Tommy Siegel | Bluesky

TranscriptA Helpful Guide To Star Wars vs Star Trek

Star Wars

[Image of Han Solo in Tommy’s style]

  • Don’t start with the ‘first’ movie, let me tell you where to start
  • Looks like ruined farm equipment in space
  • In summary: the past was horrible
  • JJ Abrams ruined it

Star Trek

[Image of Jean Luc Picard in Tommy’s style]

  • Don’t start with the first season, let me tell you where to start
  • Looks like a cruise ship in space
  • In summary: the future is incredible
  • JJ Abrams ruined it
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[–] 17 points 9 hours ago* (10 children)

The force awakens basically had that same problem though, effectively undoing everything concluded in return of the Jedi. Granted there's a time gap but there's no explanation as to why the former rebels (whatever they were called at that time I forgot) were still such a small force compared to the new big bad (something order?), not to mention why this order exists in the first place, what their motivations were, how they got their numbers and resources, etc. They're just a galaxy-level threat sprung from thin air. It seems pretty clear to me that JJ just wanted to remake a new hope with as little consideration of the conclusion of return of the Jedi as he could get away with, plot holes be damned. RJ tried to address some of these plot holes but even he doesn't really attempt to justify the something-order's existence. If the force awakens was the first star wars movie as a new hope was then it wouldn't be such a big deal, but coming just a few decades after the return of the Jedi, there ought to be some explanation for how they lost so much progress in that time, preferably in the first act. But nah, it's just "somehow the empire returned (with cool new branding)" because JJ can't write a plot to save his life.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 hours ago

    Yeah, there was so much material they could have pulled from the Expanded Universe. The New Republic era, reclaiming territory from the imperial remnants and rebuilding the Jedi Order; the New Jedi Order era, fighting off the Yuuzhan Vong and the Killiks; the Fate of the Jedi era, when the Sith make a comeback; and then there's the Legacy era after that.

    That's at least 3 or 4 trilogies right there.

    Not to mention going back in time to the Old Republic era with its wars against the Sith empires, and the Dawn of the Jedi in the Origins era prior to that.

    If they really wanted to milk the franchise, they had plenty of material to work with instead of just saying "nah" and declaring it all non-canonical, only to replace it with slop...

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  • [–] 1 point 9 hours ago (8 children)

    there's no explanation as to why the former rebels (whatever they were called at that time I forgot) were still such a small force compared to the new big bad

    They weren't. A good portion of them became the New Republic, which was destroyed by Starkiller Base.

    not to mention why this order exists in the first place, what their motivations were, how they got their numbers and resources, etc.

    They were what remained of the Empire plus new recruits/conscripts taken in the period after the Battle of Endor.

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  • [–] 8 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (5 children)

    Gotta be honest, though, "the Empire was building a Death Star that can destroy planets in other solar systems and nobody ever talked about it despite the two small ones being big fucking deals" is a really damn weak premise. They could've found some other way of making the remnant of the Empire a threat but then they couldn't have recycled A New Hope as easily.

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  • [–] 3 points 7 hours ago* (4 children)

    I mean, the notion that destroying a planet was somehow a massive outlandish threat in a universe where basically everyone has the technology to propel thousands of tons of mass at many times the speed of light always felt pretty fucking stupid in the first place. Every single hyper-drive capable ship in the universe could turn an entire planet to dust in seconds.

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  • [–] 1 point 53 minutes ago*

    Before the 8th movie, it was pretty heavily implied that things in hyperspace didn't really interact with things in real space. Hence the reason jumping into hyperspace was a way to escape from a fight you weren't going to win.

    Of course, 8th movie showed us that wasn't the case, and not only can ships in hyperspace ram things in real space, but the results are devastating. Which actually makes the whole Deathstar thing incredibly stupid and not just obsolete, as a Deathstar is nothing but a big ass target for someone to ram a ship into while in hyperspace.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 hours ago (2 children)

    Every single hyper-drive capable ship in the universe could turn an entire planet to dust in seconds.

    a planet has far more mass than what you saw in VIII, if that’s what you’re referring to

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  • [–] 1 point 3 hours ago (1 child)

    I have no idea what you are referencing by "VIII" but in reality a reasonably dense object the size of an ashtray traveling at a multiple of the speed of light would turn any planet in the solar system into a cloud of dust. So a ship weighing thousands of tons would be overkill as a weapon all by itself.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 hours ago (1 child)

    Yeah if anything the New Order showed a much more realistic outcome of assassinating an Empire's Emperor.

    If an assassination meant the end of an Empire, Rome would not have existed very long

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  • [–] 3 points 5 hours ago

    It wasn't just an assassination though. They defeated their two most powerful leaders; both of their Sith lords, at that. They destroyed their main battlestation and a large chunk of their military leadership along with it, decapitating the rest of their forces.

    And it doesn't end after the battle of Endor. The Empire is defeated, yes. So they celebrate. They begin reconstructing the New Republic and the New Jedi Order. But there's still an imperial remnant, and wayward warlords throughout the galaxy. So a large chunk of the story following the Original Trilogy is them hunting down and pacifying those imperial remnants.

    There could have easily been a trilogy made just from the material that already existed. They didn't have to try to rewrite the whole thing, and do an ass job of it at that...

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