A fandom puzzle...complaint....wish?

[smurasaki]

First off, I'm a heretic.  That is to say, I'm a fan of both Star Wars and Star Trek, and have been since I discovered science fiction space adventure (and shortly there after fandom, when I went to my first con).

But...

Star Trek fans seem to be more about the fun.  Yes, yes, there are the serious ones and all, but I noticed right away - on buying

Comments

[baeraad]

It's always seemed to me that nothing ever goes according to plan in Star Wars, yeah... There is always some engine malfunction just when you need to jump to light speed, you're always too late to save your buddy from being frozen in carbonite, the battle droids always kick the Gungans' ass and the only reason the day is saved is because some kid accidentally got into a ship and accidentally got launched at the Federation mothership and accidentally ended up where he could blow up their core... Heck, even prophesies are iffy. Yoda might warble about how Luke has to stay with him even though that means that his friends will all die, because if he goes something worse will happen - but not only does something worse not happen when he does go, but it also seems very much like they would have survived even if he hadn't gone.

In Star Trek, there is always some sort of cause and effect at work - if your engines suddenly fail, it's because they took a beating in the last fight, or because you have accidentally run into some sort of engine-stalling Negative Space Wedgie. In Star Wars, things just happen. If your engines fail, it's because (it feels like) some sort of cosmic GM rolled a percental dice and came up with Random Event: Engine Failure.

I don't know if I'd say that Star Wars is more like reality, though. In reality, things tend to make a lot more sense (George Lukas intentionally tries to make things as counterintuitive as possible. He calls creating a "real-world feeling."). To continue the roleplaying metaphor, there are still a lot of random dice rolls in real life, but here it is possible to stack up a lot of positive modifiers - in Star Wars, it seems to me like every roll is a straight, entirely unmodified one, depending solely on luck.

[smurasaki]

Hmm, I think there's some miscommunication. I don't think Star Wars is more like reality than Star Trek. Far from it. I do think that, in reality, there is a certain degree of, well, sometimes crap happens for no reason. (I mean, there are reasons, always, but not in any kind of cosmic making sense sense. Planes don't just burst into flames and fall out of the sky, but they sure do if some lazy jerk loaded operational oxygen generators into the cargo hold because they couldn't be arsed to do their job right. From the point of view of anyone on the flight, it hardly matters, it's just random shitty luck that they were on that flight.)

Fate is somewhat more of a dick in the Star Wars universe. (And may indeed be running everything if one considers the prequels. I don't remember them well enough to run through them in my head, which may be part of why we have different feelings about how things work in Star Wars. I've jettisoned some of the evidence due to not caring enough to see those movies more than the once.)

And perhaps I've written in explanations not in evidence in the movies for the events in Star Wars because I do expect there to be reasons. Luke was too late because he didn't leave immediately after his vision, and then wandered off to confront Vader. The Falcon's hyperdrive fails because, while it's the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy, it is still a hunk of junk. (Though, now that I think about it, I think the explanation we're given in movie "the hyperdrive motivator has been damaged..." does rather smack of dick GM. When exactly did this happen? Lucas really should've gone for a more direct cause and effect - they were being shot at, just make it clearer that one of those shots as they blasted off did damage. Or have Han and Chewie concerned about a part they needed to get replaced - there were times to work that in before the attack, like when Chewie was working on the Falcon - and then have it fail.)

The attack on the second Death Star all seems like proper cause and effect though (if it does involve more not going according to plan), and as if effort equals results. But the more I think about it, the more I see what you mean, overall.

(And you would never get me arguing that the Star Wars universe would be better to live in than the Star Trek universe. Star Trek wins hands down as the better place for your average person.)

[baeraad]

I don't think Star Wars is more like reality than Star Trek.

No, I know, but you said... hmm. I suppose you said that what I thought that Star Wars was like was like what you thought that real life was like, if you want to get extremely technical. ^_^;

I do think that, in reality, there is a certain degree of, well, sometimes crap happens for no reason.

Well, yes. ST isn't much like reality either - everything is too neat and pat, there is always a comprehensible cause for every effect, and there is always a way to do anything you want to do, as long as you have access to enough time, intelligence and technobabble. Reality is messier than that.

The attack on the second Death Star all seems like proper cause and effect though (if it does involve more not going according to plan), and as if effort equals results.

It did involve a bunch of people trying very hard to do something and eventually succeeding... but it was still quick improvisation and good luck (in the form of finding a convenient tribe of helpful mini-bear things) that won the day. The actual plan was in shambles pretty much from the word go - hell, the whole thing was sort of famously a trap laid by the Emperor, and the rebels walked right into it. ;)

And you would never get me arguing that the Star Wars universe would be better to live in than the Star Trek universe. Star Trek wins hands down as the better place for your average person.

Hmm, yes, that might be the reason for the pessimism of SW fanfic, now that you mention it. ST is inherently a happy sort of place. Even when you go outside the Federation and look at alien societies that we would consider to be horrible dystopias, well... the aliens seem happy enough with their societies, and the ones that aren't are busy trying (and usually, eventually, succeeding) at changing them.

[smurasaki]

ST is inherently a happy sort of place.

This is a very good point. The Star Wars universe, on the other hand, while very lively, would be a pretty rotten universe to live in. (And that's without considering that the GM is kind of an asshole.)