, if there is no planet... You know,

going by real life and, you know... today's standards

of we are Earthlings, we live on planet Earth,

we eventually want to go out into the universe

to see if there's other life out there. In Star

Wars, all these other universes and planets that

have life on them, that's okay, that's fine,

but where did the fucking humans come from? Well,

they're just human -like. Yeah, exactly, human

-like. But I think in Star Wars, they get around

that by saying that... There's so much history

here. There's 5 ,000 years of recorded history.

Prior to that, you know, maybe there was an Earth

-like planet where humans evolved, and then they

began to spread out in a different planet. Because,

I mean, there's several planets of humans. You've

got Corellia. I don't want to say Tatooine, but,

you know. Yeah, it's not just like... Coruscant.

Well, Coruscant. Alderaan. Okay, we'll give it

that. Yeah, like Alderaan, exactly. I mean, there's

planets that are full of aliens, but there's

also a whole lot of planets that are just full

of humans. And they didn't all evolve simultaneously

on all these different planets. They came from

somewhere, but that's way back in prehistory.

Whereas in the Star Trek universe, their prehistory

is our prehistory. We know where humans came

from. And it's something Lucas never thought

of. Well, to me, this is the genius, and we'll

get into Lucas a little bit later, but this is

what Lucas did the best. This is his bread and

butter, is creating the universe, creating, like

I said, a planet with the plant life and the

animals and everything that goes with it. I mean,

this is his element here, the creative part of

the entire universe, and this is what made him

famous, is the universe creation of a galaxy

far, far away. He did everything he could to

fuck that up later, but the creation of the universe

was what he should be remembered for because

he created a universe that has spawned everything

else. Without this epic universe with all these

planets, with all these alien races and animals

and plants and everything, Star Wars does not

become as successful as it is. I don't think.

And I think with Star Wars, we're looking at

a galaxy far, far away. I mean, this is... The

whole galaxy. All the planets. Not just the people

that live on them, but planets. Even if it's

just force planets, ice planet, water planet.

It's Earth -like planet for Alderaan that eventually

gets blown up. Desert planet. But the planets

are there. They're named. Their denizens are

named. It's like Duros. We know that the Duros

live there. And specific animals are only capable

of living on that planet, etc., etc. Yeah, you

know, I mean, it's like we know Nell Hutt is

there and the Hutts live there. This has all

been, all of this has been laid down in canon.

Whereas if you look at the Star Trek universe,

you know, it's laid out in the quadrants, two

of which they've never been to, with the exception

of, well... The wormhole that goes into Founderspace,

and then whatever wormhole that the Voyager ended

up in to end up in the Delta Quadrant. I mean,

that's... It's crazy how much space isn't even

charted there. Which, to a point, is cool, the

mystery of it, and obviously the exploration

part of it. But yeah, it's a lot less defined.

Steve, you've been very silent about this. What

are your thoughts on the two universes? As much

as I hate to go with it, I'm going to have to

say Star Wars, only for the fact that he did,

to his credit, he did create an entire universe

from scratch, whereas Roddenberry, granted, it's

from a different time, but Roddenberry went for

the approach of... Just tacking it on to our

actual civilization. Yeah. And not that there

was anything wrong with that, but I understand

what you're saying. So is this a unanimous Star

Wars vote? I don't think so. I didn't think I

heard anybody leaning towards Star Trek. So we

can move on to the next thing, which I'm sure

will be fun here. Our next category is overall

rating. Before we get into this, I do have to

say, and I want to make this very clear, Six

movies of writing versus multiple television

series over decades. No, no, hold on. We're talking

about writing overall. This isn't defined by

just the movies. There's dozens and dozens and

dozens of expanded universe Star Wars novels.

He's talking about the overall. Yeah. Overall

writing in the entire franchise. It almost could

be looked at like this. If you had collected

all the Star Wars novels in existence. I have

almost all of them as well. But all the Star

Wars novels, including the movie novelizations,

but all the Star Wars novels, or if you have

all the Star Trek novels, if you were to sit

down and somehow read all of those, which franchise

is going to have the better writing? Is there

even a way to determine that? I mean, if you're

going to go on movies or TV shows, this should

be Star Trek and a landslide. Yeah. Yeah. See,

for me, I can only go on the movies and the TV

shows because I maybe have read one book of each

series. The writing in Star Trek The Next Generation

is perhaps some of the best writing on any television

show in the history of television. If you like

people sitting around a table debating. DS9 in

terms of writing. Yeah, there's a lot of action

there. No, I'm talking about the concepts that

are tackled in Next Generation, all the different

issues that we are dealing with as a human race,

but put in a completely different, you know,

masked up and put in a different universe. But

I just think the writing in Next Generation is

spectacular. Yeah, I would agree. And that's

a show that's going to hold up for a very long

time. Not the special effects, but that's why

we have the Blu -rays coming out in a few months

that are enhanced, which we hopefully will be

giving away a couple box sets, by the way. But

yeah, I mean, the writing in Star Trek, the television,

basically 90, okay, I'm going to say about 80

% of it's really great across everything. There

are episodes from every series that should be

seen. Some of the expanded universe for Star

Trek is frankly fucking atrocious. The fan fiction

is even worse. I can't count the many times,

I'm Captain Kirk's daughter! We are not counting

fan fiction in this at all. You know what I'm

saying? It's terrible. In Star Wars, the movies,

I mean, it's a great story. As Michael has said,

talking about the hero's journey, you really

can't go wrong with that. I mean... It was the

dialogue that fucked him up. yeah i mean that's

right the greatest quote of all time is you can

write this shit george but you can't say it yeah

like i love you like the way a lover does or

some stupid shit or you know there's just some

terrible fucking dialogue in in these movies

or no you know that's just But I guess that's

more of an acting thing. But someone had to write

that shit first. That was not ad -libbed. You

know, there are just so many problems with some

of the Star Wars stuff. I mean, looking at some

of the expanded universe stuff, one of the books

I talked about earlier in this episode, and Jesus

Christ, we've been yapping for a long time, was

a book called Truce at Bakura. Fucking terrible.

That book was a chore. There's another book called

Children of the Jedi. I was thankful when that

last page came up. There was some bad writing.

Oh, yeah. I think Star Wars attracts the worst

kind of fanboy writers, too, who managed to get

a contract with, like, Del Rey or Random House

going, are you the bad guy from the Star Wars?

And then they just start writing, and it turns

into this retarded, twisted mess of clusterfuck.

And Luke, in theory, should be, like, 70 years

old now. Han should be pushing up daisies. And,

you know, if you look at the way the universes

have evolved, Star Trek, it's a little less stupid.

I'm not happy with the way the current Star Wars

universe is going ever since the war with the

Yuuzhan Vong. And it got bad. You don't like

the Yuuzhan Vong war? okay, they killed Chewbacca,

they turned Han's kids against him, they killed

Mara Jade, it just got fucking retarded after.

I'm like, okay, it's what stupid thing can we

do next? You know what Star Wars became? It became

The Simpsons. And what I mean by that is, what

bad situation can we put them into this time?

Or what pop culture reference can we make this

week? I'm more drawn to read the Star Wars novels

than I am the Star Trek novels. I'll agree with

you there. But when it comes to every other aspect

of it, I lean towards the Star Trek writing.

Like movies, television shows, anything else.

Like any other thing besides the novels, I lean

towards Star Trek. And especially the TV shows.

I mean, good God, that's some good writing. I'm

sorry. Steve, any thoughts? I have to say Star

Trek writing, hands down. It just keeps my interest

better. And granted, there's probably a good

20 % of it that's just complete and utter garbage.

I think Star Wars has the better comic line.

Oh, yeah. Although Star Trek Doctor Who just

came out today. Well, Star Trek has been passed

around between DC and IDW, Paramount, all different.

You brought up a good point. Star Wars does have

a good comic life. So if you're going by comic

line, Star Wars would win that hands down. But

if you're going by overall writing, I would say

Trek. I agree with you. Either one of Blanchard

or Wilson. I would say overall Star Trek has

the better writing. And then there was one. I'm

going to have to go with Star Trek on this one.

I think that Star Trek, even when it's boring

issues, like Voyager had a lot of really boring

episodes, but they were really trying to rip

the topic from today's headlines and make it

interesting and relevant to their universe and

failed many times. But as many times as they

failed, they hit it out of the park, you know,

just spectacularly. And there's a lot of good

writing there. And I think like Dodd said, there's

a lot of bad writing on Star Wars. Yeah. In Star

Wars. I think that's pretty unanimous then. I

think another one that's going to be interesting

to see your guys' thoughts here, our 13th category.

Which franchise has had the better overall acting?

Oh, God. Now, first of all. It just boggles my

mind that some of the great actors that have

appeared in Star Wars, but this is the way I

think about it. All the good lines that you ever

hear in Star Wars, those were the ones that were

improv'd. The only good lines are ones that were

not in the script. I guarantee it. That's Harrison

Ford improvving or that's somebody else improvving

and coming up with those lines because they had

the worst dialogue. I don't know what you want

to call it, screenwriters or whoever actually

did the dialogue writing for that. It's not a

good reflection of the actual actors. Yeah. And

again, I think specifically the acting in the

Star Wars films is, at least in the original

trilogy, it's a product of its time. I mean,

let's face it, it just is. Yes, there are classic

lines, and yes, they were well -delivered, but

the overall dialogue of those movies just...

In A New Hope, did you catch when Luke Skywalker

called Princess Leia Carrie? Yep. Yeah. He calls

her Carrie. I mean, it was... I don't want to

say an emotional scene, but more like an outburst,

like, Carrie! He was just so happy! He was like

a big... golden retriever. He was just so happy

to see her. He just blew up the Death Star. Of

course he's happy. I bet you he had a big boner

at that time. You can't say much about the acting

in Star Wars. Harrison Ford, fantastic actor.

Yeah. Good answer. Alec Guinness is a great actor.

You answer Alec Guinness. Yeah, he was a fantastic

actor. And that's... Liam Neeson's a good actor.

Who? Liam Neeson. Well, yeah. Ewan McGregor.

Ewan? Ewan McGregor. I like him as an actor.

I mean, I think in 1978 they were pulling unknowns

because they didn't have the budget. The acting

wasn't all that fantastic. They got lucky with

Harrison Ford. They pulled... Oh! They pulled

Alec Guinness in there because he was retiring.

He really didn't have all the opportunities anymore.

They didn't want him. He was too old. But that

was their big star. By the time you get into

the prequels, they had a lot of money to throw

around. They can pull in people who have acted...

Plus, with the prequels, you had to find younger

people that were similar to the original. Ewan

McGregor is a perfect young version of Obi -Wan

compared to Alec Guinness' version. He's got

the accent down. What I loved about the Star

Wars acting was, in the original trilogy, the

stories that Obi -Wan told of, the Clone Wars.

Because that whole episode 4, 5, and 6, we wanted

to know. Well, we may not have wanted to know

in terms of what happened in Phantom Menace,

but we wanted to know what happened with the

Clone War. We wanted to know why R2 couldn't

fly anymore. We wanted to know all that stuff.

Right, yeah. I think the thing is with Star Wars,

it took almost... made really, really great actors

not seem like really great actors at some point.

Star Trek, you got Leonard Nimoy and Patrick

Stewart and Brent Spiner and LeVar Burton and

please don't anyone say William Shatner. I would

never say that. Captain Kirk is awesome, but

let's no one claim that William Shatner is a

good actor. But Star Trek just had loads of good

actors. And the thing is, Star Trek made average

actors seem better, whereas Star Wars took good

actors and made them seem worse, in my opinion.

Well, you can blame Lucas for the writing on

that. Star Wars actors went on to... Mark Hamill,

specifically, he went on to do the Joker. He

went on to... be in several different television

series. Camel didn't do anything for 20 years,

and then he ran into voice acting on accident.

He was really good at it, don't get me wrong,

but... Exactly. Well, he was doing... It didn't

take him 20 years to get into voice acting. Right.

The Star Trek acting, I think we would, even

though we're not doing this, I think we would

have to break it down by franchise or by television

series because of the fact that there are so

many of them. Not really. Well, again, these

are TV shows. The acting gets better over their

seven -year run. If you look at the acting, even

season one of Next Generation is kind of iffy.

You know, and as you get into season two, season

three, and so on, they find their stride, and

they realize what the relationships between the

characters are supposed to be, and the acting

gets a lot better. And by seven, you almost,

I should say season seven, you almost don't want

to see it end. Well, I mean, the interactions...

Keep going. Seven more years, because they're

so good. Between Patrick Stewart and like Brent

Spiner or between Patrick Stewart and John Delancey,

I mean, they just had incredible scenes. Yeah.

Just incredible scenes. You know, Michael Dorn

had a lot of great acting in there, all costumed

up and whatnot. There's just, there's a lot of

good acting in Star Trek. You know, besides William

Shatner, I can't think of anybody that just stands

out as like, wow, that person couldn't act. And

again, if you look at individual actors, because

Star Trek was a TV series, you would have people

who were real actors. Well, I won't say real

actors. Let's say people who are movie actors,

right, who slum it, I guess you could say, on

the TV show. It's kind of like The Simpsons,

where it's a really popular show, and Aerosmith

comes on. Or somebody comes in and does a guest

voice for a while. You could end up with a Christy

Alley coming in and doing a movie as a Klingon.

Well, that was actually pre -Cheers. I don't

know about that. You get the point. You could

have a movie actor or an actor from a different

TV series or someone else come in and say, you

know what? I'd like to do this Star Trek thing

because it's really cool. And they give them

a guest spot. Yeah. If you had to say which franchise

has had the bigger named actors, Star Wars has

had the bigger names, but which one had better

acting? To me, that seems like it leans towards

Star Trek. I'm not saying that's 100 % my vote,

but I'm pretty sure I'm voting that way. We haven't

heard much from... from Birdman here on this

one. I would have to say it has to be Star Trek.

I mean, looking at the quality, I mean, it took

a little while for some of the cast to get comfortable

in their roles, but I'd say the more modern Treks,

I mean, excluding the one from the 60s, Star

Trek TNG had great performances almost all around.

Even Voyager, which is, a lot of people's not

favorite Star Trek, but it's actually mine. Robert

Picardo gave some great performances. I'm trying

to remember the woman who plays Janeway. Kate

Mulgrew threw in some really emotional performances

in there. Even the old one between Bones and

Spock had some great performances together. I

don't want to say all of the 60s was bad acting.

They were kind of campy back then, but I think

all TV shows were a little campy back then. Yeah,

I mean, I think Star Trek... has more heart to

it and because the dialogue and everything leans

to a little bit more serious you're going to

get greater performances out of actors and even

looking at the modern star trek movies i mean

you can honestly say it was a great moment for

william shatner when he gave spock's eulogy and

with the swift and just you know it was a really

powerful moment in star trek 2 So I would argue

Star Trek has a superior acting because they

believe in what they're saying. And I think with

the future, this will be the last thing I say,

I think with the future of the Trek films with

Abrams in charge, look what he did with Star

Trek 09. I mean, he essentially brought us back

to the 60s with the relationship between Kirk.

and Bones in that film. I mean, as soon as I

heard num -tongue, I was just laughing my ass

off because of all the injections that Bones

kept giving him. And just that comedy bit of

writing and acting between the actors was just

amazing. Well, let's do a round of official votes

then. Dodd has said Star Trek. I will say Star

Trek. Blanchard? I say Star Trek. Star Trek.

I'm going to go with Star Trek, sure. All right.

So that one's pretty unanimous. Let's move on

to number 14 then, which is all of the other

stuff that goes into it, all the little things,

the men behind the scenes there, the uniforms,

the clothing, the makeup, the special effects.

There's probably some other things that you can

throw in there, but all those Oscars that you

never hear about because they're given away the

day before, the week before, those types of things,

those categories. Which franchise has done a

better job at all the detail work, special effects,

costume, makeup, all that stuff? I want to start

this off because you also have to include props

in here as well. Yeah. This is going to be a

landslide. Star Trek, or not Star Trek, sorry,

Star Wars, hands down. Star Wars wins this because

it has won awards for costume design, awards

for visual effects. It sets the bar technically

every time they do something. I mean, George

Lucas. There's nothing that Lucas Studios or

ILM or whatever cannot do. Yeah, pretty much.

It made the galaxy far, far away come to life.

And you look at the costume design, especially

from Star Wars Episode I. And episode three,

I've got books on my shelf where they have costume

swatches so you can feel what things felt like,

the texture of certain clothing. And it's phenomenal.

You also look at the props, how they've repurposed

guns. I mean, the Stormtrooper blaster is actually

based upon a World War II gun. They've repurposed

it to make it look fantastic. You look at the

detail that goes into the lightsabers. Even the

stun sabers are wonderfully built. There was

a company a couple of years ago. master replicas

uh before they got the license transfer from

corgi then went to hasbro for the lightsaber

designs i've held some of these expensive lightsaber

i own obi -wan obi -wan saber from episode three

look at the detail that goes into that one of

the people that we work with on future imperfect

scott nakata from xscape studios does a lot of

star trek props and they're cool but they're

meant to the They're utilitarian as we've designed

before. Star Trek is not about flash. It's about

functionality. Whereas Star Wars, each piece

is a work of art. There are Wookiee guns that

only appear for like a fraction of a second on

screen in episode three. They are like African

tribal that detailed, like the textures on the

side of them. They're beautiful. Hands down has

to be Star Wars. I don't think Star Trek can

hold a candle to this. And not only did Star

Wars reinvent and revolutionize all of effects

everywhere, especially the world of special effects,

but in this one, take the 70s Star Wars and compare

it to this. I know the 60s is earlier than the

70s, but they're both a long time ago here. The

60s Star Trek or even the 90s Star Trek and compare

it to the special effects that we saw in the

70s Star Wars. I mean, the special effects in

the 70s Star Wars were beyond their time. Yeah,

they were. And I'm not trying to take away. I

think there is some absolute excellent makeup

as far as the aliens go in Star Trek and the

different races and excellent work with the Klingons

and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I'm not

trying to discount that. But when you throw special

effects and clothing into it and props and stuff

like that, like Mike was saying, I agree. It's

a landslide for Star Wars on this one. It is

simply for one reason and one reason only. Star

Wars does not have red shirts that die immediately.

Stormtroopers? Yeah, they do. And not to mention

that Star Wars had the genius of Jim Henson.

True. And Muppets. With the teddy bears, yes.

Steve, thoughts? While I do like the Star Trek

uniforms, I will have to... And in some of the

different costumes, they're pretty much all cookie

cutter for damn near everyone in their faction.

Whereas Star Wars, almost everything's different,

except for the troopers. So, yeah, I'll have

to give it to Star Wars. It's getting confusing

with all these stars and all these mics. It's

getting late, too. That's true. Our 15th category.

We're three -fourths of the way there, then.

Oh, did I vote? Yeah. You know what I'm going

to vote. I already wrote it down. Three letters.

I -L -M. Yeah, exactly. They're the only people

that can actually put 3D effects on post -production

and make it actually believable. The 15th category

here is music. The music of the different franchises.

Now, I know this accompanies a lot. encompasses

a lot i know there was music in the in all the

different movies i know there's been music and

you know video games i know there's been just

music straight up music i mean star wars actually

had a freaking uh i don't know what the technical

name of that thing that they did what was it

last year or this year where like it was the

whole opera musical production yeah so all the

music performances whether it be games movies

tv shows etc which franchises had the better

music who wants to start on that one themes music

whatever I think this one is one I should start

again. Me and Steve did an episode of this for

Future Imperfect a couple of weeks ago. And honestly,

this is going to be another landslide. This is

going to go towards Star Wars because you think

of all the Star Trek franchises there have been.

Steve, how many Star Trek franchises? As far

as what? Like different TV shows? Yeah, TV shows.

How many? There's been five. And how many movies?

There's been 11. And you look at Star Wars, six

feature films. Out of all the Star Trek TV series,

people only ever remember the themes. Maybe the

odd piece of episode music. I mean, I know there's

one from Star Trek Voyager called Someone to

Watch Over Me, where the doctor learns about

his holographic daughter going to die. There's

nothing he can do. Captain Picard's flute music

from I Can't Remember the Name of the Episode.

Maybe the Best of Both Worlds theme. But how

many people know the Star Wars theme? Two words.

John Williams. John Williams. You can't top John

Williams. No, you really can't because he's done

music for so many things like E .T., Jaws. Superman.

Superman. And there's no one who can compare

to him. Jurassic Park, yeah. There's so many

memorable pieces of music from a classic composer

like this. And I'm not saying that to derail

the music that was done by Jerry Goldsmith and

the other composers like Michael Giovanni. I'm

pretty sure I'm messing up his name. The guy

who did Star Trek 09. There's just so many different

things in Star Wars, whether it be the Imperial

March or whether it be the, you know, it's not

just... Yeah, there's so many things that people

know. Like when you hear the first couple bars

of the Twin Sunsets from Tatooine, you know exactly

what that's from. People know the Death Star

Trench Run music because it evokes a pop culture

memory. You just know it was Star Trek. Oh, that's

Star Trek. That's cool. But when you hear the

Imperial March, part of you kind of snaps to

attention. You kind of almost want to walk in

sync with whoever's standing beside you. I did

that during high school. He's right. It evokes

emotion. Exactly. And that's something that sonically

and musically that John Williams did so much

better than any of the Star Trek composers, not

to knock their work or belittle it. Williams

created a soundscape that is so much more dynamic

than Star Trek could ever hope to do. And I really,

I say that with the greatest amount of respect

towards the Star Trek composers. And that's another

thing, too, to look at the sound design in both

franchises. Ben Burtt and his team. at ILM and

all the guys who designed the sounds for Star

Wars. You know a lightsaber. You know a blaster.

You know a TIE fighter. Hell, watch any number

of cartoon shows. You can hear the TIE fighter

scream. It's amazing how often that pops up.

I was watching Men in Black 3 tonight. There's

a TIE fighter mixed in there. So the sound design

from Star Wars is also superior. And I think

that comes from a love of the source material

and just a greater understanding of how sound

works with picture and causing emotions. It's

just a better composed soundscape than Star Trek.

Like I said, everybody knows what a photon torpedo

sounds like, the transporter sound, maybe the

door chime. There's just more identifiable sounds.

from Star Trek and the lightsaber sound will

never be forgotten. Everyone has picked up a

cardboard tube and went, vroom, vroom, vroom.

How many people have picked up a Braun Mixmaster,

you know, from your kitchen and made a phaser

sound? I'll bet you that number is smaller than

you might think. So, hands down, Star Wars. I

mean, Star Wars had an actual Star Wars in concert.

I mean, they actually have a series of concerts

with Thank you. the music here? For every point

that you guys have pointed out, I have to agree

that I honestly, while I did like the Trek music,

background music, I cannot for the life of me

remember how any of the tunes go other than the

theme songs. Whereas in Star Wars, practically

every one of them I can remember. So I'm going

to have to give it to Star Wars. So that is a

vote for Star Wars for Dodd, for Steve, and myself.

Same here. Star Wars music, hands down. And Mr.

Wilson. I'm going to go with Star Wars, too.

I was just thinking, don't all the Star... Well,

with the exception of Enterprise that I can think

of, I want to say all of the Star Trek theme

songs are all the same, aren't they? It's just

that Seraphim... I think Deep Space Nine's Next

Generation doesn't have that at all. Yeah, Next

Generation doesn't have that. I can't remember

what Next Generation theme song sounds like.

I can't do it very well. You would know it to

hear it. Oh, yeah. Okay, well that's... That's

like the non -Seraphim version of the original

series. That's a better version. Our 16th category...

is is games we're talking about computer games

we're talking about uh video games we're talking

about games in general which franchise has produced

or has spun off the better game franchise, if

you want to call it a sub franchise. Dodd probably

has the most experience out of all of us with

the games, but I'm going to go first really quick

because I remember three things about Star Wars

games specifically. I remember playing Super

Empire and Super Return of the Jedi on the SNES,

and I remember playing the arcade game that was

in movie theaters of the original trilogy where

you could choose between each chapter. I forget

what the... The one by Sega. I forget. All I

know is it was a giant thing that you got to

sit in, and the damn thing had surround sound,

and the chair fucking vibrated every time you

threw a lightsaber. I could have bought this

for 50 bucks, and I should have. But it's a huge

machine, so I can't get it inside my house. Yeah,

it is a very fucking huge machine. Just playing

those games for me for Star Wars was very, very

awesome. I don't think I've ever played any Trek

games, so you guys can take it from here. I'll

let Dodd go first. I mean, he's the biggest gamer

of us. All right. So let's break down the history

of Star Trek games. They almost all suck. There

are no good Star Trek games. Almost. Elite Forces,

great idea based upon the Quake engine. More

or less, it was okay. I mean, Elite Forces 2

is maybe a little bit better. There have been

games like Birth of the Federation, which is

really good but really complex. It plays a lot

like, I think it's Masters of Orion. It's like

a civilization building game. That's okay. There

have been some good Star Trek games, but there

are very few and far between. We look at the

sheer number of Star Wars games. Okay, there

have been some shitty ones, and I'm not counting

the ones on the Atari or the Vectrex or anything

like that. I'm talking about more modern. Super

Star Wars, almost all the ones by LucasArts are

fantastic. Let me see. One developer has made

the best Star Wars games of this console generation

or the last couple console generations. That's

Canadian developer BioWare. Star Wars, Knights

of the Old Republic 1 and 2. Star Wars, The Old

Republic. Star Wars, Jedi Knights. Star Wars,

Dark Forces. Star Wars, Jedi Outcasts. The Force

Unleashed 1 and 2. Battlefront. Battlefront,

which evidently tonight, right now, I don't know

when this episode is airing. So as of right now,

we're going into E3. There's a new Star Wars

game called 1313, which people are thinking,

which is likely Battlefront 3. being resurrected.

This will air before E3. Yeah, which is on Monday,

by the way. But I'm just saying, Star Wars has

a dominating presence in the gaming world. It's

built for video games. It really is. And there

are no super memorable Star Trek games that can

compare to Knights of the Old Republic. I mean,

there is Star Trek Online, which is now free

to play. But it sucks balls. It's very boring,

and it sucks because if... If you want to level

up quickly, it's like you have to go into fleet

actions with people. And I like online gaming.

I like playing with people the odd time. But

I'm not an MMO player. I'm not World of Warcraft.

I'm not like Diablo, where you can play by yourself,

but your friends can randomly jump into your

game if you don't want them to. You know, there's

just so many things Star Trek has mismanaged

with their gaming license. And there have been,

like I said, some okay titles. Like Star Trek

Legacy was okay, but better when you mod the

shit out of it. It begs to ask the question,

though. I mean, Star Trek having one of the largest

fandoms in the world and just being such an epic

franchise, why can nobody get it right with a

Star Trek game? I don't think they found the

right developer to make it right. I mean, could

BioWare do it? Maybe, because Star Trek is all

about diplomacy. Look at the conversation system

in Mass Effect. that would be awesome for a Star

Trek game. Unfortunately, Star Trek games do

not lend themselves towards epic ground battles.

Star Trek is mostly space battles. And there

was a game called Star Trek Shattered Dimensions

for the PS1 where you actually took control of

a Federation fighter, and it was boring as fucking

piss. I don't know how they managed to fuck these

things up so bad. I mean, honestly, the problem

is you have to find the right developer. Now,

there is a new Star Trek game in development.

I think it's Namco Bandai. I think they're showing

it next week, but I'm not 100 % sure of this.

And it may be okay. It's going to be based upon

the new Star Trek franchise, which ties into

number two. I'm cautiously optimistic, but ultimately

Star Wars is going to win this category because

of the old Republic games and all the great LucasArts

ones that came before it. Try and name one good

Star Trek game outside of Star Trek, maybe the

25th anniversary or Elite Forces. It's just mind

-boggling that one of the biggest sci -fi franchises,

one of the two biggest sci -fi franchises of

all time can't create a good video game. That's

mind -boggling. And it's not like Paramount doesn't

have money. Well, it's because they don't license

it to the correct company. I realize the reasons.

It just makes no sense that sci -fi and video

games go hand -in -hand, it seems like, and it

should not be this way. But I agree with everything

that Mike said. There is a lot of different...

Even the not... I mean, you have your top -of

-the -line Star Wars games, like you were talking

about with Knights of the Old Republic or The

Old Republic, etc. But even the second and third

tier of Star Wars games aren't terrible. You

know what I mean? Even some of the old, like,

the Rogue Squadron game is at least fun to play.

I mean, it's not a great game, but it's still

better than all the Star Trek games. Yeah. I

know that this would never happen, but imagine

if Paramount went to LucasArts and said, hey,

make us a good game for Star Trek. That would

be entertaining. Is anybody voting for Star Trek?

No. Crickets. Crickets. I would not vote for

Star Trek. I would like to say, though, that

Star Wars, again, has a better variety of games,

whereas, you know, if you look at Star Trek,

it's mostly capital ship combat, and occasionally

you might get a first -person shooter. Whereas

with video, I'm sorry, with Star Wars video games,

you've got first -person shooters that are a

lot of fun, flight simulators, like if you can

remember back to X -Wing. And TIE Fighter, awesome

games. Racing. Awesome flight simulators. There

are racing games if you consider pod racing a

game. Come on, Super Bombad Racing, man. PS1.

No thanks. Legends of Terakasi. So you've got

Mortal Kombat -style fighting, which that game

really blew. But they have it. It's a fighting

game. They have role -playing games, real -time

strategy games. Am I the only one who didn't

like Battlegrounds? I liked Battlefront. Battlegrounds

was okay. I just thought it's better once you

mod the crap out of it. Well, yeah. And then

now they've got their massively multiplayer online

role -playing game. I haven't played that yet.

I was too involved in Skyrim to start it. And

soon I'll be too involved in Diablo to start

it. Its subscriber base dropped by 400 ,000 players

recently, but then again, that's a drop in the

bucket when you compare how large its install

base was right from the get -go. I don't know

if it's going to be the WoW killer. I don't think

so, because that has a 10 -year head start, for

one. And, you know, just... Well, I heard they

lost like 3 million people. No, it wasn't...

Or WoW lost 3 million people to... to the Old

Republic. And now they've come back. But they're

all going to come back when World of Warcraft

releases their next update. Yeah, it wouldn't

surprise me in the least. I mean, World of Warcraft

knows how to pander to them. And the cool thing

about the Old Republic is if you don't want to

play with other people, you don't necessarily

have to. Hell, the first 20 levels are basically

the tutorial. And, you know, you can play the

game and you get a storyline for each character

you make. They're each unique. that's something

wow doesn't do um so i don't know i think star

wars just has better games there's no two ways

about it and i think star trek online was a big

chance to break that mold but they dropped the

ball they didn't have the content was not that

interesting when you got it and the episodes

were boring as piss honestly the matrix online

was a much better game say what you will So it's

unanimous for Star Wars when it comes to the

gaming world. We're moving on now to a category

all too often when people compare these two franchises,

they only compare this next category. And it

was very important that we compared a lot more

in this episode than just. But it does have to

come into play at some point. So category 17

is the movies. There's been 11 Star Trek movies.

There's obviously been six Star Wars movies,

not counting the Clone Wars movie, the animated

one. So comparing the two movie franchises in

that subcategory. Are we only counting the good

ones? We're counting 11 Star Trek movies and

we're counting six Star Wars movies. Well, I'm

looking at the list of Star Trek movies, and

I can sum it up quite easily. Crap, good, crap,

good, crap, awesome, crap, fucking wicked, boring

as fuck, crap, awesome. So we've got roughly

five good ones versus six bad ones. Whoa. What?

Okay, you're talking about Star Trek. Okay, six

bad ones and five good ones. Okay, yeah. All

right, yeah. So, no, I mean, versus, like, the

Star Wars episodes, I even... Okay, well, alright,

I didn't like Phantom Menace at all. The rest

of them I really enjoyed. Duel of the Fates,

really? Come on, that was cool. Steve, I want

you to get in on this earlier on in this discussion,

because I know you are very well versed in all

the Star Trek movies. What are your thoughts?

Just on the Star Trek franchise of movies. The

Star Trek films... Typically run at least until,

well, this newest incarnation. Usually every

other film was a good film. Like, first one is

so -so, mostly crap. That was just trying to

make a new show. I can't stand watching that

movie. The second film, that was great. Third

film, eh, so -so. It was watchable. It was watchable,

but... It's still nothing I could sit there and

watch continuously. It did have its moments,

but it ultimately is forgettable. The fourth

movie, that was a good film. Five, complete crap.

You know, Starship and God, that's just all I

got to say there. Six, epically awesome. Seven,

nice passing of the torch, but still ultimately

forgettable, but the first Starship crash. It

was also basically a long episode of the show.

Yeah, basically. First Contact, great. Insurrection?

Eh, so -so, but still crap. It was just a long

episode of the show. It was a shitty episode

of the show, though. Yeah, it was, and they even

used the themes from the show in the movie. But

Nemesis? Complete crap. That blew every other

film thing right out of the water. And then,

of course, it reverses with the Abrams verse

in 2009, where the odd numbers... for once, are

actually the good films. So hopefully he can

keep the, and break the mold completely. This

could be a situation where, you know, 10 years

from now, it's a different discussion. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. And say what you will, I mean, everybody

loves to dog on the prequels. I stick by what

Mr. Wilson said, that episode two and episode

three are not as bad as people. try to make them

out to be. I totally agree. It's actually my

favorite. Episode 3 is epic. The last 45 minutes

is some of the best in the whole franchise. I

suppose a lot of people don't like Phantom Menace,

but you can't really say that any one of these

movies is complete crap in Star Wars. There are

boring parts, but there are no horrible, I'm

not watching this movie. I mean, Attack of the

Clones, a lot of people give that movie shit,

but I really enjoy that one because it sets up

a lot of the politics in it. It's a great setup

film. It's not necessarily a great action film,

but it introduces a lot of elements. Now, my

main complaint with Star Wars Episode I, there

was no reason to kill Darth Maul. He should have

been what Count Dooku was. Has anyone seen the

YouTube video of how it completely redoes episode

one and says how it should have been if someone

besides George Lucas was in control? Yeah. It's

so incredible. It is incredible. Yeah, that's

where they basically take the movie away from

Anakin and make it a Obi -Wan origin story. Right.

It would have been excellent if it was done like

that. It's not fair, but if you wanted to talk

box office numbers or this or that, obviously

there's no contest here. My problem with Attack

of the Clones is it got so slow in those fucking

love story scenes. Oh my god. You just don't

like love. And there were boring love story scenes

that they cut out. That's not even all of them.

That's not to say that the 2009 Star Trek movie

was awesome. And like the other guy said, I agree

that there has been some gems along the way.

But overall, there's been a lot more misses in

the Star Trek collection than there has been

in the Star Wars collection. For me, with Star

Trek, First Contact was the first Star Trek movie

I ever saw in a theater. Because it was the best.

But that was a great movie. And then consistent

disappointment. Ten years after that. I saw all

the TNG ones in the theater. Opening night, every

one of them. Star Trek, the J .J. Abrams movie,

I absolutely love simply for all the nods and

just for the story that it told a unique story

that left the original universe intact. It's

a great reboot. Except for Vulcan. Except for

Vulcan, but it's a rift in time. Whereas, you

know, hey, we're DC. Let's throw 70 years of

continuity out the fucking window and reboot

the shit. That's bullshit. Are you trying to

dog on the Nolan movies? No, DC, the comics,

dumbass. The New 52. The New 52. Hey, some of

that shit's kind of cool. I'm sure it is, but

it's... Okay, it... Another example, podcasters

that we used to work with, after so many episodes,

they said, we're deleting everything and restarting.

We're deleting ourselves off iTunes and rebooting

everything. That was just friggin' stupid. Yeah,

that's kind of an idiot move to delete all your

back content. I wouldn't have done that. Yeah,

I agree with that part. Yeah. But with Star Wars...

What I've noticed since I've re -watched the

six films so many times in the last ten years

is that what I love the best is episode three

and episode six. And I mentioned this in our

MWire Star Wars stuff that we did. I had no idea

originally that, and I don't have his name. pulled

up or whatever the guy that plays Palpatine in

episode six Ian McDermott yeah yeah I had no

idea that they like at first I mean I guy it

was a dead giveaway when I first saw him in in

in um in episode one I was like oh hey wait a

second that's the emperor and I love that they

I love that the casting people I'm not gonna

say Lucas because I don't think it was Lucas

that went out but the people who cast the films

I love that they said hey Let's actually have

some continuity with our actors instead of pulling

a dwarf hologram like they did in Empire. Let's

get the actor that originally played the Emperor

in Jedi to play him as the Senator, and we have

that transformation in Episode 3. What I love

about the Star Wars films, specifically with

Revenge of the Sith and Return of the Jedi, is

the continuity. that they set up, because at

the end of Revenge of the Sith, you go into A

New Hope, and the same thing with, you know,

from Empire to Jedi, you know, it brings it full

circle, and I really love that about those films.

First Contact and Star Trek 2009 are really,

because I have, to this day, I know I need to

do it, I've never seen Generations. I've always

wanted to see it, I just never have. It's a good

film. Unless you're a big Malcolm McDowell fan.

It's more so a passing of the torch to the new

crew. That's what you're mainly watching it for.

You're not watching it for Soren and all that.

It gives you some back history of the Enterprise

after Kirk. I think what it comes down to is

obviously Star Wars, the movies, is what fueled

the franchise, whereas Star Trek, the TV shows,

is what fueled the franchise. Star Trek has had

more movies, and like I said, maybe 10, 20 years

from now, if J .J. Abrams has made two or three

of these great Star Trek films or someone else

has carried that on, and let's say three more

Star Wars movies get made that are utter crap,

the discussion could change. You never know,

but as of right now, Star Wars just doesn't have

as many bad apples amongst the... Well, that

and I think Star Wars is going to catch up as

far as how many TV series they've had. Right.

Oh, yeah, most definitely. But the same way,

even if they do that, I think in the long run,

Star Wars will always be the one, the franchise

that has the better movies. And even if they

catch up, Star Trek will still have had the one

that has the better TV shows. Like, it's just

hard to just flip it. It's hard to do anything,

to take anything that goes from its bread and

butter. to do something else and be as successful.

You know what I mean? Right. Well, considering

that Lucas has said they're not going to make...

Well, he says that, but he'll eventually be dead.

Wow. Yeah. That was great. We're going to make

seven, eight, and nine. God, they should have

done that first. They still should have done

that first. I will never understand why they

didn't do that first. They could have done it

at the time. They could have done it 99. They

could have. Yeah. Yeah. But as I said before,

in the episode, everyone wanted to know what

the fuck happened in the clone wars. Cause that

was all, not all, but the majority of episode

four, it briefly mentioned clone war. Your father

fought in the clone wars. And it's like, what

the fuck's clone wars? Yeah. Yeah. But they could

have done that anytime. There's people dying

now that could have been in the other ones. That's

right. It's like, you're not going to bring Carrie

Fisher back. Because it's like, oh, baby, you

got ugly. Put her in that bikini again. Not do

anything for Carrie Fisher. Okay, official votes

for the movies is all Star Wars, I take it. Yeah,

sadly. Star Wars, yeah. I'm still going Trek.

Okay. Wow, you have a healthy bias, sir. What's

that? You have a healthy bias. I feel that three

out of the six movies of Star Wars is crap. Three?

Yes. The first one? Well, I'll say two. I don't

like the first two films. And then A New Hope,

I'm not fond of either. Okay. I like... Why do

you hate America, Steve? You hate America. He

moves to Canada. Fuck yeah. You're talking about

the guy that flip -flops his movies every six

months. And on that note, moving on to getting

down to the end here, the 18th category, the

men behind the whole franchise. Who was slash

is the bigger genius, Gene Roddenberry or George

Lucas? Oh, this should be a landslide for Roddenberry.

Yeah, because Roddenberry didn't constantly go

back and change and rewrite and... for oh hey

it's this anniversary we have to change it or

hey we're going to blu -ray or we're going to

hd or we're going to 3d we have to change shit

see that's not even my main argument though it's

part of it the reason i think roddenberry is

a bigger genius than lucas he was a futurist

he saw what we could become he saw the problems

that we inherently have as a society as a people

and spoke them in terms that maybe made it easier

he snuck racism episodes past the networks the

first interracial kiss on television making character

I mean fighting for I mean going back to the

data argument fighting for rights what constitute

what constitutes a sentient being what questions

did George Lucas ask Roddenberry was a philosopher

and a scientist George Lucas was a kid who enjoyed

comic books and pulp magazines George Lucas had

the better idea As far as a universe and creativity

from that aspect, but Roddenberry was the better

executor. Most definitely of his idea. I'm not

saying, you know, obviously George Lucas was

way more successful as far as money goes and

this or that or whatever. So if you want to judge

success purely financially, you'd have to say

Lucas, but from a creative standpoint, as far

as like, the franchise, the actual franchise,

I can see why people are leaning towards Roddenberry.

Steve? I'd definitely say Roddenberry. And Dodd

and I talked about that on the last... uh future

imperfect just like he said he was a futurist

he he kind of he's paved the way pretty much

for all of our our modern technology i mean you

look at the ipad there was a pad in star trek

you look at the you know flip phone and the you

know smartphones they had that kind of stuff

in star trek i mean everything we're doing now

we're trying to compare with star trek in general

so star trek actually has a kind of underlying

influence on society without people really knowing

where the hell it all came from originally. Star

Wars may have the bigger pop culture references,

but Star Trek is more memorable overall because

that's ultimately what's guiding our society.

We have not heard from Michael. I think that

we need to look at what Roddenberry was. His

primary job was he was a television writer. He

didn't just write Star Trek. He had other ideas.

Some of his sci -fi ideas that didn't even come

to fruition until long after he was dead. Andromeda.

I love Andromeda. What was the other series with

the Talons? Babylon 5? I don't know. No, no.

I forget. It was another series. There's been

a few. He came up with the initial idea for Trek,

and then he was involved with the next generation

early on, but then he died. And so the stuff

that came afterwards... and arguably a goodly

chunk of Next Generation, was not so much his...

More Rick Berman. Exactly. It wasn't him. It

wasn't Roddenberry so much. Roddenberry paved

the way. He created the concept and paved the

way. And set the foundation. Exactly. He has

a strong foundation. Don't get me wrong. But

after that... So what you're saying is... But

he died. So George Lucas would have died in the

early 90s. Well, if George Lucas had died in

the early 90s, would we have what we have now?

We probably would have gotten Episode 7, 8, and

9, which arguably would have been better. But

let's not wish ill of George Lucas. The fact

is, George Lucas is, number one, still alive.

Number two, didn't have Berman and Braga. He

wrote it all himself. That all came out of his

own head. And, I mean, he holds the reins. Even

things that are written about Star Wars, if they

don't get his personal approval, don't become

canon. I mean, he's still there. He's got more

money than God. You know, second only to Bill

Gates, I think. Oh, who's that guy? Buffett.

You know, with all the money. There will come

a day where he eventually sells it to Disney,

and then they make a bunch of money. I don't

think he'll sell it. I think he's going to pass

it down to his children. And they'll sell it.

They may not sell it. George Lucas will never

die. Skywalker Ranch, Skywalker Sound, ILM, these

are all owned by Lucas. But he's not immortal.

You think? As long as people buy Star Wars. Every

dollar you spend on Star Wars extends George

Lucas' life by one second. He will never die.

Just like Peter Cullen, they're going to put

him on ice and keep him around forever. That's

right. He's the only verified immortal on the

planet. No, they're going to do him Futurama

style. They're going to put his head in a jar.

He's going to dictate Star Wars movie scripts

for the foreseeable future. From his jar. We

will have to see. I'm hopeful that eventually

somebody else will get the reins and do some

good things with it. But we'll see. I did not

get your official vote, Wilson, on the creator.

I'm totally going Lucas. Alright. That takes

us to our second to last category. Don't know

if there's a specific way we can judge this,

but number 19 is which fandom is superior? Who's

got the better fans? Star Wars fans or Trekkies?

Let's let Dodd go first in this one. He's entrenched

in both. And we know that they obviously had

an episode about the fandom on Future Imperfect.

Yes. It's a weird thing to say. I'd say both

fandoms have their pluses and their negatives.

I'd say Star Wars fandom is a lot more socially

accepted because I honestly think a lot of it

stems from when William Shatner was on Saturday

Night Live saying, you people, get a life. But

you look at the awesome fandom that has come

out of Star Wars, look at the 501st. The amount

of cool shit that comes out of there. The costuming

people. Star Trek costuming, it's cool. I mean,

we have your Borg, your Klingon, your Breen,

your Andorians, blah, blah, blah, blah. They're

relatively tame. But you look at the effort that

goes into Star Trek costuming. Holy shit. Sorry,

Star Wars costuming, rather. Holy shit. It's

impressive by anybody. I mean, vacuformed armor

for stormtroopers. There's Elvis Trooper. He's

awesome, by the way. And there's just so much

coolness in that fandom. And you look at how

Hasbro. supports it with the comic -con exclusive

figures uh all the companies that hold licensed

replicas to do it i mean honestly the star wars

fandom and they're so accepting nine times out

of ten i mean my my real i mean hell i became

a super nerd i used to work for a site called

fx -sabers .com they're still around and i was

one of their lead administrators and public relations

guy way before Excuse me. Before I started college.

And that's how I got into all the super nerdy

shit that I'm into now. I mean, I had a Star

Wars collection easily worth over five, six thousand

dollars. And I don't know, just Star Trek fandom.

They're a lot more quiet, but we've also had

two movies which make us look either really awesome

or really insane. Trekkies. And then you look

at a movie for Star Wars called Starweight, which

was okay. Or you look at The People vs. George

Lucas. Which, you know what, is a really good

documentary and people should see it. And I think

that's an important thing a lot of people forget.

Just to jump back to the creator debate for just

a second. What do we as the fans have a right

to say about George Lucas' movies? It's his movie.

He can do whatever the hell he wants with it.

Once he releases it, it does not become public

property. It is still his intellect. If he wants

to add the goddamn My Little Ponies and Gummy

Bears into it, if he thinks it'll make it better,

he is fully welcome to go do that. Tubby Gummy

as a Wookie. See, there you go. flutter shy as

vader you know there's just god thank you tara

strong there's just so many things that the fandoms

i mean there isn't really even a rivalry anymore

i'd say no i mean it's just it's a part of the

inside of the fence or the other there really

is i mean i'm sure there's tons of people like

like dodd who likes both of them and like you

know i think it's more so than who likes both

of them but we like each of the franchises for

different reasons yeah but i think what he was

saying was before in like previous decades you

were either one or the other right oh that's

all nerds i mean now we can enjoy them all yeah

uh i think for me with the fandoms to my knowledge

and i would have known about this because you

know Once someone becomes a YouTube sensation,

it's everywhere on the internet now. Is it Red

Letter Media? Oh, that guy, yeah. Dude, the guy

from Red Letter Media that breaks down each of

the Star Wars films, I don't think Trek has someone

like that that would take that much time. What

is it, like a 70 -minute review for episode one

or something like that? That's all video. That

sci -fi guy from that guy with the glasses, Leo,

he's been a guest on our show a few times. He

could pull it off. Well, right, but what I'm

saying is, like, take the red -letter media guy

who has broken down all the Star Wars films.

Star Trek doesn't have a fan that is that dedicated

that has done it. Or at least one that we as

a group are aware of. Yeah, there probably is.

Exactly. Steve, what are your thoughts on...

Well, I know those damn films inside and out.

So, I mean, I own them all. Yeah. And if I had

enough determination, I would do that. But I

don't. I'm lazy. You said it, not us. You're

honest. Well, I'm not debating it. I clearly

said I'm lazy. Otherwise, I would do something

like that. But I would think overall the fans

are... Truck fans are more kind of... We're intellectuals,

I'd say. Well, not only that, but we get offended

very easily when people attack our fandom. And

I say that being that Star Wars fans, like, for

instance, my wife hates with a passion Star Trek.

Yep, same here. She cannot stand the show. The

only one that she will sit through... is the

Abrams movie. And that's because she says that

they're not just sitting on the bridge. Yeah.

And to which I can understand that. Some of the

other, most of the TV show is spent on the bridge.

It's problem solving and talking. Yeah, it's

a lot of that, which you gotta like that kind

of banter back and forth. It's the same reason.

Which I do. you know and she likes star wars

she can sit and watch all the star wars movies

didn't bother whatsoever i while i like it star

trek on the other hand is i mean yeah and the

films are completely different monster all together

but it you're you're you're either one or the

other or you like both and my boat i'm kind of

i'm more of a trek fan than star wars But I still

like both. It's where, you know, it's just...

I feel like a lot of the fans, just from stuff

I've watched, are so in -depth with it that they've

created their own, you know, Trek religions.

They've, you know, altered their apartment spaces

to look like, you know, entire rooms or centers

of, like, starships. People go to the extreme

that they've actually built these Star Trek rooms.

It's completely set up like the show, and it's

insane. I'll grant you that. It takes a lot of

determination to do that. I certainly wouldn't

do that, but I think it's awesome. I think Star

Trek fans are more rabid of a fan base than Star

Wars. Especially when it comes to toys, I'll

tell you that right now. Star Trek fans? Toys

or the costuming and all the other aspects of

it. People treat it like it's a damn religion.

For instance, in one of the episodes of Future

Imperfect, we talked about the fandom. There

was even a fan that drank, I think it was like

John DeLance. The Q virus. Yeah, the Q virus.

They drank John DeLance's water that he clearly

said, I have a cold. And the guy's like, I want

the Q virus. It's just sick shit like that. I

mean, you get these fans that are just kind of

morbid in that sense. Or they want to see Scotty's

hair or something so they can clone him. I mean,

just weird shit. The main difference for me is

I've known more Star Trek fans that can't separate

the franchise and reality. I've known more Star

Trek fans that take it to an unhealthy extreme.

can't seem to... Like I said, they can't separate

it from their daily lives. They can't separate

it from reality, whereas Star Wars fans, you

can run into people that know every fact or every

trivia bit about Star Wars that would walk around

in their everyday life and you would never know

they're a Star Wars fan. Well, my stepdad's like

that. He's the one that got us into the Star

Wars film. In high school, I remember playing

the Star Wars Trip or Pursuit game with a few

people and we would literally... you would whoever

went first won like because they would never

if i went first i won because i never missed

a question if my one friend went first he won

because he never missed a question but we would

have walked around and you would have not if

you would have randomly asked our classmates

if we were star wars fans they would not have

even known yeah whereas a star trek fan you can

spot them a mile away I wear a comm badge. I'm

not ashamed to say that. The only thing about

that is I actually found... Don't you have Star

Trek tattoos, Dodd? I do not have Star Trek tattoos.

The closest one, I'm planning on getting a Mass

Effect one. That's the closest one. But you can

still separate it from reality. Yeah. What are

you talking about? This isn't the holodeck? No.

Yeah, because you're here. You clearly wouldn't

be here if this was Mass Effect. No. I love you.

Not at all. Computer? It's not stopping. Computer

error. Damn it, computer exit! Anybody else have

points they want to bring up or more arguments

before we do a vote for this round? Hot -ass

bitches in the Star Wars fandom. That is true.

I want to say I'm a fan of Star Trek and I'm

a fan of Star Wars, but I'm not involved in the

fandoms. I've met Guys from the 501st, and they're

really into it, and they're really good guys.

I appreciate the things that they do for charity

and such. The only fandom I'm involved in seriously

is the Transformers fandom. Which is a much less

friendly fandom. It is. It's not very friendly

at all. I would go so far as to say it's an openly

hostile fandom. It's essentially cutthroat. It

is. It's to the point where if they acknowledge

your presence at all, then they're usually mean.

I will say one thing about the Star Trek fandom.

When I mentioned the toys earlier, in my youth,

I was in several different foster homes. One

of them I was in for like a weekend just as a

temporary placement. Apparently, this guy that

was running the foster home, he was a huge Star

Trek nerd. And he had on display one of the classic

Enterprises that was, at the time, was probably

worth $2 ,000. I don't remember. It was just

some classic Trek toy. And I picked it up and

he just freaked out and just punished me on the

spot just for touching his fucking toy. So the

Star Trek fandom... is way more diehard when

it comes to the memorabilia. I don't know about

that, Mike. I've met some pretty fucking weirdos,

man. If you had seen my room at one point, you

would have been killed if you would have touched

one of my Star Wars toys. Same here. Touch my

stuff and die. Yeah, if you touched anything

worth $2 ,000... Well, I didn't know at that

time. I mean, you know, it wasn't like I did

it on, you know... First of all, if you would

have touched any one of my Star Wars figures,

it probably would have had a domino effect. And

I would have had 6 ,000 Star Wars figures to

pick up. Not that many, but darn near 1 ,000.

And I would have been pretty pissed. Well, this

was like in their living room on like the man.

I mean, this was like one piece of a collection

that was in one. It wasn't like I went into the

dude's collection room. And it wasn't like I

did it on purpose. You did. Anyway. Official

votes for fandom starting with Blanchard. Star

Wars. And then going to Dodd. I'd say Star Trek

because we're a lot more laid back. Mr. Wilson.

I'm going to go with Star Wars for the excellent

work by the 501st. Steve. Star Trek. All right.

Star Wars for me. So that adds that up. I'm doing

my math here. And that leads us to our overall

opinions on the. franchise overall, encompassing

everything, taking into consideration all aspects

of the franchise, which franchise do you think

is the superior franchise? Let's get Wilson's

thoughts on that first. Once again, I think that

it depends on where you fall in your science

-y fiction type preferences. Star Wars is more

science fantasy. Anything goes. You've got laser

swords. Yeah, space opera. Well, yeah, there

is music involved. Yeah, so, yeah, space opera.

Whereas Star Trek is more hard sci -fi. It's

more rooted in actual physics, actual science.

It is futurism. And not as action -oriented.

You know, personally, I... I like more fantasy,

more action, so I'm leaning toward Star Wars.

See, for me, what it boils down to, Next Generation

is one of my all -time favorite TV shows in all

genres, across all decades. Next Generation would

easily be in my top five. all time. But my problem

is if I'm going with the overall franchise, I

don't necessarily care for all of the other TV

shows that have been in the Star Trek franchise.

The movies, I love two thirds of them or roughly

between a half and two thirds of them. And then

there's some that I don't care for. Star Wars

as a franchise, I basically love all the movies

minus parts of episode one. I love the Clone

Wars. animated versions. They've got good games.

Star Wars has a far superior toy line. I'm a

music person, and the music in Star Wars is better.

So if you're taking everything overall in the

life of these franchises, I think Star Wars has

done more things in a superior fashion across

the board. Not to say that Star Trek, The Next

Generation, and a few things like that top of

their genres but i just think there's more to

like in star wars than there is in star trek

and i love both of them um steve what are your

thoughts well i i i'm going well i'm going to

do a breakdown first like star wars overall the

the films a little over half of the films What

the hell? I'm just going to say two -thirds of

the films are good. You have the comic line,

which is just superb. You have the animated series,

which Star Trek has never been able to pull off

properly. And then on the Star Trek side, yeah,

I'm still not that great of a fan of Enterprise,

but I still love the other four shows after going

back and re -watching them. I do like two -thirds

of the films. The comics blow, the games blow,

and their animated series wasn't all that hot.

But I still think, just based on the fact, for

one, I like intellectual shows more than just

straight -on battle shows like Star Wars. But

I also think there's a lot more... to gain with

watching star trek over star wars whereas star

wars is just a sit back have fun watch it movie

whereas it's not really all that much thinking

going on and i prefer and think it's i don't

know a little bit more um probable to sit there

and watch star trek so i'm going star trek um

birdman I'm also going to go with Star Trek.

I mean, I love Star Wars. I think it's a great,

I mean, it's a fun story. But at the end of the

day, I need something a little more intellectual.

I like being challenged. I like having my beliefs

and my philosophy challenged. And that's something

Star Wars has never done for me, really. I mean,

I love the sound design in Star Wars. I like

Star Wars more from a technical standpoint and

more from a prop standpoint. But if I had to

pick a way to waste an afternoon, I'm going to

sit down with my friends from the United Federation

of Planets and we're going to uphold the principles

of the Federation. Mr. Blanchard. Not to cop

out here, but everything Kevin said I agree with,

and those are pretty much my thoughts. I like

certain aspects of Trek. I don't like all of

Trek, and I've always been on... You know, we

mentioned earlier about back in the day, it was

either you're on one side or the other, and I

have always been on the side of Star Wars. Star

Wars is something where I can, you know, turn

Spike on on a Saturday afternoon when they're

running all six movies, and I can just, you know...

phase in and out of a nap watching all six movies

on cable. So yeah, overall, Star Wars, I think,

is the better overall franchise. Yeah, I mean,

if we were just comparing one aspect of it, I

could see Star Trek winning in a lot of different

categories and a lot of different aspects. But

like Steve said, the comics are better in Star

Wars. Like Dodd said, the games are better in

Star Wars. The movies are better in Star Wars.

There's just too many parts. The toys are better

in Star Wars. And I'm just thinking of an overall

aspect. I'm not taking one TV show versus one

movie or this or that. Go ahead. Well, the thing

with the toys is Star Wars consistently, there

hasn't been an actual 7, 8, or 9 at all. Star

Wars consistently is a toy line that Hasbro produces,

whereas Star Trek, that license has been... lost

over the years i think hasbro has a partial star

trek license since they're making star trek creos

now but i i mean just you know star wars has

just had a longer And I don't want it to sound

like I'm not an intellectual person or I don't

like intellectual things. Nine times out of ten,

I will take the thinking thing over anything

else. I love intellectual things, and I love

being challenged, and I agree that the writing

in Star Trek does do that. But, man, the cultural

influence of Star Wars and the way it's reached

internationally. But Star Trek has done the same

thing, though. But not to the same level. I don't

know. That's a debatable point. Yeah. I mean,

there's no way to prove it either way. Yeah,

exactly. But it just seems like Star Wars has

had that much bigger of an impact to me, at least.

I don't know. So my votes with Star Wars on this

one, I love both franchises. I'm a huge fan of

both of them, but there's just been more aspects

of Star Wars done right. So I think it's time

for me to do a quick tally and figure out. the

winner of this debate. Yes, the winner. And we'll

have a little drum roll here for the winner.

Winning in a very, very close battle. The categories

were split actually 11 to 9. Wow. tie like we

had with the thundercats and silverhawks where

we had to go to the individual vote but it wouldn't

matter if we went categories or individual vote

the winner of this debate overall either way

we sum it up is actually star wars i can't say

i'm surprised star wars wins 11 to 9 um you know

we gave star trek the the iconic ships we gave

them the technology the artificial intelligence,

the alien races, the women, the good characters

we gave Star Trek, the writing, the acting, and

the creative genius behind it. But there was

just a couple more categories that went Star

Wars way. If we broke it down into individual

votes, Star Wars won 54 to 46. There was quite

a few categories. It seemed like when Star Wars

won, they won unanimously in a bunch of different

times. One, two, three, four, five, six different

times Star Wars won in a unanimous vote. So that

is the winner of this GCRN Wars debate, Star

Trek versus Star Wars. Star Wars, you are crowned

champions. Final thoughts on this whole escapade,

Mr. Wilson. If you're still listening to this

show, congratulations. Oh, shut up. It's not

that long. Michael, final thoughts. He is not

listening to this show. Mr. Blanchard, final

thoughts. Oh, holy. Hold on there. I'm sorry.

I was on mute. You totally missed. I was on my

soapbox again, and I was totally giving you an

earful. Well, go ahead. Continue. It didn't occur

to me that... Oh, shit. Nobody can hear me. Yeah,

no, I walked into this thinking that Star Wars

was the better franchise, and now I have been

vindicated, which is awesome. I feel pretty good

about that. Any other thoughts? That was your

soapbox right there. I had a stronger opinion

before I was humiliated and embarrassed with

my judicious use of mute gone easily awry. Final

thoughts, Mike Blanchard. I found it kind of

surprising how many different, like, the category

roundup. I thought it would have been a much

closer vote. But overall, both franchises have

things to enjoy about them. So, yeah, that's

my final thought. I was surprised. I didn't realize

that it was going to end up where we have two

people mainly voting Star Trek, two people mainly

voting Star Wars, and a neutral person. I didn't

know that's how it was. I thought... I didn't

know the level to which each of you liked certain

franchises this way or that way. I mean, nobody

voted straight ticket or however you want to

call it. So I was kind of surprised that I was

shaped up. A lot of the things I thought would

go Star Trek's way went Star Trek's way, and

a lot of the things I thought would go Star Wars

away went Star Wars away. I liked that it was

that close. I'm glad it wasn't a landslide because

both franchises have a lot of cool aspects. I

think the right franchise won. I voted, let's

see, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. I had nine. I voted

nine categories for Star Trek and 11 for Star

Wars. So I guess I agree. Steve, what are your

thoughts? Besides upset. Steve's all jaded now.

He says, I was robbed. Yeah, a little bit. But

I'm not entirely surprised. I almost had that

feeling going in. what was going to happen. So

I can't say I'm entirely surprised. But overall,

it was nice to see one win over the other and

kind of put things into perspective a little

bit. Birdman, final thoughts? Like I said, I'm

not surprised Star Wars won this one because,

like you said, you have to look at the cultural

impact that it's made. I think Star Wars in some

ways has a much better universe in terms of which

and to where it can tell its stories. But I think

Star Trek has maybe more poignant things to say.

I agree. I think Star Wars is a wonderful world

to escape to, but Star Trek is a world we have

to live in, if that makes sense. And to learn

from. Yeah. I think that's an accurate way to

say it. I mean, Star Wars is the entertaining

one. Star Trek is the educational one. And to

make it very black and white, even though there's

a lot of gray also. But I agree with everything

you said there. I think it's a good debate. And

I think we accurately named certain categories

the way they should have gone. I think this episode

is going to get a lot of comments. Oh, yeah.

And, Mike, you can kind of spin off of that a

little bit. All right. Well, back when we recorded

and released Episode 3 of GCN Wars, Thundercats

vs. Silverhawks, we discussed at the end of that

recording what we wanted to do for the next episode.

And I think it was Michael Wilson at the time

or somebody. I forget who it was. It might have

been Kevin. I don't know. Somebody brought up

Star Trek versus Star Wars. And we were like,

okay, cool. And a couple days ago, a couple weeks

ago, I made a post on the Facebook fan page of

GCN Wars, Episode 4, Star Trek versus Star Wars,

and blah, blah, blah. And at the bottom of it,

I said, yes, the irony is not lost on me that

Episode 4 of this podcast is a Star Wars. debate

podcast. But this leads us into the next evolution

of GeekCast Radio Network because on June 21st,

2012 at 11pm Eastern Standard Time, we will be

launching GCRN Live. And what this is going to

be is a monthly live show that we will be doing.

Random topics. The first one is actually going

to be an extension of this episode if anyone

wants to come on and argue and debate with us.

That's fine. There will be more details in a

blog post that we'll be doing later as far as

the full details of GCRN Live. But, yeah, that's

what we're leading up to in 2012 is we are going

live. Exactly. So there will be a chance to continue

this conversation, bring up other points, argue

points, et cetera, all with us live on the air.

So that will be very fun, very cool. Does anybody

want to pimp out anything before we get into

the outro? Future Imperfect. Yeah, Future Imperfect,

sponsored by SFI .org, the world's largest Star

Trek online fan club. I'm now back doing rads.

I'm doing about two a week right now, so looking

forward to that. I should have a Mass Effect

one out by the time this one is out. I'm also

on a new radio station. You can now listen to

me on Mix 100 up in Yellowknife, CHCD. awesome

that they brought me on so i'm looking forward

to doing that kind of a town is called yellow

knife it's the furthest yeah you should maybe

look at a globe once in a while um real quick

how can people they'll find your your different

uh stuff your podcast and all your other stuff

where do they need to go The best way to find

me is usually on thisweekengeek .net. That usually

has everything, and we work with Mike over at

GCRN, so you can find our content and his content

on the weekends, typically. And, yeah, so check

us out at thisweekengeek .net and reviewaday

.ca or blisterthumbs .net. And, Mr. Wilson, can

you tell people about your other adventures that

you have going on and how people can see or hear

more of you? Well, currently I'm doing a little

thing called Roll to the Rescue Bots, which is

a video podcast that I do with my boy Aiden.

It's a cartoon review show. We're reviewing Rescue

Bots from a five -year -old's perspective. That's

awesome. It is really cool. It's turning out

nicer than I thought it would. The downside is

I don't have as much time. to put this together.

So I'm getting them out about once a month at

this point, which is bad. And you can find those

at our website, get cast radio .com or Michael

and Chrissy .com, which is his website. Perfect.

And obviously I will throw a pimp out there to

behind the voice actors .com where you can find

me most of the time and where we currently, when

this airs, we will be in the process of. our

second season of actor voice out the voice acting

contest there, which has some voice actors that

are partaking and participating and helping us

out with that. So everybody should go check that

out and possibly vote for Steve. If he is lucky

enough to get to that point in the state in the

process. So hopefully he is there and you can

vote for him as we speak. Steve or Mike, anything

you guys want to say before we close this out?

Well, as we, I don't know if we mentioned it

on air, but we mentioned it off air. After this

episode gets released, we will have recorded

and released an interview with the goddamn Batman,

Kevin Conroy. That'll be awesome. Masked Mayhem

is still going strong, which is our mass review

podcast. Is Telecast coming back anytime soon?

Yes, there will be some more Telecast closing

out season one. Also, as far as GCR and Wars,

like I said, we're going to have a lot more of

these. If you want to hear more of this, you

need to give us feedback and tell us what kind

of things you want to hear. Dude, Marvel? versus

DC. We have a lot of cool stuff planned. That's

a great idea. We also have a Ultimate Battle

Royale type tournament that is going to be starting

at some point with GCR and Wars, which I don't

want to give too many details out, but that will

be a cool thing where we have a tournament style

debate. So it's not just a one episode thing.

It's multiple episodes with people or things

advancing in a tournament type bracket. So that

will be fun. Anything else? I like pie. That's

a good thing to add. All right. Then I'd like

to thank everybody for joining us in the war

zone today. And thanks to all of the co -hosts.

gave us a lot of hours of time here. There are

several ways to get in contact with us or leave

feedback for the show. Obviously visit the website,

geekcastradio .com. You can comment on all of

our posts. You can start the debate there and

you can learn more about that live GCRN live

that we were talking about. You can send an email

to feedback at geekcastradio .com. You can leave

the show feedback in iTunes. You can follow all

of us on Twitter, Geekcast Radio, or whatever

you're all individual. This Week in Geek is the

Twig Twitter. TFG1Mike for Mike. Optimist Solo

for me. SCP21, is that what yours is, Steve?

Yes. Michael Wilson, what's your Twitter? PeaconCourtMichael.

And Don? Birdman. You can also become a fan of

us on Facebook. Just search for Geekcast Radio

Network there. You can call the voicemail line.

Tell us the show that you're leaving the message

for and your name. The voicemail number is 502

-526 -5821. Or if you have a possible way to

record straight from your computer, you can just

go to geekcastradio .com and there's a button

to leave us a voicemail just with your mic plugged

into your computer. We hope you enjoyed this

episode of GCR on Wars and hope that you'll join

us next time when once again two geek topics

will be pitted against each other in an epic

battle to the death. For now, I am Optimus Solo

with... TF2 and Mike. Steve Megatron Phillips.

Michael Wilson. Mike the Birdman Dodd. Live long

and prosper, and may the Force be with you. Dr.

Cooper. Dr. Cooper. Is someone there? Down here,

on your desk. Spock? I need to speak with you.

Fascinating. The only logical explanation is

that this is a dream. It is not the only logical

explanation. For example, you could be hallucinating

after being hit on the head by, say, a coconut.

Was I hit on the head by a coconut? I'm not going

to dignify that with a response. Now, to the

matter at hand, you need to play with the transporter

toy. But it's mint in box. Yes, and to open it

would destroy its value. But remember, like me,

you also have a human half. Well, I'm not going

to dignify that with a response. Consider this.

What is the purpose of a toy? To be played with.

Therefore, to not play with it would be... Illogical.

Damn it, Spock, you're right. I'll do it. Sheldon,

wait. You have to wake up first. Of course. Set

phasers to dumb, right? Goody, goody, goody.

Two suns and no sunscreen. Hello again, Sheldon.

What is it now, Tiny Spock? I am very disappointed

in you. You broke your toy and switched it with

Leonard's. You should be ashamed of yourself.

You're the one who told me to play with it. If

I told you to jump off the bridge of the Enterprise,

would you do it? If I got on the bridge of the

Enterprise, I would never, ever leave. Trust

me, it gets old after a while. You must right

you're wrong, Sheldon. Why? I got away with it.

Leonard has his toy, and he's never going to

open it, so he won't know it's broken. And I

have a toy that isn't broken. Everybody's happy.

Well, I am unhappy. I thought where you come

from, they don't have emotions. I come from a

factory in Taiwan. Now do the right thing. You

know what you are? Well, you're a green -blooded

buzzkill. Perhaps it's time you beam on out of

here. Fine. I will just use the transporter.

Oh, right. You broke it. Very well. Cooper to

Enterprise One to beam up. Energize! Tiny Spock,

help. Live long and prosper. In a bar, two sexy

chicks have a lightsaber fight. Round one. Unleash

the force within you. These aren't the girls

you're looking for. In Han Solo's bathroom, two

more sexy chicks have a lightsaber fight in front

of Chewbacca. Round two, fight! Stroke the Wookie.

Saber, unleash the force within you. Make it

sound. frontier. These are the voyages of the

Starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission to

explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life

and new civilizations, to boldly go where no

one has gone before.