Marc Scott Zicree, Screenwriter/Author: Star Wars has a very limited bag of tricks. It's like
there's the good guys, the Jedi Knights and the bad guys…
Film Courage: Why do you like Star Trek better than Star Wars?
Marc: The reason I like Star Trek better than Star Wars, there are actually two answers to that.
I was 10 years old when Star Trek debuted and that was the perfect age for me to encounter that
amazing universe. I sometimes joke that other people love heroin, I have Star Trek . It was
like it was the thing I’ve been waiting for and I just loved it and it's been hugely influential
in my life. Star Wars on the other hand came out when I was in my early 20s and so if I'd been 13
years old when Star Wars came out that would have been my Star Trek you know and but it was just I
was just a little too old for it to engage me in a way that would have really been hugely meaningful
I liked it I thought it was a very very good film but but also I like the Star Trek universe
better I think it has a lot more opportunity for a wide variety of stories I think it's
much more able to comment on issues of the moment you know Star Trek was deliberately written
like twilight zone these were Gene Roddenberry and rod sterling were both men who had a lot to say
about race about social issues about war and and they said it and I think Star Wars is much more
kind of a escapist entertainment I think it comes from a very different place but again it's not for
me to bad mouth anything i'm glad the Mandalorian has been successful I think the more recent Star
Wars films were problematical because they kind of didn't really know where they were going and
would go two steps to the left two steps to the right and then you know walk into a wall
you know so it was like I feel very sad about that because it could have been better and I i think
there's a problem when people decide that they're going to go deviate from what's expected and go
in the exact opposite direction because often it doesn't create good art it just creates chaos
so I think you have to be very careful of why you're doing making certain creative choices
because they if they don't follow the emotional line then you're not going to engage in audience
and also an audience that feels a very huge part of ownership yeah and the story and the characters
and that's and that but the funny thing is the audience's ownership of something
is a fine line to walk because you don't want to just give them what they want because then
you're just reiterating the same old story what you want is to give them emotionally something
that's satisfying but also opens the universe wider does something that they haven't seen before
but in an emotionally satisfying way so for instance when I came up with the idea for far
beyond the stars for deep space nine it took us into the world of 1950s science fiction writers
which was something Star Trek had never done but it showed the audience where we came from
why science fiction was important why telling your truth is important and it dealt with race in a
very powerful way and I was very very glad that episode sold and got made and people are still
complimenting me on it 20 years later people often don't know what they'll love until they see it
you know and so it's like Star Wars you know if if they tried to describe Star Wars before people saw
it I don't think people would have understood what it was going to be because it sounded like crap
you know this guy travels around with this big hairy creature and you know and then there's
this guy in a mask and he's the villain and he's you know it would sound like oh wow and
you know I want to be a Jedi Knight it's like oh goodness but then you see it
and what made Star Wars great was that it was a visualization of everything we'd been
reading in science fiction for decades but had never been visualized that well
and so that's what set it apart it wasn't that it was enormously original it was that it was
transferring to film what had been we've been reading about forever but I'd never seen on
film so that was what made it so exciting you know flying through the asteroid belt and all
those wonderful things the laser battles and you name it it was it was great fun it's one of the
most entertaining films ever made so yeah what do you think the new Star Wars trilogy got wrong
that's a hard one it wasn't for lack of trying because I know JJ Abrams and I know
he loves Star Wars and I think he was afraid of of blowing it but but he certainly put everything
he had into it and he certainly did a lot of things right I mean the you know building a
full-size millennium falcon for instance but um
star wars has a very limited bag of tricks it's like there's the good guys the Jedi Knights and
the bad guys the the new order or or you know the the whatever you know it's like good guys
versus bad guys and the bad guys have a weapon and they're gonna blow something up and you know
it's like it's so difficult and because you and then Mandalorian has expanded that a bit they
put a baby in it Baby Yoda but you know it's just there's so many ways I mean I thought I thought
jj was very clever with his version of Star Trek a lot of people are down on that version but I think
he actually did a very good job of bringing it alive again and finding a way of reinventing it
but with Star Wars it's like who are those people who is who is a Kylo Ren who is
you know I mean he kills Harrison Ford we're never going to forgive him for that I mean it's not like
Darth Vader comes around at last and saves his son which is a great story arc it's like Kylo
Ren put the lightsaber through Harrison Ford and he fell down and he was dead you know it's like
you know you it doesn't go somewhere that you want it to go I don't care if Rey and Kylo Ren are
drawn to each other I don't know who those people are you know and they're like they're like less
interesting versions of the characters that we started with you know with Luke and Leia and Han
it's like you don't I mean like Poe Dameron who is that guy why do we I mean I like the actors very
much I think the actors generally are extremely good but it's just you know where where are you
going you know it and and then so it basically the first move goes like this then the second movie
goes like that and then they try and jam it back this way it doesn't it doesn't flow it doesn't pay
off well at all it's just weak storytelling and but but again when you view a property as a cash
cow then you just try to get your best people and try and hope that one out of every three or four
will click and because that keeps the franchise alive and it's a cynical way of looking at things
and certainly not creative but it's a machine it's factory but that doesn't mean you can't get great
Star Wars stories or great Star Trek stories or any of this stuff some you know it's like
each time out it's the luck of the draw it's not that people are trying to create crap they aren't
they're trying to really do a great job and if it fails it's it's it fails simply because what they
tried or the direction they went didn't didn't pay off I think you know Kevin Feige's done a
great job with the marvel universe he's made a lot of great great films i'm not a huge fan of
marvel but I recognize the artistry of what he's done you need someone at the top of the food chain
who really kind of has a vision whether that's Rod Serling or Gene Roddenberry whomever you need that
person who kind of keeps it on track and it's hard to find those people they're very rare if
you were put in charge of the Star Wars trilogy how would you have approached it I would have
tried my best to make it good no I mean here's my real feeling about Star Wars in terms of
speaking as a creative artist I think the truly the structure of the first trilogy is very solid
and but the Ewoks by the time he got return of the Jedi George Lucas decided he was making films for
children not broad-based family entertainment in other words as an adult there's a certain adult
quality to the first two films that the third film with the Ewoks and all that it's like let's make
some teddy bears let's let's make some products and then when he went to the prequels he needed
you know he was writing them he needed a writer who was solid he needed to bring in a strong
writer because this the basics of the story you know the fact that that the best Jedi becomes
evil and is and then ultimately rises to the occasion to save his son those first six films
that structure is really interesting but the telling of it was very poor and so first of all it
was as I say they were films for children and they were kind of silly but also the writing was really
poor the dialogue was really poor the design stuff was great my friend Ian Mckay designed Darth Maul
but but they but also when you when you're thinking of it all as something that's going to
help sell toys then you're not thinking oh well look here's this great character Darth
Maul why don't we give him a personality and why don't we have him continue longer in the show
in the you know in the series of films he was great when ray park is fighting two guys off
with you know with one lightsaber you know it's astonishing when he I mean he's great and they
cut him in two I would have had him you know stuck back together and come on back you know it's but
but I think there's a lot of weird vibes in the in those first three films it's like
hey look you're a 10 year old kid and i'm going to marry you in the next movie it's like holy cow
here's a babysitter and then you you know next thing you know you're in bed with him it's like
what you know it just gives you a creepy feeling you know and and also of course
that kid couldn't really act much and you know so it's just lost opportunity.
Question
For The Viewers: Star Wars or Star Trek?