How Star Trek is Better Than Star Wars
pointsincase.com
pointsincase.com
(1) on "Science Fiction versus Science Fantasy": Star Trek has a whole lot of fantasy elements.
- the Vulcan mind meld is a pure fantasy element.
- In their travels, Star Trek is constantly running into gods who have full godly powers with no particular explanation for how this could be. They also meet things like "beings of pure energy".
- Also: shapeshifters.
Star Wars aliens actually seem pretty sensible and down-to-earth compared to any of that stuff. Also: "The Force", silly as it is, seems to have some limitations - it doesn't quite reach to the level of godlike. Even the Emperor couldn't take on Q.
(2) Regarding "Anything on Star Trek versus the Death Star": The Borg Collective is at least as silly in its own ways. And if you're determined to make a planet-sized ship, a sphere seems like a more sensible shape for it than a cube, doesn't it?
(3) Regarding dumb names: Calling the robot "Mister Data" is at least as lazy as calling the space hero "Skywalker".
(4) Robot tech: C3PO is a "protocol droid" - being subservient and inoffensive and clumsy and overly polite and generally less powerful than a human seems like a very sensible set of default characteristics for a droid expected to act as a go-between in negotiations. Yes, it's odd that Artoo can't talk - it seems like a false economy to leave that feature out - but the robots generally are a LOT more scientifically plausible than Data is. There's no particular reason to think star travel would enable robots to be that much better. In fact, Data himself is basically another fantasy element.