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The brothers Hanson are notoriously chatty.
“We’re just very verbal,” singer Taylor Hanson explains to AOL Music Blog as his younger brother, drummer Zac, continues to barrel through a rant about the eternal geek battle between Star Wars and Star Trek. “He just likes to riff. We get in this talking mode.”
We’re still not sure how it all happened. One minute, we were interviewing the pop/rock/soul trio and “MMMBop” troubadours about the recent release of their latest album, Shout It Out, on Canadian shores and about Carly Rae Jepsen.
The next we made one innocent remark about nerds. Guitarist and eldest Hanson, Isaac, said that he was one, and used his love of Star Wars as an example of the depths of said nerdness.
“But are Star Wars fans really that nerdy?” we made the mistake of asking.
“That’s just because Star Trek isn’t as cool as Star Wars!” Zac retorted. “It’s not because they’re any less nerdy.”
And just like that, he was off. The drummer spent the next five minutes lecturing us about the finer points Trek vs. Wars, the only aliens he will accept from the Trek-verse, and the superiority of the light saber. Isaac occasionally interjected. Taylor, for the record, didn’t care about any of this and desperately tried to get his brothers to actually talk about their music.
In honor of May the Fourth, and its being with you-ness, here is the full Hanson gospel on everyone’s favorite Star franchises:
Why do you like Star Wars over Star Trek?
Isaac Hanson: It’s just because light sabers are really cool.
Zac Hanson: Let’s be honest. When was the last time somebody was like, “You know what? I really want a phaser!” What they say is, “I want a laser gun.” You know? “I want a blaster!”
OK? A blaster’s cooler than a phaser. A lightsaber’s cooler than “beam me up, Scotty,” that’s really all it is. If you look at the outfits of Star Trek, compare them to the outfits in Star Wars. Like, you’ve got Storm Trooper versus Klingons. You know what? You’ve got a wrinkly butt face. You’ve got awesome blaster armor, that’s pretty cool.
Isaac: Ferengi are by far the more unusual looking ones. The giant ears and the spiky teeth.
Zac: Yeah, but they’re later. I mean, I don’t count.
So are you talking about pure, original Star Trek? Or are you going into Star Trek: The Next Generation?
Zac: Next Generation. I think anything past Next Generation starts to get to be… Like, with Star Wars, are we really going to include the Clone Wars cartoon when we talk about Star Wars? To me, once you get past the Next Generation, you start to get into extended Star Trek lore.
So your Star Trek characters end with the Borg, then.
Zac: I’m just saying, once you get past that point, I think you get into Clone Wars cartoon saga.
How do you feel about the JJ Abrams reboot, then?
Isaac: The Star Trek movie that they just did is pretty bad ass.
Zac: I was pretty disappointed.
Isaac: You were?
Zac: I think they took everything up a notch except for the actual sci-fi quality of the greater storyline. As far as the storyline and especially the bad guy, whatever his name was, he felt like was a character from an episode. Maybe a three-part episode, right? But the rest of the movie felt like they were trying to go “We’re really going to step up the look and feel of everything” but they just didn’t quite get there.
It wasn’t epic enough for you.
Zac: No!
Isaac: I think Zac thinks too hard.
Zac: You have a mining vessel that will destroy the world? A mine ship? Like really? It couldn’t be a stolen warship of some sort? Like, it’s a mining vessel? So you’re telling me that any crazy miner in the world that’s mining ore off of an asteroid…
Isaac: It was special mining stuff. There was a reason! Anyway…
Zac: You’re telling me in the future any miner is going to be able to destroy the entire world? I’ll keep watching them. I thought the general level of production was great, and the acting was generally great. I just thought the story arc wasn’t any better than your average episode. Generally, the episodes are pretty solid. But I thought, for the movie, I should really feel the arc was…
Isaac: A little bit more complicated?
Zac: Yeah. It’s a mining ship! It’s like an oil derrick in the middle of the ocean is suddenly able to destroy the globe.
Isaac: Zac, but if the Exxon Valdez came full tilt into Manhattan island with an explosive device on it, it could probably do some serious damage.
Zac: Well, if it…
Are you even halfway this passionate about your new album?
Zac: I am equally. Doubly.