What Makes Star Wars and Star Trek So Great, Part I
They masterfully blend the best elements of other great genres.
I decided that I wanted to memorialize my thoughts about these two great franchises in a multi-part series. I believe that Star Wars and Star Trek are great because of two special reasons.
The first is that they feature great storytelling, as I will get into in this first part.
The second reason is that, due to the space-based nature of their worlds, they tell their stories on the screen through wonderfully designed space vehicles. These aspects I get into more specifically in the rest of this series. Enjoy!
Storytelling
Let’s get right into it! Star Wars and Star Trek take the best genre elements and traditions of the Western and the Naval Adventure as well as World War II-era battle situations into the futuristic world of space. Inclusion of these storytelling tools has made the two franchises truly classic, unforgettable, and a part of our cultural experience.
For this first part of my series, when I speak of Star Trek, for the sake of scope, I am discussing here the original series, and for Star Wars, the 1977 movie. I will delve into the next iterations of these franchises later. For the record, I include as my favorites Star Trek’s original cast television and movies and all the Star Wars movies of the original trilogy. However, I will be gracious and extend my kind thoughts to the multiple “Next Generation” Star Trek series of the 1990s and, for Star Wars, the prequel trilogy.
Much effort has been expended since to reduce the greatness of both properties. For neophytes to these franchises, I recommend watching only those originals I specify above. For veteran fans like myself, I suggest when re-watching these classics, to transport yourself back in time and reset your knowledge of what has become of the franchises today. As Yoda would say, “You must unlearn what you have learned.” Mostly unwatchable, current day iterations were not even the merest nor transitory unpleasant thought back then.
Before I get started on the other matters, let’s start with the essential must-haves of any great adventure story. Almost anyone can see (apart from the current show-runners of these franchises) that a good story needs great and noble heroes, astonishingly evil villains, a thought-provoking setting, and a compelling story arc. There must be a quest—a great evil to conquer. Equally important to all of these elements, there must be a great villain. The places the hero visits should inspire the imagination and present difficulties and possibilities of adventure. There must be damsels in need of rescuing. As part of the cadre of allies, the hero should have a great steed to take on his journey. But not just a dumb animal, it is his friend and ally, an important character in the story. He must have cool tools to use, especially his weapon—his great sword. This villain will in turn have his own weapons and steed, often even more grand than those of the heroes’.
Star Trek has all of this, as we follow Captain Kirk, with his friends and allies, exploring our own galaxy, made smaller by their steed, the starship Enterprise and her space-warp drive. Their swords are their phasers, communicators, and tricorders.
Star Wars has those elements too, following the pattern of the “Hero’s Journey” as taught by Joseph Campbell. Luke is the classic hero protagonist with his mentor, allies and enemies. Their swords are still swords, just modernized, but they also have trusty blasters at their sides.
Both properties have very evil, but interesting enemies. Luke has his Darth Vader and Galactic Empire to fight, while Kirk faces the Klingons and Romulans as well as many individual nemeses, such as Khan Noonien Singh.
Great space fantasies like these two franchises must have these elements, but these two also feature ingredients of the great genres of the Western and the Naval Adventure. In doing so they feature the possibilities and dangers of the vast frontier of space.
Westerns in Space
Westerns have the romance of a wild, untamed wilderness. There are horses and wagons to ride. Cowboys have their hats and boots, their gun belts and six-shooters. There should be lots of desert flora and fauna, such as coyotes, rattlesnakes, and cactus and canyons. There must be small frontier towns and Indian reservations. The towns should be bursting with quick-draw gun duals and saloons, dancing girls, and drunken fighting in the streets. There should be outlaws and Indians on the war path, with bows and arrows, Winchester rifles, and smoke signals and scalping. And then there’s the cavalry just over the next ridge riding to the rescue.
In Western space fantasies, there’s a planet with an alien landscape, yet somehow familiar to us, full of dangerous creatures. You probably recognize elements of Star Wars in the above description. Luke lives in a desert frontier, with dangerous hostiles about—the Sand People. There’s desert fauna, but these are elephant-sized goat-like creatures and giant lizards. His land-speeder is his horse. He’s got a long rifle and a blaster. The local town has its saloons where in one we meet Han Solo, who, minus the hat, is dressed like a cowboy. There are two gun fights (one’s settled with a lightsaber) before they leave the establishment. The various aliens they interact with establish the absolute wilderness of the place.
Much to George Lucas’ credit, we don’t see any dancing girls or prostitutes. This reality of Westerns was left aside, probably knowingly. After all, Lucas knew the children would be a primary audience to his adventure. However, we are offered a very alien band, who are most like the stereotypical “gray” aliens we hear about in UFO stories.
Star Trek, on the other hand, offers elements of the Western as well. Due to the popularity of westerns at the time, creator Gene Roddenberry marketed the show as the “Wagon Train” in space, after a then-popular television western. I’ve never quite gotten the comparison, but admittedly I’ve only seen parts of this old western. Nevertheless, just as Star Wars offers its western elements on Luke’s home planet of Tatooine, so too sometimes does Star Trek when the Enterprise visits a planet and Kirk and company visit a wild and untamed wilderness. When they are on the planet, the landing party always have their gun belts and phasers. One episode takes the direct approach of linking Star Trek to westerns, Specter of the Gun. Here the landing party’s phasers are replaced by six-shooters, and they find themselves in the middle of a western town (a facade of one, at least).
Yet, in both franchises, the romance of the frontier is also space itself. As William Shatner narrates, “Space, the final frontier, these are voyages of the Starship Enterprise…” Journeys or “treks,” and accompanying battles in space are portrayed like ships at sea. This brings us to the genre of the naval adventure.
Naval Adventures in Space
In Star Wars and Star Trek both feature the great elements of naval sea adventure stories, like those of Horatio Hornblower, by C. S. Forrester. At the beginning of most Hornblower stories, the dashing Captain is given command of a ship-of-war, often a frigate or sloop of war, which becomes an important part in the story. Hornblower’s enemies are the privateers of the French and Spanish navies. But there’s also lawless pirates and sometimes islands crawling with cannibals.
Kirk’s mighty ship of war is his Enterprise, who is very much a character in the story. In Star Wars, it’s Han Solo’s Millennium Falcon.
Eighteenth and nineteenth century naval adventure sea battles are intense with broadsides and boarding actions. Star Wars features three such scenes. The movie begins with a battle and boarding action as a massive Imperial Star Destroyer overtakes and pulls in a Rebel blockade running vessel. Later, several Star Destroyers give chase to the Millennium Falcon. Still later there is an even greater mismatched boarding action as Han Solo’s ship is sucked into the Death Star.
Hornblower, through masterful use of his ship’s best advantages, often prevails against larger, more powerful vessels. So too, Han manages to escape the first Star Destroyers by using his hyperdrive. Though often outnumbered or outclassed, Kirk always uses the Enterprise’s advantages to prevail. The Enterprise’s space battles are ones of Kirk’s (like Hornblower before him) inspired maneuvering of his ship in space to get the best shots at his enemies. In the 23nd century, the privateer enemies of Hornblower are transformed in Star Trek into the battlecruisers of the Klingon and Romulan Empire.
In the era of sailing vessels, there is often man-to-man combat, with the only tools keeping Hornblower and his crew from imminent death being their one-shot musket pistols, cutlasses—and more importantly—their coolness under fire. The exploding hatch and stormtroopers’ breach of the rebel ship at the very beginning of the Star Wars exemplifies such a classic scene.
In Star Trek, one episode, “The Day of the Dove,” involves an alien entity that, for its own evil designs, facilitates on-going, man-to-man sword battles between the Klingons and Kirk’s crew aboard the Enterprise.
Hornblower stories also feature swinging upon ropes from the ship’s masts. Star Wars manages to include this element as well, when Luke, holding the Princess, swings across the seemingly bottomless canyon within the Death Star.
Not only do Star Wars and Star Trek incorporate naval adventures from the tall ship, sailing vessel era, they also bring in the exciting features of war as fought in World War II. Such elements include likenesses of great WWII naval battles that featured battleships, aircraft carriers and submarines. Others come from experiences of air combat at 20,000 feet as formations of large, four-engine bombers took on shark-like attack runs from enemy fighters.
World War II-Inspired Adventures
In WWII, the great naval battles were fought on the ocean surface, beneath it, and in the skies above. Great stories and movies came from it, such as “Sink the Bismark,” and “Midway,” and “Run Silent, Run Deep.”
Star Wars’ space battles stay on the “surface” and “in the air.” The final battle is very similar to the battle of Midway in the Pacific. In that battle, battleships took no part; in Star Wars the Star Destroyers are also not present. Only the Death Star, doubling as a vast aircraft carrier, is on the attack. The rebels have their own carrier representation, a small moon. The final battle rages over the skies of the Death Star. The TIE fighters are the Zero fighters of the Imperial Navy. The Y-Wings are like the obsolete TBD Devastator torpedo bombers of Midway, which are all destroyed without effect. The X-Wings double as the Wildcat fighters, who took on the Zeros directly, and the SBD Dauntless dive bombers, who took on the aircraft carriers themselves.
To dive-bomb a ship, an SBD Dauntless needed to approach high above the enemy target, braving its anti-aircraft fire, and then dive straight down directly at it, with flack bursts exploding all around it. When he reached an optimum altitude for accurately releasing his single bomb on target, the pilot needed to press the bomb release and then pull out of the screaming dive to avoid crashing his own plane into the target or the ocean itself.
On the other hand, torpedo bombers, such as the TBD Devastator, flew low along the ocean’s surface directly at their target to release their torpedo into the water in a level path into the side of the enemy ship. They faced even more intense fire from the gun batteries of the enemy ships. While the dive-bomb method won the battle of Midway, Star Wars takes the torpedo plane bomb run approach in the “trench” scenes. Either way, these were battle tactics that required incredible bravery and make for a compelling sequence in the movie.
Star Trek, in one of its best episodes, follows the pattern of WWII submarine warfare in “The Balance of Terror.” A Romulan Bird of Prey uses its cloaking device to hide itself in space, much like a submarine’s silent, hidden approach toward enemy ships before attacking.
The Enterprise is like a surface ship, a Destroyer, seeking her invisible enemy. The episode pits two capable and experienced captains against one another as they use the best advantages of their ships against one another.
As we have seen, Star Wars masterfully jumps from source genres throughout the movie. As one more example, there’s the fight as the Millennium Falcon escapes from the Death Star. As they make their escape, the Falcon is chased by TIE fighters. Luke and Han must man top and belly position gun stations in order to destroy them, much like a World War II bomber, the B-17 Flying Fortress, which had manned gun positions in its nose, a top turret, waist gunners, a ball turret in the belly, and a rear gunner. This transforms the movie into a battle in the skies of World War II where B-17s are attacked by fighters of the Luftwaffe (think 12 O’ Clock High or the more recent Masters of the Sky).
This creative blending of the best of other genres made these two franchises great, but of course that’s only part of what’s offered. When a story launches beyond the pages of a book and onto the screen, it’s the sights and sounds that also count. The design of the vehicles and tools must be exquisite. The power they emit must be striking, and the sounds they make remarkable. Just as one example, the pulsing and whirring of a lightsaber as it’s moved is what made it so unforgettable.
I will explore all that in part two of this series.
See you next time!
No mention of "The Dam Busters"? Boo! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNdb03Hw18M