{"id":14120,"date":"2013-12-17T21:33:36","date_gmt":"2013-12-18T02:33:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/?p=14120"},"modified":"2014-01-16T16:12:01","modified_gmt":"2014-01-16T21:12:01","slug":"seven-of-nine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/?p=14120","title":{"rendered":"Seven of nine"},"content":{"rendered":"

As many have pointed out, Star Wars and Star Trek represent opposite ends of an American pop-cultural dialectic. Whereas Star Wars is serious, Star Trek is jokey. Whereas Star Wars is fundamentally religious, Star Trek is decidedly secular. One could create a long list of such oppositions.<\/p>\n

But only this week did it occur to me that these differences are embedded in the very names of the characters. Here are a few names from each, together with notes on likely influences or meanings:
\n
 <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Star Wars:<\/b><\/p>\n
Name: <\/p>\n\nSuggests:<\/p>\n
Luke Skywalker <\/p>\n\nOne who strolls among the stars<\/p>\n
Leia <\/p>\n\nLei + Geia (Hawaiian princess as earth goddess)<\/p>\n
Han Solo <\/p>\n\nExotic loner<\/p>\n
Yoda <\/p>\n\nYoga + Buddha<\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
Star Trek:<\/b><\/p>\n
Name: <\/p>\n\nSuggests:<\/p>\n
McCoy <\/p>\n\n“The real McCoy” — an honest guy<\/p>\n
Scotty <\/p>\n\nA guy from Scotland<\/p>\n
Chekov <\/p>\n\nA guy from Russia<\/p>\n
Uhura <\/p>\n\nA gal from Africa<\/p>\n
Spock <\/p>\n\nAn guy from Outer Space
\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n

As you can see, Star Wars names are all about exotic mysticism, whereas Star Trek names are about a bunch of regular folks hanging out and getting along, despite their ethnic diversity.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, the original meaning of “Kirk” is “Church”, so I could be wrong about all this. Besides, it’s not as though the same person will ever direct a movie in each of these fictional worlds. One human being could never be permitted to have that much power.<\/p>\n

In any case, if there were another Star Wars movie, it would be seven of nine, which everyone knows is part of the Star Trek universe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As many have pointed out, Star Wars and Star Trek represent opposite ends of an American pop-cultural dialectic. Whereas Star Wars is serious, Star Trek is jokey. Whereas Star Wars is fundamentally religious, Star Trek is decidedly secular. One could create a long list of such oppositions. But only this week did it occur to … Continue reading “Seven of nine”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14120"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14120"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14319,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14120\/revisions\/14319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}