--- description: Michael Kaplan, the costume designer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, has also worked with J.J. Abrams on his two rebooted Star Trek films. title: This Will Give You a Whole New Perspective on Star Wars vs. Star Trek image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltaf0e4a6bc4f1506c/698873ce196cf4416a0394c0/star-wars-star-trek.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Entertainment](/section/entertainment/) ## Entertainment Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [movies](/tag/movies/) ## movies Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # This Will Give You a Whole New Perspective on _Star Wars_ Versus _Star Trek_ by [TIME Staff](/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Dec 7, 2015 1:00 PM CUT  Star Wars: Episode VII (L); Star Trek: Into Darkness Star Wars: Episode VII (L); Star Trek: Into DarknessLucasfilm (L); Paramount Pictures by [TIME Staff](/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Dec 7, 2015 1:00 PM CUT Michael Kaplan, the costume designer for _Star Wars: The Force Awakens_, has also worked with director J.J. Abrams on other projects, including 2009’s _Star Trek_ and 2013’s _Star Trek Into Darkness_. During a recent conversation with Lev Grossman for TIME’s recent [cover story](http://time.com/4134371/how-j-j-abrams-brought-back-star-wars/ "undefined"), Kaplan offered his take on how the worlds of the two cult franchises differ. **TIME: I wonder if you could compare and contrast the feel of the costumes in the** **_Star Trek_** **universe with the feel of them in the** **_Star Wars_** **universe because those two worlds feel very different to me and I’m wondering if the clothes are part of it.** Kaplan: They’re very different. _Star Wars_ is a fantasy and _Star Trek_ is science fiction, and each has a very strong iconography and I think they’re very separate. On both films I had to discard really good ideas because they seemed as though they had come from the other world. We’d look at something and say, “no, that’s much too _Star Wars_,” when I was on _Star Trek_ or vice versa. I think _Star Trek_ has bit of a cool, mod pop sensibility, probably because of the time it was created, and _Star Wars_ is much more gritty and earthier, and definitely epic. **It’s funny,** **_Star Wars_** **is so much its own world and its own universe, and yet it’s also a period piece; it came out of the 1970s. Fashion has changed so much since the first** **_Star Wars_** **movie was made. Did fashions in the real world influence the kind of clothes, the way you dressed the characters in the** **_Star Wars_** **world? I mean, we come into the theater with different expectations of what we’ll see. Did you have to sort of fit it into the 2015 kind of universe?** Not really because it is a fantasy. It doesn’t have to fit into any universe except the universe we now know as the _Star Wars_ universe. That wasn’t the case when the original movies were being made, but now it’s become so iconic. I think the underlying 1970s style is so integral in the original three movies that I tried to inject that feeling into this new film. So in a strange way I’ve kind of taken that as part of the iconography, and in 2015 I’m kind of taking that fantasy 70s feeling and trying to hold onto that. **Read next:** * [Here’s How Adam Driver Learned to Master the Dark Side](http://time.com/4129579/adam-driver-masters-dark-side-star-wars-the-force-awakens/?xid=tcoshare "undefined") * [Gwendoline Christie on Why Her _Star Wars_ Costume Is a ‘Step Forward’ for Women](http://time.com/4129483/gwendoline-christie-star-wars-the-force-awakens-captain-phasma-costume/ "undefined") * [The 10 Most Fascinating _Star Wars: The Force Awakens_ Fan Theories](http://time.com/4116403/star-wars-force-awakens-fan-theories/ "undefined") ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4132822/michael-kaplan-costumes-star-wars-vs-star-trek/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4132822/michael-kaplan-costumes-star-wars-vs-star-trek/"},"headline":"This Will Give You a Whole New Perspective on Star Wars Versus Star Trek","datePublished":"2015-12-07T13:00:37.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T13:02:54.399Z","description":"\"Star Wars is a fantasy and Star Trek is science fiction\"","url":"https://time.com/4132822/michael-kaplan-costumes-star-wars-vs-star-trek/","keywords":["movies","Star Wars topic","Star Trek","costumes","films","J.J. 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