Arguably, Star Trek is less political. Picard never violently overthrows the Federation. Q never massacres entire planets. Janeway doesn’t practice literal mind control. The equivalent of all of those is done in both Star Wars and Dune, often by the protagonists.
Edit: Chill out guys. I wasn’t claiming Trek isn’t political. Obviously it is. Sometimes it very much is. My thinking was just that (usually, not always) the show is usually self contained episodically, and deals with everything from natural phenomenon, science, philosophy, exploration, law, and, of course at times, politics. Star Wars and Dune are just often more directly dealing with massive scale political conflicts. Not that Trek doesn’t sometimes too, it’s just not its main thing.
Well, the main characters don’t. But the topics are there. The Federation is technically overthrown or almost a couple of times. Powerful space dude does annihilate an entire species with a single thought. Protagonists are brainwashed or mind-controlled themselves. And Sisko CAN live with it.
If you listen to trek pod, I urge you to check out greatest gen. The 2 guys who run it both worked in film, and then they sort of fell into having a successful trek podcast that involves both incisive takes and dick and fart jokes. The character who kills an entire species in that TNG episode gets a lot of air time on the pod as both hosts do imitations of what they think he’d say in a variety of situations.
And he never helps establish android human rights assists in Klingon transfers of power or aids space indians. Sisko certainly never leads a war against an evil Federation or bring cold adversaries into that war. And Archer never creates a united Federation of species that mostly hate each other. Oh wait a second, yes they all do
I would argue with the implication that the degree to which a story is political is gauged by how violent (in the broad sense) the political actions are. Something can be extremely pacifistic or extremely democratic for example. In star trek you have a tremendous numer of stories where non-violent political actions like diplomacy, legislation, or legal argument are the main focus of the story and hugely consequential, for an entire people, an entire species, or the entire galaxy.
Arguably, Star Trek is less political. Picard never violently overthrows the Federation. Q never massacres entire planets. Janeway doesn’t practice literal mind control. The equivalent of all of those is done in both Star Wars and Dune, often by the protagonists.
Edit: Chill out guys. I wasn’t claiming Trek isn’t political. Obviously it is. Sometimes it very much is. My thinking was just that (usually, not always) the show is usually self contained episodically, and deals with everything from natural phenomenon, science, philosophy, exploration, law, and, of course at times, politics. Star Wars and Dune are just often more directly dealing with massive scale political conflicts. Not that Trek doesn’t sometimes too, it’s just not its main thing.
Well, the main characters don’t. But the topics are there. The Federation is technically overthrown or almost a couple of times. Powerful space dude does annihilate an entire species with a single thought. Protagonists are brainwashed or mind-controlled themselves. And Sisko CAN live with it.
I must have missed that episode?
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/The_Survivors_(episode)
If you listen to trek pod, I urge you to check out greatest gen. The 2 guys who run it both worked in film, and then they sort of fell into having a successful trek podcast that involves both incisive takes and dick and fart jokes. The character who kills an entire species in that TNG episode gets a lot of air time on the pod as both hosts do imitations of what they think he’d say in a variety of situations.
https://maximumfun.org/episodes/greatest-generation/ep-50-space-weasel-s2e3/
Q may not have massacred a whole planet, but Kevin wiped out the entire Husnock race.
Picard totally makes the heads explode of some admirals that had been taken over.
Janeway literally fights Nazis and murders Tuvix.
Oh, right. That scene…
And he never helps establish android human rights assists in Klingon transfers of power or aids space indians. Sisko certainly never leads a war against an evil Federation or bring cold adversaries into that war. And Archer never creates a united Federation of species that mostly hate each other. Oh wait a second, yes they all do
I would argue with the implication that the degree to which a story is political is gauged by how violent (in the broad sense) the political actions are. Something can be extremely pacifistic or extremely democratic for example. In star trek you have a tremendous numer of stories where non-violent political actions like diplomacy, legislation, or legal argument are the main focus of the story and hugely consequential, for an entire people, an entire species, or the entire galaxy.