Dec. 30: Star Wars vs Star Trek

For me, it's no contest. Star Wars wins hands down. That's just because I was born in 1973 so I am old enough to remember a time when Star Wars was king. Star Wars may even be responsible for one of my life's most enduring friendships. My late best friend, Jason, and I were huge Star Wars fans. One Christmas, I got the Death Star and he got the Millennium Falcon. You best believe we put our Star Wars stuff together and had a major playtime.

But Star Trek? No, never did anything for me. I can dig the mythos of Spock because I'm fascinated by the same thing he is - humanity's tendency to elevate emotion over logic and why this is necessary if we want to live meaningful lives. But try as I might, I just couldn't get into Kirk and Scotty getting beamed up from alien planets.

My Star Wars love affair didn't last long.* My dad likes to tell about how I was so excited to see the first movie that I ran ahead of him to the theatre, certain that the movie would start the moment I got there. I was still a fanboy for The Empire Strikes Back but I was kind of 'meh' when, on a family vacation in 1984, we went to see Return of the Jedi in a movie theatre in California. I was underwhelmed and I'm pretty sure my mom and dad were happy that I didn't pressure them to buy me ewoks.

My fanboy phase was over in 1999 when the first of the prequels, The Phantom Menace, appeared in theatres. I still have not seen it. I went to see the second because a friend really wanted to see it and I took my godson to see the third one, but that's about it. I haven't seen The Force Awakens, Solo, Mandalorian, or any of the Star Wars universe thingees. Now, whenever I see Star Wars, the first thing I think of is: "Gee, I wonder how long it takes Chewbacca to wipe."

I don't begrudge the fans of either of these franchises and I take heart in knowing that, should I ever find myself in an elevator alone with George Lucas, that I could have a normal conversation with him and he wouldn't have to deal with any gushing.

-

It at least lasted long enough to have several of those action figures bring me cheer while I was recovering from carbon monoxide poisoning in hospital in 1983. I remember my dad propping the plastic Ben Kenobi doll on the back of my bed.

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