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Babylon 5 (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Babylon 5 (Score:5, Funny)
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Dr. Who and Red Dwarf.
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If Red Dwarf had been included, I might've had to think for a bit. As it is, I picked Star Trek without much hesitation. The big problem in deciding between those two is: If I'm in the mood for one, watching the other isn't going to be a reasonable substitute because I like them for different reasons. And I certainly wouldn't want to live in Red Dwarf's universe!
In any case - this is a poll not well served by radio buttons. I would have liked to pick both "Star Trek" and "I have no strong feelings about thi
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le sigh
FTFY
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Or Firefly. Either way you're bringing a gun to this knifefight...
You realize that there are more episodes by-number, and almost as much runtime by minute, of Star Trek: The Animated Series compared to Firefly and Serenity, right?
Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed Firefly, but there are about fifteen hours of Star Wars movies if one counts the two Ewok movies and the Holiday Special, and probably around 35 to 40 hours if one adds in all of the cartoons and the like. There's about 550 hours of Star Trek. Even if one likes only the Star Wars maintream movies there's
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Using mainly 'playing hours' as argument does not really make any sense.
Babylon 5, Battle Star Gallactica, Firefly/Serenity are by any stabdard far better than Star Wars, and at least in Par with Star Treck, if not better.
And that has nothing to do with play time, but quallity of the stories!
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Using mainly 'playing hours' as argument does not really make any sense. Babylon 5, Battle Star Gallactica, Firefly/Serenity are by any stabdard far better than Star Wars, and at least in Par with Star Treck, if not better. And that has nothing to do with play time, but quallity of the stories!
If the stories are so good, then why isn't there more of it?
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Apparently Guiding Light is better TV than House of Cards. Who knew? I think I'll stick with my low-episode-count, actually memorable stories.
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I make it a rule not to judge a series by its first season, but Firefly was an exception.
It's not as if you have a choice, in this case! :-D
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I remember when Star Trek: TNG came out. I watched it, but after a few shows I was so turned off I stopped watching. Then when season 2 started, I thought "maybe they've fixed it"... but, since it seemed even worse (in my opinion, anyway), I stopped again. Since I'm a fan of the original, I never completely gave up hope; and fortunately, when I started tuning back in to check out season 3, I was finally rewarded with something I actually enjoyed watching.
But if it hadn't been Star Trek, I likely would have
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What you didn't like it when Tasha Yar got kidnapped into sex-slavery by the African potentate? The really dumb African potentate who is only King because of his wife, and loses all his power when he successfully replaces her with a busty blonde? What's not to like in that scenario?
I am not fond of those two years myself.
Altho I like them more then the JJ Abrams films.
Re:Babylon 5 (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah! Like that time that Commander Ivanova died at the end of the season, but at the beginning of the next season she was alive and Marcus was dead, or the time that that Mr. Abbut recorded Talia Winters, seemingly so after her alternate personality destroyed her displayed personality she could be restored to who she was to the crew, but they never did it, or that time that Catherine Sakai visited Sigma 957 and lost power because an old-one drained her ship for no understandable reason, or that one time when Captain Sheridan jumped down into the abyss on Z'ha'dum while his White Star crashed from orbit and blew up, but not only did he survive but he met millennia-old "First One" Lorien despite the fall, the explosion, and the seemingly improbable act of the first conscious being living that long...
Re:Babylon 5 (Score:5, Insightful)
So basically, "A wizard did it."
That's always been my biggest source of dissatisfaction with Star Trek. The bulk of the writing is lazy and sloppy with a deus ex machina coming into play way too often. It's an inevitable problem with any long-running TV show, but I have a hard time forgiving it just because the "wizard" is some bit of technobabble or, in the case of B5, goofy space magic.
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Just realize that it's fiction, but at the same time reality is sometimes even stranger than fiction.
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I've never had a voice narrate everything that I'm doing. [wikipedia.org]
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You don't know what NSA do. They may narrate your actions in a presentation, but you won't hear it.
Re: Babylon 5 (Score:2)
No, not a wizard, just sufficiently advanced technology. Definitely a nod to Clarke's theorem.
Re: Babylon 5 (Score:5, Insightful)
Babylon 5 as a concept was cool. As-implemented it suffered from network meddling, pre-emption for sports causing lower ratings, and problems with numerous actors, plus a showrunner that would occasionally change his mind for no apparent reason. Michael O'Hare apparently had a mental break and could not continue to remain part of the main cast. Mia Furlan got fed up with having her head shaved and threatened to quit until they hybridized her into this part-Human, part-Minbari thing. Julie Caitlin Brown found better things to do and was temporarily replaced by Mary Kay Adams, who eventually left and was replaced by Julie Caitlin Brown again. Andrea Thompson quit. Claudia Christian left right after her character was resurrected. Jason Carter didn't even know that that his character was being written-out and that he was fired until the beginning of filming of Season 5. I spoke with him at-length at a convention about a decade ago and he was still quite bitter about it.
Hell, they even screwed up in sets and props- we never saw Kosh go through doors because they made the doors too narrow for the Encounter Suit to pass through. That was part why the Encounter Suits got redesigned for later seasons, so they'd actually fit through the damn doors!
I'll say this much for B5, it was the most literary-feeling, non-episodic sci-fi that I'd seen to-date, where the special-effects and some of the newtonian physics of the universe made sense. Unfortunately the overarching plot of the argument for the growth of the upcoming races between conflict and cooperation with the Shadows representing advancement through conflict and the Vorlons representing advancement through cooperation, was upstaged by the inane crap that plagued the series almost right from the start. It was one of the first shows where the characters portrayed as villainous had a bit of a point in the veracity of their approach, and where the characters portrayed as the heroes later proved to be not a whole lot better than their opponents in the end.
Babylon 5 wasn't bad, but it could have been a lot better.
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I met Michael O'Hare at a small B5 con where we gave him beer and asked him about his part in making the series instead of inane questions about his character. He said that in the first half of season one that there were five meetings specifically about his haircut.
She was sacked because some puritan exec disapproved of her relationship with Jerry Doyle.
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I met Michael O'Hare at a small B5 con where we gave him beer and asked him about his part in making the series instead of inane questions about his character. He said that in the first half of season one that there were five meetings specifically about his haircut.
To be fair, it really wasn't a great haircut.
She was sacked because some puritan exec disapproved of her relationship with Jerry Doyle.
*Trivia:
"Son, Al, with Jerry Doyle" (item 4)
"Son, Alec, born. Father unidentified." (item 1)
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm000... [imdb.com]
I don't really know what to make of that. She only has one son... and it either is or is not with Doyle. In any case, I think its more complicated a situation than a 'puritan exec' -- I'd bet there was some pretty toxic relationships going on... especially if (and just speculating); other candidates for 'Father unidentified' were around.
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Yes, the First Being down there with godlike powers rescued him is totally unbelieveable. Which part of "godlike powers" did you miss?
Honestly, the entire Lorien sub-plot was utter and complete shit for more reasons than I can begin to go into, but I will say that it completely undermined 'our generation' taking its place in the universe. (What with us needing to hold grampa's hand; and then grampa telling his kids it was time to go...sheridan as some sort of jesus messiah allegory, ugh. gag. )
The marcus - ivanova thing was all pretty cringeworthy. The Dr.'s plot was pretty cringeworthy too. But there was plenty of other stuff that was t
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I don't know about that.
It seemed like a generic Hard-SF Plot about interstellar war with ancient enemies, combined with the worst dialogue of any SciFi series, standard mediocre SciFi acting, and frequent unnecessary cast shake-ups.
The generic Hard SF plot was good enough that I actually binge-watched all five seasons, but that dialogue. I know most writers aren't Joss Wheedon, but seriously in five fucking seasons they wrote fewer good lines then Jayne got in 13 episodes.
Even a lot of the plotting was har
Honestly (Score:2)
Who gets that worked up about Trek Wars?
Re:Honestly (Score:5, Funny)
For a second I thought you'd said TekWar and got very angry indeed.
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That that is a quality franchise.
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I don't think I've ever heard Star Wars described as "passionate expression" before.
Lineage (Score:2)
There will be posts complaining about 60s attitudes in Trek, but without reference to 60s attitudes and circumstances. The 60s were weird and we got weird TV.
Wars is an 80s phenomenon, Trek is 60s. Neither is better, they're reflections of their times.
Live long and prosper.
Star Wars = space themed fantasy (Score:5, Insightful)
Star Wars is merely a fantasy-genre movie that just happens to have futuristic trappings as a backdrop. It is no more sci-fi than the Lord of the Rings is and, despite being entertaining, has nothing meaningful to say about traditional sci-fi themes, such as the social and cultural effects of advances in technology on humanity, etc.
Star Trek forever.
Re:Star Wars = space themed fantasy (Score:4, Insightful)
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If you're refering to the original films I coudn't agree more than compare them with Lord of the Rings.
The last 3 movies on the other hand... (oops, I trolling again!)
Star Wars = space themed serial adventure (Score:2)
Actually Star Wars is a space serial with a bunch of little adventures, compare it to the old Flash Gordon serial. It's even more apparent in Episode 1.
Re:Star Wars = space themed fantasy (Score:4, Insightful)
Hard to build characters in only 2 hours. (Score:5, Insightful)
I like Star Trek better mostly because there is more time to build relatable characters in a weekly, hour long, series that runs for years.
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To be more accurate "Star Wars or Star Trek", now that's a stupid question ;). It really depends upon which bit of content and how well that particular story has been told. Whether it be a movie, television series, animation, novel or comic. So a more accurate question which do you hate worse Jerk Jerk A efforts of the last three star wars movies (those works are all equally painful, the final star trek, dark what ever, I have never managed to watch to the end just giving up, switching it off and watching
intellectual issues (Score:3, Insightful)
TOS, TNG, DS9, and TOS movies were sci fi, and able to bring up intellectual issues. Star Wars is good space fantasy.
Star Wars (Score:5, Funny)
Personally, my favorite episode of Star Wars was when Picard got assimilated by the Daleks.
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It depends. (Score:2)
Which ST?
Which SW?
Re: It depends. (Score:3)
Star Trek V and the Star Wars prequels edited to contain only scenes with Jar Jar.
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Better yet: do we include the Star Wars books in the fray? If we do, Star Wars wins by a generous margin.
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I voted for Star Trek, but Star Wars has by far the more engaging universe.
I want to watch Star Trek. I want to play games set in the Star Wars universe.
Reality is that I rarely watch either anyway, and the games tend to be a bit hit and miss.
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Expect him to come in, shit all over everything to make his mark, and then leave.
Star Wars: The Next Generation (Score:5, Funny)
Starring:
Jean-Luke Skywalker
Princess Troia
Han Riker
OB/Gynan Kenobi
Worfbacca
R2-Data
C3P-Ro
Q Vader
Uncle O'Brien and Aunt Beverly
Lando Laforgian
Tasha the Hutt
and featuring Wes-Wes Binks
Re:Star Wars: The Next Generation (Score:4, Funny)
Starring:
...
and featuring Wes-Wes Binks
Damn.
Never thought is was possible to actually insult JarJar.
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Wish I had modpoints.... I laughed my ass off on this... Rather than this being just a "me-too" comment, I'll just leave this here... www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNxhrPaaCA4
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Written in 30 minutes by a brilliant but intellectually bored broadcast technician who gets motion sickness in the Bird of Prey the hero's party captured but kept hidden for years?
Stargate SG-1 (Score:5)
no love for Stargate SG-1?
(perfect segue into Farscape as well)
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no love for Stargate SG-1?
nope.
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I'd throw you an up vote if I could. SG-1 was brilliant.
It's necessary to remember that Stargate SG-1 was produced specifically to provide family accessible SciFi entertainment - And it succeeded brilliantly, given the show's loyal fanbase, very long run, and continued success in global syndication. Not unlike MASH, somewhere - at some point during the day - a rerun of SG1 is on, on some 2nd tier regional TV channel.
The show was expertly produced and ran like a well oiled machine. During its broadcast ru
Comic Book Guy (Score:3)
Richard Dean Anderson, of the four "Star" franchises: Wars, Trek, Gate, and Search, "Gate" is easily in my top three!
Sorry but ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Joss Whedon is My Master Now.
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That hat makes you look like an idiot.
Age breakout? (Score:3)
It's too bad we couldn't include some of the franchises suggested here, and then break it out by age. I grew up on Star Trek and voted for it, but it might be interesting to see how your age determines your preferences.
Or maybe that would make it too predictable?
Star Trek was ruined (Score:3)
I have to say the same now with Star Wars too. Prequels sucked. The revenge of the sith was ok actually, but man the story and over producing was laughable at times especially how Annakin fell to the dark side. Here is what I am talking about over producing [youtube.com]?
Rumor has it his exwife directed and saved the origian Star Wars trilogy.
Now I saw new trailer 3 last Monday. Hmmm is it just me or did I feel like I was watching JJ Abrams Batman, but with a few star wars things thrown in?? WTF? It is very disheartening after all these decades of death and suffer and then hope in the Galaxy that another 30 years of darkness, still death, suffering, and war, no ending??! I felt I was happy for nothing when I thought the empire was destroyed at the end of episode 6. Man, but I dunno this is Slashdot aka geek heaven and I am sure I will be modded down and have a million replies like I insulted both emacs and vi at the same time. etc.
I am just an old man now nearly 40 who is probably just bitter and lost hope so bah humbug.
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If I remember right, the Imperials did actually survive in the extended universe books. In fact I believe that Janna Solo (Han & Lea's daughter) married the head of state of the imperial remnant. It's been a long time since I've read a SW book.
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You can use the Force to anticipate and influence the course of events. Knowing saying one word to the right person at the right time can change the course of events that effects the entire galaxy.
Take a local trade dispute and manipulate it to a vast galactic war where you control both sides, creating a wave of fear and nationalism. Instead of seizing power create a situation where people willingly give you absolute power over them.
"So this is how liberty dies... with thunderous applause."
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It is very disheartening after all these decades of death and suffer and then hope in the Galaxy that another 30 years of darkness, still death, suffering, and war, no ending??! I felt I was happy for nothing when I thought the empire was destroyed at the end of episode 6.
There's where you went wrong. The Empire wasn't destroyed, just the Emperor and his lackey. And a rather improbably large piece of space junk that covered the moon of Endor with 6 kilometers of toxic white-hot debris, thus making the lovable Ewoks extinct. Extinct, I say! And these are your supposed heroes!!!
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I regret ever thinking that the artificial lens-flare in Babylon 5 was cool...
Missing optoin (Score:4, Insightful)
I dislike people creating clickbait polls.
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Then you must also dislike the people who modded your comment up?
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I dislike people replying to comments. (including myself)
I also dislike people that misspell comment subjects. (including myself)
Futurama? (Score:2)
I have A Bad Feeling about this (Score:2)
Is there a difference anymore? (Score:5, Insightful)
Star Trek used to be a forward-looking, progressive, optimistic science-fiction story. They weren't the hardest sci-fi out there, but they were at least aware of real-world science, and often used it to drive the plots. And above all, it was optimistic - the future wasn't perfect, but it was bright. Something got lost after Roddenberry, though. The optimism faded away. The old attempts at being scientific looked laughable in the light of modern knowledge, and new writers mistook it for camp - so accurate science was dropped completely. And then the reboot shed any last remnants of the old Trek, leaving it just a completely generic action movie with a veneer of sci-fi.
Star Wars used to be an epic fantasy with the aesthetic of a WW2 movie painted over with science-fiction. And it was great! There's nothing wrong with good heroes fighting evil villains. The look-and-feel was unique. But then somehow it got into writer's heads that, because Star Wars was "science fiction", they needed to explain all the "science". The Expanded Universe novels started this, or at least some of them did, and then the prequels happened. The mythic story was buried under worldbuilding, the magic was half-heartedly explained with technobabble, and the style went from "grimy lived-in future" to "chrome and white".
Right now, they're both generic action movies wearing the skin of science-fiction, dragging a massive anchor of existing continuity that they ignore most of the time, but bog themselves down tying themselves to anyways. You can barely tell the difference between them anymore.
The modern Star* might be good at what they are, but they aren't like what they were named after.
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Re:Is there a difference anymore? (Score:4, Insightful)
I actually like Star Trek between Roddenberry and Abrams most. Roddenberry had some great ideas, but execution tended to be on the naive side, and he could make some real clunkers. Next Gen, for example, sucked early on when his involvement was at it's peak.
His successors actually got into discussing the implications of his optimistic universe. Particularly with DS9, they were getting into the nitty-gritty of "how the fuck do you integrate a planet full of superstitious, borderline religious fanatics, who are barely educated, and traumatized by Imperialism; into the galaxy's utopia?"
Abrams will make great Star Wars films. He's wonderful at making cool stories in an interesting world. For example, that action sequence ending the last Star Trek was extremely cool, went on for like 40 minutes, and was basically the most Star Wars thing it could possibly be; despite numerous instances of fan service to the Star Trek mythos.
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The desire to employ good writers.
Some of the original trek is scripted well enough that it works with dialogue alone.
Missing Option (Score:2)
I enjoyed Star Wars, though I don't consider it a very good example of "science fiction". Star Trek succeeded in many ways, particularly if you embrace the idea of post-scarcity resulting in unified humanity that is pretty well NOT at war with itself. Too optimistic for some, but I'd like to believe it possible.
Babylon 5 plays out more like a David Weber series. Since I'm a fan of David Weber's work, I mean that only in good ways. Babylon 5 spent more time with the politics of interplanetary/
FarScape (Score:2)
Frell the others.
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Farscape
This
obvious (Score:2)
Not fantasy (Score:4, Informative)
Star Wars or Star Trek: merchandize is the key (Score:2)
Let's settle this dispute once an for all in the good old fashioned way:which is worth most?
For star trek my (very cursory) search turned up this: box office for all films: $1,930,671,933
For star wars it is $4,382,359,868
So it would seem that SW is the winner!
Firefly (Score:3)
Though hard to compare sample size...
Love my Star Trek, however it suffered from lazy writing. Too many "holodeck" and "timetravel" episodes. Star Wars suffers from mixed audience and constant merchandising. Hence your Ewoks and Jar-Jars.
Loved the Babylon 5... but it was basically a soap opera for geeks. Stargate... well no. Farscape, was fun but way too much fan pandering, also a Muppet. Doctor Who, just too campy. BSG, was pretty fantastic, but eventually got ridiculous plot lines.
Anyway, I'm sure I missed a bunch, but bottom line, Firefly was the best of the bunch, if only for a season and a movie. The only thing I would say that was lacking was perhaps some sort of alien contact... but perhaps that was for down the road and we never got that far...
Re:What the hell.. (Score:5, Funny)
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It's the poll. Its relevance comes right after the video's.
Quite seriously, what business it has between the news is beyond me. Or rather, what business they have there.
Re:What the hell.. (Score:5, Funny)
News for stereotypes of nerds? Stuff that doesn't matter?
I mean, seriously, the real question that needs to be asked is Firefly or Farscape? ;)
Re: What the hell.. (Score:2)
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star trek and star wars have nothing in common. star wars is not even SF.
Are you saying that geeks and / or nerds can't enjoy genres other than Sci-Fi? I enjoy Sci-Fi, some fantasy, drama, action, sports, and popcorn flicks.
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The signal to noise ratio is getting so high as to be unbearable here.
I thought that a high signal to noise ratio was a good thing (more signal, less noise); it's a high noise to signal ratio that's bad.
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trek 4 was my favourite startrek movie. time travel FTW. though i didn't enjoy time travel in 'enterprise', i thought it was just a weirdly screwed on season. the xindi arc was before that was OK, but the pre-xindi episodes were the best. startek does not work well with longer story arcs; it's not what's expected of it.
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Both have some good things and some really bad things. So when you start picking favorites from within each, you change the discussion. Though both are tainted by JJ Abrams now, so they might as well be by Michael Bay and star Nicholas Cage. They'be become formulaic and aren't even sci fi anymore (even if someone might say Star Wars never
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I have Ewoks: The Battle for Endor in my Laserdisc collection. I'm still trying to find Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure that preceded it before I watch Battle..., I want my steaming piles of suck to watch in the right order.
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You forgot: Star Wars happened long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away.
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Given current trends toward small families, lots of education, long careers, and the Hipster de-emphasis of material gains? Star Trek.
Star Wars actually is explicitly not a description of the future. "A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away" and all that. It's actually pretty much America as it existed in 1975, except the Cars hover, there are cool robots, the Navy is IN SPACE, the Force exists, and there's an Emperor to deal with.
But very few people seem to have any education beyond High School, a galaxy
Re:Star Wars People vs. Star Trek People (Score:4, Interesting)
Or, to put it another way: If you like spectacle, go with Star Wars. If you like character development, head towards Stat Trek.
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What could possibly be more scientific than a space station the size of a small moon with a laser cannon with enough power to destroy a planet?
Not bothering with that shit and ramming the damn thing with a Star Destroyer at .99c?
Of course Star Trek has that problem too.
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Problem is, the redshirts never seem to see it coming.
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Iain M Banks "the Culture" series is a better place to live.
A hyper-intelligent AI that does all the work in the society for you, lets you spend your time getting drunk and socializing, and is ethically bound to ensure your right to get drunk and socialize is unrestricted.
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One needs spare parts, the other reproduces on its own.
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I could never figure that out. If they have slaves, why bother having robots (or vice versa)?
Slaves are probably cheaper.