I have to admit -- I've always been more of Star Trek fan rather than Star Wars. The Star Trek universe has always seemed more open, more diverse, with a lot more opportunities for telling different stories not just about the rebels versus the empire.
It seems that Neil deGrasse Tyson agrees.
"I'm old-school with the big traditional TV and movie series, so I'm old-school Star Trek. I'm partial to the old crew, Captain Kirk,"
*snip*
"I never got into Star Wars," Tyson said. "Maybe because they made no attempt to portray real physics. At all."
*snip*
"I like the double star sunset scene (on Tatooine). Most stars you see in the night sky are double and triple stars, so that's a very common thing we would expect in the universe. But, yeah... [holds up Vulcan hand sign]"
Head over to the link to watch the full video interview.
Great minds think alike!
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With "the Force" being such a critical plot point and pretty tough to explain with physics, there is already too big a hole to full by making everything else hypothetically not impossible.
Originally, I feel like Star Wars was pretty much a vehicle for the special effects anyway.
I always have seen Star Wars as much more realistic. It's a gritty universe. A lot of the tech is old. Things get dirty. You need money. The Episode IV rebels were an alarmingly white male human organization, but almost everywhere else there is evidence of real and widespread diversity.
Star Trek, by contrast, portrays a nice clean shiny universe where resources are apparently unlimited - transporting and replicating everything would require gigantic amounts of energy - and money is no longer used (who needs to ration by price when there are no limits?). Oh yes, and it's a semi-military dictatorship in which (as we learned in DS9) people who are through no fault of their own genetically superior to the average bald ape can be, if identified, barred from participating in virtually any useful or respectable profession. The Empire - 'scuse me, Federation - is an almost totally human-dominated enterprise, and in every series there is some insubordinate race that dares to stake out its own territory playing the role of Evil Empire.
Of course, neither of these series holds a candle for political or economic realism to the inimitable Babylon 5 - which, admittedly, would not have existed without Star Trek.