Q & As About 'Star Wars':Which is better: the J.J. Abrams Star Trek films or Star Wars: The Force Awakens?

Which is better: the J.J. Abrams Star Trek films or Star Wars: The Force Awakens?

All things being equal - and leaving aside the fact that other comparisons between Star Trek and Star Wars aren’t relevant, I’d venture to say that J.J. Abrams did a better job with Lucasfilm’s Crown Jewel franchise than he did with Paramount’s.

I like J.J. Abrams. I like his genuine affection for the medium of film. I like his ’80s Kid, 21st Century Adult ethos. I like the fact that he, too, listened to John Williams’ scores as a teenager the way I did. He’s a Star Wars fan of my generation, even though he’s a few years younger than me.

All of this makes Abrams a good choice to direct Star Wars films. His detractors may not agree, but it’s a free country and my opinion is just as valid as theirs, I think.

Now, understand this. You don’t have to be a Trekker or a franchise actor to direct a Star Trek film. In fact, several of the Trek features filmed before Star Trek (2009) were directed by outsiders to the Gene Roddenberry creative family at first: Robert Wise, Nicholas Meyer, and Stuart Baird had never been involved with Star Trek before they were hired to direct The Motion Picture, The Wrath of Khan, or Star Trek: Nemesis. And of those three, only one (Meyer) became a creative member of the franchise beyond one film.

So the fact that Abrams was only a casual fan of the series is not a factor in why The Force Awakens is better than Star Trek (2009) and its two sequels. Meyer wasn’t much of a Trekker either when he accepted the offer to direct Star Trek II, and in fact, he jettisoned elements that he didn’t like about the Roddenberry vision for the future; it was Meyer’s idea to make Starfleet more Navy-like, with cool-looking and more militaristic uniforms than those seen in either The Original Series or Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

But even aided and abetted by a production staff at Bad Robot that was chock full of Trekkies, the Kelvin Timeline Star Trek looks like Star Trek on the surface, albeit a Trek-on-Steroids where the iconic USS Enterprise is larger than the Galaxy-class Enterprise-D. And in this altered timeline created to justify the recasting of the TOS crew with younger actors, Abrams’ 23rd Century is darker, meaner, and more warlike than that seen in the Prime Continuity that had been seen in five (or six, depending if you count The Animated Series) TV shows and 10 feature films from 1966 to 2005.

Ignoring, for the moment, the narrative flaws within Star Trek (2009) and its sequels, I’ll say this. J.J. Abrams’ tonal approach and aesthetic sensibilities, i.e., lots of action, fast-paced narratives, and lots of noisy, flashy space battles are more suited to Star Wars than Star Trek.

And, let’s face it. No matter how hard the writers try to make the Kelvin Timeline feel like Star Trek films, they’re really Star Wars movies tricked out to look like Star Trek. The Abramsverse Trek films, including Justin Lin’s Star Trek Beyond, are very pretty movies that borrow a few superficial tropes from the Roddenberry/Bennett/Meyer/Berman lore but don’ have any intellectual or philosophical depth.

In stark contrast, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, flaws and all, feels like a Star Wars movie.