“Star Wars” and “Star Trek”:
the reflection of reality in sci-fi movies
Are you a lover of sci-fi movies? I believed that you may hear of Star Wars and Star Trek as the world-renowned movies even though you are not fascinated in sci-fi movies. The two movies lead the audience to a distant galaxy, enjoying a wonderful experience with fictional figures. However, with the structure of the science fiction world, some messages of the figure, items which reflect the society are hidden in the movies. Also, the issues which a sci-fi film wants to convey may be different from those of other films. Therefore, although the movies of Star Wars and Star Trek use the science fiction themes to tell the story, they have striking differences.
While both Star Wars and Star Trek display high-tech devices in the movies, they have key differences about the application of technology. Harth (2021) pointed out that the series of Star Wars revolved around the theme of the confrontation between “Rebel Alliance” and “the Empire” accounting for a large amount of the plot. Because of this reason, the high-tech devices such as jets, starships and devastating weapons used in the war. With the setting of Star Wars, we see the technology highly developed indeed. However, the technology can be considered the tool which help the ruler to invade the land of others. From a realistic perspective, it is certainly immoral and irrational. In contrast, the movies of Star Trek do not have so many scenes about the application of technology in the war. On the contrary, they focus on how to use existing techniques to improve the quality of life on the starships they live on. For example, the characters create an Emergency Medical Hologram (The Doctor) in the starship to provide high-tech services for the companions. As the saying goes “Technology comes from human nature.” The influence of technological development determines on the user how to apply for.
Moreover, the personalities of main roles lead us to find the differences between Star Wars and Star Trek. In the movies of Star Wars, there is a clear description of the traits of good and evil absolutely about the personality of main roles. Through the story of Luke Skywalker, the audiences can observe that Luke frequently follows his belief of bright side, making a perfect, purely good impression when he fights against the villains. On the other hand, we won’t see the personality of good and evil absolutely from the characters of Star Trek. Their performance in the plot seems closer to the people’s complex behaviors in real society. As a resourceful captain, Kirk even made the mistake many times. The reason made him an imperfect person. However, he still shows his leadership to solve the problems with his extraordinary abilities. In this case, we see different portraits of the characters between the two movies.
The last difference between the two movies is that the political atmosphere conveyed from Star Wars is not similar to that in Star Trek. In the fictional world of Star Wars, the villains reflect on elitism by conducting autocratic reign of the universe. Brin (1999) revealed that as the “despots” in Star Wars, Darth Sidious and Darth Vader, who are the leader of the Empire, demonstrate their pursuit of the Elitism which is similar to traditional lords in early ages. They let the power concentrated in themselves in order to rule the galaxy arbitrarily. As a result, this kind of anti-democratic system may oppress people who express different opinions from the authority. Unlike the concept of political atmosphere of Star Wars, Star Trek conveys an ideology of utopia which embraces a wide variety of races in the galaxy. They share the idea of political equality with each other and promote a cooperative society. Therefore, we can observe two different kinds of political ideology respectively from Star Wars and Star Trek.
Both Star Wars and Star Trek create a fictional world for the audiences. However, the two movies show the differences of the application of technology, the description of personality and the concept of political ideology. We cannot ensure whether the application of technology and the ideology conveyed by the movies is the proper way for our society or not. However, we still can take the plots of the movies as the references, reflect our actions in the real world and make improvements for our environment.
References
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Harth, D. (2021). 10 Fundamental Differences Between Star Wars & Star Trek. www.CBR.com
https://www.cbr.com/star-wars-star-trek-differences/
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Brin, D. (1999). "Star Wars" despots vs. "Star Trek" populists. www.Salon.com.