Welcome back to Geek Time advance. This is Brad. How are you doing Lulu?

Hi, Brad.

So we're going to continue on with our discussion of Star Wars and Star Trek. Have you actually gone and watched any of the episodes like you were supposed to?

Well, there's so many of them, so many movies and episodes of the tv series, I promise I'll try to sit down and watch them.

All right.

But seriously, what is the big deal? I mean last time, obviously you walked us through the two series, the two settings and all the plot lines. But you still haven't really explained why is it so important in geekdom or in geek culture.

When you look at Star Trek and Star Wars, these two and then you have Doctor Who in the UK, they’re what really paved the way for people to accept sci-fi as a genre.

There have been lots of sci-fi classics out there. The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, there's been lots of sci-fi literature, but it's always kind of had the stigma in the literary world where you're, it's not real literature so to say.

But with the Star Trek and Star Wars, you get a lot of people who are actually looking at Star… or its science fiction as an actual genre that should be kept as an important genre in literature. I mean when I was in university, we had a class and we could choose like a particular subgenre. I chose the sci-fi when I did it because that's what I was really into, and that's something they probably wouldn't have done 20 years before that.

I see. So basically these three, the three big ones, Star Trek, Star Wars, Doctor Who, they sort of kind of like brought sci-fi to the forefront, and legitimized the role of sci-fi in literary world.

I mean, like, when you look at the world as it is today, we've... in the last 20, 30 years, there has been so much change when it comes to technology that people really understand the value of sci-fi and what sci-fi has been telling us. And so people are actually looking at this, ‘Okay, We should actually not just look at literature and what literature says about the world, but we should start looking at sci-fi more specifically.’

Yeah, honestly, I have to say, although I'm not like a huge fan of sci-fi, but I can certainly see the point of sci-fi. I think a lot of really like the classic sci-fi tales. They are like cautionary tales almost. They talk about humanity, scientific progress, and how… many of the ethical dilemmas in scientific development.

Yeah when you look at sci-fi, if we kind of look into even if it's a Doctor Who but like we look at the way species are treated in Star Trek and Star Wars, we do see a lot of that those ethical dilemmas even when it comes to the way robots are treated in Star Trek. There was a whole episode we were deciding whether or not AI should be considered as conscious if it gets to a particular level, right? When you watch Star Trek and Star Wars, you'll see the majority of beings are humanoid in one way or another.

So they behave like humans or they look kind of like humans.

They'll maybe emulate a particular group of people that we might see in the world now, but like the majority of it is kind of this whole idea that most life out there will probably look like us in one way or another. They might have more arms or more legs or more eyes. Maybe they won't have ears like we know it. But they'll have some sort of body that we can understand, right?

It's a very human centric perspective, isn't it? It’s like how we imagine aliens and extraterrestrial beings, this is all based on how we look.

Right. And that's when it comes to what science used to think is that when you look at the building blocks of life that humans would or that animals would have to look something like us. If you look at most animals on the planet, mammals at least, mammals have really similar bone structures. When you compare them, you can kind of say, oh this is how this mammal bone structure became to be. So because of that, a lot of times they said well, if then, it must be similar on other planets.

Nowadays that's kind of changed a little bit and people understand that life doesn't necessarily have to be carbon based. It could be something completely different.

But, when you look at like Star Trek, we have the humans, us, and then we have the Vulcans with the pointy ears like Spock, the Klingons are probably one of my favorite. You can actually, I think we talked about in the cosplaying one where you can learn Klingons.

They are like warrior species, isn't it? They're kind of aggressive and battle ready.

Yeah. I think Klingons are probably one of the more interesting groups and if you watch Star Trek over the generations, Klingons look more like humans and like the original series, but then they look less like humans when it comes to the next generation. And in the more recent one, they actually look even more alien. And so they created this whole mythos that the Klingons were quite different from humans. But as a way to make themselves superior to humans, they tried to genetically alter themselves which made them more like humans.

But Brad could also be that cosmetics and all of that they got better.

That they did, but that's kind of like the way they explain this whole thing. It’s actually, it's a very interesting idea.

Now one of the more, I wouldn't say more recent, but this idea of one of the big nemesis of the Star Trek world is the Borg. And the Borg they're kind of like they're not really robots, but they are kind of a conglomeration of a bunch of different species with cybernetic components that are all connected into a hive mind. It's really interesting. There's this the thing that makes the Borg really scary is that when they first encounter the humans, they completely ignore them like the humans come onto the ship and they just ignore them like they're not there. They think of us more as like ants.

But then once we do something that actually might to hurt their ship, then they attack, right? But before us we know they don't even think of us as being something that could do anything to harm them and so they just completely ignore us.

Yeah, I see.

And then you have the Star Wars. In Star Wars you have this for example this Chewbacca character, that's a Wookiee?

So Wookiee are really big. It's the best way to describe this kind of like sasquatch, right? Which is like a really big huge hairy person in a way. And then they have the really small harry teddy bear like characters the Ewoks, but like it's really funny in recent years like originally it was people thought that Chewbacca was kind of like a subordinate friend to Han Solo. But in recent years, people have come up with the idea that the Wookiee was actually kind of like the minder of Han Solo.

There's a few really interesting species. The Jawa was there like these little tiny creatures that they build really huge like sand crawler tank things. And then there's the Mon Calamari. It's really interesting the Calamari, it means octopus.

Calamari means squid, right?

Sure squid they are these fish looking people. And if you know any line from Star Trek other than use the force, it's a trap. That's actually one of the Mon Calamari guys who was a in the second movie when they are now going in to destroy the death star, they realize that it's all a trap.

Now one of the more interesting species, they don't give them an official name in the series. Some of like the sub series, I think they give them a name but it's Yoda species.

I thought Yoda is a character.

Yoda is a character, right? But they don't have like a name for the species in the original, or what is it in the original canon, right? When you're watching the movies, they don't say it right? Chewbacca is the Wookiee, then there's the sand people the Jawas. But they don't ever say what Yoda is, but then they have a ‘Grogu’ which is what everyone calls baby Yoda.

I've definitely seen those characters because they're so frequently referenced in pop culture, but I don't think I have any sort of in-depth knowledge about them. I really need to watch the Star Wars series.

All right. Before it gets even more complex, let me drag you out of the plot a little bit. Let's talk about the whole fandom thing. Is it true that you kind of pick a side like in the very beginning I ask you quick question, Star Wars or Star Trek. Is that a thing that people generally gravitate towards one or the other?

When it comes to the bigger geeks within the 2 groups, they typically choose a side, one is the best to them. Now there are people who like both, I like both, I can't really say one is better. I view them as being too entirely different types of genres.

But when it comes to the fans like there are groups that are on one side, there's like an animosity that's between them, like one of the biggest things, one of the biggest jokes that happened was when like the first set of prequels for Star Wars came out, there was a bunch of people waiting to see the first movie in their costumes, they are lined up for weeks to get tickets. And one of the Tonight Show hosts gets a guy dressed up as Spock go mess with them. It was quite funny, but you can just see kind of like the animosity when the 2 groups kind of collide.

I see, like a geek off situation.

Yeah.

I see. And sometimes at those conventions, you can see people fighting with this like a sword, but it's like a light. Is that called a Light Saber?

Yeah. So in the movies, they have the Light Sabers, right? That's what the Jedi and the Sith used to fight each other. Now they started to make really good versions of these ones that will light it up and you can actually fight with them quite good. And so you'll get people who have Light Saber dueling competitions. People will create like choreographed kind of kata or something like that where they put together a show.

That does sound very geeky! That's a maximum geekiness. Do you own a Light Saber? Honestly.

I think I still have a few from when I was younger. I don't have one of the really nice ones that they've made in recent years, but...

Like the rudimentary one.

When the prequel series, yeah, they had some ones that came out that you could use. There are more toyish than anything else but they were still really good, you could fight with them quite well. I think I still have some in my mom's house or something, but I haven't seen them for years.

I see, I see. The other thing is they actually do have their own fan films, right?

Yeah. One of the guys I worked with before he created his own fan film, his acting was really terrible, but some of them they build these elaborate sets. They'll actually hire some of the actors from the original series to come be like a side part in their show, maybe even for just a minute. It's quite interesting.

That is a lot of devotion, I'll give you that.

OK. I think we're gonna wrap up here. It certainly sounds very interesting, and to people who will identify as geeks out there, I mean, absolutely no disrespect. I don't even think I qualify as a geek because I don't know a lot of these, but I'm definitely a nerd in some way. So I'm always very interested in people who have their hobbies and then they go into it.

Thank you, Brad, for coming to the show and educating me and our audience about a little bit more about geekdom.

No problem.

All right. And if you have anything to say about these two big series, leave us a comment in the comment section. Thank you, Brad, for coming to the show.

No problem. See you next time.

See you next time. Bye.

Bye everyone.