Lit Can Star Wars learn anything from Star Trek?

I'm guessing Lando spent his time with various commercial ventures and schemes and occasionally supported his old friends when they needed him.

 

Yeah, that's fair. I agree that they never knew what to do with Lando (and I also think they weren't that great at knowing what to do with Han after ROTJ either) - he deserved his own stories in the post-movies universe as well.

 

I just started the series Killjoys, and went though the first season of Dark Matter, and realized both of those series could have been set in the Corporate sector of the EU, yeah neither series features aliens, but both series could easily be part of the star wars universe. But outside of a few books Zhan wrote featuring the Wild Card crew as a B-plot we never came close to this.

 

The corporate sector would have been interesting to have the Star Wars example of the evil megacorp and species like the Fosh supposedly originated in the corporate sector,

 

Yes, it would have been great if the stories weren't just based on what happened in the Tython system but there would have been stuff happening in the whole galaxy, Coruscant for example.

 

I appreciate and in ways love Star Trek. But I don't follow it the way I do Star Wars. I think TNG is universally loved. I happen to like the new movies.

I've never read a book. Don't really have an interest to. Although I've been tempting to check out the JJM ones... because he's JJM. But I keep finding other things I'd rather read.

I'm mostly a Marvel comics geek, especially X-Men, and a Star Wars geek.

I'm a science fiction nerd in general.

All that being said, the two series are very different in scope, theme, and tone. Trek is more...smart in ways. When done well. Bad Trek is...baaaad. Wars is more emotional and mythic.

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I am unashamed in my desire for a Star Wars TV show that just rips off the classic Star Trek model entirely.

Early Republic. Starship seeking out new life and new civilizations. With Star Wars aliens. BOOM. I love it already.

Give me a dashing Captain Valorum and a Jedi ambassador or two on the bridge to do the "I SENSE HONESTY" Troi thing and fill the expected lightsaber quota and I'm set.

Throw in a Mon Cal XO for Nick, too.

 

The Star Trek New Frontier novel series seems like a great idea for Trek, maybe something similar for SW? Except with multiple authors, rather than just one. Give authors a chance to be experimental with original characters, situations, and settings.

 

One problem with this is that this could lead to all sorts of continuity errors like "There's an Ithorian in this scene when they weren't discovered till so-and-so BBY". But that's really more of a nitpick.

Episode Ideas:

The crew encounter a modified Kwa Infinity Gate that can transport them back in time. After some time travel shenanigans the captain realizes the woman he loves must die, or else Xim the Despot will rule the galaxy.

The crew discover a sleeper ship containing a genetically modified Arkanian Offshoot with super strength and intelligence.

The crew are affected by an alien disease, and one of the Jedi takes his shirt off and runs around chasing people with his lightsaber.

The crew are sucked into a mirror universe where the Republic is an empire, they have dark side countparts, and everyone wears a goatee.

The first officer's brain is removed by B'omar monks.

The captain is trapped on a desert planet and must face a Trandoshan in a fist fight.

There's a trial over wether or not a droid crewmember should be considered a sentient being.

When their protocol droid fails to translate a language, they must learn to communicate with a species that speaks in metaphors.

The ship gets transported half way across the galaxy. On their way home they encounter the Iskollon and a female member is liberated and joins their crew.

 

The early republic wasn't even explored by government ships like Trek but by individual trailblazers and corporations.

The method of expansion in Star Wars at least as the old EU described it doesn't lend well to Trek esque series.

 

and the Jedi exploratory corps, the hyperspace war clearly was modeled off the Mediterranean age of antiquity, while star trek is inspired by the post WWII US rise as it was clearly inspired by Forbidden Planet. Just replace the Republic government with an Exploration guild? More like Marco Polo in space?

 

1) Multiple stellar governments are more interesting. You can always have a primary One versus Other One, but have other powers as well. The most interesting period for the EU was the immediate post-Endor, where you had all kinds of different galactic states (even having a grudging alliance of the Empire with the NR against one of the more ambitious warlords).
You could easily make the New Canon post-Endor period interesting despite the lack of the traditional ongoing war between the NR and Empire by having a number of states consisting of territories that didn't want to join up with the New Republic.
2) Really, this is something from multiple sources, (especially Marvel) - there's nothing wrong with alternate universes, and I mean large-scale alternate universes, not one-off 'What If?' limited series.
3) Exploration stories are good storytelling. Even if the SW galaxy has mostly been explored, there are still fringe areas, the galactic clusters... and even other galaxies. They often lead to Point One as well.

 

The Legends Star Wars Galaxy had one major power for most of its history-sometimes two.

As well as various minor factions and independent world's-going by the essential Atlas. And the situation in the unknown regions seemed to me to be less unified and more politically dynamic.

Though I suppose it's possible during the expansion of the republic from 24,000 BBY to around 3,000 BBY the republic ran into various unnamed interstellar states and empires.

Star Trek from TOS through every other incarnation including STO and the novelverse has always had a multifaceted IU political dynamic. With multiple factions and the federation being only one.

 

The Unknown Regions would make for a good Star Trek type series.

 

Maybe it's my lack of Trek knowledge, but isn't this kind of like comparing apples and oranges?

 

Not really. It's like comparing apple juice to orange juice.

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It's like comparing Tea and Coffee or Dr. Pepper and Pepsi.

Two things that are very similar in die ways but vastly different in others.

 

IMO alternate universes, much like time travel, teleportation, holo decks, shrink rays, space anomalies, and space gods, are something that fits more into Star Trek, Doctor Who, or Marvel/DC comics.

I'm not sure why. I think it has something to do with the fact that in those other franchises (to varying degrees) science is treated like magic that has infinite possibilities and can do whatever fantastic things the plot requires. (Before someone objects that Star Trek does NOT treat science like magic sometimes: "Multi modal reflection sorting". That is all.) Star Wars isn't exactly hard sci fi, but it is more of a mix of fantasy tropes and sci fi tropes with the Force being the only real "magic".

 

Some of those sound familiar...

Anyway, I think Star Wars can learn from Star Trek that, no, it doesn't have to be some galaxy-shaking crisis all the time. Scale it back a bit.

 

Agree entirely with @RK_Striker_JK_5 & @vncredleader I adore Trek's sense of wonder, camaraderie, and small-scaled crises. And the fact that victories hold and truces hold. They're not undone in less than a minute and you're not always fending off this ginormously "darthy" style threat
And Spock & Nyota just float my boat big time

 

In terms of production and marketing, I think Trek as a franchise has a willingness to do out-there concepts for its spinoffs that I would love to see Star Wars embrace. Stuff like the X-Men and Doctor Who crossovers, or fleshing out the Mirror Universe, or having explicitly alternate-history stories, or publishing "real" Captain Proton books, or the TOS book that integrated pretty much every Trek time travel episode into existing UFO conspiracy mythology, even allowing stuff from multiple continuities to exist and be continued at the same time - all of this is the sort of creativity and flexibility that I wish Lucasfilm would be willing to embrace for Star Wars.

I've said it before also, but how Star Trek Beyond handled and incorporated Nimoy's death is, I feel, avery good model for how I hope IX approached Carrie Fisher's death.

I've actually wondered in the past if New Frontier was actually inspired by Shadows of the Empire, in that the latter was Star Wars's first "movie without a movie" event, while FR was Trek's first attempt to do "spinoff books without the show".

 

Waru, the Rozzum, the Charon, etc, are in alternate realities. Crosscurrent deals with time travel.

 

Actually, something else that hit me today. It's gonna seem odd, but... toys of characters.

I know what some of you might think. "Striker, there's tons of toys of the characters." Of the movie characters, yeah. And the pre-Disney EU-the one I actually care about-got some nods here and there. But overall?

Literal blink-and-you'll-miss-it characters and even characters from kriffin' deleted scenes get action figures. Meanwhile, did Tenel Ka ever get an action figure? Far as I know, this pretty important EU character didn't. I think Jacen got one. Jaina has two. Anakin Solo didn't get any. Hell, almost the entire YJK/JJK cast got ignored.

Same with Rogue/Wraith Squadron. You have any idea how much money I would've shelled out for a complete line of those characters? Hell, you know how much I would've shelled out for a Hot Toys or Sideshow Collectibles Tenel Ka? I would've bought two of them!

And to bring it back to Star Trek... they don't really have merchandise on the shelves now, but back in the hey day of TNG, DSN, or even VOY and ENT, you could get the entire crew and the side characters. And even now they're still available. Eaglemoss is putting out just about every ship that's appeared on TV and film and even has the flipping Titan from the novel series.

So there's one thing Star Wars sure as hell could've learned from Trek. Gimme my damned JJK/YJK line! I don't care about that emo Vader wannabe or Tarkin's idiot grandson Hux!

 

An NJO series era toy line would have been amazing.

 

... I hate that this idea is now in my head. God, to have lived in the timeline where I got my Hot Toys Tenel Ka. And my entire JJK/YJK and Rogue/Wraith Squadron rosters in plastic form. Or more than one Vong from a comic two-pack.

Instead we had Neimodians who were onscreen for five seconds get a toy. God **************** dammit...