The Star Wars vs Star Trek debate has been raging for literal decades now. Fans have pitted the science fiction powerhouses against one another since Star Wars: A New Hope emerged onto the scene back in 1977. After all these years, the subjective conflict is still going strong, even though it seems to have gotten less vitriolic over time, with plenty of fans switching teams or simply enjoying the best of both universes.
While fans may have found a compromise, some of the big names attached the franchises still firmly occupy their respective camps. One Twitter user reached out to William Shatner about whether or not the 92-year-old would consider making an appearance in any of the Star Wars offerings slated for the upcoming year, and Captain Kirk laid it out perfectly.
It would be blasphemy for Captain Kirk to venture onto a Star Wars set after his many long years defending the integrity of Star Fleet. At Comic Con 2022, Shatner acknowledge that he owed his career to his tenure in Star Trek — though he doesn’t really care for the direction the series is going right now. Its not the only thing Shatner doesn’t care for. When an audience member asked him how he felt about the direction the rival series was going Shatner quipped, “F*ck Star Wars… But not Mark Hamill. We love Mark Hamill.”
The two sci-fi icons have a long history of gently barbing each other over their continued devotion to the respective franchises that made them household names. In one of the most iconic overlaps, Hamill’s son congratulated his father on 40 years of Star Trek in 2017.
The comment was clearly in jest, and Shatner was quick to jump on the exchange.
For his part, Hamill doesn’t subscribe to the rivalry between the two franchises. He told MensJournal back in 2020 that he feels comparing the two is like apples to oranges. “You can like either or both, or none of them.” We have to admire his cool composure when to comes to pitting the two science fiction staples against one another, but at the end of the day it’s incredibly gratifying to see Shatner boldly go where Hamill won’t. After all these years, Shatner is still the brash Captain Kirk, while Hamill walks the passive path of a Jedi master.