So I watched the movie Fanboys last night. If you haven't seen it, you may have heard of it. The premise of the movie is that in 1999 a group of Star Wars fanatics travel the country to break into Skywalker Ranch and sneak a peak at Star Wars: Episode 1.I have to say, I thought it was just awful and I think Star Wars fans need to start shutting the fuck up. Don't get me wrong. I love Kevin Smith movies and the Family Guy tribute episodes and the Robot Chicken episodes... but this wasn't that. It was just a celebration of immature, slavish geekiness.
And CLEARLY I don't have a problem with grown men being into something marketed to children, but I do have a problem with geek culture being celebrated as a parody of itself. You see, guys like Kevin Smith said that you can really be into Star Wars and comics while being a complex and intellectual human being. But some people walk away from those his films and just get the message that being a geek is cool.
Being a geek is not cool. Marginalizing comic books or science fiction as part of geek culture isn't cool either. Samuel L. Jackson reads comic books. Comic writer Grant Morrison is as cool as any rockstar and more than most. They aren't cool because they are sitting in their mom's basement sucking down Mountain Dew, playing HALO, and talking about the "holy trinity." They are cool because they don't allow a few limited interests to define them.
For however much time I spend ranting about comic books and Star Trek, this blog is filled with personal insights, politics, philosophy, humor, music, video, book recommendations... Without a diverse set of interests, geeks are as boring and predictable as the most pathetic old lady who collect ceramic trinkets.
And Star Wars fans are the worst because they think they are better than others. This is demonstrated when the fanboys make a detour to "the future birthplace of Captain Kirk" so that they can harass some Star Trek fans. The leader of the Trekkies is played by Seth Rogan wearing a false nose and teeth. Really, he looks like an alien from either series! The reason why Rogan's geek persona is so exaggerated is because he needed to be an even bigger geek than the Star Wars fanboys, and that wasn't easy to do.
The whole scene seems to lack any self-awareness. The obsessive delusions of Trekkies that they are mocking are clearly exhibited by the "Warsies" throughout the entire film, but for some reason, they get a pass. They are cool geeks, not nerd geeks.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not offended. And, I guess the guest appearance by William Shatner was supposed to mediate some of the hostility, but really I think someone needs to bring Star Wars fans down a few pegs.1) George Lucas is a hack and a greedy, fat fuck. Gene Roddenberry was a war hero, a cop, and an idealist with a message.
George Lucas made one really good film when he was a struggling young artist and god bless him for it. It was a brilliant little film and he was a genius for keeping all of the creative rights. But he has no integrity and I promise you that he doesn't think nearly as much of his creations as his fans do. He didn't even direct the second two films! If the prequel films didn't make this painfully obvious, just look at Return of the Jedi where he stuck in Ewoks as a marketing gimmick and made Leia Luke's sister for LITERALLY NO REASON! This is not a guy you should look up to.
Gene Roddenberry, on the other hand, was literally a World War II hero. He was a pilot in the Air Force who flew a B-17E Flying Fortress. He flew 89 missions and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal. After the war, he worked for PanAm and after a crash in the Syrian desert traveled miles to seek help and saved the others. Then he joined the LA police force before retiring to become a screenwriter.
2) Star Wars was paint-by-numbers storytelling. Star Trek is about philosophy, sexuality, and morality.
Star Wars is the ultimate example of Hollywood screenwriting because it hits all of the emotional beats with such precision that you would think it was developed by a German with an ass so tight it whistles when he farts. It's like a perfectly crafted piece of furniture and you have to marvel at its elegance... but its not particularly deep. The dialog is stilted and awkward making it vitally important that they had such gifted actors as Harrison Ford and Sir Alec Guinness. The whole idea of "the Force" is a new age bastardization of Taoism. Sure, it follows Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey like R2 follows 3PO... but it doesn't bring anything new.
Star Trek, for all of its hokieness and TV budget, actually tries to address larger, more complex ideas like pascifism, self-acceptance, and revenge. Each episode (to be fair, each good episode) is an allegory on par with Aesop's fables that causes the viewer to question their own nature and the nature of the universe around them. In the sixties, they covered topics like ethnocentrism, sexism, and sexuality. In the eighties, it addressed rampant greed versus self-determination, ideology, and more sexuality. We could debate how well it achieved these goals all day, but you would be hard pressed to argue that Star Wars is deeper than Star Trek.
3) Star Trek has a bigger fiction dick.
By this I mean, Star Wars was six great hours of popcorn munching entertainment, but that's it. It isn't all that complex or involved so once you are done with the movies... there isn't much left. I mean, how much left can fans deconstruct when all you have is six hours. Of course, the next six hours of Star Wars was a crime against humanity and I will support Lucas being dragged to the Hague in chain for trial to answer for those abominations.
Star Trek has certainly had its share of awful, awful crap. I can't deny that... but there is literally over a thousand hours of material to pick and choose from. The are a few fantastic movies and a lot of genuinely emotionally moving episodes. In terms of shear, raw material that adds to the richness of the world and gives you more to deconstruct, Star Trek has Star Wars beat by light-years.
4) The Star Wars/Star Trek war is perpetuated by only the worst of geeks.
Maybe I'm being a little hypocritical here, but I do like Star Wars. I think its a great story, but I love Star Trek. Most fans are the same way. In fact, I don't think I've met any Star Trek fans who doesn't like Star Wars. But there is some sad little part of us that likes to fight over which is better. I'm doing it now, but there is absolutely no hostility between the creators. In fact, the company that does the special effects for Star Trek is Industrial Light & Magic... the same company that Lucas founded to do special effects for Star Wars.
There is plenty of room for both (and a lot more) in the wide realm of sci-fi fantasy. It is only the most insecure geek who goes around thinking they are better than the guy who likes something they don't. Star Wars fans like to pretend that because of more action and Harrison Ford that Star Wars is somehow more mature and cool than Star Trek. It really isn't.
The difference is that Star Trek fans have more patience. They know that they aren't going to see a lot of great action on a TV budget, so they are looking for more meaning in their stories and a greater emotional and intellectual investment. Besides which, they know that they are considered the worst example of a geek... so they don't put on a lot of false airs.
But you know what my real disappointment about this movie was? I was waiting for a time lapse view of the characters watching Phantom Menace as their entire illusion and raison d'etre is shattered. God, I would have loved to see that.
I think we have a sequel. I just hope none of the same people are involved. Until then, I leave you with this:
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