Star Rants Episode 4 (Star Trek & Star Wars)

Hello everyone and welcome back to this week's episode of Star Rants. We are your hosts Sean

Ferrick of Trek Culture and my good friend CJ Allen of WhatCultureStarWars. How are you this

week sir? I'm good. I've been enjoying all of these rants. People love to rant and what's even worse

is we love to read and rant about them as well. We've got some good conversations out of this

as well so so like that's that's part of the thing i'm enjoying so thank you everyone who

is leaving comments who is engaging this has been a wild few weeks before we jump into this week's

rants. Here's our title. So this is Amy Myers, 5503. Thank you, Amy. I'm assuming that's your

first name. As a lifelong fan of both franchises, I think Trek offers better ideologies

It took me more than 30 years to realize do or do not

I feel like I should do that in Yoda's voice. Do or do not. There is no try

Was fundamentally bad advice. How many fans live by Yoda's aphorism? There is no room for trial and error and improvement in black and white thinking

Yoda failed Luke. Look at the results in The Last Jedi. Luke was literally hiding from the rest of the galaxy because he failed

What would Spock or Picard teach Luke about learning a new skill

Get up and do it again until you can do it or find another way to do it

Then there's the issue of Jedi rejecting people because they sense too much fear in them

Why not teach healthy coping skills to younglings and Padawans? Fear can be a useful emotion

In June, and I apologize if I say this wrong, because I've not watched anything June-wise

the Be and Geserit have the litany against fear, which teaches you to allow the fear to pass over

and through you. What do the Jedi teach about overcoming fear? Fear is bad, don't feel it

You're bad for feeling fear. Another failed teaching. What would Spock or Picard teach

anakin about fear apply logic feel the feelings but don't allow them to take over brilliant rants

that is fantastic amy thank you very much for sharing that one that i was i was you saw me i

was just nodding along we didn't see you nodding that i saw me um and um although they're just just

one thing really really quickly you haven't seen anything from dune i have not watched the 90s one

since i was like 15 16 i have not watched any of the new dunes i'm waiting till the trilogy's out

i tried i tried watching the new one and i got like 15 20 minutes in and i just don't think i's

in the mindset for watching this huge drawn out sci-fi story so i was kind of like i'm not in the

mindset for this i'll end up hating it and if i'm ever in that mindset i would rather stop watching

something than then have a negative opinion of it you know when you've got to be like in the right

mood to watch it like you know when you spend half an hour scrolling through netflix looking for the right thing oh yes i know june is a huge huge amazing amazing story i know bits of it and

everything like that but i've got to be in the right mindset for that type of movie because

it is a one where you need to pay attention and now i know the trilogy is coming out i'm going to

be like i'm just going to watch the trilogy and then appreciate the whole story rather than having

these big gaps but yeah sorry i'm a bad sci-fi nerd but that that that is what it just means that

you're you're on your journey we'll just say that you're on your journey of it um i it it it's funny

right because on on the surface uh yoda's advice can be like you know you know pull yourself up by

the bootstraps and just keep you know keep going but you know only a sith deals an absolute um

and and there is there there is great example i mean uh amy specifically name dropped both spock

and picard there and there's a couple of quotes straight away like spock logic is the beginning

of wisdom not the end uh feels very like for a vulcan to say that feels like we don't we're not

just going to have one answer it's not just a case of your human side is showing

um and then picard it is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose that is not failure that

is life you know um and i i would agree i think um and i hope i hope amy i hope you won't want me

saying this i think it speaks to and i'm saying this as a lifelong trekkie so i mean no disrespect

if this comes across like but i i think star trek has always sat more in the philosophical

side of things where i think star wars has sat more in for want of a better word the fun

side of things and i think it's easier in the fun side of things to kind of give a sort of a statement

um and like you know in the same way that you know kind of ah we'll we'll do this and it'll

be great and it'll go this way whereas you know in the more philosophical side we can sit

part of the joke of star trek is we sit down we have a cup of tea and we talk about everything

there's time in star trek though like yes we have the movies but star trek is mainly

TV you have the time to spend 20 minutes developing this one character to then move that on to future

things in the movies you have an hour and a half to introduce these characters get your point across

get to the next thing whereas in TV shows you've got the 22 well in the old days you'd have the 22

episodes to really bring out the story if the networks will allow you to have enough episodes

to do that ran for another day um so you have time to draw out these characters show their journey

in movies you've gone hour and a half to get this character from feeling point a to the realization

and feelings they have by point b yeah yes i think i think that's very very fair and and one of the

reasons that you know when you compare a new hope with star trek the motion picture because they're

there's only two years between them and they are such different films and look I with all of my

heart I love the motion picture but I know what I'm getting myself in for when I sit down to watch

the motion picture I know it is a slow film that is as much about showing what we can do with special

effects in 1979 as it is about the plot which again I say that would love is a single episodes

plot stretched out over two hours and 20 yeah and whereas star wars it came it comes out swinging

you know and it's about excitement and it's about adventure and it's not that we never have anything

more than surface discussions we do in star wars but it's always i think i'm going to badly remember

some of my writing classes now from from uni where you know it's it's it's the fired arrow

you know and it's it's about getting getting the and it's about does it serve as the plot and is

the plot moving forward and that's star wars you know whereas star trek is we've kind of thrown

the arrow a little bit you know and we're specifically talking about the motion picture

someone's carrying the arrow they've run out the castle and they're carrying the arrow dodging

around different things to try and get it into the target. Yeah, a little bit, yeah

And I think the way that both are written serve us those ways of telling stories So when you have something like am I right in saying that quote from Yoda that Empire

Yes, I believe so. I might be wrong. Someone will correct me

That is very true. In fact, you know, while you are composing your ranks in the comments below

Yeah, because that's, I remember, it's when they're trying to get the X-Wing out of the swamp

I just had to go through the, like, literally, I've just played the entire movie in my head from start to finish

What conversation is that having? It is to do with the X-Wing coming out. Yes, I remember now

We are recording this early on a bank holiday morning. This is true

This is true. You know, this is a strong coffee. I mean, I'm on coffee

You're on water. I don't know how you're getting through this. I have me on caffeine is a bad idea bad bad idea bad idea you've enough energy anyway exactly in

fact tote it down um I think yeah sort of to summarize a little bit I I do I I very much

agree with Amy here um I think that it's not a great lesson and I think my caveat with that would

I think it's a lesson that fits the style of that story being told

You know, if it was, if Empire was a 22 episode season

I think that Yoda's point would start with do or do not

There is no try. And let's sit down and have a chat about it. Which is, I think that's how it might come across in like the next generation

where you had all those episodes to tell the story or the original series where you had

all those episodes to tell the story um it's really interesting when you when you put them

side by side like that like even if you just look at the jedi in general i'm a strong believer in

the jedi got too complacent they got used to we can do no wrong and that's what led to their

downfall because there was no balance they were you can only do this whereas i'm kind of

in the, I think you need the gray Jedis, the ones that kind of have the emotions

like Cal Kestis in the games, Jedi Survivor, dabbles in that, and I think it makes him a better Jedi

He still is focused on the good, but he lets his emotions help drive that forward

We had Rey dabbling a little bit in the gray as well

which I think would have made her a better Jedi. Let's not talk about sequels

because we will get some rants in the comments. Yes, we will. but i feel like the gray is the right area that is balance they talk about you need balance in the

force you have to have light and dark to have balance i i i i just just really quickly on that

like because you know the way that uh meme that gag of george lucas going how do the good guys

and the bad guys well the good guys have the blue lightsabers the bad guys have the red lightsabers you know and then you have mace windu with a purple lightsaber going does that mean that

He has found that balance. No, that's just Samuel L. Jackson being Samuel L. Jackson

That is a totally different... Samuel L. Jackson is accepted in the Jedi universe

as being Samuel L. Jackson. No one's going to argue with that morpho

Yeah. As he can see it. Yeah. I don't know if you've seen the BTS of him where he says

can I have a purple one? And George's like, we can look at that. And Sam L. Jackson goes

like that's brilliant like he just asks for it and joe just like i will give sam l jackson

whatever he wants and damn right no 100 also joe it's scary like so so 1999 is phantom menace

that's what five years after pulp fiction time is scary yeah when did pulp fiction let's let's do

homework guys i think what i thought i think is it 94 maybe it's later i remember watching pulp

fiction before the phantom menace um it is 1994 well done one point for sean ding ding

i remember watching pulp fiction when it ran the not at the cinema but when it first came out in

vhs i had the vhs for it okay i'm gonna say right now you were not old enough to be watching pulp

fiction. Yeah, I should not be watching Pulp Fiction. But I watched

it. My granddad turned around to me when I was like five or six and went

do you want to watch a fun movie with flying toys? It was Poltergeist

Yeah. Your granddad is a legend. I'm just going to throw that out there. I blame him for my sick

and twisted humour because he's the one that got me watching Red Dwarf

on BBC Two. I was only about six or seven I hear that meme

He had me watching Red Dwarf I love that guy Was he a smeghead

How dare you say that about my grandad But yes So god if my parents ever found out

He used to let me watch that sort of stuff with him But he's the reason why I have such a sick

Twisted sense of humour And we are incredibly grateful for that We are indeed

I think it's time to move on we could talk about some of these rants and please let us know your feelings in the comments

about the rants as well do you agree with some of these rants or do you not agree with the rants

let us know your feelings wouldn't it be good to do an episode where we talk about people's rants

about the rants yes yes very much so um because half the fun of what we get to do is seeing how

people feel about it and how people feel about each other and respectful i will say that now keep

keep it respectful we we everything is welcome as long as you keep it respectful that's all i'll ask

it's an opinion until you make it hateful so don't get hateful um sean i believe it's your turn to

read us a rant would you like to share our next rant please have all pastushka which is an amazing

name what can i say i loathe about star trek that the starfleet command has been consistently

adopting ridiculous okay right this one is for me right that the starfleet command has been

consistently adopting ridiculous uniform patterns for 150 plus years the only time when they gave

their crewmen something remotely sensible to wear was the 2150s the navy blue uniforms patterns after

aviators suit only to make those poor lads and lasses wear pajamas instead at some point in the

next 80 years or so then in the mid to late 23rd century they reverted to something that would have

looked very much more at home aboard the HMS Temeraire at Trafalgar, I hope I pronounced that

correctly, and then switched back to a particularly infamous variation of the pajama pattern in the

early 24th century. By infamous, I mean the behind-the-scenes stories of the costumes being

actually atrociously uncomfortable, I know exactly what you're talking about, that have been evolved

upon throughout the late 24th century. Seriously, who in the world could possibly have surmised that

it would be a jolly good idea for the crewmen of a starship who frequently find themselves in fights

hazardous environments, never mind just doing the work on the ship itself, to wear something that

A. is horribly uncomfortable, B. has no pockets and comes with neither carry harness nor even a

chunky belt for equipment, and C. appears to be rather fragile and or prone to getting caught on

something. Now that I think the Napoleonic pattern from the late 23rd century, as silly as it was

was ironically the second most sensible after the aviator suit pattern from Enterprise. I think this

was one where they knew i would pick up on this because i am obsessed with the uniforms from star

trek okay i'm gonna ask you a question based on these uniforms did the guys have to wear dance

belts as part of their uniform because i've been to many comic cons around spider-men costumers

and some of them do not wear particular underwear where it hides the little voyager as it were

in their outfit were dance belts part of the Star Trek uniform to hide do I know for a fact no but I think the first two seasons of the next generation people talk about the the the spandex the onesies that they wore going into the next generation i

think something must have been used because when i compare those to the uniforms from the motion

picture in 1979 definitely some people were not wearing dance belts and it's very noticeable

in some scenes of that movie that you're like you could have talked is what i'll say about that

but i think ysis have you done on how much is shown shown you seem very um knowledgeable

of which ones were showing i've seen things you people wouldn't believe oh i can believe it

i can believe it sorry no go on go on um i do what funnily enough in terms of

just functionality uh pavel's nailed it the enterprise era jumpsuits and while they're not

my favorite because i you know i like the multi-color they do have division piping don't

get me wrong but i do like the more multi-colored uniforms that we got as we went along and i am

on the record as saying how much i love the monster maroons from wrath of can

sort of onwards that encapsulate the sort of the late 23rd into the lost era um

but yeah functionality i think it's enterprise i mean they're covered in pockets

so you're never going to be stuck for where can i put my phaser where can i put my tricorder

whereas yeah when you go in particularly the original series they were at least you would

when they've been down anywhere they get an equipment belt so at least there's something there next gen you have holsters that sort of magically appear and disappear as the situation

requires and that's true of ds9 and voyager as well um and then as we go forward and you can cgi

suits to appear out of everything it kind of becomes a little bit like oh discovery had this

but then they lost it going into it but I think the wider gag for me

there is that the Starfleet Quartermaster daily designs new uniforms to disseminate out throughout the fleet

because in lower decks you have different ships wearing different uniforms next gen you have star bases

will wear one whereas star ships will wear another, that's fine you know that's kind of logical yeah I like it with Lower Decks it's like you know with this ship

where's that and that ship where's that and that ship where's that and that Starbase where's that I love that show I know it's just Lower Decks was a gift it was just a gift to Trekkies everywhere

and between holodeck episodes and you know what ifs and flashbacks and everything I'm pretty sure

every single iteration of star trek is shown love in that show which i just love because it was made

by fans totally obvious it was made by fans that don't mind poking a bit of fun at the series

exactly exactly 100 um but yeah so what so in terms then i know that this is definitely a a star

trek focused rant but what do you think about the sort of because one thing i think about star wars

is it's very consistent uh i think like you know you you could like glance at a you know a still

from a star wars project and know it's from star wars um and i think that's true of both the

uniforms and then the overall aesthetic as well so like in what do you think of like you know the

this kind of the frenetic changing of uniforms in star trek versus the fairly standard in star wars

I mean, Pebbles brought up a very good point in the whole, they're going on to these, like, the whole point is to explore new worlds. So they're landing on these new worlds that could have any sort of bacteria, viruses, all of that sort of stuff. The amount of times they beam on the planets and they're not actually wearing any sort of masks or anything. Yes, they might have an oxygen count, but you could be breathing in any sort of bacteria. It could be attached into there

or even just protection like some sort of armor or protective shielding from other types of

blasts and fires and all that sort of stuff no that's where the tight fitted spandex spandex

like we don't see people going at the war zones here imagine in a war zone here running out in

spandex it's fine i'm in spandex i'm safe we don't we wear protective armor like if i was

working on the enterprise or discovery and went okay cj we want you to go to this brand new planet

please just wear your spandex outfit i'll be like hell no give me armor give me a space suit give me

some sort of protection use go down in your little dance belt that goes right up your jacksie i will

i want the full kitten caboodle armor protection shield give me it all use the money that you would

have spent on spandex to develop portable shields. You would save so much more money

Done. But no, let's wear the tight-fitted spandex. I'd look good in tight-fitted spandex

Don't get me wrong. But give me the armour. I've sent you those photos, haven't I? Anyway, moving on

You're grand. The cameras are installed. And if that isn't a social media clip, I don't know

what is. sometimes it's sometimes you can tell when a social media clip has been like really structured

to be a social media clip others are just like i shouldn't let him talk yeah i shouldn't have said

that too late um i mean i i think you nailed it like star trek i love the multi-colored run through

of the wardrobes practicality not in the slightest um and i think because i think

um i'm gonna show off my my knowledge here so william worth ice who designed the original series

uh uniforms came back to do season one of the next generation and it was i think it was robert

blackman then who took over for the now like i i do think that if i said like oh the next generation

people they might picture robert blackman's uniforms sooner than they picture those season

one uniforms because they're much more functional um they're uh they're a two-piece as opposed to a

one piece and from season three to season seven that's the uniforms they used uh i have done

i won't say too much reading on the design of the uniforms for star trek because i don't think you

can do too much reading on the designs of the uniforms for star trek because i love them and

they're brilliant i'm really glad we got to talk about this pavel thank you for your rant i have

one important question to ask and then we will move on um how many times do you think rika split

his pants doing the rika i would say if we were to average it up 26 episodes a season uh we'll say

yeah all seven seasons uh i'm gonna say a higher percentage in the first two seasons because of the

one piece i'm gonna say 2 960 i have no idea that's an important question though yeah it really

one that only Jonathan Frakes can truly answer. If any of us get to speak to Jonathan Frakes

I'm going to ask that. I need to get him to a Comic-Con

I need to interview him and ask him that question. That is my life goal now

I mean, 100%. It's good to have goals. It's good to have goals

He's still so tall and so cool. CJ, you've been such a wonderful, fun and giving friend

So I'd like to ask you this. Do you fancy a quickie? Am I giving or getting, though

Let's find out. So, Kelly Cashin2404 has said, Honestly, for both of them

the overly loud toxic corner of their fandoms that took all the energy out of the room

and give the rest of us a bad name. I thought it was a bigger issue for the Star Wars community

than the Trek community but then Academy proved me wrong fandom a fickle thing my friend like it it is i think as the increased

monetization of reaction and i mean listen hand in the air you know it's part of what we do

i just you know yes i'm gonna say this we just engage with good faith which makes us different

um but there is an industry in monetizing extreme reactions both positive and negative

and that of course bleeds into the overall discourse um this commenter absolutely nail

on the head now we saw it with discovery we saw it with some of picard some strange new worlds but

then oh my god with academy yeah and just look on the star wars side as well the sequels the

prequels the prequels were hated and now that generation has grew up and went actually the

prequels are all right and the prequels were all right i'm not a big fan of some of the prequel

things i'm not a big fan of some of the sequel ones but it's that line between being critical

and fair and just going straight for the hate unfortunately we live in a click bait world let's

be fair the thumbnails on youtube they are clickbaity on purpose because that is the generation

we have to live in this is the only way that people will get in the videos you're more likely

click on something that'll go oh why are they that way than going that's just a conversation

that that's unfortunately the way the world is but it's how you conduct yourself you can

hate something but you don't have to spread hate yeah as much maybe as the way you can kind of look

at it yes be critical explain your points but explain it in a polite not positive way what's

the word i'm looking for um like a sensible polite manner i could write about the acolyte

but i'd still look for the good within it as well don't just hate on something for hate and i just

this is my rant i hate comments that are just like i hate the sequels i hate discovery

but no explanation why have you even watched them most of the people that are saying i hate this

probably haven't even watched the new episodes they've watched the first one they've hated it

and then they hate the rest of the series when actually there might be episodes that you enjoy

because they're slightly different and it impacts on the fandom it impacts on how the shows and

everything move forward sorry Sean I've ran it there go on no I mean I just I I agree and the

amount of comments I saw I watched the first 10 minutes of Academy and thought I hate this and

turned it off I'm like so you haven't watched Academy you know and I'm not trying to sound

patronizing and I'm not trying to talk down to people and I realize I in fairness and I want to

own up to this i have seen some comments about myself going like son you have slipped into a

little bit of maybe you know lumping everyone in together and and i i do i do take ownership of that

and you know i i appreciate that kind of feedback um so i think when i say you've only watched 10

minutes of something you haven't watched it i mean like if it was a 10 minute short then you've

watched it sure but if it's 10 out of 50 minutes you know at least watch an episode at least give

it that and then sure i mean obviously then we've talked before and i won't go on about it here

uh the the example i always use season one of the next generation took a long time to find its feet

and it became one of the greatest sci-fi shows ever made you know um so that's why i feel like

if you've only watched a few minutes of something, you haven't watched it. So I would argue you don't hate it

You just didn't like what you saw, which is fair. You're allowed to not like, you know, what you see

Oh my God, like no one can say otherwise. But if you're going to give something the energy of hating it

at least watch the whole thing. Yeah, well, I'll still do the rule of three

I will watch three episodes of a show. And if I haven't enjoyed it by the third episode

I can say this isn't for me. The pilot episode of any show is always an kind of outlier

because they make this pilot, then it is reviewed by the TV networks and things

and then they say yes or no based on the pilot. That's why a lot of pilots also have reshoots

and you'll hear there's been two pilots, the one with the original cast and original story, and then a second pilot where they've changed things around

Sometimes TV shows don't redo that pilot, but then the series takes a totally different direction um one example i watched the rookie

and they had this dynamic between the two main characters the main female and main character

nathan fillion and uh the character was called lucy chen where they were in a relationship and

there was a bit of an age gap between them and as by the third episode they started going actually

this isn't the relationship we want and they just totally scrapped it they broke up and then they

never mention it again in the six seven seasons like it's not even brought up because the show's

finding its direction the working with the cast the chemistry chemistry takes time yes and I feel

like by the third episode if you're not feeling it you can go you know what I gave it three hours

I didn't enjoy but at least I can say I gave it those three hours there's been shows where I've

gave it three hours i haven't enjoyed it i've put it aside and then everyone's saying this is the

best show it really gets good from like episode five out of 22 remember there's 22 episodes in

the season and people say by episode five you'll be hooked then i'll give it another chance and then

sometimes i'm like no i don't like it it's not for me but i don't go on the internet and go i hate

that this is the worst thing ever because the other people that are enjoying it let people enjoy

the stuff they enjoy. It doesn't harm me not watching it. It doesn't make my life worse. It's

not ruining anything. If anything, let's just say the Acolyte, okay? Not many people enjoyed the

Acolyte. If the Acolyte continued, I probably would have watched it. I wouldn't have enjoyed it

but I would have watched it. But if it's bringing people into the Star Wars universe

then it's only good. It's bringing in money. Disney go, ooh, we can make more shows. People

and join these. It can only help the fandom. Yeah, I think overall, that sounds very, very fair, and I hate that

Yeah. That's probably a good way to end it. It's fair, but we hate it

What a way to end the episode. It's fair, but we hate it

But you don't hate this. This is a good show. You like Star Rant, so make sure you subscribe to Trek Culture

and make sure you subscribe to What Culture Star Wars as well so you can see our faces more and see more of these rants

And also, very importantly, don't forget to leave your rants in the comments below

because we're going to need more for the future and we're going to be reading all of these comments

and who knows, maybe some of your rants will appear in future episodes

Is there anything more to say? Are we done, Sean? I think, I was going to say

everyone who engages with this is actually really cool. That's it, blackmail them

You're all cool Cool people hit the like button It's true Feed into my hate

But yeah Let's end it there And you always End it first in our feed ins

Let's keep that routine going of how we end it So we have that consistency So I'm going to hand it over to Sean

Thank you very much everyone You're awesome, CJ said it all make sure that you're liking sharing subscribing make sure that you are commenting uh if you see

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it's not weird we will be back next week with another episode of star rounds until then

live long and prosper and may the force be with you