William Shatner On Star Trek Vs. Star Wars: 'Star Wars Is Derivative Of Star Trek' (VIDEO)

The original Captain Kirk himself has thrown down in the ongoing "Star Trek" vs. "Star Wars" debate. In an interview William Shatner tweeted today, he expands on the differences between "Star Wars" and "Star Trek," the main one being that "Star Trek" is way better.

"'Star Trek' had relationships and conflict among the relationships and stories that involved humanity and philosophical questions," Shatner said. "'Star Wars' is derivative of 'Star Trek.'"

"Star Wars" did have one thing "Star Trek" was lacking, though -- special effects. But even in that respect, "Star Trek" now has "Star Wars" beaten. Shatner explained that, once J.J. Abrams piled on the effects and placed "Star Trek" within a blockbuster framework, there was a resurgence that allowed "Star Trek" to "supersede 'Star Wars' on every level."

"'Star Wars' has nothing to stand on," he said.

He didn't stop there, and took a stab at the beauty quotient in both franchises.

"Princess Leia, as beautiful as she was, and as wonderful an actress as she is, can't compare to the marvelous heroines we had on 'Star Trek,'" Shatner said. "The pretty girls were prettier than the girls in 'Star Wars.'"

Shatner does note that he would still run off with Princess Leia.

"That would be the perfect union," he laughed.

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Comments

[JimR]

11:37 PM on 09/21/2011

"Star Trek" fan boys and girls to the left... "Star Wars" fan boys and girls to the right... Ready? ENGAGE!

[Sacred Kaw]

08:06 PM on 09/21/2011

Star Trek, as Gene Roddenberry pitched it, was "Wagon Train to the Stars" Han Solo was as much a cowboy as Captain James Tobias Kirk, (does that make Spock Kirk's Wookie?).

[Dead Zone]

06:25 PM on 09/21/2011

The popularity of Star Wars allowed the Star Trek movie franchise to happen. Fact: Lucas had to create from thin air the techology to get his vision on celluloid, he created ILM, the greatest special effects studio in the history of film. Fact: the huge success of SW in 1977 created an appetite for Sci-fi blockbuster, which would have been stupid for the owners of the ST franchise to capitalize on. The produers of ST:TMP tried to do their own F/X in house and failed miserably. Only by using ILM was ST2:TWOK able to pull off the F/X that made it the hands-down best of the series to this day. JJ Abrams couldn't even make a better one.
Star Wars is also the culmination of all of humanities legends, mythology and lore. It's messages transcend cultural boundaries. Well, the first three anyway, the prequals blew dog, I'll give ya that one

[Dead Zone]

06:29 PM on 09/21/2011

edit to read: Fact: the huge success of SW in 1977 created an appetite for Sci-fi blockbuste­r, which would have been stupid for the owners of the ST franchise NOT to capitalize on.

[Sacred Kaw]

08:05 PM on 09/21/2011

Lucas "Stole" the visual concepts from Stanley Kubrick. There would never have been a Star Wars if there wasn't a 2001. In fact Lucas wanted to hire Bruce Trumbull, the special photographic effects supervisor from 2001, as his VFX supervisor. Lucas also used a lot of Joseph Campbell's work to flesh out the script.

[cdchicago]

06:04 PM on 09/20/2011

Personal recreation aside ( think he still gets a buzz from equestrian pursuits, by the way), he is right. There is little comparison given Star Wars is a really long, segmented movie produced out of order and the actors get better and better as the sequence of films progress while Star Trek gets better as the technology progresses, the actors season and the writing improves over decades.
Star wars is based on Science Fantasy, Star Trek is based on almost prophetic cutting edge engineering. The actors were veterans of decades of TV before the original series even started ( see Paladin for references to Christopher :Pike and Robert April). Not only is Shatner's perception of both worlds fairly accurate, but I would love for a new Star Trek based show to be produced. Hope to see Shatner besides Nimoy in the next film, while it is still possible. Maybe Brent Spiner as well.
If another Star Wars film was never produced, I doubt any one would shed many tears.

Star Trek did not invent Science Fiction. It redefined Science Fiction. As Doctor Who continues to redefine Science Fantasy and Torchwood redefines the Doctor Who world.

[Action Sam]

03:14 AM on 09/20/2011

shatner is smoking crack. as a fan of both series i'm non-partisan. there was relationships in starwars too, han and leia, luke and vader. star wars wasnt a show AND movies, so they didnt really have the time to develop relationships they way star trek could. I think star wars had much more creative visual effects from the ships to the sets to the makeup to costumes, it was all better in star wars. star trek had some more creative situations and more opportunities for comedy like star trek 4 with the gang walking through then present day san fransisco, spock in the headband, nuclear wessles, etc.. But for him to say star wars was a derivative of star trek is just ludicrous. what do they have in common, both in space? whats next? apollo 13? LAY OFF THE PIPE BILL star wars was supposedly inspired by flash gordon from the 1940s. he acts like star trek was the inventor of sci fi. get over yourself

[Peter Speight]

04:44 PM on 09/19/2011

Aren't the disciples of Star Trek all getting old now?

[David Kay]

04:11 PM on 09/20/2011

Eh, what? Speak up, Sonny!

[Peter Speight]

08:07 AM on 09/24/2011

He's pretty spry for a 80 year old guy, but dear god i don't care anymore. I enjoyed Star Trek when I was 5, and it still is original and cool and intelligent. Then came the franchise and geeks who have nothing else must obsession.

[Doug Girard]

04:08 PM on 09/19/2011

I believe William Shatner has finally lost his mind.

[Jymac]

11:18 AM on 09/19/2011

I always saw Star Wars as the follower to the Star Trek Stories being that Star Trek tells the story of the early star travelers and growing technology where as Star Wars seems to be set in the distant future after The Star Treks mapped the galaxies and discovered the far reaches of space and colonized. BattleStar Galactica would be the middle link of both the story in-between.

[Action Sam]

03:18 AM on 09/20/2011

star wars begins each movie "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.." has nothing to do with the future.

[sherlockhemlock]

07:41 AM on 09/19/2011

They both suck. Dr. Who wails the sheet out of both Kirk and Skywalker.

[BillAnthony]

01:39 AM on 09/19/2011

Not a fan of either. Star Wars was hugely influential, but not in a good way in that it dropped the film industry's target age demographic by at least ten years practically overnight. Films began to be conceived as "franchises" with merchandise tie-ins becoming a part of the "creative" process. Those who bemoan Hollywood's tendency toward the juvenile, and the lack of creativity behind constant sequels and remakes, thank Star Wars.

[sherlockhemlock]

07:36 AM on 09/19/2011

Well yes but merchandising was already there long before Star Wars. I'd put the real beginning at around one year earlier, with the movie Jaws--remember the plague of plastic sharks? And the nearly endless string of Planet of the Apes movies--with model kits, comics, action figurines, et cetera--are a great example that the merchants of Star Wars emulated--it was a trend that was already building, but Star Wars just catapulted everything into the realm of megabucks.

[Gerald OHare]

05:40 PM on 09/18/2011

Captain Kirk has light saber envy.

[WilliamWalton]

12:48 PM on 09/18/2011

Of course Star Trek appeared more technologically capable, the characters were more in depth, and battled issues of humanity. The one thing that most people are missing is that Star Trek also had somewhere close to 700 episodes on tv and 11 movies in order to do this whereas Star Wars had 6 movies and a couple tv specials.

Comparing the two is like comparing apples to oranges. If you compare the movies to movies, Star Wars would win hands down. Even the newest trilogy did better than any of the Star Trek movies.

Both Star Wars and Star Trek are great.

One point about technology and science regarding Star Wars is that it might not be based on fact, but behind the scenes, Star Wars advanced a lot of film technology and special effects.

[susandiane]

09:00 AM on 09/18/2011

"Princess Leia, as beautiful as she was, and as wonderful an actress as she is, can't compare to the marvelous heroines we had on 'Star Trek,'" Shatner said. "The pretty girls were prettier than the girls in 'Star Wars"
That's because he knows Leia could and would kick Kirk's butt to the curb! Also, all that soft focus can't hurt, you know! And WHY do they all wear mini-skirts and false eyelashes?

[susandiane]

08:56 AM on 09/18/2011

Let's see, let's listen to the creators. Which would I prefer, Wagon Train or Kurosawa?

[chaapai]

11:25 PM on 09/17/2011

Who needs C3PO when you have Commander Data!