I’ve always been a Star Wars fan. My first time in a movie theater was watching Episode III with my dad and my brother. That movie and the PS1 SW games shaped my childhood within the Star Wars universe. Years later, I watched the original trilogy and fell in love all over again. A thrilling story, marvelous special effects, and the thing that left the biggest mark on me: the struggle between good (Jedi) and evil (Empire).

Later on, “The Mouse” bought the franchise, and since then, my relationship with the Star Wars universe has been one of love and hate, with many more shades of hate. The new trilogy (sequel?) is a festival of horrors script-wise, a sign of disrespect toward the entire established legacy, and shows a glaring lack of connection between the films themselves. At least Rogue One and Andor are diamonds amidst all the muck created by Disney. In fact, I only have two chapters left to finish Andor, and it’s something my subconscious is postponing just to enjoy the ride and not end up orphaned from quality material in this world that I love so much. I also dedicated a good chunk of my life to the MMO The Old Republic, which made me hate Disney even more and love the old Legacy canon even deeper.

That said, I obviously knew about the Star Trek vs. Star Wars feud. I know it’s a fight that has existed since the first movie of Luke Skywalker’s universe came out, and it’s something that continues to this day on the various subreddits of life. But I confess that beyond the figures of Spock and Kirk, and the Vulcan salute, I knew nothing about the Trekker universe. I also knew there were some recent movies, but I couldn’t tell you which ones, how they were, or even name a single actor in them.

Until now.

In a brief moment of delirium last week, I “acquired” (doesn’t matter how) the first season of Star Trek: The Original Series. I couldn’t tell you what motivated me to watch it; it wasn’t on my to-do list, and never had been. I simply “acquired” season one. To start off on the right foot, I did a little research to curate the episodes, and one of the main “must-watch” entries is the famous Balance of Terror (in Italian, where I currently live, it’s called Navicella Invisibile, that is, “The Invisible Spaceship”).

In this episode, we see an intellectual confrontation involving the Captain of the Enterprise, James T. Kirk, who discovers that a Romulan warship is destroying Federation outposts along the Neutral Zone using a cloaking device, which renders the Romulan ship invisible (thank you for the literalness, Italian translator who chose the episode title). Kirk must track and face the invisible Romulan commander in a tense game of cat and mouse that is reminiscent of submarine warfare.

Accustomed to space battles, rebels, X-Wings, clones, etc., seeing a “battle” that was purely intellectual between two extremely similar captains made me realize just how well-written this series was, and this was back in ‘66/‘67. Rarely have I seen the writing in Star Wars shine; I know the charm is feeling like you are “in the stars,” not the script itself. But what Star Trek was doing back in the beginning is, at the very least, enviable. And the ending… I don’t want to spoil it, but it features one of the best lines I’ve ever seen on television:

“I regret that we meet in this way. You and I are of a kind. In a different reality, I could have called you friend.”

Wow. That was a great first impression. Following that, I watched the chapter featuring the first appearance of the villain Khan. Another masterpiece. I watched another episode, this one about time travel where Kirk and Spock have to go back to rescue Doctor McCoy (Bones). My God, the ending of that episode is sad as hell; I can’t believe something like that was made in the late 60s. I always had the impression that back then everything was very “silly,” perhaps influenced by my reading of Silver Age DC comics (Flash).

Anyway, I intend to continue this journey into the stars. It’s like I say: if I haven’t seen it, it’s new. So I am taking this walk with patience, and I believe I’m feeling (even if to a lesser degree) a bit of the sensation of having seen this in the United States back when it was first released.

“The final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its 5-year mission: To explore strange new worlds, To seek out new life and new civilizations, To boldly go where no man has gone before.”