Anything that exists in this world as some kind of cultural touchstone often times finds itself in a rivalry with something else that seems similar, yet different. We're talking about Coke vs. Pepsi. McDonald's vs. Burger King. Marvel vs. DC. Or in the case of the most famous space dramas in the world, Star Wars vs. Star Trek.
Although it seems like Star Wars has always had the slight edge over Star Trek (Star Wars being the McDonald's/Coke/Marvel in the situation, if you will) the Trekkies of the world will stand and defend their fave until the last gasp, and we wouldn't want it any other way. The obvious comparisons and contrasts between Star Wars and Star Trek seem to be never-ending, and the rivalry between the two fandoms seems to be never-ending too. And here are ten hilarious memes that sum up that rivalry in one picture.
Fight The Real Enemy
Let's be real, if someone is the kind of person who is invested enough in Star Wars or Star Trek to sincerely keep fighting about their favorite's superiority, especially in full cosplay, then they're already nerdy enough to out-nerd 99% of normal society. So why waste time on all of this fighting when the real enemy, normal people, are still out there?
The combined forces of Star Wars freaks and Trekkies (or Trekkers, which is apparently their preferred nomenclature) is more than enough to dominate the super fan world, and given how much subject matter overlap there is in each series they make much more natural allies than enemies.
A Difference In Philosophy
Well herein lies the dictionary definition difference in Star Trek and Star Wars. Star Trek is a literal trek across the galaxy, right? So the crew of the Enterprise (or any other of the many ships in the Star Trek universe) has the luxury of just popping in on random planets and observing without interrupting the nature of that world.
But Star Wars are literal wars, so it's not that surprising that whenever the rebels or the empire lands on another world they tend to completely trash the place. Star Trek's philosophy is clearly the superior one, but it's easy to understand why Star Wars is always getting people killed and blowing stuff up too.
Perhaps The Prequel Trilogy Could Have Been Better
Now that a few years have passed since the original Star Wars prequel trilogy was released it's a lot easier to look at the three films with more reasonable expectations. They certainly weren't what every Star Wars fan was hoping for, but in retrospect, the quality of the story and the characters wasn't too abysmally worse than the original Star Wars series.
Unfortunately, the nostalgia for Star Wars and the massive gap in between the originals and prequels just brought the expectation level to a high that the prequels would never match. But yeah, Star Trek fans always have the leg up on that one.
Disney, The Arbiter Of Cultural Relevance
Disney may be making a lot of inroads in their quest to become the benevolent overlords of the world's entertainment but the fact that they haven't bought the rights to Star Trek yet doesn't say anything about Star Trek's quality, only about its potential profitability. And that is absolutely not a dig at Star Trek either, because there really isn't another fictional franchise on earth who's monetary value can even come close to what Star Wars has to offer.
Star Wars fans might be flexing on their power now, but with great power comes great responsibility, and just because the current crop of Star Wars flicks kick-ass that doesn't mean that Disney won't eventually screw things up.
It's Funny Cause It's True
James Tiberius Kirk is certainly a bit of a rebel, but Han Solo is obviously a rebel squared. It's interesting to imagine that Han and Kirk could be long lost brothers or something, and it's even cooler to imagine the incomparable Harrison Ford playing Kirk.
And in all fairness to C-3P0, yes, he doesn't really hold a candle to Data, but he's just a protocol droid. How is a basic protocol droid built by a ten-year-old supposed to match the capabilities of something like Data, a fully functioning, sentient android that is basically a real person with the most powerful computer brain that technology is capable of?
Solving Problems, Old School
The fictional worlds of Star Wars and Star Trek might be home to all of the most fantastical technology that anyone could even dream of, but why not take things back to basics every once in a while.
Luke Skywalker and Captain Kirk are undeniably some of the most legendary badasses who ever lived, but it would be very interesting to see them go toe to toe in a traditional knockdown, drag-out fight. Our money is on Kirk, he just seems like a more natural scrapper, but we also wouldn't put it past Luke Skywalker to use his force powers to give himself a little extra edge either.
When An Unstoppable Force Meets An Immovable Object
This is like one of those riddles that just doesn't have any solution. Red shirts were born to die, and stormtroopers were born to be terrible at their jobs, apparently. But really, while the whole interchange between these two characters from separate space saga universes is obviously hilarious to think about, it's not like seeing their interactions would show the audience anything they weren't expecting in the first place.
Nobody expects a stormtrooper to actually fire at something or someone and hit it or them, but nobody expects there to be a reasonable explanation as to why a red shirt just dropped dead either.
A Son's Betrayal
Damn, that's cold. Apparently, Mark Hamill's son Nathan is content to continue on the Skywalker family tradition of completely going against everything that your father represented and defecting to the enemy side. However if Hamill the younger had to defect from his legacy, there are worse directions to go in than towards the starship Enterprise.
At least it's a relatively peaceful endeavor, and no one can be blamed for not wanting to get thrown into a war that had nothing to do with them. Luke Skywalker of all people should understand the need to get out from under your father's shadow, though.
Vulcan > Robot
Mad props to Mr. Spock that he manages to have better grammar than a robot that is literally programmed to speak proficiently to every living being under the sun. Therein lies the obvious, constant fault of droids though. They may be machines, but they're always machines that have been designed by humans, therefore it's to be expected that there is some human error built into their binary code.
Threepio's language skills are obviously nothing to sneeze at, a 94.6% is still a solid A grade, however, Spock's skill level and accuracy when it comes to grammar are definitely worthy of some admiration.
And You ARE The Father
Do you think there will ever be a point in time where people start actually feeling bad for Jar Jar? I mean he's an absolute nightmare not to mention he doesn't even actually exist, but that floppy-eared nincompoop has been dragged from every corner of the galaxy for what he did to the Star Wars prequels.
The failings of the movies obviously weren't entirely his fault though, his presence in the movies was more an overall symptom of what was wrong with the prequel trilogy more than the cause of what was wrong. Although on the other hand, he was kind of responsible for the collapse of the republic, so maybe he deserves it.