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Star Trek vs. Star Wars: which one is better in 2023?

For as long as both entities have existed, fans of science fiction and fantasy have debated the merits of Star Trek and Star Wars . But for most of the 45 years that the two franchises have overlapped, Star Trek and Star Wars haven’t actually had much in common, apart from their cosmic setting. Star Trek is an aspirational sci-fi series set in humanity’s future, while Star Wars is a bombastic fantasy adventure that takes place in a far-off galaxy. One has primarily lived on weekly television, while the other has broken big-screen box office numbers.

Star Trek and Star Wars have both leaned heavily into fan service

The streaming era has let both franchises experiment.

• The streaming bubble is forcing Star Trek and Star Wars to pump the brakes — and that’s good

However, in recent years, both Star Trek and Star Wars have become tentpoles for their parent companies’ subscription streaming services , Paramount+ and Disney+ , respectively, each pumping out a steady stream of content in an ever-widening array of formats. This has led them to encroach further into each other’s territory than ever before. Star Trek vs. Star Wars is no longer an apples-to-oranges comparison — they are directly competing products, sharing some of the same ambitions and struggling against the same environmental forces.

We will likely never settle on which space franchise is the greatest of all time, but we can take a moment to ask: Which is better right now?

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Studios have become increasingly risk-averse during the streaming era, and that’s meant relying on recognizable brands with loyal fanbases who will remain subscribed to a service as long as there are new releases within their favorite fictional universe. However, this dependence has also left streamers at the mercy of those same fans, who can now use social media to converse with creators or even make demands. While this can lead to crowd-pleasing moments like the return of popular characters or the inclusion of fan-promoted memes back into the product, it can also create a feedback loop in which creators continue to serve audiences slight variations on whatever fans say they like rather than expanding their worlds or telling new stories.

Over the past two years, both Star Trek and Star Wars have released series that are representative of this shamelessly fan-oriented approach. In 2022, Paramount+ released the first season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds , a prequel series set aboard the original USS Enterprise and starring Anson Mount as Captain Kirk’s predecessor Captain Christopher Pike. This series was prompted by a vocal fan campaign after legacy characters Pike, Mr. Spock, and Number One were featured in the second season of Star Trek: Discovery in 2019. A petition to give these characters their own spin-off received over 30,000 signatures, eventually leading to Strange New Worlds receiving a series order. Happily, the fans were right about this one, and Strange New Worlds has become more than just a nostalgic throwback to classic Trek , but exactly the shot in the arm the franchise needed. The series retains the episodic format of pre-streaming Trek series, but benefits from modern production values, a charming cast, and a sense of joy and wonder that the serialized Trek shows Discovery and Picard have yet to deliver.

The recent third season of Star Trek: Picard  has also been a serious crowd-pleaser, reuniting the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation for one last 10-hour adventure. Though certainly the most recursive and least imaginative new installment of Trek’s streaming era, it has been wildly popular among fans, well-received by critics, and is the first Trek series to make a dent into Nielsen’s weekly Top 10 streaming charts. A petition to launch a sequel series featuring Picard ’s younger cast members has surpassed the one that demanded a spin-off for Pike’s Enterprise, with over 44,000 signatures to date. There is a vocal online contingent that wants to hand the keys to the franchise to this season’s showrunner, gushing Star Trek fanatic Terry Matalas.  

The current state of the Star Wars Galaxy should be a warning against that particular future for Star Trek . While ascended fan and George Lucas apprentice Dave Filoni has produced some of the best Star Wars television, such as the animated Star Wars Rebels and the incredible final season of The Clone Wars , his insistence upon building every new series directly on the back of the last one has left the Star Wars galaxy feeling both smaller and more confusing than it has in decades. Characters’ stories weave between animated and live-action series, making each product harder to follow on its own. Important character beats for the main characters of The Mandalorian are resolved in The Book of Boba Fett . Ahsoka is a live-action spin-off for the popular Clone Wars character, but is also a sequel to Rebels , seeded in a number of Mandalorian episodes . Die-hard fans will have no trouble following this and delight in getting to see their favorite animated characters brought to life in live-action follow-ups, but this comes at the expense of what has always been Star Wars ’ greatest advantage over Star Trek : accessibility.

Meanwhile, the desire to tickle fans’ nostalgia glands with returning characters from the franchise’s past has resulted in creative misfires like the most recent Star Wars feature film, The Rise of Skywalker , the underwhelming Obi-Wan Kenobi streaming series, and the ghoulish practice of digitally applying the faces of young Mark Hamill or the late Carrie Fisher onto new actors. These are indications that even the unstoppable forces of time and death will not dissuade Disney from recycling the most popular Star Wars elements ad infinitum. That way lies madness.

Point: Star Trek

Prior to the streaming wars, Star Trek and Star Wars each had their own clearly defined lanes. Star Trek was weekly television that occasionally spun off into feature films, aimed at adults but also fostering a family audience; Star Wars was a film series that very rarely dabbled in TV, fun for all ages but plainly angling for a toy-buying audience. There had never been a Star Trek series specifically for kids (not even the short-lived 1970s Star Trek: The Animated Series ), nor had there been a Star Wars release that was made solely for adults. Over the past two years, however, both franchises have set their sights on the other’s target audience, with encouraging results.

In 2021, Paramount+ and Nickelodeon debuted Star Trek: Prodigy , a 3D animated action-adventure series aimed at kids under 12. Sporting a cast of colorful alien teenagers and a decidedly Star Warsian tone, Prodigy explores the Star Trek Universe from the perspective of complete outsiders, making it a perfect on-ramp for a young new fan. Prodigy is like no other Star Trek show before it, and yet it is still essentially Star Trek — a show about curiosity, cooperation, communication, and tolerance — winning it the enthusiastic approval of many adult Trekkies. It’s also a lot of fun, the sort of show that could easily capture the same sort of audience that The Clone Wars garnered during its earliest, most kid-friendly seasons. Naturally, it has spawned a toy line and a tie-in video game but is unlikely to compete with Star Wars to become a merchandising juggernaut.

Conversely, 2022 saw the release of Andor , the first Star Wars offering that feels totally adult-targeted. While still not explicitly sexual or any more graphically violent than the feature films, Andor is a slow, dense, character-driven drama that would bore most kids to tears. It is, nevertheless, one of the best new shows on television, the sort of series that could ably compete with Succession or Better Call Saul  in the acting, writing, and directing categories at next year’s Emmys. Even after the relatively gritty Rogue One: A Star Wars Story , to which Andor serves as a prequel, few fans predicted that a new Star Wars series would emerge that had so little interest in being commercial or toyetic.

And yet, its radical politics and revolutionary vigor are a perfect modern extrapolation of George Lucas’ original intent behind Star Wars , a film inspired by the Vietnam War in which the well-armed, well-funded government and military are the bad guys. It’s the side of Star Wars that was buried under mountains of merchandise as Lucas built his own Empire. Rival Star Trek has always been more overtly political, but with Andor , Star Wars has delivered an incisive dose of agitprop that would make Gene Roddenberry blush.

Point: Star Wars

The streaming bubble is forcing Star Trek and Star Wars to pump the brakes — and that’s good

As recently as 2022, both Disney and Paramount were betting the farm on streaming, spending unbelievable sums to pump out new installments of their most expensive franchises year-round. Disney+ debuted three live-action event series ( The Book of Boba Fett , Obi-Wan Kenobi , Andor ) and a set of animated shorts ( Tales of the Jedi ), totaling 23 weeks of new Star Wars content on the app. That same year, Star Trek hit critical mass, with a whopping 51 new episodes premiering on Paramount+ across all five of their ongoing series ( Discovery , Picard , Lower Decks , Prodigy , and Strange New Worlds ). As both services continue to hemorrhage money, it’s become clear that this breakneck pace of new content is not sustainable. Returning Disney CEO Bob Iger has ordered Lucasfilm and Marvel to slow the rollout of their planned streaming series in favor of more theatrical releases, and a trio of new Star Wars films was announced at 2023’s Star Wars Celebration event. Meanwhile at Paramount, Star Trek: Section 31 , once planned as an ongoing series, is being retooled as a TV movie, with plans for new standalone Trek specials every two years . This strategy may allow Executive Producer Alex Kurtzman’s “Phase Two” of streaming Star Trek to explore new angles for the franchise without committing each of them to a pricey ten-episode season order.

While it’s true that a more conservative approach to either franchise could result in fewer big swings like Andor , it could also strike a blow against mediocrity. During the peak streaming era, mediocre installments like Picard season 2 or The Book of Boba Fett did little damage to their streamers’ credibility, as there was always another release right around the corner that might potentially make up for it. This pattern could continue uninterrupted for years, with a steady stream of good, fine, or outright bad Star Trek or Star Wars and very little great Star Trek or Star Wars . The less we get, the more valuable each new chapter will be, and the more invested everyone — from creators to fans — will be in its quality.

Individually, both upcoming franchises’ upcoming slates represent an exciting variety. Star Trek ’s most uneven pillars, Discovery and Picard , are wrapping up, but Strange New Worlds , Prodigy , and the animated sitcom Lower Decks continue to go boldly in markedly different directions from each other (though Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks have a crossover episode coming up this year). Section 31 promises to be something totally new for Trek , a spy-fi adventure starring Oscar-winner Michelle Yeoh. A new series, Starfleet Academy , is also in early development. Across the divide, Star Wars has the hotly anticipated Ahsoka coming out this summer, with more Andor  and The Mandalorian on deck. Star Wars: Visions , the exciting anthology of animated shorts created by studios around the world, is back for another season this year, and the trailer looks positively dazzling. Middling animated series The Bad Batch is coming to an end, seemingly putting the Clone Wars-adjacent era to bed for a while, while upcoming series The Acolyte and the three unnamed feature films will each take place in a different time periods, expanding a galaxy that has started to feel strangely claustrophobic.

Both of these upcoming slates look promising, but the sheer variety of announced Star Wars projects is simply too enticing to deny. However, whatever your individual preference, fans of space sci-fi will have plenty to argue over for years to come.  

Point and overall winner: Star Wars

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Few actors have given more to popular culture than Harrison Ford. Over the course of his decades in Hollywood, Ford has starred in everything from high-minded prestige movies to some of the most well-known blockbusters in the history of movies. In that career, Harrison has given us two different all-time great blockbuster characters.

First, he was Han Solo in the Star Wars films, and then, a few years later, he introduced us to Indiana Jones. Both franchises have had long legacies that extended all the way into the present, but the question of which character is Ford's greatest role is still hotly debated. Thankfully, we've come up with a foolproof way to arrive at an answer. Which character is more central to the franchise?

Few science fiction franchises have made as enormous a cultural impact as Star Trek. Trek’s language and visual iconography, from “warp speed” to your phone’s built-in “live long and prosper” emoji, are ubiquitous even to people who have never seen the show. It’s the original organized “geek culture” fandom, and the birthplace of fan fiction and cosplay as we know it. The stigma of Trekkies as unwashed, socially awkward outcasts has dissipated as sci-fi and comics culture has gone mainstream, but Star Trek itself can still be intimidating to outsiders due to its massive scale and dense mythology of more than 800 episodes and films. Though it’s possible to explore the Star Trek universe on your own, it is best navigated with the aid of a guide. And, if you don’t happen to have a Trekkie in your life to chart your course with you (which they absolutely love to do), we’re here to offer three options as to how to get started, depending on how you like to digest stories.

Course No. 1: The sampler platter

The writers' strike has lasted about one-and-a-half months so far, and it doesn't appear to be ending anytime soon. And now, Disney is making some major schedule changes to almost all of its upcoming franchise films. Avatar fans are going to feel it the most. Avatar 3 has been pushed back a year from December 2024 to December 19, 2025. The other sequels, Avatar 4 and Avatar 5, have been delayed to December 21, 2029, and December 19, 2031, respectively. That's a three-year delay for both titles from their previous release dates.

Marvel's 2024 slate is also getting a big shake-up, with Captain America: Brave New World moving away from its summer opening slot on May 3, 2024, to July 26, 2024. The Thunderbolts movie is shifting from July 26, 2024, to December 20, 2024, the former release date for Avatar 3. That will make it only the second MCU movie to be released in December after Spider-Man: No Way Home.

10 Fundamental Differences Between Star Wars & Star Trek

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Steamy Star Wars Parody Lands Creators in Hot Water

One of star wars' best villains ruined his chance to wipe out the sith, hayden christensen was already familiar with the world between worlds before star wars return.

Star Wars has long been one of pop culture's biggest franchises, a juggernaut that brought sci-fi to the masses in a way few other movies or TV shows have.  Star Wars has left an indelible mark on the world with  over eleven movies , multiple TV shows, comics, and novels. However, for Star Wars to run, Star Trek had to walk.

RELATED: 10 Greatest Star Trek Villains Of All Time, Ranked

Whether it be its award-winning TV shows or its many movies, Star Trek has been a standard-bearer for complex sci-fi concepts. Star Trek and Star Wars are similar, but there are fundamental differences make it seem like they belong in two different genres.

10 Star Wars Takes Place In Another Galaxy And Time

Star Trek takes place in the 22nd, 23rd, and 24th centuries in the Milky Way galaxy, with humanity having joined other interstellar races to ensure peace and prosperity for as much of the galaxy as possible. Star Wars, on the other hand, doesn't take place in the Milky Way. It doesn't even take place close to contemporary times.

Each movie begins with the words, "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away." This huge difference sets the stage for every  Star Wars movie, but doesn't exactly clear up when it takes place.

9 Star Trek Feels More Futuristic While Star Wars Feels Weirdly Contemporary

Star Trek' s characters, especially the human ones, represent an evolution that completely recasts society. While not every species is as enlightened as those of the Federation, like the Klingon, Ferengi, or Cardassians, the characters don't seem like ordinary people. They act as if they come from a society that has evolved.

Even though it takes place in another galaxy, Star Wars feels contemporary in many ways – a dirty, corrupt galaxy with characters that the viewer can relate to. There are differences between  the Jedi and the Sith and how they comport themselves , but Star Wars  and Star Trek characters have massive differences in viewpoint.

8 In Star Trek, Technobabble Saves The Day

Star Trek  emphasizes the science in "science fiction" way more than Star Wars. Even the original series, which was more known for philosophy , used a lot of technobabble, something later shows and movies would lean into.  Star Trek shows even brought on science advisors to give the show's science some grounding as time went by.

RELATED: Star Wars: The Clone Wars: 5 Ways Season 7 Was Worth The Wait (& 5 It Wasn't)

"Reversing the polarity" of something is one of many tropes that Star Trek brought to the pop culture lexicon. There are so many episodes where Data, O'Brien, or Scotty employ some hardcore technobabble that saves the day, using science to solve problems.

7 Star Wars Is Way More Mystical

Star Trek likes to use realistic-sounding science to solve problems, but Star Wars goes in a completely different direction. While there is a lot of high technology in Star Wars , it's not nearly as important to the plots of the shows and movies as the mysticism is.

The main crux of Star Wars is the conflict between the light and dark sides of the Force, as exemplified by the Jedi and the Sith . While not every bit of Star Wars lore deals with mystical parts of the universe, it's much more prevalent than in Star Trek, where the amount of actual mysticism is just about nil.

6 Star Trek Plays With Philosophy And Questions Morality In Complicated Ways

The Star Wars Universe is a black and white place where there are good and evil, but very few shades of grey in between.  Star Wars is extremely simplistic with its outlook on things, and while it sometimes tries to grasp deeper topics, it rarely manages to do so in a thoughtful way.

Star Wars is as subtle as a brick to the head.  Star Trek has always been known for getting more philosophical, musing on the nature of morality.  Star Trek  delves into how a futuristic society should comport itself, how people should treat each other, and more.

5 Star Wars Is More About The Spectacle Than Anything Else

The limit of television production budgets means that Star Trek isn't as visually stunning as Star Wars . Some of the most memorable parts of Star Wars have been the explosive action, fantastic set pieces, and the lightsaber battles. Spectacle has always been one of the most important parts of Star Wars, overshadowing just about everything else.

4 Star Trek Characters   Are More Realistic

One of Star Trek's strengths over Star Wars is how realistic the characters can be in comparison. Part of this is how much more screen time Star Trek characters get than Star Wars ones. With Star Wars, there's not enough time to get too far into the characters – even the TV shows concentrate more on the action than the characters for the most part.

RELATED: 15 Strongest Star Trek Ships, Ranked

Star Trek 's characters go through so much more than Star Wars'  because there's more content . This makes the characters more realistic, allowing audiences to understand them and their complexities better.

3 Star Wars Is All About War

Star Wars has a big difference with Star Trek right in its name – the word war instead of trek. This focus on war has stayed with Star Wars throughout its existence; pretty much every piece of Star Wars media deals with conflict.

The only parts of  Star Wars canon that hasn't entirely dealt with war are  The Mandalorian and The Phantom Menace – both of which have conflict and looming war at their core. This focus on war limits the stories that Star Wars can tell. While it makes for exciting viewing, it doesn't make for diverse storytelling.

2 Star Trek Is About Exploration And Learning To Get Along

Star Trek has always gone in a different direction. Most Star Trek shows are about exploration and bringing people together, shining light on contemporary issues. While there are conflicts in Star Trek, it's not the focus, and even when it was – like in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – it was more about the price of war and how it affected those who fought it than the war itself.

While newer Star Trek shows get flack because they focus more on the action than the philosophy and exploration, for the most part, Star Trek is more humanistic in its approach to fiction and storytelling.

1 Star Wars Is Inspired By Joseph Campbell's Monomyth Structure

When George Lucas wrote  Star Wars and structured the story, he borrowed heavily from Joseph Campbell's Hero With A Thousand Faces. Campbell looked at myths from around the world and found a similar story structure. Lucas used this structure when creating the Star Wars narrative, which helped the stories resonate with audiences worldwide.

This familiar story structure helped the Star Wars Saga scratch an itch for heroic storytelling that made it appeal to a broader audience. Combining Campbellian monomyth with science fiction was an inspired choice, one that paid dividends.

NEXT: Star Wars: 10 Things Luke Skywalker Can Do Without His Lightsaber

Star Trek vs. Star Wars

Star Trek , originally a TV series, is a space western science fiction that centers around a crew who serves in Starfleet , a space-based peacekeeping and humanitarian armada. Star Wars , originally a trilogy, is a space opera fantasy franchise set in the distant past of a fictional galaxy, revolving around princes, princesses, knighthood, and chivalry. Both these highly popular and successful franchises are now being revived with new movies directed by J.J. Abrams.

Until the recent movies, Star Trek has been more of a cult phenomena than Star Wars , and therefore did not have the same level of mainstream fandom and cultural influence. Star Wars is grander in scope and has a complex web of political agendas, alien species, personal feuds, and galaxy-wide domination. The Star Trek world is modern, sleek, and shiny, while some of Star Wars' settings are dirty and grimy.

Comparison chart

Originally a television series, Star Trek has generally used the same basic plot setup: an altruistic crew is placed in situations of moral dilemma, which are often allegorical nods to current social and political issues. Issues covered include imperialism, war and peace, racism, class warfare, feminism, and human rights. The core characters, Captain Kirk , Spock, Scotty, Uhura, and Pavel Chekov, comprise humans and humanoid alien species. Star Trek only gained mainstream fame after the release of its films in 2009 and 2013. The video below briefly touches on the history of Star Trek :

Star Wars uses archetypes of the fantasy genre, such as princesses, knighthood, and chivalry, and action unfolds in a contest between good and evil. The Star Wars universe is laden with political science elements and historical inspiration. The plot climax of the Rebel Alliance fights for freedom from the Galactic Empire was drawn from the fall of the Roman Republic and the formation of an empire. This 10 minute video gives a retrospective look into the original trilogy of Star Wars :

Science and Fantasy

Common belief is that Star Trek is science fiction, while Star Wars is science fantasy. The technology in Star Trek is supposed to be at least loosely grounded in science or potential future science , rather than supernatural forces or magic. The most visible technologies include personal communication and triangulation devices (inspirations for modern day smart phones), warp drive travel for space ships, and teleporting ( “Beam me up, Scotty” ). The chief technologist for Google Earth has said that the tricorder’s mapping capability was one inspiration for Google Earth.

Star Wars , on the other hand, is not focused on the real-world viability of its science, as it is more science fantasy than science fiction. One of the core elements of its stories is the existence of the “Force”, an omnipresent energy that surrounds all living things and that can be harnessed by those with special abilities. The Force allows for acts of telekinesis, mind control, clairvoyance, and precognition, and can also make a person more physically capable.

Production History

After two Star Trek pilots were made, the original series aired for three years in the late sixties. Despite a fervent fan base, ratings were disappointing, and the show was canceled. Except for an animated series in the mid 70s, no new Star Trek productions were released until the first feature film in 1980. This revived the franchise , and 11 more movies followed, along with overlapping television series running until 2005. The Star Trek reboot films in 2009 and 2013 directed by J.J. Abrams brought a new style to the franchise, and functioned as broad-appeal blockbusters, rather than just being events for long-standing fans of the show.

Unlike Star Trek , Star Wars began as a motion picture rather than a television series. Universal Studios first agreed to make George Lucas’s Star Wars in 1971, but it took several years and multiple script revisions for the project to begin. The original film was finally released in 1977 to worldwide fanfare and became a pop culture phenomenon. Two sequels were released at three year intervals. 16 years after the third film, the first film in a new prequel trilogy was released. A third trilogy has recently been announced: Star Wars Episode VII will be released in 2015, and is being directed by J.J. Abrams, the same director who was in charge of the Star Trek reboot.

Political and Social Elements

When Roddenberry conceived the original show, he did so with a highly progressive, liberal agenda in mind, reflecting the counter culture movement sweeping the nation in the 1960s, although he was not totally forthcoming with the television networks about this element of the show. Star Trek was Roddenberry’s vision of what society could become in the future if humanity learned from its past mistakes. It was one of the first shows to have a mixed race cast.

Star Wars is a classic epic of good versus evil. The Jedi use the Force for good, while the Sith use the Force for evil. Star Wars functions less as commentary on specific social issues, but operates on the grander operatic struggle of dark vs light, dictatorships versus democracies, etc. However, many have attempted to draw parallels between Star Wars and the reality of history and politics , as seen in this video :

Pop Culture and Legacy

Star Trek has a devoted cult following of hardcore fans known as “Trekkies”. There are various Trekkie conventions all over the world where fans dress up in costumes and may have a chance to meet cast members, or to discuss the issues of the show. Some Trekkies even learn the show’s constructed language , Klingon. There was a Star Trek -themed attraction in Las Vegas for 10 years. Two museum exhibits of props travel the world. A NASA space shuttle was named after the crew’s ship , the Enterprise.

The Star Wars movies have expanded into a massive web of spinoffs and products, including books, video games , made-for-TV movies, comic books, animated series, theme park attractions. Even several animal species have been named after Star Wars characters. References to Star Wars are common in movies and the media.

Famous Quotes

• "KHAAANNNN!" -Captain Kirk
• "It can be argued that a human is ultimately the sum of his experiences." --Benjamin Sisko
• "I would be delighted to offer any advice I can on understanding women. When I have some, I'll let you know." -Captain Picard
• "Excuse me… Excuse me. I’d just like to ask a question… What does God need with a starship?" -Captain Kirk
• "What we leave behind is as important as how we’ve lived. After all, Number One, we’re only mortal." -Picard "Speak for yourself, sir. I plan to live forever. -Riker
• The truth is usually just an excuse for a lack of imagination. -Garak
• "May the Force be with you."
• “Do. Or do not. There is no try.” -Yoda
• “Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope.” -Luke Skywalker
• “You don’t need to see his identification … These aren’t the droids you’re looking for … He can go about his business … Move along.” - Obi-Wan Kenobi
• “Use the Force, Luke.” - Obi-Wan Kenobi
• “I find your lack of faith disturbing.” -Darth Vader
• “Fear is the path to the dark side…fear leads to anger…anger leads to hate…hate leads to suffering.” -Yoda
• “When I left you, I was but the learner, now I am the master.” -Darth Vader “Only a master of evil, Darth.” -Obi-Wan Kenobi
• “I’ve got a very bad feeling about this.” - Han Solo
• “Wars not make one great.” -Yoda
• “A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack.” -Yoda

Star Trek Stills

Star wars stills.

• Wikipedia: Star Wars
• Wikipedia: Star Trek
• Wikipedia: Comparison of Star Trek and Star Wars
• The Official Star Wars Blog
• The Official Star Trek Website
• The 10 Best Yoda Quotes - Star Wars Blog
• Top 10 Star Trek Quotes - Science Channel
• Star Trek Trivia - IMDB
• Star Wars: Episode IV Trivia - IMDB

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‘Star Trek’ is the greatest sci-fi franchise of all. Why it’s stood the test of time

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Of all the science fiction franchises in the known universe, the one I would take to a desert island — or planet, I guess — is “Star Trek.”

I am not a Trekkie by any means (not that there’s anything wrong with that). I have never dressed as a Vulcan. I can’t speak a word of Klingon or identify the starships by their silhouettes or tell you how many tribbles it takes to make trouble. But a lot of general knowledge has seeped into my brain over the years: “Beam me up, Scotty.” “Fascinating.” “He’s dead, Jim.” “I’m a doctor, not a [insert any other profession].” “Make it so.” “Engage.” I’m au fait with all those catchphrases. I’ve watched every series, if not in their entirety, and all of the movies . (I do not count the J.J. Abrams big screen reboots, which operate on another timeline, though I’ve seen those too.) And I have greeted each new iteration with interest and a certain “Hello, old friend, what are you up to now?” affection.

This year marks the centenary of creator Gene Roddenberry’s birth and 55 years since the premiere of what is now officially referred to as “The Original Series” or “TOS,” and there are various home video remasterings and reboxings available. Thursday sees the premiere of the excellent “Star Trek: Prodigy,” streaming on Paramount+, where the franchise is star-based. This new CGI series is about a bunch of misfit teenagers escaping a slave-labor camp in a stolen Federation starship, on the run from a very bad guy — but kind of joyriding too. (It’s being advertised as the first “Trek” series aimed at young audiences, somehow forgetting or reclassifying the early 1970s “Star Trek: The Animated Series,” which featured William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley in their original roles as Kirk, Spock and McCoy, aired Saturday mornings, and won a Daytime Emmy as a “children’s series” in 1975.) None of the characters is human or in some cases even humanoid, apart from the hologram of Capt. Janeway (Kate Mulgrew), employed here as a kind of interactive help-bot. It is quite lively in terms of action, and funny where it’s supposed to be, but as in all “Star Trek” series and films, character is what counts most.

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From the name forward, the franchise bears comparison with “Star Wars,” with its spaceships and aliens and interplanetary scope, not to mention the range of storytelling platforms — movies and TV, cartoons and comics, novels and fan fiction.

I wouldn’t deny that there’s fun to be had from George Lucas’ baby, now bouncing for Disney, but “Star Wars” is not science fiction. It’s a fantasy set in space, where wizards do magic and heroes fight with swords and prophesied chosen ones take up their lightsabers; a special effects western cum samurai film cum collection of war movies in which, a few defections notwithstanding, good fights bad until one obliterates the other; and an expensive homage to the cheap Saturday serials of the 1930s. Its one endlessly repeated theme is bad parenting — or, in the case of “The Mandalorian,” the first “Star Wars” live-action television series, good (surrogate) parenting . But “Star Wars” on the whole has no real interest in ideas, in asking “Why?” or “What if?” The droids are comic relief, and slaves. Joseph Campbell’s the Hero with a Thousand Faces has often been cited, by Lucas and others, to connect these characters to a deeper storytelling tradition; the problem with a thousand-faced hero, however, is that you have seen that shtick a thousand times.

“Star Trek” is a different animal. From the beginning it had a mission, not just to explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations, and boldly go where no earthlings had gone before, but to model a future for its audience that was a little ahead of its time. Where “Star Wars” was slow off the mark with diversity — the only Black actor in “A New Hope,” James Earl Jones, supplied the voice of a white character, and even now has only managed one same-sex kiss between minor characters — “Star Trek” made diversity a point from the beginning, with George Takei’s Sulu and Nichelle Nichols ’ Uhura on the bridge. (Whether the 1968 kiss between Kirk and Uhura was the first interracial kiss on television is a subject of debate and semantics, but it was in any case ahead of its time.) The third series, “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,” put a Black man (Avery Brooks’ Sisko) in charge; the next, “Star Trek: Voyager,” a woman (Mulgrew’s Janeway). Throughout the various series, and in the sci-fi tradition, contemporary earthly issues — racism, Cold War politics, environmental degradation, despotism, sexism — are seen through the lens of future, extraterrestrial exploits. The presence of aliens (also ethnically diverse), on the crew or just passing through, offered writers a chance to comment with distance on the puzzlements of human behavior.

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That “Star Trek,” which originally ran from from 1966 to 1969, returned to television in the first place — there was a nearly 20-year break before “Star Trek: The Next Generation” — owes something to “Star Wars,” of course, which made space operas eminently bankable. But it had plenty of firepower of its own, charged by the the post-cancellation success of the original series, which flourished in syndication. A 1975 “Star Trek” convention in New York City, two years before “Star Wars” premiered, reportedly drew a crowd of 15,000 and turned thousands more away at the door; by 1986, the year before “The Next Generation” premiered, it was the most successful syndicated series going. A big-screen franchise, eventually numbering six films with the original crew, was up and running by 1979, followed by four “Next Generation” films — the first of which paired Shatner’s Kirk and Patrick Stewart’s Picard in a timeless corner of space.

To be sure, the revival of the brand may also be seen as a bottom-line event, designed to bring subscribers to what was then known as CBS All Access and is now called Paramount+, much as “The Mandalorian” was a boon to Disney+.

But it has produced excellent results. I’m a fan of all these shows: “Star Trek: Discovery,” especially in its adventuresome second and third seasons, with a fourth season premiering Nov. 18; the deep and thoughtful “Star Trek: Picard,” with Stewart back in the saddle (though going rogue); “Star Trek: Lower Decks,” an adult cartoon about service workers on a “second contact” vessel, that both parodies and celebrates the spirit and story conventions of the live-action shows while adding quotidian context and details. (We see how the ordinary crew lives; I can’t tell if it’s canonical, but it should be.) And there are more “Treks” arriving: the aforementioned “Prodigy”; “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds,” a spinoff at once from the second season of “Discovery” and the original “Star Trek” pilot, with Ethan Peck as a well-cast young Spock, Anson Mount as Capt. Christopher Pike and Rebecca Romijn as his Number One; and when one of the current series departs and other stars align, “Star Trek: Section 31,” another “Discovery” spinoff, with Michelle Yeoh reprising her role as Philippa Georgiou.

Because it was born and grew up on television, in an age when special effects were a luxury and not a given, the franchise has been devoted less to action than talk, and to philosophical questions — what it means to be human, or Vulcan, or Klingon, an android or noncorporeal. The fact that there are many, many, many hours of “Star Trek” content — which are, to some extent, preserved in the new series, with their intersecting plotlines — means that “Star Trek” has had the space to tell many sorts of stories: mystery stories, love stories (and impossible-love stories), funny stories, family stories, spy stories, horror stories, workplace stories. Much of the charm in the original series derives from the double act Shatner and Nimoy developed, based in a kind of affectionate mutual incompatibility, and subsequent “Treks” developed bonds between characters it is easy to invest in, and which in some cases (as with Capt. Picard and Data) became their very foundation.

It’s an emotional show, and not infrequently a show about having emotions — giving in to them, repressing them, making use of them. On the one hand you’ve got Spock, and all the Vulcans who came after, pumping for logic; on the other, there’s Data the android, a logical being who dearly wants to know what it is to be human, like his friends. It’s significant that the second series, “The Next Generation,” added a therapist to the crew — Marina Sirtis’ Deanna Troi — and eventually a bartender (Whoopi Goldberg as Guinan), which is to say, another sort of therapist.

The original series could be incredibly silly, unwittingly (and sometimes wittingly) self-parodying. The lack of money, one might say, was on the screen. One could practically smell the gray paint and plywood on the Enterprise sets. The series’ celebrated technobabble is just a kind of reformulated abracadabra; human characters get the hang of alien gear faster than you could look up how to reset your car’s clock in the owner’s manual. Everything happens in the nick of time. Kirk’s occasional romantic interludes might have seemed kind of hilarious even at the time, but certainly are risible now; and although there were strong roles written for women from the beginning, they were often stuck in some sort of minidress.

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And despite their hopeful tenor, these shows’ creation was not always peaceable. Roddenberry, whose involvement was lesser and greater over the years for reasons of health or business, could be critical of “Trek” made under others’ watch if he felt they weren’t staying true to his big themes. (Wikipedia will give you a pretty good idea of the rough roads some series and films have taken on the way to launch, and after.) But taken as a whole over time, “Star Trek” has remained remarkably true to a vision: Peace is better than war; violence is dramatically less interesting than discussion; difference is not merely respected but portrayed as a positive good.

There is the convention of the disposable crewman (“redshirts,” referring to the color of their uniform, has become a generic term for an anonymous character who dies early in a scene to indicate danger), but death even of the nameless is not usually paid back with death; revenge, while it is a motivating factor for characters in many stories, is regarded in the “Trek” universe as a dish best not served at all.

Mighty heroes mowing down hordes of literally faceless enemies, crowds cheering military victories — that is not the “Star Trek” style. There is relief when a foe is sent packing, but rarely glee. Phasers are usually set to stun. Spock’s Vulcan nerve pinch can send an opponent to the floor, but the Vulcan death grip (“The Enterprise Incident,” Season 3) is a fiction, a subterfuge. Current custom and affordable, high-quality modern SFX technology does mean that there is more space battling in the new “Treks” and more martial arts-style fighting (you are not going to leave Yeoh sitting in a chair, after all), but diplomacy remains the goal, and it is only when that fails that big things are blown up. “Get us out of here” is a thing Capt. Kirk would regularly say.

“Star Trek” envisions an Earth in which, as in John Lennon’s “Imagine,” the old dividing lines — ethnic, political, religious — have all disappeared; there is no war, no poverty, no pollution, and technology finally works for us rather than against us. Though these things seemed possible in the progressive era when “Star Trek” was born, I’ve grown increasingly doubtful about humanity’s ability to intelligently regulate its most local affairs, let alone join with alien species in a project of interplanetary goodwill.

Which may be why I love the “Star Trek” universe, and why I melt when, at the end of the third season of “Discovery” — a season very much about coming to terms with one’s nature and needs, limits and abilities — Sonequa Martin-Green’s (newly promoted) Capt. Burnham says, “The need to connect is at our core as sentient beings. It takes time effort and understanding … but if we work at it a miracle can happen.”

And who knows? The future is a long road.

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Every Actor Who's Been In Both Star Trek And Star Wars

The rivalry is as old as the hills: Is " Star Trek " superior to "Star Wars" or vice versa? While one is a TV show that began in the mid-1960s, and the other is a film series that didn't start until after "Trek" had been off the air for eight year, a schism arose in fandom, pitting the two against one another — perhaps inspired by nothing more than their shared genre, mutual popularity, and similar titles. 

One can argue whether or not this rivalry is warranted at all (the arguments are as old as the rivalry; one is sci-fi, the other sci-fantasy. One is speculative fiction about the future, the other is nostalgia for the distant past, etc.), but the rivalry has certainly — often playfully — been in place for decades, creating something of a mental divide between the two. There will be no interaction between the actors and creatives working on the two projects. George Lucas simply cannot direct an episode of "Star Trek," and William Shatner is forbidden from approaching "Star Wars." 

Imagine the cognitive dissonance, then, created by the announcement of J.J. Abrams being hired to direct "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" in 2014 ... only a few years after completing "Star Trek Into Darkness." There's no logical way to argue that this felt like an injustice, but for many it felt like an ineffable line had been crossed. Abrams was violating the unwritten rule that "Trek" and "Wars" remain ever separated. 

Of course, for those paying attention, multiple actors had been crossing that line for years. Here are all the actors who have appeared in both the "Star Trek" and "Star Wars" franchises.

George Takei

The most notable "Star Trek" luminary to cross over into "Star Wars" (and most of the actors on this list began in "Trek," moving to "Wars" later) was none other than George Takei, the helmsman of the U.S.S. Enterprise starting in 1966. Takei voiced a character named Lok Durd in a 2009 episode of "Star Wars: The Clone Wars." Lok Durd was a Neimoidian general who served as part of a separatist android army, was captured in a skirmish, but managed to escape and continue a campaign of malfeasance. Lok Durd also invented a weapon called a Defoliator that could destroy organic life, but leave the androids unharmed. 

While Takei has played a whole range of roles in his career, Lok Durd appears to be one of the few over-the-top villains Takei has been allowed to sink his teeth into. Takei was asked about working on "Star Wars" by CBR in 2009, and argued that "Star Trek," being about diversity, would a relationship with "Star Wars:" 

"Well, I guess I'm the only actor associated with ' Star Trek'  to have done anything with ' Star Wars ,' but I don't consider it jumping ship. You know, the ' Star Trek' philosophy is to embrace the diversity of life and ' Star Wars' is a part of that diversity ... [W]ith the episodes of 'Star Wars: The Clone Wars' that I worked on, I think there is a merging there. It does deal philosophically with certain issues of the time, which is what 'Star Trek' was known for. War and peace, technology and humanity, sacrifice and courage, these issues I found engaging."

Brent Spiner

Brent Spiner is one of the more prolific "Star Trek" actors, having played Data on " Star Trek: The Next Generation ," but also different models of Data (his evil twin Lore, his prototype B-4) as well as Data's creator, Dr. Noonien Soong. Thanks to "Star Trek: Enterprise" and "Star Trek: Picard," Spiner has played various ancestors and descendants of Soong as well. Spiner has been a mite ambivalent about "Star Trek" over the years: loving that he got to play such an excellent character, but sometimes bristling at being shouldered with it as well. 

In the animated TV series "Star Wars Rebels," Spiner played a politician in exile named Gall Trayvis: a noble senator who initially spoke out against the evils of the rising Empire ... until it was revealed he was an Imperial spy who took a great deal of glee in the suffering of the Rebels. Like all good villains, he was also a coward. 

Perhaps because "Star Trek" (at least ostensibly) takes place in a morally complex universe, largely absent of "heroes" and "villains" in the archetypal sense, perhaps it was appealing for a "Trek" actor to let loose and be cartoonishly evil. Both Takei and Spiner played villains in the "Star Wars" universe, which has to be enjoyable after playing tied-up, uniform-wearing diplomats.

Ethan Phillips

The final "central" "Star Trek" cast member to have made the move into the "Star Wars" world is Ethan Phillips, better known to Trekkies as Neelix on "Star Trek: Voyager." Neelix was a friendly, hobbit-like person who was brought onto the U.S.S. Enterprise as an ambassador and mess hall chief. "Voyager's" writers often pulled Neelix in two directions, alternately making him a comic relief character, and a deeply tragic figure who lost family in the war. Apart from Neelix, Phillips also appeared on an episode of "Enterprise" as a Ferengi. 

Ethan Phillips has voiced multiple roles in "Star Wars," all in video games attached to the franchise. He played a character named Hammam Flatt in "Star Wars: Force Commander," several parts in "Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds," and others in "Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic." After having to be buried in Tallaxian makeup (including false teeth) on "Voyager" for seven full seasons, one can sense Phillips' sigh of relief having to do all of his acting in a recording booth, sans makeup. 

Simon Pegg's appearance in both "Star Trek" (2009) and " Star Wars: The Force Awakens " probably came about because director Abrams liked working with the actor. Stepping into the role originated by James Doohan in 1966, Pegg played the Kelvin timeline's iteration of Scotty, the acerbic and peeved engineer aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise, bringing to the role a wry sense of humor along with some comedic exasperation. Pegg, famously a sci-fi nerd, was happy to play the role and would go on to co-write "Star Trek Beyond." 

Appearing only briefly in "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," Pegg was cast as a junk trader named Unkar Plutt who ends up selling out the character of Rey to the First Order. Pegg voiced the character, but it was largely a CGI creation based on his movements. This is another case of an actor starting on "Trek" as a noble character, then moving to "Wars" as a wicked one.

Clive Revill

In the case of actor Clive Revill, he was known for a broader, enormous career outside of both "Star Trek" and "Star Wars." Revill, an actor from New Zealand, had an impressive résumé full of British productions and had been nominated for a Golden Globe for his performance in Billy Wilder's "Avanti!" He was also nominated for two Tonys in the 1960s, for "Oliver!" (in which he played Fagin) and for "Irma La Douce." He worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company, appeared on "Columbo," and played various roles on "Alvin and the Chipmunks." Revill, still kicking at 92, is an actor's actor. 

In 1980, Revill provided a small amount of voice work in "The Empire Strikes Back," a sequel to " The Star Wars Holiday Special ." In "Empire," Revill voiced the evil Emperor (not yet named in 1980), dubbing over uncredited actress Marjorie Eaton, who wore a cloak and sported scary "monster" eyes. Revill and Eaton would both eventually be replaced in the 2004 remastering of "The Empire Strikes Back" by Ian McDiarmid (who played the role in "Return of the Jedi"). 

Revill went on to play a notable comedic part in an episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" wherein Picard and the crew are magically teleported into Sherwood Forest and find themselves playing the roles of Robin Hood and his Merry Men. Revill, in a poetic piece of casting, would play the wicked Sheriff of Nottingham. 

Patty Maloney

And speaking of " The Star Wars Holiday Special ," the Steve Binder-directed 1978 TV movie, and direct canonical sequel to the hit film a year previous, remains one of the most grating and terrible pieces of trash in TV history. In it, Chewbacca the Wookiee — essentially a space sasquatch — must return home to his family of sasquatches in time for Life Day, the closest "Star Wars" analogue to Christmas. 

Chewbacca's son is a creature named Lumpy (the "Star Wars" tie-in novel "Aftermath: Empire's End" revealed that his full name is Lumpawaroo) who liked to watch holographic Cirque du Soleil performances and bad TV shows. Lumpy was played by actress Patty Maloney, perhaps best known for the Sid and Marty Krofft series "Far Out Space Nuts." Lumpy, however, only spoke the Wookiee language, so Maloney's voice was not used. 

Maloney would go on to star in the best episode of "Star Trek: Voyager," called "The Thaw." In it, the Voyager crew had to project their consciousnesses into a computer simulation where a manifestation of fear (played by Michael McKean) had taken over the world with his army of scary carnival performers. Maloney was one of the members of Fear's retinue. 

One could perhaps argue that both of Maloney's "Trek" and "Wars" roles are equally terrifying. 

Fionnula Flanagan

Irish actress Fionnula Flanagan started in film in the 1960s with an adaptation of James Joyce's "Ulysses," and had already appeared in high-profile American TV shows like "Gunsmoke" and "Bonanza" — also winning Emmys for "Rich Man, Poor Man" and "How the West Was Won" — before becoming involved in "Star Wars" in 1984. In " Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure ," Flanagan played Catarine Towani, a survivor of a crashed spaceship who ended up in the care of Endor's Ewoks: a species of primitive teddy bear-like aliens last seen in "Return of the Jedi." Catarine would eventually be captured by a minotaur-like creature, but heroically freed by her children Cindel and Mace. In a horrid gut punch, Catarine is mortally wounded right at the film's conclusion. 

Flanagan is also Data's mom on "Star Trek." Well, sort of. Data's creator, Dr. Soong, had a wife name Juliana Tainer who died, and whom he replaced with an android counterpart. The episode "Inheritence" is about Data finding about how extensive his family really was. Flanagan would also play a Vulcan ambassador in an episode of "Enterprise," which is a dramatic shift away from the matronly roles she played in both "Trek" and "Wars." Adventure mom, to android mom, to emotionless diplomat. I suppose that could be "motherly" as well; Moms are allowed to be emotionless diplomats. 

Jason Wingreen and Ed Begley, Jr.

Another victim of Lucasfilm's tinkering with the "Star Wars" movies after the fact was actor Jason Wingreen, who played the voice of the mysterious, helmeted bounty hunter  Boba Fett in "The Star Wars Holiday Special," in "The Empire Strikes Back, " and in "Return of the Jedi." In the prequel films that followed, the character was recast with actor Temuera Morrison, who would replace Wingreen's vocals in 2004 — but Wingreen can still lay claim to the character. 

Prior to "Star Wars," however, Wingreen's face can be seen in the original series "Star Trek" episode "The Empath," a third-season cheapie wherein Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are tortured by aliens on an avant-garde theater set. Wingreen played a doctor who was trapped in a tube-like prison. Not a huge role and, according to an interview in StarTrek.com , one he didn't even remember shooting, but a "Trek" role nonetheless. 

Boba Fett's voice was also once provided by actor Ed Begley, Jr. in a (relatively obscure) 1996 audio adaptation of "Return of the Jedi," a piece of media for deep-cut Starwoids. Begley, as fans of "Star Trek: Voyager" know, also played a Bill Gates-like supervillain in a two-part time travel episode called "Future's End" wherein a computer impresario was stealing 29th-century technology to invent dial-up internet. Yes, that is real. Both villains, I suppose, but Bill Gates and Boba Fett are very, very different characters. Only one, for instance, has a charity foundation. 

Felix Silla

The amazing Felix Silla has an impressive list of roles on his résumé. He played Cousin Itt on "The Addams Family." He played Twiki on "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century," he was a stunt double for the character of Short Round in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" (he was an extensive stunt performer, often standing in for child characters), and if you've ever seen the bonkers 1975 "Maltese Falcon" spoof "The Black Bird," you'll have seen him play the character of Litvak, a gnashing, hilarious Nazi villain. 

Silla, having such a broad variety of roles, perhaps inevitably would appear in both "Star Trek" and "Star Wars." In the former, he played one of the creepy psychic Talosians who imprisoned Capt. Pike in the original Trek pilot "The Cage." He had no lines, but a lot of menace. Silla likewise had no lines in "Return of the Jedi," wherein he played one of the many Ewok characters. Specifically, Silla played an Ewok who flew a hang glider.

Prior to films, Silla also worked in an Italian circus as a horseback rider and trapeze artist. In short, you want to know this man's biography.

Ron Perlman

Who could forget " Star Trek: Nemesis ?" As it turns out, most people. Released in 2002, it was one of the least successful "Trek" movies, and indicated that the franchise was, after a glorious 15-year heyday, finally on the wane. 

"Nemesis" was about a clone of Picard's (played by Tom Hardy) who instigates a revolution of Remans against their oppressors, the Romulans. The Remans have an orc-like appearance and can read minds through touch. Picard's clone had an unnamed right-hand henchman Reman viceroy, played by the glorious Ron Perlman . Perlman is no stranger to the makeup chair, having played animals and creatures in many iterations (he was in the "Beauty and the Beast" TV series, "The Island of Dr. Moreau," and he was Hellboy), so appearing as an alien orc was right in his wheelhouse.

In "Star Wars: The Clone Wars," Perlman voiced a character named Gha Nachkt, a big-mouthed goblin creature of the Trandoshan species (thank you Wookieepedia). Gha Nachkt was a feckless trader who found R2-D2 on a derelict Rebel vessel, hid the droid from Anakin Skywalker, and tried to con General Grievous out of some cash. Gha was murdered for his trouble. Perlman typically plays strong or imposing characters, so it's a delight to see him play someone a little more sniveling.

Ian Abercrombie

Another character-actor-about-town is Ian Abercrombie, whom " Seinfeld " fans might recall as Mr. Pitt, Elaine's boss. " Army of Darkness " fans will recognize him as the Wise Man . Fans of the 2002 "Birds of Prey" TV series (who are legion) will know him as Alfred, Batman's butler. Those with a keen ear, however, might recognize his voice from the 2008 animated feature film "Star Wars: The Clone Wars." Abercrombie played the role of Senator Palpatine, prior to his becoming the evil Emperor, and played the part up until his death in 2012. He was replaced by Tim Curry. 

Over in the Delta quadrant, meanwhile, Abercrombie appeared in two episodes of "Star Trek: Voyager." In the fifth season, he was in an episode entitled "Someone To Watch Over Me," where he played the stern Abbot, overseeing a visiting alien who is going a little overboard with hedonism (the visiting alien is played by "Kids in the Hall" star Scott Thompson). In the sixth season episode "Spirit Folk," Abercrobie plays an Irish drunk. Whether his character was evil, stern, or broadly comedic, Abercrombie nailed it. 

Olivia D'Abo

In the sixth season episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation," called "True Q," Olivia D'Abo played a Starfleet intern who is on board to acquire some field experience on a real starship. The omnipotent prankster Q (John de Lancie) then appears to her and tells her that, while she was raised as a human, she's actually a Q herself and is now ready to join the ranks of enlightened trickster gods. As one might, she is reluctant to give up being a human at the drop of a hat and tests out her godlike powers first; she cheats on tests and tries to kidnap her crush, Cmdr. Riker. D'Abo is sweet in the role, playing an inexperienced youngster on a show full of stuffy adults. 

"Star Wars: The Clone Wars" gave many Trek actors a chance to infiltrate "the other side," and D'Abo appeared on the show in 2008 playing Luminara Unduli, a background Jedi character previously played by Mary Oyaya in " Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones ." Luminara was known for her skill as a swordfighter and the strength of her mind powers. Perhaps not too much a stretch from playing a Q. The main difference being one is an inexperienced god, the other an experienced mortal. There's a metaphor somewhere in there about meeting in the middle. 

David Birney

It's possible that more actors have played Darth Vader within a single continuity, within a single entertainment franchise than any other character. Several actors have worn the suit, others have played him at different ages, and multiple people have provided his voice. In the same 1996 " Return of the Jedi " radio drama listed above (the one wherein Ed Begley, Jr. played Boba Fett), Irish actor David Birney played the voice of Darth Vader, bringing a new kind of menace to the role. That audio drama, by the way, is far more in keeping with "Star Wars'" pulpy spirit than any of the movies made after 1980. 

Birney was also on "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine," in the sixth season finale "Tears of the Prophets." By that point on "DS9," a full-fledged war had broken out, and many, many new characters — generals, soldiers, politicians and the like — began appearing on the show. Birney played a Romulan senator named Letant. While Darth Vader is a notable cinema villain, Romulans aren't slouches and Birney could draw from one to play the other. 

Birney passed away in April of this year. 

George Coe played a notable role in one of the better episodes of " Star Trek: The Next Generation ," titled "First Contact" (not to be confused with the feature film). In the episode, Cmdr. Riker had disguised himself and infiltrated a species that was on the cusp of inventing warp drive (an event in "Star Trek" that allows starship-controlling species to make contact). Riker gets found out, however, and Starfleet's first contact doesn't go so well. Coe plays the president of the planet in question, and he has some legitimate, intelligent concerns when he finds out about the aliens on his homeworld. The discussions he has with Picard are pure "Trek." 

Coe was also one of the many actors who snuck in the back door of "Star Wars: The Clone Wars," playing a spindly sloth-like alien named Tee Watt Kaa. Although a "Star Wars" character, Tee Watt Kaa was — in "Trek" tradition — a pacifist who refused to fight. This becomes difficult when an evil Neimoidian — OMG, is that Lok Durd played by George Takei? — invades his village. By the end of the episode, Lok Durd is fought off, but Tee Watt Kaa understood that conquering came at a price. 

Both roles question the fundamental ideas behind their respective franchises. One might wonder if Coe had considered that. 

Brian George

Brain George is another actor one might recognize from "Seinfeld," having played the character of Babu Bhatt, owner of the Dream Café, whose life is casually ruined by the title character. George appeared on " Star Trek: Deep Space Nine " as Dr. Bashir's father, a doting man who pressured his son to succeed. Also, Dr. Bashir was secretly genetically engineered (illegal in "Star Trek"), leading to additional conflict between the two. 

George would also play the animated "The Clone Wars" version of Ki-Adi-Mundi, a cone-headed Jedi council member first seen in "Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Meance," played by actor Silas Carson (who also played various other aliens throughout the "Star Wars" prequel films). Ki-Adi-Mundi is ... a Jedi. He ... talks about diplomacy. He is ... stoic? One must admit that Ki-Adi-Mindi isn't much of a character, at least not as far as the feature films go. 

Greg Grunberg

If you need a bearded engineer type to look sternly over the planned actions of a deathly serious upcoming skirmish, Greg Grunberg is your guy. Grunberg started his career with the stellar straight-to-video horror/smut film "Witchcraft V: Dance with the Devil," though he may be better known for his role as psychic cop Matt Parkman in "Heroes." He's also worked with J.J. Abrams on a number of occasions, including his regular role in the TV series "Felicity" and his brief role as an ill-fated pilot in "Lost."

Being in Abrams' camp is likely what led to Grunberg's roles in both his "Star Trek" and his "Star Wars" movies In "The Force Awakens," "The Last Jedi," and "The Rise of Skywalker," Grunberg played a character named Temmin "Snap" Wexley, a serious engineer of some kind. In Abrams' "Star Trek," Grunberg played the voice of James T. Kirk's stepfather. The original actor, Brad William Henke, was cut from the film, and Abrams brought in Grunberg to fill in Henke's lines in post-production. 

It counts! It counts!

Another long-time actor in Hollywood with a fascinating acting career, Deep Roy has been a stunt performer and actor since the 1970s. He served as the stunt performer for Warwick Davis in "Leprechaun." One of his early roles was playing a stand-in for Yoda in "The Empire Strikes Back," and one can find amusing behind-the-scenes photos of Roy getting into the Yoda costume. Roy would also play the weird-looking musician Droopy McCool, a.k.a. Snit, a member of the Max Rebo Band. Oh and an Ewok. He also played an Ewok. It is unknown if Deep Roy, Felix Silla, and Warwick Davis ever conversed in their Ewok costumes. 

Roy would also play the mute engineer Keenser, a co-worker of Scotty's, in the 2009 "Star Trek" film. Given Roy's plaintive looks at Scotty, one might posit that he was in love with his friend. Their romance, sadly, is never explored. 

Roy frequently plays silent characters, although he was given a magnificent acting challenge in Tim Burton's film "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," wherein he played every single Oompah-Loompah.

• The Inventory

The Essential Difference Between Star Wars and Star Trek

Star Wars is bigger than ever, and we’re celebrating 50 years of Star Trek . This is a great time to be a fan of space action. But these two universes are actually very different, and I have a theory about why. Star Wars is about fighting the Man, and Star Trek is about being the Man.

Star Wars is usually about the plucky Rebels, who stand up against the evil Empire—or else it’s about the corrupt Republic being lured into war, while the little guy suffers. Meanwhile, pretty much all versions of Star Trek revolve around the officers and crew of Starfleet, who worry about how best to follow their own rules and how to keep random trouble-makers and evil foreign regimes from screwing everything up.

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Don’t believe me? Let’s delve deeper.

George Lucas was a counter-cultural experimental film-maker

Lucas started out as a member of the counter-culture, part of a group of young film-makers who were challenging the status quo in Hollywood, alongside Francis Ford Coppola. He was very much a product of the 1960s counter-culture: His earliest work was Look at Life , an “abstract montage” of still black-and-white images that explore the political tensions of the 1960s. He was one of the cameramen in Gimme Shelter , which was viewed as a West-Coast alternative to Woodstock .

Lucas’ first science fiction movie, THX-1138 , is very much about distrust of the state. And it’s all about the fear of being oppressed by the technocratic, sterile government, in which everything organic and individual has been crushed by those in power. It’s very much a counter-cultural document, about the individual trying to break free from a consumerist, conformist order.

And at the time when Lucas made the first Star Wars , he was definitely thinking of it as a counter-cultural movie. As I wrote a while back, Lucas was actually supposed to direct Apocalypse Now as his next project , and chose to do Star Wars instead. All of Lucas’ friends urged him to do Apocalypse Now , as a way to make a “big statement.” Everybody wanted him to make his Taxi Driver or Chinatown .

And when Lucas decided to do Star Wars instead, he believed that his space fantasy would cover a lot of the same ground as Apocalypse Now —he intended it to be a searing critique of U.S. imperialism, with the Emperor based on Richard Nixon. (There are tons of great details about this in Chris Taylor’s book How Star Wars Conquered the Universe .)

The Original Trilogy avoids explicit political messages, but it has a distinct anti-authoritarian idea, in its images of jackbooted Stormtroopers and weapons of mass destruction. Lucas didn’t really succeed in getting the political message of Star Wars into the Original Trilogy, and it wasn’t until he made the prequels that he was able to include his full critique of imperialism and war-mongering.

Gene Roddenberry wrote speeches supporting police militarization

Gene Roddenberry flew B-17 bombers in World War II, and then in 1949 he joined the LAPD. According to the book These Are the Voyages: TOS Season One by Marc Cushman with Susan Osborn, Roddenberry only used his service weapon once during his seven years on the force: to put a dog out of its misery after being hit by a car.

But at the same time, Roddenberry was instrumental in helping Police Chief William H. Parker to militarize the LAPD. Parker hired Marine drill instructors to train the police, and tried to turn them into a highly mobilized force, on a paramilitary model. Parker was trying to root out corruption, but the LAPD’s newly aggressive tactics are often credited with leading to the 1965 Watts riots. And Roddenberry wrote the speeches that Parker used to sell this policy.

Cushman and Osborn’s book quotes Roddenberry as saying about Parker: “I was Parker’s speechwriter, writing his philosophical beliefs. I had to justify for him many of the the things he did. These were things of rare honesty. I was close to him in the days when he dreamed of building a better police department, and when he was engaged in putting his dreams into action.”

But Roddenberry also said about Parker, “It was only when he forgot he was a philosopher and began to think he was God that he got into trouble... as his student, I have gotten into trouble the same way.”

In the 1950s, TV and radio shows like Dragnet and Mr. District Attorney were constantly seeking details of real-life LAPD cases to turn into scripts, and Roddenberry used this connection to become a technical consultant for them. Soon, he was writing scripts for cop shows, while still working at the LAPD. And then he created a drama about the Marine Corps, The Lieutenant , starring the future Gary Mitchell, Gary Lockwood.

When Roddenberry pitched Star Trek , it was as a space-faring version of Wagon Train , the long-running Western show. But also as a military show with a “slight Naval flavor.” And one of the fascinating details that emerges when you read all three volumes of These Are the Voyages is how Roddenberry worried that Captain Kirk was getting too chummy with his subordinates. Especially in the show’s second season, Roddenberry would rewrite scripts at the last minute so that Kirk spoke more formally to the other officers and referred to them by their job title (e.g., “navigator”) instead of their names.

Star Wars is destroying, Star Trek is building

At this point, we almost expect a Star Wars movie to end with a triumphant explosion. The end point of a Star Wars story is that something gets destroyed—in the prequels, it’s the Republic, which was a force for good, but the overall arc is still one of things being torn down. Star Wars includes a backstory in which the Republic stood for a long time, but we never get to see much of that in canonical works. Instead, there’s an endless wheel of destruction, going around and around.

In Star Wars, too, the only good military organization is a rag-tag band of guerilla fighters, who hang out in a bunker somewhere. A big government, with a well-funded, properly equipped military, is probably fascist and definitely evil. (I guess the Republic doesn’t even have a proper military until they get the clone army. Before that, they’re just relying on a small group of warrior monks to keep the peace across an entire galaxy. Makes sense.)

Meanwhile, the arc of Star Trek is all about building the Federation and spreading enlightened values throughout the galaxy. The biggest concern, throughout all of the Star Trek series, is with the stability and influence of the Federation. A huge secondary concern, of course, is with the Prime Directive and generally with the question of how the Federation can restrain itself from using its incredible power to reshape other societies.

And consider the average plot of an Original Series Star Trek episode . The central worry, more often than not, is Kirk losing command of the Enterprise. His authority is challenged by Starfleet officers, local despots, godlike aliens, mutinous crew-members and weird children. The common thread is usually that Kirk belongs in that central chair, and anything that undermines his control is a problem. Of course, Kirk goes around overthrowing other people’s societies all the time, especially if they’re governed by an evil computer—but he’s almost like a cop, coming into your house and sorting out your domestic disputes.

The later Star Trek series are frequently concerned with the wisdom of command—Picard, in particular, obsesses about choosing the wise path and being a responsible leader. Deep Space Nine and Voyager try to take away some of Starfleet’s awesome power (by showing a crew without a giant starship, or a starship without starbases) but still end up being about Federation values, and the responsible use of power.

This is obviously a broad-brush generalization, and it’s true that both Star Trek and Star Wars were both, in their own ways, products of the counter-culture. Star Trek very much wants to interrogate the dangers of too much state power, while Star Wars very much yearns for the possibility of an enlightened government, the good Republic which is Star Wars ’ Paradise Lost.

But I can’t help wondering if this is one reason why Star Wars looms so much larger in the popular imagination than Star Trek : Because we always want to identify with the scrappy rebel against the evil empire. Even when we actually are the world’s main superpower, with unparalleled military and economic might, we Americans like to think of ourselves as still a ragged group of revolutionaries, fighting the American Revolution against the overbearing redcoats. Star Wars plays into our national fantasy of righteous underdoggery, while Star Trek is actually closer to reality.

Charlie Jane Anders is the author of All The Birds in the Sky , coming Jan 26 from Tor Books. Follow her on Twitter , and email her .

Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, sdcc 2020: the psychology of star trek vs. star wars.

Moderator Brian Ward of "The Arkham Session" posed four topics to pop culture psychologists Dr. Drea Letamendi ("Lattes with Leia") and Dr. Ali Mattu ("The Psych Show") and special guests Todd Stashwick ("Star Trek: Enterprise") and Jennifer Muro ("Star Wars: Forces of Destiny") to analyze "The Psychology of Star Trek versus Star Wars."

Ward did a switcheroo and changed Muro from Team Wars to Team Trek and Stashwick from Team Trek to Team Wars.

·  Dr. Ali Mattu

·  Jennifer Muro ("Star Wars: Forces of Destiny")

·  Dr. Drea Letamendi

·  Todd Stashwick ("Star Trek: Enterprise")

First Topic

The Mandalorians and the Klingons have largely been defined by their strong sense of cultural identity, creed and code. How do these two groups demonstrate real-world group dynamics and which group actually shows more promise in terms of social justice? Whose set of principles seems more realistic?

Letamendi of Team Wars : The Mandalorians have a strong code, not unlike the Klingons, that emphasizes strength and bravery in combat. For the Mandalorians, separate pieces of armor have specific significance. The Mandalorians are not a race and they welcome other ethnic groups unlike the Klingons. The Mandalorians "seem to embody what a sophisticated group would think about in terms of actualizing everybody" and "those two components include belongingness and individualism." While she loves Star Trek, with the Klingons, she struggles to understand the concept that a race such as the Klingons are "characterized by aggression and combat and violence." It seems to be implied that "this is an inherent part of this race."

Mattu of Team Trek : Mattu told Letamendi, "You need to watch more Star Trek." While he found that Letamendi brought up some great points, Mattu felt the Klingons "are a better parallel to the world we are living in right now." He also noted that the Klingons "have always been a reflection of the world that we live in." In the 1960s (TOS), even with Mr. Chekov on the bridge of the Enterprise, the Klingons were "kind of the Soviet Union villain." He added, "We didn't really know much about them; we just knew that we hated them." With Worf in "The Next Generation," he noted, "You begin to see that there's actually a lot more diversity to the Klingons, to their beliefs." In "The Next Generation," the Klingons are not so driven by aggression and war, "but they do have this very strict honor code."

In the newer series, "Star Trek: Discovery," the experience with Klingons is mixed. In the first episode of "Star Trek: Discovery," you see that "there are actually different tribes of Klingons that have evolved on different planets. Worf's journey from "The Next Generation" to "Deep Space 9" to the movies, is "a great parallel for how we all experience culture" because in some ways Worf is very much Klingon in that "he's very much integrated with his Klingon identity." He speaks Klingon very well and appreciates Klingon cuisine and music, but in other ways he's separated and "more estranged from his Klingon heritage."

Stashwick of Team Wars : Stashwick stated, "Mandalorian is a choice; it's not a state of birth." There was a planet that had a social hierarchy, but where it stands today, "they have come to the aid of the oppressed." As for Klingons, what he has seen, they have been presented as a very aggressive and Worf is the exception, but not the rule. He is an outlier.

Muro of Team Trek:  Muro was 50-50 on this. When she thinks of diversity with Klingons, she thinks there is a psychological diversity. When Worf talks to other Klingons, some are honorable, and some are really bad to him. She feels it is very relevant now because "It is one race, but there is so much psychological diversity in that race. That is kind of how humans are."

Mattu of Team Trek:  Mattu added there's something inspirational to have the "these villains who just a few years later are at peace with the Federation and have a Klingon serving on the bridge of the Enterprise."

Second Topic 

Ward wanted to talk about emotional intelligence in the context of "someone who started out as an idealist" but who "dipped their toes in the waters of darkness." The hubris and self-doubt of the characters sent them into hermitage, meaning both Luke Skywalker and Jean-Luc Picard. How do their lives show experience of trauma and how do they grow emotionally?

Mattu of Team Trek:  Mattu said he was really stressed "because honestly, I love Picard and Luke's journey so much and I think they're just such beautiful stories of trauma." Picard has experienced many traumas. He was assimilated by the Borg and was responsible for the deaths of many humans and humanoids. Picard also lost his brother, his sister-in-law and his nephew in a fire ("Star Trek: Generations"), and then he had to face the Borg again and again. Through this all, "what has helped Picard to stay emotionally intelligent to understand what he's going through to get what he needs, to emotionally be resilient and bounce back, it's his ship; it's his crew." The support of Troi and the meaning and purpose behind being a Starfleet officer is what gave him that resilience and this is "compromised" in "Star Trek: Picard" where he was trying to save Romulans and the Starfleet wouldn't support him. He could not handle that compromise and went into hiding. "That is something many people do who experience trauma." Mattu is also a big fan of the journey seen in "The Last Jedi" with Luke. In both, he thought we're reminded to learn from our failures.

Letamendi of Team Wars : Letamendi agreed that these two stories are about the development of emotional intelligence. EQ is about how we try to override the logic and "just tap into the emotions that we're experiencing." EQ is not just about our emotions, but also being able to empathize and understand the emotions of the people around us and letting those feelings drive our behaviors. She said, "I've always looked at Trek to help understand social relationships and Star Wars is more about the interpersonal." When Luke goes into isolation, he is "not yet learning from his setback; he feels responsible for Kylo Ren becoming darkened in his path...he lets that resentment and feelings of self-doubt and failure permeate." When Rey comes, he's able to understand that it's not about himself all the time.

Third Topic

What do Rey and Michael Burnham show us about healthy coping and self-care? How do they preserve or deny their heritage and identity to maintain their mental well-being? What's the importance of legacy when it comes to saving the universe?

Letamendi of Team Wars : Rey had to adjust and adapt to being a scavenger and this gives her great resilience. Her journey is about developing this sense of resilience. Resilience is "our ability to mentally and emotionally cope with hardship," but also how we use external resources and ask for help. Despite the hardships she faces, Rey finds contentment and joy which is not only difficult to do, but "also shows that she's holding on to a sense of hope."

Mattu of Team Trek:  Mattu mostly agreed and added that she "struggled deeply with her being a Palpatine." The notion of legacy is "really what you make of it and what you learn and who you want to be." With Burnham, we find out that she has been raised by "probably the most famous parents in Star Trek and she is a sibling to probably the most famous character, Spock." Mattu highly recommended watching "Short Treks" because there's one about her and her father ("Star Trek: Short Treks," Season 2, Episode 9, "The Girl Who Make the Stars"). She lost her parents and was raised on Vulcan after being adopted by Sarek and Amanda. Burnham has been able to code-switch which adds to her ability to see things from different perspectives. In a sense, this shows how diversity is better. It is harder, but "diversity is a superpower that will help you solve problems you could never do, you could never solve with everyone coming from the same place," Mattu explained.

Stashwick of Team Wars : Stashwick noted that while many people criticized "The Force Awakens" as being a retread of "A New Hope," Rey was looking for a sense of family and belonging while Luke was running away from family and looking for adventure. Rey's newfound family fortified her enough to be able to overcome the darkness.

Muro of Team Trek:  Going last left Muro with little to say and expand upon, but she noted that with Burnham, she has invested a lot in attempting to emulate the Vulcan culture, but finds her resilience is from "giving in to the passion of her humanity."

Fourth Topic

The Kelvin Timeline was, according to the Official Star Trek Online Wiki, the alternative quantum universe created when a Romulan starship traveled back and destroyed the USS Kelvin.

Mattu of Team Trek:  Mattu talked about "Star Trek Beyond," and how it begins with Kirk and Spock really struggling with their positions. Kirk feels that things have become "episodic." Spock is struggling with the loss of Spock prime "as we all were with the death of Leonard Nimoy ." The whole story is about reconnecting with what is Starfleet. Reconnecting with the meaning of what you do can help you through tough times, including living under COVID-19 restrictions.

Letamendi of Team Wars:  Letamendi doesn't know enough about the Kelvin timelines to be critical. These stories have given us purpose. Star Wars "is storytelling around concepts of redemption" and that's something that we struggle with. The human experience is filled with making mistakes, having flaws and dealing with not only our own flaws but the flaws and mistakes of others. The Star Wars story has always been about a sense of "can we work on rebuilding connection and harmony." If you can come back to the good of yourself, "you can accept some of the mistakes you've made." That's something that is hard to do.

Stashwick of Team Wars : Stashwick noted that with J.J. Abrams, he "clearly was a Star Wars man" who was "handed the keys to the Star Trek kingdom and he made a Star Wars version of Star Trek," but Stashwick then noted that with Star Wars, "just because you blew up a Death Star once, your problems aren't over." Beating back the demons is "an eternal struggle" and "a noble pursuit." He concluded with "the struggle is real," and we need to "be strong and be together."

Live Long and Prosper and May the Force be with you in 2020.

Jana Monji, made in San Diego, California, lost in Japan several times, has written about theater and movies for the LA Weekly , LA Times , and currently, Examiner.com and the Pasadena Weekly . Her short fiction has been published in the Asian American Literary Review .

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Phasers Or Lightsabers? The Debate Over ‘Star Wars’ Vs. ‘Star Trek’ Technology Rages On

With  The Force Awakens finally out, we have plenty of new technology to see on the big screen and geek out over. It may be a long, long time ago, but the  Star Wars gadgets and weaponry blow our own out of proportion. Lightsabers, cloning, and ridiculously impractical AT-AT walkers are available to anyone with the credits in George Lucas’ universe. One of the only other franchises that can compete with their scientific advancements is  Star Trek . They have a lot of their own sci-fi achievements that we can only dream about, but which universe has the better toys? We could spend all day debating the age-old question of  Star Wars  vs.  Star Trek , but for now let’s just focus on the tech.

With  Star Wars , you’ve got the aforementioned devices, and it doesn’t get much cooler than lightsabers. You can make them any color you want, add a laser hilt, and even make them into nunchucks. You’ve got the Death Star, which can take out a planet (once it makes its slow way around a bigger planet) and just needs a vent cover to make it impervious to attack. You can travel at light speed with a hyperdrive, and the droids are complex enough to almost make us feel bad that we’re basically enslaving them.

In the  Star Trek  universe, you have phasers, which don’t quite measure up to lightsabers, and the  Star Wars  blasters can do kinda the same thing . You’ve got the Borg Cube, a ship powerful enough to take on entire fleets single-handedly. You can also blow up planets, too, so the Death Star loses its muster. Trek ‘s androids are more sophisticated and advanced than the laser-fodder droids and clones in  Wars , so that’s another point for them. Plus, you can travel faster than the speed of light with the warp drive, leaving hyperdrives in the dust.

The latest  Star Trek movies sort of end the debate, though. You can beam to traveling ships across the galaxy and to distant planets, making ships pretty much meaningless. You can also use Benedict Cumberbatch’s blood to basically live forever. So, I guess that means  Star Trek  wins.

Wait, Star Trek  Beyond is forgetting all about those advancements . So, it’s back to being anyone’s game.

Den of Geek

What Modern Star Wars Needs to Learn From Star Trek

It doesn't take the wisdom of a Jedi to see that Disney needs to take a page out of Star Trek's book to put Star Wars back on top.

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Way back in 2002, the excitement for Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones diminished somewhat. Late Night with Conan O’Brien sent Triumph the Insult Comic Dog to mock the fans lined up for the premiere, resulting in a segment in which comedian/puppeteer Robert Smigel launched nerd jokes at the assembly.

Most of the jokes were pretty obvious, including the last bit, in which a man cosplaying as Mr. Spock gained the knack for cursing and walked up and down the line with his middle finger extended. But while the perceived Star Wars vs. Star Trek rivalry has become an old toxic cliché at this point, the fact is that the two franchises don’t actually overlap very much in terms of their core missions. Trek favors optimistic philosophical inquiry and Wars emphasizes fantasy and adventure.

In fact, in their decades-long history, Star Wars and Star Trek haven’t actually directly clashed all that often (although the early ’80s of  The Empire Strikes Back followed by  Wrath of Khan  was undoubtedly a golden age for sci-fi movie nerds), and the two franchises rarely enjoy success at the same time, with the Star Wars movies usually debuting during a dry point for Star Trek , and Trek dominating television while Wars flounders.

Except for now. In the past few years, both Star Wars and Star Trek entries have hit theaters and televisions on a regular basis. And while the two franchises have had their respective highs and lows, Trek has hit a stride with Strange New Worlds , Lower Decks , and Picard ‘s third season while Wars has mostly been on a downward spiral in popularity and quality (except for Andor , of course) following the first two seasons of The Mandalorian .

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Of course, history shows the scales could tip the other way at any moment, but for those of us who want both franchises to do well (full disclosure: this author is far more of a Trekkie than a Wars fan), there are a few lessons that Wars could take from Trek ‘s recent success to bring the galaxy far, far away back to its former glory.

Serve More Than One Kind of Audience

Okay, before getting angry and going straight to the comments, there are absolutely examples of recent Star Wars entries that aren’t entirely focused on one kind of fan. Andor eschews much of the core fantasy element of the franchise for a more adult spy drama, while Young Jedi Adventures is aimed squarely at a new generation of fans. Meanwhile, the anthology series Visions lives up to its name by presenting radically different takes on the universe from fresh perspectives.

However, it’s also true that the majority of recent Star Wars output – Mando season 3, Ahsoka , Obi-Wan Kenobi , parts of Boba Fett , both Tales animated series, The Bad Batch , etc. – is pitched directly at a specific kind of fan with love for and extensive knowledge of the Prequels and The Clone Wars animated series. Those fans tend to be millennials of a certain age who grew up with those films and, unfortunately, almost nobody else. So while some viewers cheer when Bo-Katan becomes the lead of The Mandalorian because they know her history with the Darksaber and Mandalore, others despair that the Western/ronin motifs faded away for The Clone Wars lore. It’s not just that the latter fans have no attachment to these characters. It’s that The Mandalorian and its spinoffs don’t really work to ingratiate The Clone Wars characters to those unfamiliar with them, instead aiming the storytelling directly at those nostalgic for The Clone Wars days.

To be sure, Star Trek has its own arcane references, as the opening shot of Picard ‘s premiere shows or the name “ Sybok ” coming up on Strange New Worlds . However, the most recent crop of Star Trek shows work because they aim for a wide range of audiences.

Prodigy is a kid’s show that picks up on plot threads from Voyager but primarily deals with a group of young aliens from different cultures learning to work together. Discovery is all big adventure and operatic emotion for fans whose introduction to the franchise was the J.J. Abrams movies. Strange New Worlds features classic characters from The Original Series and a return to philosophical conundrums, while Lower Decks makes in-jokes for long-time fans.

With the announcement of a Rey movie , Star Wars is taking steps in the right direction by making something for younger fans who grew up with the Sequel Trilogy , while The Mandalorian & Grogu is positioned to bring back to the big screen the Western aesthetic Original Trilogy fans loved so much from the first two seasons of the show. However those movies turn out (if they come out at all), the franchise would do well to remember its audience doesn’t consist of just one type of fan.

Star Trek TV creative head Alex Kurtzman said it best when talking about that universe’s approach to catering to different types of fans: “Our biggest thing has honestly been we don’t ever want our  Star Trek  shows to feel repetitive. We don’t want you to think that by watching  Discovery , you shouldn’t watch any of the other shows because you’re getting everything from that one show. Each show is different,” Kurtzman continues. “So for us, it’s not about doing one show that pleases everybody because that’s the surefire way to please nobody. It’s more about doing a bunch of different shows that speak to specific sections of the demographic.”

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Be Careful With Nostalgia

However, while Star Wars would do well to build on the worlds of all three trilogies, it should not simply focus on nostalgia. Yes, that does sound like a laughable suggestion from a Trek perspective, given the third season of Picard . However, Picard worked because it used nostalgia in exactly the same way that Star Wars fans rejected. When Luke Skywalker tosses the lightsaber at the start of The Last Jedi , he appalled many older fans of the Original Trilogy.

And yet, that’s very similar to how Star Trek treated Jean-Luc Picard in the widely-acclaimed final year of his solo series. While the first two seasons leaned too hard into tearing down the one-time paragon, the third season found the perfect balance. On the USS Titan, Picard showed signs of the leadership and wisdom that made him great on The Next Generation , but he also showed maturity and a willingness to learn. Throughout the third season, characters such as Geordi and Ro Laren aired reasonable grievances with Picard. And by hearing them and admitting his faults, faults that once made TNG audiences cheer, Picard grows into a more interesting character.

It was a pitch-perfect send-off that also gave way to the potential future of the franchise, with a new Enterprise christened and ready to set off on a new voyage. And it did what the Sequel Trilogy hoped to do: effectively passed on the torch to a new generation of Starfleet officers.

Contrast that treatment of Picard to one of the least controversial callbacks in recent Star Wars history. When Rey and Finn board the Millennium Falcon in The Force Awakens , they’re greeted by Han and Chewie, back to being the scoundrel smugglers they were in Episode IV , zero growth or change on display besides their age. Sure, Han will later briefly apologize to Kylo Ren for his failures as a father, but that’s never expressed visually on screen. And as nice as it is to see Harrison Ford call up the charisma that makes him great, his older Han is a cypher, just one more callback to the original Star Wars in a movie that plays like a cover song.

If Star Wars intends to build out its universe on the bones of the Skywalker Saga, then it needs to acknowledge that its popular characters have to grow and change over time. Rian Johnson had the right approach with Luke in The Last Jedi , whether certain fans warmed to the character’s new status quo or not. Of course Luke had to change, grow, and embrace new lessons, that’s how characters work, especially when the mission was clearly to pass the torch to the next trio of heroes. It’s too bad The Rise of Skywalker went back to playing the hits and embedding its next generation of heroes in a Star Wars story that had already been told countless times before.

Don’t Be Precious

For as much as it’s important to respect the growth of legacy characters over time, it’s also important to remember that these franchise are fundamentally fun and silly. Sure, we all have deep feelings about the interior lives of Morn from Deep Space Nine and Dexter Jettster from Attack of the Clones , but, you know, one is a Cheers nod and the other is a classic hash-slinger. So lighten up a bit.

Star Wars has certainly poked fun at itself with the Family Guy Blue Harvest episodes and Lego Star Wars specials. But the unaired Star Wars Detours still stands as a missed opportunity to indulge in the nerdy stuff while showing the funnier side of all that lore. If that’s a name you haven’t heard for a long time, Detours was a collaboration between Lucasfilm and the Robot Chicken team, resulting in the same irreverent but knowing humor of the latter show. Although the team completed 39 episodes, the series was “paused” in 2013 with none making it to air.

Many Star Wars fans consider Detours a lost grail, a feeling only increased by the success of Star Trek: Lower Decks , which makes fun of every single part of Trek lore, from the franchise’s tendency to set episodes in nondescript caves to the strange relationship between the reboot movies and the rest of the show. Absurd things that Star Trek would rather forget, including dumb merchandise and reusing actors for major roles, appear in Lower Decks .

Lower Decks has a great voice cast and strong storytelling beyond its gags, but it also works because the humor rewards people obsessed with Star Trek . There’s a communal aspect to getting a joke about Kzinti posture or cheering whenever Kurtwood Smith or J.G. Hertzler make a vocal appearance. It turns what could be one of the most toxic parts of fandom into something celebratory.

It could definitely be argued that certain Star Wars fans are perhaps a little too hung up on taking “the canon” seriously. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could also have a laugh about it every once in a while? Lower Decks shows that making fun of its universe is just another form of love.

Do a Musical

Quick, what’s the best Star Wars song? It’s probably “Yoda” by Weird Al Yankovic , maybe “The Saga Begins,” right? Something by Nerf Herder? The Yoda “Seagulls” song?

Now, what’s the best official Star Wars song? If we’re not counting the legendary John Williams scores, the possibilities get slim right away. I’m sure there are some real “jizz” music fans out there, but it doesn’t have the wider appeal of, say, a musical.

Look at the critical acclaim Star Trek received with its musical episode “ Subspace Rhapsody ” from the second season of Strange New Worlds . In that episode, an alien transmission forces the crew to sing out all of their thoughts, resulting in unlikely musical numbers, including Klingons doing their best BTS impression.

Even those who didn’t love “Subspace Rhapsody” (this writer, for example) have to admit that the episode did a lot to push the franchise into new territory with a completely different flavor of storytelling, all while highlighting a cast that includes Tony-nominated and Grammy-winner Celia Rose Gooding. “Subspace Rhapsody” further proves that Trek can handle a wide range of genres.

As a space opera, Star Wars lends itself to the over-the-top emoting that makes for a great musical. And while horrid entries, such as “Jedi Rocks” from the special edition of Return of the Jedi and “I’m Han Solo” from Kinect Star Wars Dancing , still haunt the nightmares of fans, it’d be nice to see the galaxy far, far away pull off something this bold in the future.

Return of the Good Sci-Fi

While it’s true we’ve largely favored Trek over Wars here, the fact of the matter is that the success of and shortcomings of the other are only temporary. Wars seems poised to right the ship by putting a Mandalorian movie in theaters, hopefully returning the focuse on breakouts Din Djarin and Baby Yoda. Moreover, Paramount seems to have nothing but terrible ideas in store for the future of Star Trek , including canceling Lower Decks , learning too heavily on the Section 31 corner of the universe, and making a wrongheaded origin film .

To be clear: neither franchise is inherently better than the other, and both have to deal with boardrooms whose pursuit of money can lead to terrible storytelling decisions. But some of the best entries in either franchise have come when one universe learns from the other, as demonstrated by the adventure-heavy Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and the philosophically-rich Andor .

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So as the fortunes of each franchise continue to change, we can only hope that the creatives behind our favorite stories will learn from each other. That’s the only way we’ll get more great art, whether we have to boldly go to find it or search a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.

Joe George | @jageorgeii

Joe George’s writing has appeared at Slate, Polygon, Tor.com, and elsewhere!

• View history

The following is a list of all military conflicts, rebellions, coups, etc. that have occurred from the distant past to the far future , organized by date.

• 1 Distant past
• 2 Conflicts of the 19th century
• 3 Conflicts of the 20th century
• 4 Conflicts of the 21st century
• 5 Conflicts of the 22nd century
• 6 Conflicts of the 23rd century
• 7.1 Dominion cold war and war
• 7.2 Conflicts involving the Borg
• 7.3 Delta Quadrant regional conflicts
• 8 Conflicts of the 25th century
• 9 Conflicts of the (possible) future
• 10.1.1 During Kahless' life
• 10.2 Involving the Romulan Star Empire
• 11.1 Alternate reality
• 11.2 Mirror universe
• 12 Averted conflicts
• 13 Accounts of conflicts proven to be false
• 14 Hypothetical
• 15 Fictional
• 16 Other and unsure
• 17 See also
• 18 External links

Distant past [ ]

An Atomic bomb is used during the Time of Awakening on Vulcan

Orbital bombardment of the Vaadwaur homeworld

• Slaver war : one billion years ago ( TAS : " The Slaver Weapon ")
• Arretan final war: 500,000 years ago ( TOS : " Return to Tomorrow ")
• Orbital bombardment of Iconia : 200,000 years ago ( TNG : " Contagion "; DS9 : " To the Death ")
• Unspecified Mesopotamian battle in which Flint fought : c. 39th century BC ( TOS : " Requiem for Methuselah "))
• A series of conflicts on Beta III : ended c. 39th century BC ( TOS : " The Return of the Archons ")
• Battle of Thermopylae : 480 BC ( DS9 : " What You Leave Behind ")
• Final battle at Mount Seleya
• Conflict on Solais V : started around 1500 years before 2365 , still ongoing in that year. ( TNG : " Loud As A Whisper ")
• Battle of Clontarf : 1014 ( DS9 : " Bar Association ", " It's Only a Paper Moon ")
• Crusades ( DS9 : " Q-Less ")
• Hur'q invasion : c. 14th century ( DS9 : " The Sword of Kahless "; ENT : " Affliction ")
• Battle of Orelious IX
• Ventax II period with wars: ended 1367 ( TNG : " Devil's Due ")
• Orbital bombardment of Vaadwaur homeworld : 1484 ( VOY : " Dragon's Teeth ")
• Overthrow of the Klingon Second Dynasty - 16th century ( DS9 : " You Are Cordially Invited ")
• Pueblo Revolt : 1680 ( TNG : " Journey's End ")
• Spanish reconquest of areas lost in the Pueblo Revolt : ca. 1690 ( TNG : " Journey's End ")
• Eminiar-Vendikar War : started c. 18th century , ended in 2267 ( TOS : " A Taste of Armageddon ")
• American Revolution : 1775 – 1783 ( TOS : " The City on the Edge of Forever "; TNG : " The High Ground ")

Conflicts of the 19th century [ ]

George Washington crosses the Delaware during the American Revolution

A scene from the American Civil War

• Human slave uprising on a Skagaran colony ( ENT : " North Star ")
• Denobulan-Antaran wars (end date) ( ENT : " The Breach ")
• Battle of Trafalgar : 1805 ( TNG : " The Best of Both Worlds "; Star Trek Generations )
• Battle of Waterloo : 1815 ( VOY : " The Thaw ")
• Battle of the Alamo : 1836 ( DS9 : " Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night ")
• Battle of Pine Mountain : 1864 ( VOY : " Death Wish ")
• Battle of Fort Hindman ( TOS : " The Cage ")
• Battle of Hampton Roads ( TOS : " The Cage ")
• An unspecified war fought on 892-IV (before 1868) ( TOS : " Bread and Circuses ")

Conflicts of the 20th century [ ]

Earth 's First world war

Nuclear Weapons development, part of cold war strategy

• Anthracite strike of 1902 : 1902 ( DS9 : " Bar Association ")
• World War I : 1914 – 1918 ( TOS : " The City on the Edge of Forever " et al )
• Gang violence in Chicago – 1920s ( TOS : " A Piece of the Action ")
• Dunkirk ( PIC : " Remembrance ")
• Battle of Britain : 1940 – 1941 ( DS9 : " Homefront ")
• Pearl Harbor attack ( TNG : " The Enemy ")
• French Resistance ( VOY : " The Killing Game ")
• Brush Wars : ~ 1960s ( TOS : " A Private Little War ")
• Civil Rights Movement ( DS9 : " Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang ")
• Watergate ( DS9 : " Q-Less ")
• Unspecified Asian coup d'etat : 1968 ( TOS : " Tomorrow is Yesterday ")
• Iran-Contra Scandal ( TNG : " The Ensigns of Command ")
• Tiananmen Square protests ( ENT : " Storm Front, Part II ")
• Earth Cold War : ~ 1947 – 1991 ( TOS : " A Private Little War ", DS9 : " Our Man Bashir " et al )
• Operations in North Africa ( ENT : " Hatchery ")

Conflicts of the 21st century [ ]

The Bell Riots

A court during the Post-atomic horror

• Vulcan annexation of Weytahn : 2097 ( ENT : " Cease Fire ")
• World Trade Center attack: 2001 ( ENT : " Storm Front, Part II ")
• Nakan massacre ( VOY : " Memorial ")
• Irish rebellion - ended in 2024 with the Irish Unification of 2024 ( TNG : " The High Ground ")
• Bell Riots : 2024 ( DS9 : " Past Tense, Part I ", " Past Tense, Part II ")
• Unrest amongst students in France: 2024 ( DS9 : " Past Tense, Part I ", " Past Tense, Part II ")
• Xindi Civil War : c. 2030s ( ENT : " The Council ")
• World War III : 2026 - 2053 ( TOS : " The Savage Curtain " et al )
• Post-atomic horror : second half of 21st century ( TNG : " Encounter at Farpoint ")
• Kzinti Wars : c. 2060s ( TAS : " The Slaver Weapon ")
• Earth - Terra Nova dispute: ended 2083 ( ENT : " Terra Nova ")

Conflicts of the 22nd century [ ]

The Xindi probe strikes Earth

Battle of Andoria , the final battle in the Vulcan-Andorian conflict

22nd century

• Border Incursions of 2112 : 2112 ( ENT : " Cease Fire ")
• Coridanite civil war: 2150s ( ENT : " Shadows of P'Jem ")
• A series of three Andorian intrusions of P'Jem : last one in 2151 ( ENT : " The Andorian Incident ")
• Andorian orbital bombardment of P'Jem: 2152 ( ENT : " Shadows of P'Jem ")
• Andorian re-occupation and defense of Weytahn : 2152 ( TNG : " Cease Fire ")
• Battle of Andoria : 2154 ( ENT : " Kir'Shara ")
• Dominion - Teplan conflict ( DS9 : " The Quickening ")
• Unspecified conflict in which the Denobulan Infantry was involved ( TNG : " Cease Fire ")
• Krenim - Rilnar conflict ( VOY : " Year of Hell, Part II ")
• IKS Somraw raid on Xarantine outpost: 2151 ( ENT : " Sleeping Dogs ")
• A colony of Tessic's species conflict with Klingon marauders : Ended 2152 , ongoing for "five seasons " ( ENT : " Marauders ")
• Periodic coups on Xantoras , including one in 2153 ( ENT : " The Breach ")
• Klingon Empire internal struggle: until 2151 ( ENT : " Broken Bow ")
• Tandaran - Suliban conflict: started in 2044 , ongoing as of 2152 ( ENT : " Detained ")
• Zobral's clan rebellion: 2150s ( ENT : " Oasis ")
• Temporal Cold War : 2151 ( ENT : " Broken Bow " et al )
• Outbreak of violence aboard the Seleya : 2152 ( ENT : " Impulse ")
• Outbreak of violence aboard Vaankara : 2152 ( ENT : " The Expanse ")
• Triannon War : Ended in 2153 ( ENT : " Chosen Realm ")
• Battle of Azati Prime ( ENT : " Azati Prime ", " Damage ")
• Augment Crisis : 2154 ( ENT : " Borderland ", " Cold Station 12 ", " The Augments ")
• Bombing of United Earth Embassy : 2154 ( ENT : " The Forge ")
• Bombarding of T'Karath Sanctuary : 2154 ( ENT : " Awakening ")
• Babel Crisis : 2154 ( ENT : " Babel One ", " United ", " The Aenar ")
• Terra Prime crisis: 2155 ( ENT : " Demons ", " Terra Prime ")
• Battle of Cheron ( TNG : " The Defector ")
• Federation-Klingon Cold War ( TOS : " Errand of Mercy " et al )
• Borg assimilation of Species 262 : late 22nd century ( VOY : " The Omega Directive ")

Conflicts of the 23rd century [ ]

Klingon invasion forces on Organia

Battle of the Mutara Nebula , Khan Noonien Singh 's final stand

• Battle of Donatu V : 2245 ( TOS : " The Trouble with Tribbles ", DIS : " The Vulcan Hello ")
• Raid on Doctari Alpha ( DIS : " The Vulcan Hello ", " Lethe ", " Will You Take My Hand? ")
• Mass execution of colonists on Tarsus IV : 2246 ( TOS : " The Conscience of the King ")
• Battle of Axanar ( TOS : " Whom Gods Destroy ")
• Bombing of Vulcan Learning Center
• Suicide attack on Sarek
• Battle of the Binary Stars ( DIS : " Battle at the Binary Stars ")
• Attack on Corvan II ( DIS : " The Butcher's Knife Cares Not for the Lamb's Cry ")
• Battle at Pahvo ( DIS : " Into the Forest I Go ")
• Battle near Xahea : 2257 ( DIS : " Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2 ")
• Gorn attacks on Finibus III and the USS Enterprise : 2259 ( SNW : " Memento Mori ")
• Battle of Caleb IV : c. 2260s ( DS9 : " Once More Unto the Breach ")
• Pralor - Cravic war: ongoing as early as 2222 and at least until 2372 ( VOY : " Prototype ")
• Borg assimilation of the El-Aurian homeworld : mid-23rd century ( TNG : " Q Who ", " I Borg ", Star Trek Generations )
• Neutral Zone Incursion : 2266 ( TOS : " Balance of Terror ")
• Klingon invasion of Organia ( TOS : " Errand of Mercy ")
• Gorn attack on Cestus III : 2267 ( TOS : " Arena ")
• Interplanetary conflict in the region of Altair VI : ended ca. 2267 ( TOS : " Amok Time ")
• Planet killer intrusion in Federation space: 2267 ( TOS : " The Doomsday Machine ")
• Destruction of all life in the Malurian system by Nomad ( TOS : " The Changeling ")
• Coup on Capella IV : 2267 ( TOS : " Friday's Child ")
• Conflict between the Hill People and a neighboring tribe on Neural : 2267 – 2268 ( TOS : " A Private Little War ")
• Conflict between Southside Territory and Northside Territory on Sigma Iotia II : ongoing in 2268 ( TOS : " A Piece of the Action ")
• Elasian - Troyian war - started "decades" before 2268 , possibly ended in that year ( TOS : " Elaan of Troyius ")
• Tralesta Massacre : 2268 ( TNG : " The Vengeance Factor ")
• 2268 - removal of all Zeons from the Ekosian capital
• Disrupter 's rebellion: Ended 2269 ( TOS : " The Cloud Minders ")
• Klingon Fight with V'ger : 2270s ( Star Trek: The Motion Picture )
• Attempted Son'a takeover of Ba'ku : 2270s ( Star Trek: Insurrection )
• Battle of Klach D'kel Brakt : 2271 ( DS9 : " Blood Oath ")
• Battle of the Mutara Nebula : 2285 ( Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan )
• Battle of Genesis : 2285 ( Star Trek III: The Search for Spock )
• Feira incident : before 2287 ( Star Trek V: The Final Frontier )
• Albino raids on Klingon colonies: 2290s ( DS9 : " Blood Oath ")
• Ansata struggle for independence; started 2296 , ongoing as of 2366 ( TNG : " The High Ground ")
• Battle of Khitomer : 2293

Conflicts of the 24th century [ ]

Wreckage after the Battle of Wolf 359

The First Battle of Chin'toka , part of the Dominion War

24th century

• Tomed Incident : 2311 ( TNG : " The Neutral Zone ")
• Son'a conquest of Tarlac and Ellora species: 2320s ( Star Trek: Insurrection )
• Alpha moon - Beta moon conflict: ongoing since 19th century, ended 2337 ( TNG : " The Host ")
• Mordan IV civil war : 2319 – 2359 ( TNG : " Too Short A Season ")
• Raids on the Haru outposts ( DS9 : " Past Prologue ")
• Raid on Pullock V ( DS9 : " Shakaar ")
• Liberation of Gallitep labor camp : 2357 ( DS9 : " Duet ")
• Destruction of a Cardassian orbital drydock around 2360 ( DS9 : " Waltz ")
• Kendra Valley Massacre ( DS9 : " The Collaborator ")
• Kiessa Monastery massacre ( DS9 : " Ties of Blood and Water ")
• Dominion annexation of Yadera Prime ( DS9 : " Shadowplay ")
• Setlik III massacre : ~ 2347 ( TNG : " The Wounded " et al )
• Attempted Cardassian annexation of Minos Korva ( TNG : " Chain Of Command, Part I ", " Chain Of Command, Part II ")
• mining of the Beloti sector ( TNG : " Ethics ")
• "Constant border disputes" in the sector containing Draygo IV : ongoing in 2370 ( TNG : " Homeward ")
• Battle of Narendra III : 2344 ( TNG : " Yesterday's Enterprise ")
• Khitomer Massacre : 2346 ( TNG : " Heart of Glory ", " Sins of The Father ", " Birthright, Part I ")
• Klingon raid in which Neral 's family was killed: 2350 ( DS9 : " Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges ")
• Klaestron Civil War : mid-24th century ( DS9 : " Dax ")
• Gentonian trade wars : mid-24th century ( TNG : " Violations ")
• Norkan Campaign : mid-24th century ( TNG : " The Defector ")
• Todfrey Campaign
• Robmeybur Rebellion
• Endemic feuding on Acamar III : ongoing until the mid-24th century ( TNG : " The Vengeance Factor ")
• Tholian Attack on a Federation starbase : 2353 ( TNG : " The Icarus Factor ")
• Battle of Maxia : 2355 ( TNG : " The Battle ", PIC : " Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2 ")
• Battle at Castal I
• Destruction of Galen IV colony
• Parada Civil War : started 2358 , ongoing in 2370 ( DS9 : " Whispers ")
• Federation-Tzenkethi War : c. 2360s ( DS9 : " The Adversary ", " Paradise Lost ")
• Rekag-Seronia dispute: 2360s , intensified in 2369 ( TNG : " Man Of The People ")
• Klingon raid into Federation space: 2362 ( TNG : " Aquiel ")
• Antican - Selay wars: ongoing as of 2364 ( TNG : " Lonely Among Us ")
• Destruction of the USS Drake : 2364 ( TNG : " The Arsenal of Freedom ")
• Operation Lovely Angel : 2365 ( TNG : " Peak Performance ")
• Civil war on Daled IV : ongoing for centuries in 2365 ( TNG : " The Dauphin ")
• Battle of Zambrano
• Husnock attack on the Rana IV colony : 2366 ( TNG : " The Survivors ")
• Destruction of a station in the Cuellar system
• Destruction of a Cardassian warship and a supply ship
• Kriosian struggle for independence: ongoing in 2367 ( TNG : " The Mind's Eye ")
• Lysian - Satarran conflict: ongoing in 2368 , started "decades" before ( TNG : " Conundrum ")
• Battle of Mempa ( TNG : " Redemption II ", DS9 : " Apocalypse Rising "
• Kriosian - Valtese conflict: ongoing for centuries as of 2368 ( TNG : " The Perfect Mate ")
• Cardassian attack on Solarion IV : 2368 ( TNG : " Ensign Ro ")
• Ktarian takeover attempt of Starfleet: 2368 ( TNG : " The Game ")
• Ennis - Nol-Ennis war: ongoing in 2369 ( DS9 : " Battle Lines ")
• Breakdown of government on Tilonus IV : 2369 ( TNG : " Frame of Mind ")
• Paqu - Navot dispute: 2369 ( DS9 : " The Storyteller ")
• Destruction of two Ferengi freighters by Cardassians in the Igo sector : 2369 ( TNG : " Realm Of Fear ")
• Overthrow of government on Malaya IV : somewhere between 2328 and 2370 ( TNG : " Inheritance ")
• Proxcinian War : c. 2370s ( DS9 : " Business as Usual ")
• Attempted coup d'état by the Alliance for Global Unity on Bajor : 2370 ( DS9 : " The Circle ", " The Siege ")
• Destruction of the Bok'Nor : 2370 ( TNG : " The Maquis, Part I ")
• Orias assault: 2371 ( DS9 : " Defiant ")
• Attacks on Veloz Prime and Quatal Prime : 2373 ( DS9 : " For the Uniform ")
• Marquis annihilation: 2373 ( DS9 : " Blaze of Glory ", VOY : " Hunters ")
• Voyager-Kazon conflict : 2371 - 2373 ( VOY : " Caretaker " et al )
• Battle of Veridian III : 2371 ( Star Trek Generations )
• Conflict between USS Equinox and the Krowtonan Guard : 2371 ( VOY : " Equinox ")
• Two week Bajoran government standoff with Shakaar : 2371 ( DS9 : " Shakaar ")
• Breen privateer raid on Free Haven : 2372 ( DS9 : " To the Death ")
• Rogue Jem'Hadar raid on Deep Space 9 : 2372 ( DS9 : " To the Death ")
• Conflict involving the Manchovites : armistice before 2373 ( DS9 : " Business as Usual ")
• Palamar conflict: ongoing in 2373 ( DS9 : " Business as Usual ")
• Q Civil War : 2373 ( VOY : " The Q and the Grey ")
• Year of Hell : 2374 ( VOY : " Year of Hell ", " Year of Hell, Part II ")
• Romulan seizure of the USS Prometheus ( VOY : " Message in a Bottle ")
• Territorial dispute in the Goren system : 2375 ( Star Trek: Insurrection )
• Battle of the Briar Patch : 2375 ( Star Trek: Insurrection )
• Brief war between beings Doctor Chaotica and beings of the fifth dimension : 2375 ( VOY : " Bride of Chaotica! ")
• Conflict between USS Equinox and nucleogenic lifeforms : Ended in 2376 ( VOY : " Equinox ", " Equinox, Part II ")
• Battle in the Bassen Rift : 2379
• Attack on Mars : 2385 ( ST : " Children of Mars ", PIC : " Remembrance ")

Dominion cold war and war [ ]

• Massacre on New Bajor : 2370 ( DS9 : " The Jem'Hadar "
• Battle of the Omarion Nebula : 2371 ( DS9 : " The Die is Cast ")
• Attempted United Federation of Planets coup by Vice Admiral Leyton : 2372 ( DS9 : " Homefront ", " Paradise Lost ")
• Destruction of Korma outpost: 2372 ( DS9 : " Return to Grace ")
• First Battle of Deep Space 9 : 2372( DS9 : " The Way of the Warrior ")
• Battle at Ganalda IV 2373 ( DS9 : " Nor the Battle to the Strong ")
• Battle of Ajilon Prime : 2373 ( DS9 : " Nor the Battle to the Strong ")
• Second Battle of Deep Space 9 : 2373 ( DS9 : " Call to Arms ")
• Dominion taking control of Kepla sector : 2373 ( DS9 : " Valiant ")
• Battle of Torros III : 2373 ( DS9 : " Call to Arms ")
• Battle of the Tyra system : 2374 ( DS9 : " A Time to Stand ", " Inquisition ")
• Operation Return : 2374 ( DS9 : " Favor the Bold ", " Sacrifice of Angels ")
• Raid on the Coridan system 's dilithium mines ( DS9 : " One Little Ship ")
• Battle of Betazed : 2374 ( DS9 : " In the Pale Moonlight ")
• Romulan strikes on fifteen bases along Cardassian border: 2374 ( DS9 : " In the Pale Moonlight ")
• Three Second Fleet attacks on Betazed : 2374 ( DS9 : " The Sound of Her Voice ")
• First Battle of Chin'toka : 2374 ( DS9 : " Tears of the Prophets ")
• Battle of Monac IV : 2375 ( DS9 : " Shadows and Symbols ")
• Siege of AR-558 : 2375 ( DS9 : " The Siege of AR-558 ")
• Raid on Trelka V : 2375 ( DS9 : " Once More Unto the Breach ")
• Battle of Ricktor Prime : 2375 ( DS9 : " Field of Fire ")
• Invasion of Septimus III : 2375 ( DS9 : " Strange Bedfellows ")
• Breen attack on Earth : 2375 ( DS9 : " The Changing Face of Evil ")
• Second Battle of Chin'toka : 2375 ( DS9 : " The Changing Face of Evil ")
• Attack on Avenal VII : 2375 ( DS9 : " Tacking Into the Wind ")
• Battle of Rondac III : 2375 ( DS9 : " The Changing Face of Evil ")
• Attack on Tevak shipyards ( DS9 : " Tacking Into the Wind ")
• Mission to Kelvas facility ( DS9 : " Tacking Into the Wind ")
• Dominion destruction bases of the rebellion ( DS9 : " The Dogs of War ")
• Attack on Jem'Hadar barracks at the Cardassian capital city ( DS9 : " The Dogs of War ")
• Destruction of Lakarian City
• Razing of Cardassia Prime

Conflicts involving the Borg [ ]

• Caatati -Borg conflict: assimilated in the early 2370s . ( VOY : " Day of Honor ")
• Encounter at System J-25 ( TNG : " Q Who ")
• Destruction of New Providence colony and the USS Lalo ( TNG : " The Best of Both Worlds ")
• Engagement at the Paulson Nebula TNG : " The Best of Both Worlds ")
• Battle of Wolf 359 : 2367 ( TNG : " The Best of Both Worlds, Part II " et al , DS9 : " Emissary ")
• Battle in Earth orbit ( TNG : " The Best of Both Worlds, Part II ")
• Rogue Borg attack on Ohniaka III : 2369 ( TNG : " Descent ")
• Rogue Borg attack on MS I colony : 2369 ( TNG : " Descent ")
• Battle of Sector 001 : 2373 ( Star Trek: First Contact )
• Borg- Species 6339 conflict: started 2371 , ongoing as of 2375 ( VOY : " Infinite Regress ")
• Borg-Species 8472 War : 2373 – 2374 ( VOY : " Scorpion ", " Scorpion, Part II ")
• Borg - Species 116 conflict: centuries, until c. 2374 ( VOY : " Hope and Fear ")
• Borg- Species 10026 conflict: 2375 ( VOY : " Dark Frontier ")
• Borg- Brunali conflict: ongoing in 2376 ( VOY : " Child's Play ")

Delta Quadrant regional conflicts [ ]

• Kazon uprising against the Trabe : 2346 ( VOY : " Initiations ", " Alliances ")
• Battle of the Pyrithian Gorge
• Alsaurian resistance movement ; started at the latest in 2360s , active in 2372 ( VOY : " Resistance ")
• Banea - Numiri conflict: ongoing in 2371 ( VOY : " Ex Post Facto ")
• Etanian - Nezu conflict: 2373 ( VOY : " Rise ")
• The Clash : ongoing for over a decade in 2374 ( VOY : " Nemesis ")
• Great War : beginning in late 2374 ( VOY : " Living Witness ")
• Iden's Rebellion : 2377 ( VOY : " Flesh and Blood ")
• Lokirrim Photonic insurgency : ongoing in 2377 ( VOY : " Body and Soul ")
• Conflict between: Aksani , Antarian , Chessu , and one more species: ended before 2377 ( VOY : " Drive ")
• Vojean - Wyngari conflict: started 2378 ( VOY : " Q2 ")

Conflicts of the 25th century [ ]

• Theft from Daystrom Station ( PIC : " The Next Generation ")
• Shrike attacks the USS Titan -A and the SS Eleos XII in the Ryton system ( PIC : " The Next Generation ", " Disengage ", " Seventeen Seconds ", " No Win Scenario ")
• Titan' s raid on Daystrom Station ( PIC : " Bounty ")
• Shrike captures the Titan ( PIC : " Dominion ", " Surrender ")
• Battle of Frontier Day

Conflicts of the (possible) future [ ]

Battle of Procyon V

26th century

• Battle of Procyon V ( ENT : " Azati Prime ")

30th century

• Temporal Wars ( DIS : " Die Trying ", " Terra Firma, Part 1 ", " Terra Firma, Part 2 ", " Face the Strange ")

31st century

• Temporal Cold War ( ENT : " Broken Bow " et al )
• Riots on the Kyrian and Vaskan homeworld ( VOY : " Living Witness ")

33rd century

• War involving the V'draysh and Alcor IV ( ST : " Calypso ")

Conflicts with indeterminate dates [ ]

Unspecified battle between the Klingon Defense Force and a Borg cube

• Kohm - Yang war: implied to be millennia before 2267 ( TOS : " The Omega Glory ")
• Galactic Wars : 2269 ( TAS : " The Infinite Vulcan ")
• Gorn attack on the SS Puget Sound : 2230s or 2240s ( SNW : " Strange New Worlds ", " Memento Mori ")
• Trabe conquest and subjugation of Kazon : before 2346 ( VOY : " Initiations ", " Alliances ")
• Battle of Prexnak : before 2374 ( DS9 : " The Magnificent Ferengi ")
• Ersalrope Wars : before 2364 ( TNG : " The Arsenal of Freedom ")
• Kenzie Rebellion : before 2366 ( TNG : " The High Ground ")
• Violent rebellion resulting in the independence of Mexico from Spain . ( TNG : " The High Ground ")
• Andorian-Tellarite conflict ( ENT : " Babel One ")
• Attack on Station Salem-One : before 2366 ( TNG : " The Enemy ")
• Final war on Cheron : between ca. 47,732 BC and 2268 ( TOS : " Let That Be Your Last Battlefield ")
• Six conflicts in which the Mizarian were conquered, in the three centuries before 2366 . ( TNG : " Allegiance ")
• Ghorusda Disaster : before 2266 ( TNG : " Tin Man ")
• Koinonian Wars : "centuries" before 2366 ( TNG : " The Bonding ")
• Talosian nuclear holocaust": "thousands of centuries" before 2254 ( TOS : " The Cage ")
• Tarellian Civil War : prior to 2364 ( TNG : " Haven ")
• Saltah'na power struggle: before 2369 ( DS9 : " Dramatis Personae ")
• Dominion conquest of the T-Rogorans : before 2370 ( DS9 : " Sanctuary ")
• Borg- Sakari conflict: some time before 2373 ( VOY : " Blood Fever ")
• Based on assimilated individuals, both Klingons and Romulans seem to have had undocumented encounters with the Borg. ( Star Trek: First Contact , VOY : " Unity ")
• Uprising of Human slaves on a Briori planet: fifteen Human generations before 2371 ( VOY : " The 37's ")
• Motali Empire - Bara Plenum war: before 2375 ( VOY : " Think Tank ")
• Forceful displacement of Native Americans from their ancestral lands: centuries before 2370 ( TNG : " Journey's End ")
• Warlike period on Zeon : ended "dozens of [Zeon] generations" before 2268 ( TOS : " Patterns of Force ")
• The Spanish , Dutch , and the Portuguese had engaged in conquest under the guise of exploration. ( TNG : " Time's Arrow, Part II ")
• Attacks on the Diana and USS Muleskinner : Before 2364 ( TNG : " The Naked Now ")
• Triacus marauder attacks on the worlds of Epsilon Indi ( TOS : " And the Children Shall Lead ")
• The Aquans had apparently been attacked by their progenitors, known as " air-breathers ", centuries prior to 2269 . ( TAS : " The Ambergris Element ")
• Destruction of Gol : prior to the Time of Awakening ( ENT : " Kir'Shara ")
• Andorian renegade action in the Triangulum system ( TNG : " The Survivors ")
• Wars on Earth over Black pepper, paprika, mustard seed, cayenne, and other such resources. ( ENT : " Rajiin ")

Involving the Klingon Empire [ ]

• Battle of Tong Vey ( DS9 : " Rules of Engagement ")
• Failed Klingon invasion of the Breen : during the Klingon Second Empire ( DS9 : " 'Til Death Do Us Part ")
• Klingon annexation of Raatooras : some years before 2153 ( ENT : " Judgment ")
• Klingon conquest of Krios Prime : after 2152 ( TNG : " The Mind's Eye ")
• Battle of HarOs : before 2370 ( TNG : " Parallels ")
• Betreka Nebula Incident : " ages " before 2372 ( DS9 : " The Way of the Warrior ")
• A battle at Korma Pass : during the life of Kor , before 2372 ( DS9 : " The Sword of Kahless ", " Once More Unto the Breach ")
• An attack on Romulus : during the life of Kor , before 2372 ( DS9 : " The Sword of Kahless ")
• Romulan boarding of ShiVang's flagship ( DS9 : " Once More Unto the Breach ")
• Conquest of the Zora Fel ( DS9 : " Apocalypse Rising ")
• Liberation of Vrax ( DS9 : " Apocalypse Rising ")
• A Klingon-Romulan battle at Tranome Sar ( TNG : " A Matter Of Honor ")
• A Klingon-Romulan battle in which Klag's father was captured ( TNG : " A Matter Of Honor ")
• Romulan attack on a Klingon outpost ( TNG : " Face Of The Enemy ")

During Kahless' life [ ]

• Battle of Qam-Chee ( DS9 : " Looking for par'Mach in All the Wrong Places ")
• Battle of River Skral ( DS9 : " The Way of the Warrior ")
• Kahless slaying of the Fek'Ihri ( DS9 : " The Sword of Kahless ")
• Battle at Three Turn Bridge ( DS9 : " Let He Who Is Without Sin... ")

Involving the Romulan Star Empire [ ]

• A hundred year long war between the Vulcans and the Romulan Star Empire ( VOY : " Death Wish ")
• "A hundred campaigns" a centurion claimed to have fought together with his Commander , previous to 2266 . ( TOS : " Balance of Terror ")
• A battle involving the Romulan commander Chulak at Galorndon Core before 2370 . ( VOY : " The Thaw ")
• Battle of Vorkado : before 2377 ( VOY : " Workforce, Part II ")

Alternate timelines [ ]

German forces occupy Washington, DC

Earth destroyed by the Xindi

• Nazi Germany conquest of Earth ( TOS : " The City on the Edge of Forever ")
• Nazi conquest of France , Belgium , and the Netherlands
• Battles in Virginia
• American resistance
• American counter-offensive in southern Virginia, eastern Pennsylvania, and at the Ohio River
• Nazi invasion of Russia and capture of Moscow
• Nazi operations in Africa
• American counter-offensive, crossing of the Ohio River
• Alternate reality invasion of Federation space by the Borg before 2370 ( TNG : " Parallels ")
• Federation-Klingon War : c. 2340s – 2366 ( TNG : " Yesterday's Enterprise ")
• Zahl conquest of the Krenim Imperium ( VOY : " Year of Hell ")
• Klingon Empire conquering of the Romulan Star Empire in the anti-time future ( TNG : " All Good Things... ")
• Xindi destruction of Earth: c. 2154
• Xindi destruction of Mars , Alpha Centauri , and Vega colony
• Xindi destruction of a Human convoy in the Mutara system : 2165
• Battle of Ceti Alpha V : 2165
• " The Visitor " showed hostilities between the Federation and the Klingon Empire, and while war was not mentioned, these seemed serious enough that Starfleet was forced to hand over control of Deep Space 9 .
• Given Admiral Janeway's confidence in " Endgame ", her assertion that the Borg are no longer a threat to the Federation as of 2404 might have been proven in combat.
• "Endgame" also mentioned a seemingly serious conflict between Voyager and the Fen Domar in the 2380s .
• " Shockwave " showed a future where Earth was in ruins in the 29th century , but did not specify if this was the result of direct conflict.

Alternate reality [ ]

Vulcan destroyed by Nero

• Attack on the USS Kelvin : 2233 ( Star Trek )
• A battle between the Narada and 47 Klingon ships: 2258 ( Star Trek )
• Destruction of Vulcan : 2258 ( Star Trek )
• Battle of Earth : 2258 ( Star Trek )
• Klingon conquest of two planets, and incidents involving Klingons firing on Starfleet ships half a dozen times. ( Star Trek Into Darkness )
• Mudd Incident : 2259 ( Star Trek Into Darkness )
• Attack on the Daystrom Conference Room at Starfleet Headquarters : 2259
• Confrontation in the Ketha Province : 2259
• Battle of Luna : 2259
• Battle of Altamid : 2263 ( Star Trek Beyond )
• Attack on Krall's base : 2263 ( Star Trek Beyond )
• Attack on Yorktown : 2263 ( Star Trek Beyond )

Mirror universe [ ]

Zefram Cochrane sets off Terran expansion into space

• Capture of the T'Plana-Hath : 2063 ( ENT : " In a Mirror, Darkly ")
• The Terran Empire 's conquest of the Vulcans , Andorians , Tellarites , Denobulans , and Orions : between 2063 and 2155 ( ENT : " In a Mirror, Darkly ")
• Battle at Tau Ceti : ca. 2155 ( ENT : " In a Mirror, Darkly ")
• Battle of Vintaak : 2155 ( ENT : " In a Mirror, Darkly ", " In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II ")
• Unnamed battle between Terran Assault Fleet and rebels: 2155 ( ENT : " In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II ")
• Destruction of the ISS Avenger ( ENT : " In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II ")
• Hoshi Sato 's coup d'etat : 2155 ( ENT : " In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II ")
• Gabriel Lorca 's attempted coup: before 2257 ( DIS : " Despite Yourself ")
• Destruction of Qo'noS : before 2257 ( DIS : " Will You Take My Hand? ")
• Destruction of rebel ships in the Porathia system : 2257 ( DIS : " Despite Yourself ")
• Razing of Harlak ( DIS : " The Wolf Inside ")
• Battle for the ISS Charon ( DIS : " What's Past Is Prologue ")
• Gorlan rebellion: before 2267 ( TOS : " Mirror, Mirror ")
• Terran conquest of Bajor ( DS9 : " Crossover ")
• Klingon-Cardassian Alliance conquest of the Terran Empire ( DS9 : " Crossover ")
• Battle of Terok Nor : 2372 ( DS9 : " Shattered Mirror ")

Averted conflicts [ ]

• Aldea cloaked itself to go unseen by marauders and other hostile passers-by who might rob and plunder ( TNG : " When The Bough Breaks ")
• Around 2257 , insurrection was of the Klingon high council against L'Rell was thought to be brewing. This was at least temporarily averted with the help of Section 31 . ( DIS : " Point of Light ")
• Ekosian Final Decision : aborted at the last minute in 2268 ( TOS : " Patterns of Force ")
• Some time before 2269 , Garth of Izar ordered the annihilation of Antos IV inhabitants; his crew refused the order ( TOS : " Whom Gods Destroy ")
• 2356 : Haakonian invasion of Talax : The Talaxians were anticipating this invasion, but it was averted by the Talaxian surrender. ( VOY : " Jetrel ")
• In 2365 , conflict nearly broke out between Atlec and Straleb ( TNG : " The Outrageous Okona ")
• A Romulan invasion of Vulcan was planned but averted in 2368 ( TNG : " Unification II ")
• A 2370 Maquis attack on Aschelan V ( VOY : " Dreadnought ")
• A 2370 Maquis attack on Bryma ( DS9 : " The Maquis, Part II ")
• In 2372 Garak attempted an unauthorized orbital bombardment of the Founders' homeworld using the USS Defiant ; he was caught ( DS9 : " Broken Link ")
• Shortly before the Federation-Klingon War , representatives of Federation worlds along the Klingon unsuccessfully called for a Federation preemptive strike ( DS9 : " Broken Link ")
• A Kelvan invasion of the Milky Way ( TOS : " By Any Other Name ")
• In 2373 , the Regent of Palamar planned a campaign on Nassuc 's homeworld, but was killed before it could begin ( DS9 : " Business as Usual ")
• In 2375 , during the Dominion War , Chancellor Gowron was set on ordering an attack on Sarpedion V , but was ultimatly talked out of it ( DS9 : " Tacking Into the Wind ")
• In 2375 , during the Dominion War chancellor Gowron proposed a major offensive, but later a new chancellor came to power who had previously strongly opposed the idea ( DS9 : " When It Rains... ")
• In 2376 , an autarch on Kelis' homeworld prepared for war with a neighbor; the war was averted ( VOY : " Muse ")

Accounts of conflicts proven to be false [ ]

Alleged advance scouts for the Ferengi invasion of Earth

• In 1947 , Nog managed to bluff the United States Army by suggesting a Ferengi invasion of Earth was imminent ( DS9 : " Little Green Men ")
• After the USS Enterprise was attacked (and managed to evade) Ekosian missiles in 2268 , the Ekosian government spinned this event as the successful defeat of an attack by multiple Zeon spacecraft ( TOS : " Patterns of Force ")
• Under the influence of the Beta XII-A entity , Pavel Chekov falsely believed he had a brother, Piotr Chekov , who had been killed by the Klingons on Archanis ( TOS : " Day of the Dove ")
• The Beta XII-A entity created a false memory of an agricultural colony on Beta XII-A being destroyed by Klingons ( TOS : " Day of the Dove ")
• In 2367 elements in the Federation feared that the Cardassians would try to annex the Igo sector ; this proved to be incorrect ( TNG : " Realm Of Fear ")
• In 2368 , Romulan Admiral Alidar Jarok defected to the Federation with information that a Romulan invasion of Federation space was being prepared. However, the admiral had been fed false intelligence to test his loyalty ( TNG : " The Defector ")
• New Berlin Colony reported a Borg attack in 2369 ; they proved to be mistaken ( TNG : " Descent ")
• Eris claimed to have been a citizen of a planet called Kurill Prime which was conquered by the Dominion in 2370 ; however, her story was a fabrication ( DS9 : " The Jem'Hadar ")
• After Seven of Nine modified her alcove to double as a cortical processing subunit , she incorrectly deduced that USS Voyager was trying to establish a military presence in the Delta Quadrant ( VOY : " The Voyager Conspiracy ")
• The Romulan Senator Vreenak was lead to believe that the Dominion was planing an invasion of the Romulan Star Empire , however, the incriminating evidence turned out to be fake ( DS9 : " In the Pale Moonlight ")
• The Praetor Campaign , a Starfleet -opposed Romulan expansionist mission which was part of a holoprogram of a fictional future based on William T. Riker 's thoughts and expectations. Also mentioned was an Excalbian Campaign , which may or may not have been military in nature ( TNG : " Future Imperfect ")
• The Museum of Kyrian Heritage 's depiction of the Great War involving Kyrians , Vaskans , and USS Voyager was an example of revisionist history , as the incident did not happen in that way. ( VOY : " Living Witness ")

Hypothetical [ ]

• In 2151 , Vulcan diplomat Tos claimed that the Klingons would have sent a squadron of warbirds to attack Earth had he not negotiated for the transport of Klaang 's corpse to Qo'noS . ( ENT : " Broken Bow ")
• The ailing Chancellor K'mpec warned Captain Jean-Luc Picard that his potential successor , who had poisoned him, would be capable of leading the Klingon Empire into war against the Federation . ( TNG : " Reunion ")
• Commander William T. Riker warned DaiMon Lurin that his seizure of the USS Enterprise -D risked a war between the Ferengi and the Federation, only for Lurin to claim no affiliation with the Ferengi Alliance . ( TNG : " Rascals ")
• Captain Picard speculated that a spatial anomaly in the Devron system was a ploy by the Romulans to start a war. ( TNG : " All Good Things... ")
• In a simulation conducted by the Dominion , Subcommander T'Rul threatened war in response to the Romulans being excluded from treaty negotiations between the Dominion and the great powers of the Alpha Quadrant including the Federation . ( DS9 : " The Search, Part II ")
• The Duras sisters had ambitions to "reconquer" the Klingon Empire with a trilithium weapon which ended with their demise in the Battle of Veridian III . ( Star Trek Generations )
• Prior to the Battle of the Omarion Nebula , Cardassian observers considered that Romulan movements along the Cardassian-Romulan border were preparations for an invasion of the Cardassian Union . ( DS9 : " Improbable Cause ")
• Jadzia Dax suggested that the attack on the Founders' homeworld could plunge Romulus and Cardassia into war with the Dominion. ( DS9 : " The Die is Cast ")
• Both Enabran Tain and Vice Admiral Toddman anticipated that, in the event that the Founders were destroyed, the Jem'Hadar would stage a counterattack against the Alpha Quadrant . ( DS9 : " The Die is Cast ")
• Dominion experts predicted that, had a group of rogue Jem'Hadar succeeded in activating an Iconian gateway , they would launch an insurrection and seize control of the Dominion within a year before attacking the Federation. ( DS9 : " To the Death ")
• Starfleet ordered the USS Enterprise -E to patrol the Romulan Neutral Zone , ostensibly for the event that the Romulans took advantage of the situation caused by the upcoming Battle of Sector 001 . ( Star Trek: First Contact )
• Kai Winn Adami understood that Starfleet could not protect Bajor at the cost of planets such as Vulcan , Andor , Berengaria and Earth. ( DS9 : " In the Cards ")
• The EMH Mark II of the USS Prometheus clarified to the Doctor that the Federation and the Romulans were not at war in 2374 . ( VOY : " Message in a Bottle ")
• The Dominion's successful invasion of Betazed left them in a position to threaten Vulcan, Andor, Tellar and Alpha Centauri . ( DS9 : " In the Pale Moonlight ")
• The Dominion attempted to establish a supply line to the Argolis Cluster through Betazoid space, which would have allowed them to attack Vulcan. ( DS9 : " The Reckoning ")
• Rom feared that a communications blackout was caused by a Dominion invasion of Ferenginar . Major Kira Nerys countered that it could not have been taken without first conquering the surrounding star systems like Irtok and Clarus . ( DS9 : " Profit and Lace ")
• Luther Sloan of Section 31 anticipated that, in the aftermath of the Dominion War, the Federation and the Romulans would emerge as the two powers vying for control of the Alpha Quadrant, affirming Doctor Julian Bashir 's observation that he was already planning for the next war. ( DS9 : " Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges ")
• During the Battle of Cardassia , the Female Changeling believed that her surrender would invite the " solids " to cross into the Gamma Quadrant and destroy the Great Link before being convinced otherwise by Odo . ( DS9 : " What You Leave Behind ")
• Captain Jean-Luc Picard anticipated that the Romulans would have invaded a crippled Federation had Shinzon succeeded in using the Thalaron generator to wipe out all life on Earth. ( Star Trek Nemesis )

Fictional [ ]

Earth's continents destroyed

• Doctor Chaotica 's attempted conquests of Earth ( VOY : " Night ")
• Invaders from the Ninth Dimension ( VOY : " Homestead ")
• Hippocrates Noah 's attempt to destroy the Earth's continents ( DS9 : " Our Man Bashir ")
• Hirogen's Klingon simulation ( VOY : " The Killing Game ", " The Killing Game, Part II ")
• Massacre of Ferris VI ( DS9 : " Life Support ")
• Trojan War ( TOS : " The Squire of Gothos ")

Other and unsure [ ]

An unknown ship, firing its cannons for unknown reasons

• The vast majority of species assimilated by the Borg were presumably, at least briefly, in conflict with them.
• When taken together, the short life expectancies of Jem'Hadar , together with the fact that very few don't die in battle, would suggest that the Dominion is constantly involved in conflict, even beyond those seen. ( DS9 : " To the Death ")
• Argelius II was very violent before its Great Awakening . It is unknown if this violence extended to armed conflict. Skorr can similary be assumed to have been involved in many conflicts before their awakening. ( TOS : " Wolf in the Fold ", TAS : " The Jihad ")
• Ekosians were a said to be a warlike people until at least a few years before 2268. ( TOS : " Patterns of Force ")
• By 2366 , Chrysalians had been at peace for ten generations. ( TNG : " The Price ")
• Kelvans were implied to have a tradition of conquest. ( TOS : " By Any Other Name ")
• Remans were said to have historically been known as great warriors, and as such presumably fought in a number of conflicts, even before the Dominion War . ( Star Trek Nemesis )
• The hordes of Persia were mentioned. ( TOS : " The Squire of Gothos ")
• According to Malcolm Reed , war was brewing on Gosis' species homeworld in 2152 .( ENT : " The Communicator ")
• War loomed on Epsilon Canaris III in 2267 ; the Federation tried to prevent this, but the outcome is unknown. ( TOS : " Metamorphosis ")
• 2367 saw a Salenite miner dispute on Pentarus V ; it is unclear how far this went, but it was said they were very prone to violence. ( TNG : " Final Mission ")
• During the Dominion War , several Starfleet missions into Cardassian space had not returned. While not explicitly said, presumably this was the result of battle. ( DS9 : " The Magnificent Ferengi ")
• The Cardassian wars caused many deaths on Camor V . However, the exact cause was not explicitly stated. ( TNG : " Bloodlines ")
• The fact that Romulans in the 2150 held a strict doctrine of unlimited expansion would suggest that they engaged in conquest in the period before the Earth-Romulan War . ( ENT : " The Aenar ")
• The N'Kree were attempting to recruit the Silver Blood USS Voyager into their battle fleet in either 2374 or 2375. ( VOY : " Course: Oblivion ")
• A particular sailing ship firing was seen in both the Guardian of Forever and the resetting time stream . ( TOS : " The City on the Edge of Forever ", ENT : " Storm Front, Part II ")
• Armenia and Belgium were said to have been located on "natural invasion routes." ( TOS : " Errand of Mercy ")
• Trelane asked Kirk if Uhura was " a Nubian prize, taken on one of your raids of conquest...? " ( TOS : " The Squire of Gothos ")
• The Vaadwaur apparently raided and conquered many species before their defeat in the 15th century. This included conflict with the Talax-ilzay , and possibly the Turei . ( VOY : " Dragon's Teeth ")
• Warlords were known to operate on Preenos and Kelis' homeworld . ( ENT : " Oasis ", VOY : " Muse ")
• The Carnelian minefield was presumably deployed in the context of some conflict. ( TNG : " Legacy ")
• Ramses , Julius Caesar , Alexander the Great , Lee Kuan , and Krotus were individuals known to have pursued power and conquest. Genghis Khan , Maltuvis , and Ferris were not explicitly said to have engaged in conquest, but were nonetheless compared to some of these people. ( TOS : " Patterns of Force ", " Whom Gods Destroy ", " The Savage Curtain ")
• Quark mentioned a Minnobia - Vek war as part of a plot, and given the circumstances most likely would not dare to make names up. ( DS9 : " Business as Usual ")
• Luther Sloan claimed that his son was killed in a Dominion attack on a Federation convoy, but subsequent events called this into question. ( DS9 : " Inquisition ")
• Quark alluded to Emperor Worf 's plans for mass destruction, genocide, and other things. ( DS9 : " The Emperor's New Cloak ")
• In 2375 , Weyoun 7 stated that the Romulan colony in the Unroth system was ripe for attack, but this was not followed up. ( DS9 : " Strange Bedfellows ")
• Paul Stamets implied a large number of battles had been fought in order to corner the supply of dilithium . ( DIS : " An Obol for Charon ")
• The Cardassian Liberation Front debated attacking Adarak Prime , but no decision was seen to be reached. ( DS9 : " When It Rains... ")

See also [ ]

• Diplomacy and law
• Government and politics

External links [ ]

• War at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• War at Wikipedia
• Battle at Wikipedia
• 1 Daniels (Crewman)
• 3 Calypso (episode)

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Star Trek Prequel Movie In The Works With Star Wars Director

Toby Haynes, who directed episodes of Black Mirror, Doctor Who, and Andor, is lined up to make a Star Trek movie.

By Eddie Makuch on April 11, 2024 at 12:06PM PDT

A Star Trek prequel movie is in the works with Star Wars director Toby Haynes attached to direct, Paramount announced during CinemaCon. This has been rumored since January , and now it's confirmed. The movie is set for release sometime in 2025.

Haynes previously directed episodes of Doctor Who, Black Mirror, Sherlock, and the Star Wars series Andor. Collider reported on these details from CinemaCon.

Seth Grahame-Smith, who wrote The Lego Batman Movie, is writing the untitled Star Trek film. Haynes has never directed or written a Star Trek movie, but he directed Black Mirror's Star Trek-inspired USS Callister episode.

The film is said to be an "origin story" that will take place prior to the events of 2009's Star Trek, which took place in 2255 and was itself an origin story. This likely means it will feature a different cast. The stars of the latest series, including Chris Pine, Karl Urban, Zachary Quinto, and Zoe Saldana, have been rumored to be coming back for a fourth film in their series, but it hasn't happened yet.

2016's Star Trek Beyond is the latest entry in the main Star Trek movie series, but the franchise has lived long and prospered on streaming with the TV shows Picard and Strange New Worlds.

The 2009 Star Trek reboot and its 2013 sequel Into Darkness were directed by JJ Abrams, before he handed off directing duties to Justin Lin for Star Trek Beyond. The three movies collectively earned around $1.2 billion at the global box office.

In addition to Pine, Saldana, and Quinto, the latest Star Trek movie series featured John Cho as Sulu and Anton Yelchin as Chekov. Yelchin tragically died in 2016 at the age of 27 after a motor vehicle accident in his driveway.

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• The <i>Star Wars</i> TV Shows, Ranked

The Star Wars TV Shows, Ranked

I n the wake of the success of The Mandalorian , Disney+ has produced many—arguably too many— Star Wars television series in hopes that the expanded universe content would draw die-hard fans of Jedis and droids to the streaming service.

The results have been mixed. Baby Yoda justifiably drew hordes of fans and plenty of coos when he used the Force to summon blue macarons in The Mandalorian . (Yes, we know his name is Grogu, but Baby Yoda sounds cuter.) And Michael Clayton scribe Tony Gilroy found impressive depth in the Rogue One prequel series Andor , a Star Wars show with awards aspirations. But then there were spinoffs like The Book of Boba Fett and Obi-Wan Kenobi that left some fans frustrated with how LucasFilm handled stories related to some of their favorite characters in the franchise.

Still, the Star Wars television universe is growing in importance. A Mandalorian movie is set to debut in 2026, the first Star Wars movie to hit theaters in nearly a decade. And LucasFilm has high hopes for its latest entry, The Acolyte from showrunner Leslye Headland ( Bachelorette , Russian Doll ) starring Amandla Stenberg and Carrie-Anne Moss. It hits Disney+ on June 4.

Here's TIME's ranking of every Disney+ Star Wars series.

5. The Book of Boba Fett

When Temuera Morrison's Boba Fett made his long-awaited return to the screen in Season 2 of The Mandalorian , fans finally got a canonical answer to the age-old question of whether the galaxy's most infamous bounty hunter had survived his encounter with the Sarlacc in Return of the Jedi . But it turns out an even pulpier version of Mando's adventures wasn't exactly what many viewers wanted out of a Boba Fett-centric series. While The Book of Boba Fett ostensibly focused on Fett's quest to take control of the Tatooine criminal underworld once ruled by Jabba the Hutt, the show's late-season inclusion of two episodes that were integral to the plot of The Mandalorian 's third season felt like a forced attempt to get the fandom onboard with a spin-off that was otherwise proving to be a jumbled disappointment.

4. Obi-Wan Kenobi

Obi-Wan suffers from the most common prequel affliction: how do you build suspense in a story when the audience already knows the ending? Set between the events of Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope , the show follows its titular character as he abandons his job watching a (safe) young Luke on Tatooine to save a kidnapped Princess Leia. Parts of the plot are absurd: A precocious 10-year-old Leia is repeatedly able to outrun powerful bounty hunters. Sure. But the series' greatest weakness is its insistence on building out lore for characters who already carry so much history. The entire series builds to confrontations between Obi-Wan and Darth Vader that are zapped of all tension because nothing of significance could happen when these two meet. Any injury or even mildly interesting conversation between the two surely would have come up during their fight in A New Hope . And so Obi-Wan finds itself hamstrung, inventing convoluted ways for nothing to happen in its plot.

In the wake of Rosario Dawson's introduction as Ahsoka Tano in Season 2 of The Mandalorian , Ahsoka follows the former Jedi Knight as she navigates her role in the galaxy in the years after the Empire's defeat in Return of the Jedi . Helmed by Star Wars veteran Dave Filoni, the series builds on the backstory for Ahsoka that was established in the 2008 animated Star Wars movie The Clone Wars —in which a young Ahsoka became the Padawan apprentice of Anakin Skywalker—and its subsequent TV series, The Clone Wars and Rebels . An uneven first season saw Ahsoka team up with some of her fellow Ghost crew resistance fighters, like Mandalorian warrior Sabine Wren and New Republic General Hera Syndulla, to investigate rumors that former Imperial commander Grand Admiral Thrawn was poised to return as heir to the Empire. Fans of Filoni's more mystical take on Star Wars lore likely enjoyed this one.

2. The Mandalorian

Three seasons in, the novelty of the crown jewel of Disney’s Star Wars TV universe has somewhat worn off. While the father-son relationship between Pedro Pascal's Din Djarin and his Baby Yoda ward Grogu remains adorable as ever, the show's recent meandering storylines have burned through a lot of fan goodwill. Still, there's a reason The Mandalorian was the most-watched streaming original of 2023 . Set around five years after the fall of the Empire in Return of the Jedi and 25 years before the rise of the First Order—the authoritarian regime firmly in control of the galaxy when The Force Awakens begins—the first two seasons of the inaugural live-action Star Wars series revived the spirit of the franchise with new and exciting characters whose adventures originally extended beyond the scope of the over-tread Skywalker Saga. The result was a pop culture phenomenon that instantly grabbed viewers' attention and sparked renewed interest in the galaxy far, far away.

Andor has no right to be so good. It's a prequel to Rogue One , itself a prequel to A New Hope . One might expect it to be filled with easter eggs and winks. Thankfully, showrunner Tony Gilroy, who cut his teeth on the Bourne movies, has higher ambitions. The show centers on Cassian Andor, a Rebel spy ready to die for his cause in Rogue One. But when we meet Cassian in Andor he's a cynical mercenary, skeptical that the upstart Rebellion can take on the Empire. But as he takes on missions, finds himself in binds, and begins to see the banality of evil up close, his politics and worldview start to change. There's no Sith Lord laughing maniacally as he tortures Cassian. Just nameless guards and soldiers whose faces remain impassive as they inflict suffering on others. And both the rebels and empire often use the same turns of phrase to describe their cause, a decision that intentionally blurs the lines between the good guys and the bad. It's a fascinating study of how a citizen is radicalized into a freedom fighter.

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Star Trek Confirms Captain Shaw's Story Isn't Over

Star trek confirms doctor phlox's fate centuries after enterprise, star trek celebrations: pride is a wonderful tribute to the franchise's lgbtqia+ characters.

Arguably Star Trek 's greatest villain, Khan Noonien-Singh (Ricardo Montalban) has cropped up in several different Star Trek projects across multiple timelines. Introduced in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode, "Space Seed," Khan was a genetically enhanced human who became "the most dangerous adversary the Enterprise ever faced." In the original Star Trek canon, Khan rose to power in the 1990s along with several other genetically augmented tyrants. Soon after, wars broke out between the augments and their subjects in a conflict that became known as the Eugenics Wars.

After the events of TOS' "Space Seed," Captain Kirk (William Shatner) stranded Khan and his people on the barely-hospitable planet, Ceti Alpha V. In the following fifteen years, Starfleet never checked up on the augments, despite the fact that the orbit of Ceti Alpha V shifted, making the planet even more dangerous. Khan sought his retribution against Kirk and the USS Enterprise in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , eventually causing the death of Spock (Leonard Nimoy). After TOS and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , subsequent Star Trek series have added to the complex history of Khan Noonien-Singh , sometimes complicating (or rewriting) the previously-established timeline.

What Is Khan’s Eugenics Wars In Star Trek’s Original Timeline?

As established in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Space Seed" and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , the Eugenics Wars were a devastating conflict that occurred in the mid-1990s. Sometime before this, scientists had been experimenting with genetics and selective breeding in an attempt to create superior humans. The scientists hoped that these superhumans, or augments, would be able to bring peace to Earth, but the augments grew overly ambitious and power-hungry. In 1992, Khan Noonien-Singh became the absolute ruler over one-fourth of the Earth's population. Though several other augmented humans seized power during this time, Khan became known as the "best of the tyrants."

Though it remains unclear how the Eugenics Wars began, the conflict proved to be utterly devastating, resulting in over 30 million deaths. The last tyrant to be overthrown, Khan's reign came to an end in 1996. Though they had been condemned to death, Khan and 84 of his followers managed to escape by placing themselves in cryogenic sleep aboard the SS Botany Bay. The rest of the augments had been wiped out and humanity grew fearful of any kind of genetic manipulation. Soon after the end of the Eugenics Wars, Earth banned genetic engineering entirely. Despite the ways this ban became a justification for discrimination against the genetically-modified Illyrians, the augment ban remained in effect throughout the 23rd and 24th centuries.

Strange New Worlds Changed Khan’s Eugenics Wars Timeline

In the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2 episode, " Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow ," a young Khan (Desmond Sivan) appears in 21st-century Toronto, Canada. The episode follows Khan's descendent La'an Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong) and an alternate universe version of Captain Kirk (Paul Wesley) as they find themselves in the 21st century. As they work to figure out what event changed the timeline, they discover an undercover Romulan operative named Sera (Adelaide Kane) who planned to assassinate the young Khan. Sera reveals that Romulans have been attempting to slow the progress of humanity in order to keep them from achieving space travel and warp speed.

Since the Romulans have been manipulating history, the rise of Khan and the augments, as well as the ensuing Eugenics Wars, happen later than previous Star Trek series have stated. In an interview with CinemaBlend , Strange New Worlds' co-showrunner Akiva Goldsman confirmed that the dates of certain events, including the Eugenics Wars, were pushed forward "in order to keep Star Trek in our timeline." Star Trek supposedly takes place in the future of our timeline, and this change in Trek canon makes that still plausible. In "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow," La'an and Kirk successfully prevent the child Khan's death, setting up the future return of the powerful dictator.

J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek: Khan's Eugenics Wars Happened In The Kelvin Timeline

Set in the alternate Kelvin timeline, J.J. Abrams' Star Trek movies introduced yet another version of Khan Noonien-Singh , this time played by Benedict Cumberbatch. In Star Trek Into Darkness, Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) and the crew of the USS Enterprise encounter Khan posing as a Starfleet officer who went rogue. In this version of the timeline, the Eugenics Wars took place in the 1990s, after which Khan and his people were exiled into space. After the destruction of Vulcan, Admiral Alexander Marcus (Peter Weller) eventually found the SS Botany Bay drifting in space. Despite knowing Khan's violent history, Marcus revived Khan, believing he would prove useful in the upcoming war with the Klingons.

Admiral Marcus created a false identity for Khan as Starfleet Officer and Section 31 agent John Harrison. Khan began helping to design new weapons and ships, including the USS Vengeance, a Dreadnaught class vessel. Because Marcus had threatened Khan's people, Khan eventually turned against him and declared war on Starfleet. Though Kirk and the Enterprise crew eventually stopped him, Khan still managed to cause a great deal of destruction. It seems that Khan remains dangerous and vengeful regardless of the timeline, but it remains to be seen how future Star Trek projects will treat the infamous tyrant.

• Star Trek: The Original Series (1966)
• Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (2022)

How to Watch the 'Star Wars' Movies in Order

S panning 11 live-action feature films and six live-action TV shows (and counting), the "Star Wars" universe is ever-expanding. And starting with the very first installment, filmmaker George Lucas made clear to audiences that he was telling a saga out of order. The title "Episode IV: A New Hope" underlined there was both a past and a future beyond the 1977 film, and indeed this saga has moved forward and backward in time throughout its history, telling a number of different kinds of stories in a galaxy far, far away.

To that end, whether you're new to the franchise or hold it dear as a favorite film series, you may be looking for a way to watch all the "Star Wars" movies in order. From young Anakin Skywalker to Rey Palpatine, we've got the full story in order below.

But not just that - we also weave in how to watch the "Star Wars" shows in order, and for the hardcore fans, how to watch the movies and shows together in order. And even an update on all the new "Star Wars" movies and TV shows currently in the works.

With May the Fourth and the 25th anniversary of "The Phantom Menace" impending, there's never been a better time to start a "Star Wars" binge-watch.

"Star Wars" Movies in Chronological Order

Chronologically, the "Star Wars" story begins with George Lucas' 1999 prequel "The Phantom Menace," which introduced audiences to young Anakin Skywalker (Jake Lloyd) before chronicling his turn to the Dark Side (later played by Hayden Christensen). The episodic entries make the chronological order easy, but you also have to factor in the spinoffs "Solo" and "Rogue One." All together, this makes for a complete (and time-intensive) marathon.

Here's a rundown of the "Star Wars" movies in chronological order.

• "Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace"
• "Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones"
• "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith"
• "Solo: A Star Wars Story"
• "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story"
• "Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope"
• "Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back"
• "Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi"
• "Star Wars: The Force Awakens"
• "Star Wars: The Last Jedi"
• "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker"

"Star Wars" Movies in Release Order

Of course, you can also watch the "Star Wars" movies in the order in which they were released, which is how most fans came to the franchise. At least at first. From Lucas' first six installments to the Disney era, here's a list of the "Star Wars" films in release order.

• "Star Wars: A New Hope" (1977)
• "Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back" (1980)
• "Star Wars: Return of the Jedi" (1983)
• "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace" (1999)
• "Star Wars: Attack of the Clones" (2002)
• "Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith" (2005)
• "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" (2015)
• "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" (2016)
• "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" (2017)
• "Solo: A Star Wars Story" (2018)
• "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker" (2019)

What's the best way to watch the "Star Wars" movies in order?

This is an age-old question -- is it better to watch the "Star Wars" movies in chronological or release order? While watching them in chronological order is a fun exercise, there are a couple of main drawbacks: One, the prequels pale in quality when compared to the original trilogy so you're slogging through some fairly intergalactic politics and stilted acting. And two: The added context from the original trilogy makes the Anakin saga much more tragic (and interesting) than watching his downfall in a vacuum.

Here's my recommendation: If it's your first time watching "Star Wars," watch them in release order. If you've seen most or all of the movies before, watch them in chronological order for fun.

So the best way to watch the "Star Wars" movies is arguably to watch in release order. This is how they were made, and also avoids the jarring effect of going from the prequels to the recent spinoffs back to George Lucas' original trilogy.

"Star Wars" Shows in Chronological Order

And then we come to the "Star Wars" TV shows. The first to get off the ground was an animated series called "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" - first in 2003, as a show from Genndy Tartakovsky, and then in 2008, as a different animated "Clone Wars" series from Dave Filoni. Then, of course, in the Disney era, we have the live-action shows and the animated series "Star Wars Rebels," which all take place before "The Force Awakens."

"Obi-Wan Kenobi" is set in the oldest era, 10 years after the events of "Revenge of the Sith," and then "Andor" and "Star Wars Rebels" take place during the lead-up to "A New Hope," while "The Mandalorian" picks up five years after "Return of the Jedi."

We're leaving out the more minor shows like "Ewoks" (yes, there was an animated "Ewoks" series) to keep it to the shows that have the biggest connections to the "Star Wars" saga. So below, here are the "Star Wars" shows in chronological order.

• "Star Wars: The Clone Wars"
• "Obi-Wan: Kenobi"
• "Star Wars Rebels"
• "The Mandalorian" Seasons 1-2
• "The Book of Boba Fett"
• "The Mandalorian" Season 3

"Star Wars" Shows in Release Order

You can also just watch the "Star Wars" shows in the order in which they were released to see the progression of investment from Disney and Lucasfilm, especially as "The Mandalorian" rose to popularity.

• "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" (2008 - 2020)
• "Star Wars Rebels" (2014 - 2018)
• "The Mandalorian" (2019 - present)
• "The Book of Boba Fett" (2021)
• "Obi-Wan Kenobi" (2022)
• "Andor" (2022)
• "Ahsoka" (2023)

How to watch the "Star Wars" movies and shows in chronological order

If you want to get really nerdy, here's the complete chronological "Star Wars" timeline of how to watch all the movies and TV shows in order of events.

• "Obi-Wan Kenobi"
• "The Mandalorian"

Upcoming "Star Wars" Shows

But that's not all! There are many more "Star Wars" shows to come, all of which hail (in some form or fashion) from Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau, the folks responsible for "The Mandalorian."

First up is "The Acolyte" on June 4, 2024, which was created by Leslye Headland ("Russian Doll") and focuses on the dark side 100 years before the events of "The Phantom Menace."

2024 will also bring us "Skeleton Crew," described as an Amblin-esque adventure of kids lost in the galaxy and trying to find their way home. The show hails from Jon Watts, who directed the Tom Holland "Spider-Man" movies and will debut in December.

There's also the long-in-the-works "Lando" TV series, which is being developed by Donald Glover and his brother Stephen Glover, with whom he worked on "Atlanta."

• "The Acolyte" (2024)
• "Skeleton Crew" (2024)
• "Andor" Season 2 (2025)
• "The Mandalorian" Season 4 (Release Date TBA)
• "Lando" (Release Date TBA)

Upcoming "Star Wars" Movies

On the film side, things have been quiet but are starting to heat up.

"The Mandalorian & Grogu" is set for release on May 22, 2026. The film is a big-screen continuation of the "Mandalorian" saga with Jon Favreau set to direct. Production will get underway in 2024 .

Then there's an untitled film that will feature  the return of Daisy Ridley as Rey , as announced at Star Wars Celebration in April 2023. This film had been in the works for quite a while, with Damon Lindelof and Justin Britt-Gibson writing the screenplay and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy attached to direct. Lindelof and Britt-Gibson departed the project in early 2023 with Lindelof later admitting he was  "asked to leave"  the film, and currently "Peaky Blinders" and "Spencer" scribe Steven Knight is working on the script.

This new Rey movie will take place some time after the events of "Rise of Skywalker" and find her shepherding a new era for the Jedi.

There are also several other "Star Wars" movies in the works.

Dave Filoni, long a fixture in the "Star Wars" universe with shows like "The Clone Wars" and "Star Wars Rebels," is directing his first live-action film. The movie is set before the events of "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" and is expected to draw together the various characters and plot threads from the live-action TV shows he's been helping to spearhead with Jon Favreau, including "The Mandalorian" and "Ahsoka."

The third new "Star Wars" movie announced at Star Wars Celebration is a film set in the distant past in the "Star Wars" universe, to be directed by "Logan" and "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" filmmaker James Mangold. Set 25,000 years in the past, the film chronicles the dawning of the Force and will be an origin story of sorts for the entire "Star Wars" universe. Mangold is writing the screenplay himself.

In 2022, it was announced that "Free Guy" and "The Adam Project" filmmaker Shawn Levy would be directing a "Star Wars" movie of his own, although not for some time as he's currently finishing up "Deadpool & Wolverine" and working on the final season of "Stranger Things."

And Taika Waititi is writing and directing a "Star Wars" movie of his own, which is still in development.

Lucasfilm had intended for a new movie called "Rogue Squadron," directed by Patty Jenkins and following a squadron of X-Wing fighters, to be the next "Star Wars" movie released in 2023. But that film was pulled from the schedule following delays and ultimately never happened. Jenkins now says the film is still in the works .

Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige was producing a new film being written by "Loki" and "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" screenwriter Michael Waldron, but that project has been scrapped.

The post How to Watch the 'Star Wars' Movies in Order appeared first on TheWrap .

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'The Acolyte' cast, creator talk new 'Star Wars' series set 100 years before prequels

LOS ANGELES -- "Star Wars" is heading back to the streaming world with the new Disney+ series, "Star Wars: The Acolyte."

It may have plenty of light sabers to go around, but it also shines a light on a different kind of "Star Wars" story to tell. This one starts off as a murder mystery, where all is not what it seems.

Amandla Stenberg plays the title role.

"I play twins who have been separated at a young age by a tragedy, and Osha, the twin that we kind of meet first most intimately, she used to be a Jedi, but she's left that life and it turns out that her sister who she thought was dead was actually alive, and not only is she alive, she's murdering Jedi," Stenberg said.

Lee Jung-jae plays her Jedi trainer.

"As an actor, obviously it's such a huge honor to be part of the 'Star Wars' universe," he said.

Leslye Headland, the creator of the series, brings us into a time before Anakin and Obi-Wan, exploring the actions that led to the fall of the Jedi.

"I would say it's a prequel of the prequels. When I saw 'Phantom Menace' when it came out, I thought what an intriguing premise," Headland said. "I wonder what happened? I wonder how the cracks in the system led to where they were in the beginning of that film."

When it comes to the mystery, even the show's title is a clue.

"It's a position. It's a description of a person. I hope as people are watching it, they're questioning it as the narrative goes forward," Headland said. "Who is the acolyte out of all these people we're watching?'"

"Star Wars: The Acolyte" begins streaming June 4 on Disney+ with a two-episode premiere.

Disney is the parent company of Lucasfilm and this station.

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A ‘star wars’ timeline: all the movies and tv shows in the franchise.

From big to small screen and back to the big screen again, Star Wars remains one of the world’s largest entertainment franchises.

By Cameron K McEwan

Cameron K McEwan

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Initially known for theatrically released blockbusters for the first two decades of its existence (despite dipping its toe in TV, occasionally), the George Lucas space-opera finally succumbed to television properly in the Noughties with animated series The Clone Wars .

Since Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm in 2012, Star Wars has gone back and forth on both mediums on a regular basis (perhaps too regular for some). Regardless, the number of productions is impressive, most impressive.

Pegged to the newest addition in the franchise canon with Disney+’s The Acolyte , here are all the Star Wars movies and television shows in release order.

This story originally posted in February 2024 and will be updated with each release.

A New Hope (1977)

The one that started it all. Initially released as Star Wars , it would receive the addition of A New Hope in subsequent re-releases. It was a positive cultural touchstone for the U.S., which was dealing with Watergate and the Vietnam War (which Lucas took inspiration from when it came to the battle between the plucky rebels and all-empowering Empire).

Star Wars Holiday Special (1978)

George Lucas’ first foray into small-screen Star Wars . This never-to-be-repeated, 100-minute extravaganza sees all the main cast reprising their roles; however, it’s safe to say the Holiday Special did not live up to its predecessor and Lucas wisely vaulted it. An animated sequence, which introduced the character of Boba Fett , is now available to watch on Disney+.

The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

The sequel that proves Lucas’ vision was no fluke. Rather than simply revisiting the formula and giving audiences “Star Wars 2,” the director was canny enough to go with the classic trilogy structure — leaving our heroes in disarray at the movie’s denouement. Lucas was also canny enough to disavow himself of his auteurship by asking his former teacher Irvin Kershner to direct and leaving script duties to Leigh Brackett (with Lawrence Kasdan coming in to redraft after her death).

Return of the Jedi (1983)

Lucas closed the original trilogy with a pleasing box office finale. With no word on further episodes (other than the odd interview quote), it seemed that the global sensation that was Star Wars had come to an end. How little did we know. Fun fact: Despite the abundance of them in the final third of Return of the Jedi , the word “Ewok” is never spoken on screen, though can be seen in closing credits.

Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure (1984) 

Following on from their popularity in the third Star Wars film, the little furballs got their own spinoff. “Adventure” is perhaps selling this a little more grandly than this pedestrian television movie deserves. However, it was treated to a theatrical release outside the U.S.

Ewoks (1985)

Airing during the snappily titled Ewoks and Droids Adventure Hour on Saturday mornings on ABC, this animated series continued exploiting the human-eating inhabitants of Endor. Set before the events of Return of the Jedi, the show follows the adventures of Wicket (who would memorably befriend Princess Leia) and his chums. The theme song was changed for the second and final season.

Droids (1985)

Not making it to two seasons was this complementary cartoon starring C-3PO and R2-D2. Droids followed the dysfunctional couple on their adventures pre- A New Hope, and featured a memorable theme tune, “In Trouble Again” — written and sung by Stewart Copeland of rock outfit The Police. The track certainly didn’t trouble the charts. More notably, one episode was written by Joe Johnston, who would go on to direct films such as Honey, I Shrunk The Kids, Jumanji (1995) and Captain America: The First Avenger.

Ewoks: The Battle for Endor (1985)

Another television movie for the Ewoks (who, by this point, had incredibly managed to rack up more screen time than Luke Skywalker). But this was their last outing. And this was also the last new live-action Star Wars until Episode I — The Phantom Menace , some 14 years later. The franchise would not see such a break again.

Star Wars Special Editions (1997)

Carousing interest in the brand for the forthcoming prequels, the original trilogy was re-released into theaters with extra scenes and updated special FX. Though, as star Harrison Ford was so keen to observe, the acting remained the same. The box office demonstrated that the force was still very alive.

The Phantom Menace (1999)

Hype on a level previously unseen in the world of entertainment culminated in the release of the first of the prequels. This resulted in a backlash from fans, also on a level previously unseen. Despite its perceived negativity, Episode I was re-released in cinemas in 2012 (as a 3-D conversion) and again in 2024 to celebrate its 25th anniversary.

Attack of the Clones (2002)

Often cited as the weakest of the Prequel Trilogy, Episode II certainly doesn’t have the impact of its Original Trilogy cousin, The Empire Strikes Back . On the plus side, actor Ewan McGregor lightened up and relaxed into the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Sir Christopher Lee sent a Sith-sized shudder down the audience as Darth Maul replacement Count Dooku.

Clone Wars (2003)

Produced by Cartoon Network Studios and led by Genndy Tartakovsky ( Samurai Jack ), this traditional 2-D animated show was Lucasfilm’s first foray into exploring the events between Episodes II and III . Ultimately, this fascinating entry was removed from the Star Wars canon, but can be enjoyed on Disney+ in their Vintage collection.

Revenge of the Sith (2005)

For the second time in his career, George Lucas dropped the curtains on a Star Wars trilogy. The director managed the tricky task of successfully bringing it to a close while also tying into the Original Trilogy. At the box office, it managed to buck the trend by taking in more than its predecessor by almost $200 million.

The Clone Wars (2008)

Described as “almost an afterthought” by George Lucas himself after reviewing footage, the big-screen debut of the animated series did not bode well. It was nominated for the Golden Raspberry Award ( aka a Razzie) for “Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel,” but lost to another much-derided Lucasfilm production, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull .

However, after the shaky start, showrunner Dave Filoni steered the show into happier waters. Mainly following Padawan Ahsoka Tano, initially loathed by some quarters and now universally adored, the series grew and grew in confidence each season. The four-part finale is widely regarded by fandom as “peak” Star Wars .

Rebels (2014)

Where The Clone Wars took its time to embed in the hearts of fans, this pre- A New Hope animated television series proved to be an instant hit. Its finale was bold and brave, and left fans in tears. However, it’s the season two finale that really shines with a blistering battle between Ahsoka and Darth Vader. So good, they partly re-created it in the Obi-Wan Kenobi series.

The Force Awakens (2015)

The first flick in the House of Mouse age. While it may have been carbon(ite) copy of the original 1977 Star Wars movie, J.J. Abrams’ take on Lucas’ vision was a global smash and a re-ignition for the brand. At the box office, the force awoke taking in more than $2 billion globally and hitting the No. 1 slot in the all-time U.S. chart where it currently remains (not adjusted for inflation).

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)

This was the first “standalone” of the new era, supposedly one of many that would follow. Based on the opening crawl of A New Hope, Rogue One satisfied the older fans’ lust for grit and gravitas. Vader’s now-iconic corridor scene during the film’s closing moments was, incredibly, a late addition to the movie. It was worth the ticket price alone.

The Last Jedi (2017)

Three Star Wars films in three years, and the strain was beginning to show. The response to director Rian Johnson’s take was divided and the box office was certainly muted compared to The Force Awakens (though it did make $1.3 billion globally, not to be sniffed at). Even before the film’s release, Lucasfilm announced that Johnson would be writing and directing a new trilogy. However, these films have yet to enter production.

Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)

And less than six months later, this arrived. A troubled production (which saw director Ron Howard replace The LEGO Movie’s Phil Lord and Christopher Miller), coupled with what some refer to as Force Fatigue, and the perceived failure of The Last Jedi could be the reason behind the lack of box office success for this enjoyable entry.

Resistance (2018)

A prequel of sorts to The Force Awakens , this television outing managed to stretch to two seasons but, unlike its predecessors The Clone Wars and Rebels , there was no fan uproar when it didn’t make it to a third.

The Mandalorian (2019)

Where Baby Yoda single-handedly lifted the franchise like an X-Wing out of a murky Dagobah swamp. The first Star Wars original for Disney+ was a global hit with audiences. However, the lukewarm reception of the third season has probably resulted in the show spinning-off onto the big screen with The Mandalorian and Grogu , currently due for release in 2026.

The Rise of Skywalker (2019)

Somehow, the fans didn’t return. J.J. Abrams returned to another troubled production (originally directed by Colin Trevorrow). But, as many feel, he failed to stick the landing. An ignoble exit for the Skywalker saga.

The Bad Batch (2021)

First appearing in The Clone Wars , this unruly group of clones got their own spinoff, which features numerous nods to the prequels and original trilogy. Due to mutations, they were able to resist Order 66 (which turned all the Clones against the Jedi and sided with the Empire). Fans were excited to see the return of Asajj Ventress (who debuted in the 2-D animated Clone Wars ) teased in the trailer for the third and final season .

The Book of Boba Fett (2021)

Or, as some might dub it, The Mandalorian 2.5 . The titular character’s much-awaited return proved to be an Easter egg-filled addition to the franchise, and then midway through, disposed of Mr. Fett in favor of catching up with Grogu and his shiny armored “dad.”

Visions (2021)

Few Star Wars projects come along that change your perception of the franchise or, indeed, show it from such a unique perspective. Volume One , as it’s titled, was an anthology of nine anime shorts produced by Japanese studios. The second volume changed the format and opened up to the rest of the world, and was just as compelling. If animated shorts are your vibe, check out the Lucasfilm/Studio Ghibli collab Zen – Grogu and Dust Bunnies on Disney+. It’s gorgeous.

First appearing in The Clone Wars , this unruly group of clones got their own spinoff, which features numerous nods to the prequels and original trilogy. Due to mutations, they were able to resist Order 66 (which turned all the Clones against the Jedi and sided with the Empire). When the show came to a close in 2024 with its third season, fans were delighted that Omega, the show’s lead, managed to survive; leaving the door open for a return in animated or live-action form.

Obi-Wan Kenobi (2022)

Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen reunited almost 20 years after filming their last outing, Revenge of the Sith , for this project, which started life as big-screen proposition. Even Liam Neeson got in on the action with a surprise finale appearance (and chronologically, the first time the audience sees a Force Ghost). There’s no news on a second season, but McGregor is all for it.

Andor (2022)

Critically lauded and adored by fans (apart from those who referred to it “Andbore”), the Rogue One spinoff (yes, a spinoff of a spinoff) follows Cassian Andor (again played by Diego Luna) in the years leading up to the events of Rogue One . Season two is due to bring his story to a close in 2025.

Tales of the Jedi (2022)

Really this is just the tales of two Jedi: fan favorite Ahsoka and Count Dooku. The latter, of course, debuted in Attack of the Clones , but was a Sith by that point. Here we see the young(er) Dooku with his Padawan, Qui-Gon Jinn, and fellow Jedi Mace Windu. Season two is due to drop in 2024.

Young Jedi Adventures (2023)

You know, for kids? This charming series, set before the prequels, introduced new younglings with the odd guest appearance from Yoda. Nubs, a little hairy blue alien, is proving to be popular.

Ahsoka (2023)

Arguably one of the most-loved characters — and certainly the one with the most interesting character arc over the years — Ahsoka Tano (played here by Rosario Dawson) finally broke out in her own live-action series after appearances in The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett . A second season is in development.

Tales of the Empire (2024)

A follow-up to 2022’s wonderful Tales of the Jedi , this animated miniseries concentrated its focus on the darker side of Star Wars storytelling, following Morgan Elsbeth (a character who was previously seen in The Bad Batch and in live-action form in The Mandalorian and Ahsoka ) and former Jedi, Barriss Offee.

The Acolyte (2024)

From the co-creator of Netflix’s Russian Doll , Leslye Headland, comes a crime drama set in the High Republic era — some 100 years before the events of the Star Wars films. Boasting Carrie-Anne Moss ( The Matrix ), Dafne Keen ( Logan ) and Jodie Turner-Smith ( Queen & Slim ) in its cast, The Acolyte also has a Wookiee Jedi and a whip lightsaber for fans to get excited about. The first two episodes premiere on Disney+ June 4.

Skeleton Crew (2024)

Brit actor Jude Law ( Sherlock Holmes, Fantastic Beasts ) fronts this coming-of-age adventure following four lost children trying to get home. This Goonies -esque series comes from writers Christopher Ford ( Spider-Man: Homecoming ) and Jon Watts (who also directed the three Spider-Man MCU movies). The show also stars Academy Award nominee Kerry Condon ( The Banshees of Inisherin ). A release date is not yet set, but it’s expected to land on Disney+ later this year (after initially being penned in for a 2023 launch).

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