http://entertainment.blogs.foxnews.com/2...ate/?test=faces


William Shatner is getting the geek world stirred up again.

The iconic “Star Trek” actor is taking George Lucas’ “Star Wars” to task, dismissing the film franchise as a “derivative” of his show.

I find it fascinating how so many people take this seriously when Shatner made it pretty obvious that he was just joking around.

Well, well, if George keeps altering the original movies like in the recent BD release, I'm sure Shatner will be eventually right.

LOL, the woman interviewing him looks like she can't believe what she's hearing.

I consider myself a pretty dedicated science fiction fan but these overblown rivalries between fans of one franchise vs. fans of another franchise never made any sense to me.

Some people need to grow up and realize that they can enjoy both but if they only like one of the franchises then that's ok too!

Sheesh.

He was joking and he was intentionally over the top, but he was also right

Shatner doesn't have to be intentionally over the top. He just naturally is.

LOL, so true. Shatner ROCKS!

No kidding, it's fine to like WOP and CoD! They don't have to be compared all the time.
Wait, that's not the topic.

Shatner's just fun to listen to no matter what. If only he did that in character as Denny Crane.

Star Wars...what a shame what Lucas keeps doing to it (necrophilia, basically)

Of course unlike Star Wars, the creator of Star Trek died 20 years ago and even when he was alive he didn't have absolute creative control over his franchise like Lucas does with SW.

Lucas should take him on just for fun. Maybe even vicariously through Seth Green and Robot Chicken.

Seth Green is great. I remember first seeing him on an episode of the X-Files from season 1.

Isn't Shatner about 80 years old now? He's looking good.

Yup. Both Shatner and Nimoy recently turned 80. Both of them were born in 1931.

Shatner for president!

The guy was even great as the "big giant head" in 3rd rock frrom the sun.

You guys ever see the skit for SNL I believe where Shatner pokes fun at the Trekkie faithful for being nerds with no life ? I finally went to ComicCon this year in my hometown and it was fun, but there were some folks there dressed up in no less than $1000 authentic costumes I'm guessing to look like a Klingon or Chewbacca. Talk about both ardent and sad at the same time.

"You've taken something I did as a lark, for a few years, and turned it into a colossal waste of time"

That SNL episode from 1986 with Shatner hosting is one of my favorite SNL episodes of all time. Who remembers the salad bar sketch with Dana Carvey as Khan?

Most agree that Shatner rocks.
Star Trek has Shatner, Star Wars does not.

Hence Star Trek > Star Wars.

Simple Math.

SW had Harrison Ford as Han Solo. Beam THAT up Scotty!

Yes, still :

The Enterprise vs. Imperial Class Star Destroyer : Bye Bye Enterprise
The Earth vs. the Death Star : We can't repel firepower of that magnitude
Phasers vs. Lightsabers : Woops, where'd your arm go ?

Han Solo, unlike Kirk, can fight a lizzard-man and look good doing it. He just shots him under the table. The Kirk style is somewhat less dramatic, dodging cardboard rocks, throwing pussy punches and then trying to cuddle it to death.

Yoda can outsmart Spock AND kick his ass in combat.

Scotty has been known to 'Beam it up'. What does that even mean ? Chewie, on the other hand, famously 'Punches it'. It doesn't make much sense either, but it sounds badass : You can't beam up a Klingon or a Romulan in the face, but you can punch a Stormtrooper.

Star Wars for the win !!!

Cheers

Nico

I wouldn't say ST was better - just brilliant, groundbreaking TV sci-fi. But it was better than ST the Next Generation which did little more than prove conclusively that kitchen-sink drama could be enacted in space.

Lol! William at it again.

But think about it, Shatner saying ST is better is like Buddha saying Buddhism is better. He kind of has to bat for his own team!

And Old Dux has it right, New Generation doesn't deserve the "Star Trek" name

I love both universes a hell of a lot, but not enough to geek slap anyone about it.

ya gotta love nerd rage

EVERYBODY knows that Trek is Waay better than Star Wars

Once Leia discovered bras Star Wars lost its biggest attraction. Even the slave girl bikini wasn't as good as that white robe. And Ewoks?? Chewie's Tarzan yell? WTF?? Don't even get me going on Jar-Jar, the oh-so-cute little Anakin that made me think I was back in the late 70s watching Eight is Enough, and all the other silliness of episodes 1-3. Nope, give me the "submarine warfare" of pre-JJ Trek any day. Thank the maker for the Star Wars EU!

Of course, Shatner is an unbiased outside observer with nothing to gain by the comparison at all.

Youtube probably has his appearance at Lucas' AFI show, it was hilarious.



The Jedi Master

Mark Hamill had already signed on to be on "Eight is Enough" but he got out of it when he landed the role on Star Wars.

I have no idea what any of that even means. There were 3 Star Wars films, everyone knows that. Episodes IV - VI. Still waiting for someone to make Episodes I - III that are worthy of bearing the almighty Star Wars name. So far, no one seems to want to even try.

Shame really.

Will only happen is Lucas sells the rights to someone else. That's likely.....NOT!

Imagine if Michael Bay was the one who manages to buy the rights to Star Wars!

I wouldn't want to watch Michael Bay ruin SW any more than I do watching George Lucas do it. You need a story teller, not a special-effects-rule-watch-how-cool-this-explosion-is cowboy.

Good way to put it.

I like explosions. That's what hooked Red Foreman.

I was being sarcastic about Bay. I rather have Chris Nolan or Peter Jackson at the helm of any new addition or remake of Star Wars.

I agree with the South Park creators in asking a simple question, Why does Michael Bay get to keep making crappy 180 million dollar movies ?

Obviously he makes a profit for his investors, but as to film making, ....

The film studios really couldn't care less about "art" or actual film-making. If a director makes monster box office hits for them, they're happy. And if there is one thing you can't deny it's that most Michael Bay movies make a crapload of money.

Meh.

Both had story conceits that easily resolved plot lines if nothing else. With Star Wars, the Force had transformed from mysticism to a dose of the stuff found in blood. Why didn't either Jedi or the Emperor just take a bunch of servants and inject them with high doses of midiclorians and have armies of Jedi skilled warriors, if it's as simple as that? And R2 D2 just seemed to have every possible configuration or bit of technology onboard to deal with any situation, in case all else failed.

Star Trek evolved from Western style beat em up to heavy scientific problems where you can't simply knock the stuffing out of some alien- like the continuum of space-time transforming into chocolate ice cream or something. No problem, no matter what the situation, they had some button on the ship's console specifically designed to solve that problem. The trick is to bury the problem and its solution into almost plausible sounding techno-babble, hell, you can't argue with that because you either only sort of have an idea of what they're talking about, or it's all under the guise of being in the future, in which case of course they'd have the technology to do that. "Number 1, engage the Hawking-K'vorath-ka Device, create an area of null space around the mother ship, and reverse the time flow to..."

Young Anakin reminded me of Nicholas Bradford the very first time I saw him LOL

Except that's something Geordi would say, not Picard.

Pure drama goes to Star Wars, however, hands down. The fantastic coincidences and connections everyone had to everything are worthy of a Greek tragedy. "What?! I made out with my sister? Well, somehow I knew it all along..."

Film making? Art?

No, Mr Bay is a walking ATM machine: need money, give Bay $180, get $800 back!



Or to put it in Southpark terms:

1) give Mr. Bay $180 million
2) ???
3) profit!!

The master speaketh and quoteth, referencing "Dagger of the Mind".

Leonard Nimoy also had his Michael Bay moment, although that may be a bit anachronistic. Perhaps "Simpson/Bruckheimer moment" is more appropriate

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094137/

Cost $11m
Box Office (US) $167m

Uh, no. You obviously didn't pay attention. The midiclorians were basically bacteria or viruses or something that were partly intelligent. They weren't the Force, they connected with the Force. The whole thing was a plot device anyway, which is why it's only mentioned in Ep 1. It was put in purely as a way for Qui Gon to test Anakin quantifiably. Otherwise, how would they know which toddlers to take away to the Temple to train? The test showed potential, the higher the count, the stronger that person COULD be (but not WOULD be). You just go injecting them into someone, they didn't have to stay there. They could easily fail to reproduce and die out quickly. Your idea is like the old "eat the heart of your enemy to gain his strength" idea.

You misread a simple plot device as "demystification of the Force" when it did no such thing. That's like saying "He can fly!" "But he has a crystal that lets him fly." "Oh, well that's just crap then, there's nothing special about it if you have a crystal."



The Jedi Master

Hey, there's nothing wrong with a film director making a movie for mass appeal every once in a while. Besides, I would hardly call Three Men and a Baby to even remotely be similiar to any Michael Bay film in style and substance.

It DID demystify the Force, by making its manifestation in certain individuals something that could be scientifically explained and quantified. It would have been much better to simply leave it at "we don't know what causes some people to be Force-sensitive, but we know how to detect those people", like Luke's paddles or whatever in the EU.

You're right, I made this up out of thin air.




The fact that there is a test for it shows a correlation between high midiclorian count and the Force being strong with this one or that one. What is it that you would refute in that? In no other film was this ever mentioned, even in the later episodes this idea was kind of dropped. It's as if Lucas realized he may have introduced this facet into it but it was kind of lame.



What's funny is that many people have said the same thing- Star Wars fans included. What's funny is that Lucas has been known for back peddling or changing things after the fact, what makes you think this wasn't the case with midiclorians?

Why isn't it ever explained this way in Star Wars Episodes 4 through 6 (meaning the first 3 films), why are midiclorians never mentioned? Those films came out first, but in the Star Wars timeline, the events depicted actually happened later. This means somehow knowledge of midiclorians went from something quantifiable in the blood that evidently they can send samples back to the Jedi lab to a more mystical explanation without any mention of it. Don't think that Lucas changed the story arc a bit at all? Think that he had midiclorians in mind all along back in the 1970s?

They weren't necessary in the original trilogy. Where would they have been needed? Ben and Yoda know who Luke is, they don't need to bother with some test. Leia is deduced, they don't need to test her either.
When it comes to Anakin being found "late" and then trained as a Jedi with disastrous consequences, there had to be some reason to go that route. That's all. Did he have this SPECIFIC route in mind in the 70s vs a more vague "test"? I don't know.

As I said before, it's a plot device. If you feel like putting all this meaning and angst into it, whatever.

When it comes to that lame way they did it in the KJA books, I'm glad it disappeared even from there. The idea that Jedi went around the galaxy finding infants and toddlers and "probing their minds" until they got knocked back on their ass was stupid.

Oh and the paddles? Uh, isn't that just scientifically created technology? If you see some massive gap between the way the paddles work and a blood test for midichlorians, well, whatever.

I also say it is 85 angels that can dance on the head of a pin.



The Jedi Master

I'm not denying it's a plot device. Of course it is, that's either a red herring or not the point. But subjectively, it's a bad plot device. It seems rather fudged or forced fit in there based on the way the Force was sold before.

Remember, they said that Anakin's midichlorian count is off the charts (that old thing, again) after testing. That would indicate it's something objective, quantifiable. In that case, just like any micro-organism or virus, that should suggest you could pass it around somehow, since it's in body tissue or fluids.

As an aside, Curious George looks like he just butchered http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrion to make his plot device. Mitochondria are cool as they live inside our cells independently (their own DNA etc) and provide vital ATP 'power' - you can see why he jiggled the word.

Oh, for sure. Much of what Yoda was teaching originally in Empire Strikes back has very Eastern roots, the Force is a philosophy (abandon emotions, desires, friends even) and a real energy that is manifested- but both are entwined; George certainly borrows from all kinds of ideas. That it and of itself wouldn't be so bad, however, in this case what he was doing was changing it to be more Western medicine like than how it was explained before.

Chronologically this doesn't appear to make much sense. That means it went from a scientific explanation to a more mystical one. Usually it happens the other way around.

Just as a matter of taste, I like the mystical side better.

Probing minds is a hell of lot better explanation than the midichlorians stupidity. Yoda knew Luke would be the first of a new Jedi order, yet he didn't feel the need to tell Luke about how to detect other Force adepts?

And what does the fact that the paddles were scientifically created technology have to do with anything? By explaining where Force sensitivity comes from, it was demystified. It was turned from certain people somehow being in tune with a mysterious energy field that permeates the universe, to it all being due to...parasites (symbionts, actually, but you get my drift.)

I always thought that the "midiclorians" thing was a killer for a large part of the original trilogy. It undid everything.

Take Han, stating that he'd never seen anything like an "all powerful force"... Well wouldn't midiclorians be 100% proof!?

No. That's like saying "I found a present under my Christmas tree that I didn't put there, so Santa Claus must be real."

They're like bacteria and they can be seen and counted in your blood and cells. That's where the science ends. After that, THEY are "in tune with a mysterious energy field that permeates the universe". It doesn't say a thing about what this energy is or how it's accessed or how it can do what it does. The only difference is it shows a way of testing who would be stronger in the Force. How does it demystify it?
This is the part I don't get. It hasn't changed a THING about the explanation, only added to it, yet people are up in arms that somehow this is totally different??

The old way: "The Force is an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us, it penetrates us, it binds the galaxy together. Size matters not. Judge me by my size, do you?"

The new way: "The Force is an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us, it penetrates us, it binds the galaxy together. Midichlorians inside us allow us to access it, and the more you have the stronger in the Force you can be."

Same explanation, slightly longer.

"How did you change him into a lizard? You can do magic!"
"I have a wand."
"Oh, a wand? That's not magic then, that's just stupid."



The Jedi Master

I think Jedi pretty much nailed it on the head.

I guess I always saw the Force as something many took as a myth in the original trilogy. Scoffed at a time or two. A sad devotion to an ancient religion, as it was said.

But when takes on a foundation in a physical element, it's not a belief any more. If we can count midiclorians, then I assure science would not stop there. They would be grown in a culture. They would be exposed to biological, chemical, and electromagnetic experimentation. Qui-Gon-Jinn said that life could not exist without them. Surely such a fundamental component of life's existence would be a subject of scientific exploration.

As for "crackpot" claims that this lifeform speaks the will of some "Force", this would at first seem something to be dismissed. Except that supernatural demonstrations are a routine and quite public thing with these "crackpots". The unexplainable is always an interest to science. A man shooting lightening from his fingers, for example. Or making fruit hover above the table at dinner.

Correlation is not causation, but it can be a clue that the dude who's shooting lightening bolts needs a medical exam.

So do we think that the "force" would let midiclorians be manupulated? Could medical science grow midiclorians in a culture? In particular person? Or kill them in another? Does the patient's ability to demonstrate this "force" show any variation?

Can medical science even kill these midiclorian lifeforms? An unkillable lifeform that grows eventually will reach infinite saturation. Unless the force chooses when and where midiclorians "die" out. Again, measurements would report this, and research would always be a dead end because an unquantifiable "force" would interfere.

That kind of stuff could go on forever, and all that stuff is unnecessary to even consider when the force has no physical component.

All this is just sci-fi of course. But as a storytelling element, I much preferred the force without any physical component.

What your doing is putting to much into what a smuggler says. Han is a former Empire soldier tho it was a very short few years. Then went on to being a smuggler. He didn't think the rebellion had much of a chance so he didn't go help them.

The Emperor was not one to go around telling people what he did in the past. The Jedi were gone for like 20 years.

I'm assuming this was mentioned in one of the novels since this was never even hinted at in the movies.

I suppose, I never got into all the non-film stuff.

And that wasn't Han I paraphrased, BTW. It was the Imperial officer Vader choked on the first Death Star.

That's where Han supposedly got his military uniform pants from. He was kicked out when he rescued Chewbacca, who was a slave he saw being abused. That's why Chewie then followed him around. It wasn't mentioned in one of the novels, it was mentioned in like a dozen of them, at least. It was first mentioned in the Marvel comics in the late 70s I think. I've known it for so long I really can't remember when I first heard it, but I'm pretty sure I knew it before ROTJ came out!

It's not mentioned in the movies because, well, it's not important. How Han and Chewie got together is irrelevant for those stories, as is Han's personal history. All that's important is that they're smugglers who've been around the galaxy a few times.



The Jedi Master

http://www.toplessrobot.com/2011/11/captain_kirk_escalates_his_war_of_words_with_princ.php


Shatner ups the rip lots

LOL! Ouch, that is so true about Carrie.

I always preferred Star Trek over Star Wars.

That said, I could enjoy Star Wars as well. 'The Empire Strikes Back' is just a tremendously great movie.


Oh, and by the way... the best Sci-fi show of the 90s used to be Babylon 5.

I wonder if Carrie will respond or let it go?


Wheels

What do you mean "used to be"?

It's hardly like there can be a new entrant to "best SF show of the 90s" over 10 years later...



The Jedi Master

Sorry, I used the wrong tense. You are right, of course it still is the best SF show of the 90s, as there can't be a new one anymore.

Hey you never know someone could time travel back to the 1990's just to wright more scifi.







I think she will.

I guess anything to generate publicity for yourself is a good thing...


Wheels

Other than her VO work in Family Guy, I'm not sure what else she might find for herself out there.



The Jedi Master

There's a saying in Hollywood that apathy is the biggest enemy of any celebrity. Even negative press is better than no press.

Stints on Celebrity Rehab don't exactly add up to jobs.



The Jedi Master

As I'm sure Sean Young has found out.

I want to say this. Star Wars.... Darth Vader. One of the greatest villians of all time (pre-prequel "Nooooooo" stupidness)

Star Trek has no great villians, even Khan wasn't that great of a villian to me.

But let's face it everyone that isn't under a rock knows Darth Vader's breathing. They used it in a trailer of sorts to great affect once.

Not to get into a nerd flamewar but I think Star Trek has had plenty of compelling villains. Khan, Shinzon, Kruge, General Chang and Q to name just a few.

Don't forget about the Gorn. That was an epic Star Trek villian.



Wheels

It's starting to sound like the east coast vs west coast rap wars. Tupac vs Biggie. Are we going to start seeing the 2 "crews" doing drive-bys against each other?

Not sure whether Shatner or Fisher would be Biggie, though.

Fisher lost weight recently. Shatner did not. Dilemma solved.



The Jedi Master

And of course Nimoy has always been skinny as a rail.