Star Trek and Star Wars, a comparison

I watched Star Trek last week and gaping plot holes aside, a few similarities to Star Wars (the originals) jumped out at me. I think it’s quite amusing that Abrams chose to follow the somewhat stereotypical format, but the movie is entertaining, so we’ll leave it at that.

Common points:

• A young blond boy drives really, really fast.
• The main bad guy suffers the loss of his young, pregnant wife and subsequently goes off into the rails of crazy.
• Some old wise dude blames himself for all the death and destruction that happens.
• A Very Important Planet is Destroyed.
• The hero does not get the girl, his second-in-command/best friend (sorta) does.
• The hero also did not know his father, and goes on to follow his footsteps.
• There is a wrinkly green alien who looks like a reincarnated tennis ball.
• The really weird uniforms/costumes. (Though Zoe Saldana rocks those boots.)

And just for fun:

• How many times does Kirk get choked by angry people intent on ending him? Also, he spends most of the action scenes dangling off some sort of cliff/sheer edge.
• You will never be able to convince me that Iowa has a giant chasm running through the middle of the state. (Trust me, I’ve lived there. It’s all plains and cornfields.)
• You will also never be able to convince me that Kirk managed to climb up an icy cliff without his gloves on. (Or for that matter, his coat.) I don’t care if he had acclimatization training in the Antarctic, that’s just not possible without frostbite.
• By normal Hollywood standards, the hero would be dating the girl, super good at kicking ass, struggling to accept himself and thus Kirk is actually not the hero. Spock is.
• Eomer is McCoy. I will never get past that. (McCoy: Space is death and disease wrapped in darkness and silence. Kirk: Hate to break it to ya, but Starfleet operates in space.)
• Uhura is good at what she does, has Spock completely whipped and isn’t defined by her relationships with the men around her. Plus, WOC. *fist pump*
• SULU IS AWESOME.

Okay, done now.

How did you like the movie?

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