what do you mean when you mean "surpassed"? Fanbase, or movies? dollars grossed? What?

Star Wars will and always will have more "fans" in general, just because its SO much easier to get hooked into Star Wars. You can see it in a 6 year old kid's eyes, the second he sees a lightsaber. From that point on, he's hooked.

Star Wars has everything a kid wants. Space Samurai (Jedi), Space Ninjas (Sith), Space Pirates (han solo); its got the formula for epic down pat, AND the lightsaber holds the same mystique as the Japanese Katana of yore.

So casual star wars fans will always surpass the number of casual star trek fans. Hands down.

Star Trek doesn't have the same charm as Star Wars, to be honest. But I can argue that they have more hardcore fans, and as far as STUFF, Star Trek has a way bigger universe. Star Wars has 6 movies, and maybe 2 TV shows about the clone wars.

Star Trek has TOS, TNG, DS9, Voyager, ENT, and a cartoon series to boot. So that's 5 TV series just by itself, PLUS 6 TOS movies, 4 TNG movies, and now this reboot movie.

Even if Star Trek died right this moment, George Lucas would still have to pump out 4 more movies plus 4 more TV series to even match the amount of TV/Film of the star trek universe.

Star Trek is definitely a good movie, but there is little to no chance that it will outgross Star Wars... although it is possible. The highest grossing movie in the U.S, Titanic started with less but people kept on seeing it and seeing it.. was the #1 movie for 6 months I believe.

and even titanic didn't come close to passing Star Wars in ticket sales. only Gone With the Wind had more.

No.Also there is a Star Wars TV show coming next year I think covering gaps of the story or something like that.

No.

Star Trek would probably win in a universe on universe fight though if that makes you feel better.

Star Trek was never really going for popularity anyway. (until this new one.)

It was a show meant to teach or reinfoce peoples beliefs and be a social commentary while being popular enough to keep on the air.

Well actually Voyager and Enterprise also were short on the social commentary.

No, that won't happen. As much as I love Star Trek, Star Wars is just, like somebody already said, a cultural phenomenom.

I would love it, though, if this new movie is popular enough to spawn another tv series! I'd watch it in an instant.

just seen the new film, it was really good, i was very impressed

I also don't believe it will ever beat star wars in popularity. Still, i can see it now, with this new movie star trek is on it's way to being at least comparable to star wars in popularity because right now star wars is a couple dozen light years more popular. A new series is definitely possible although i dont think it'll happen until after at least 1 sequel. But even so i dont think it needs to. Movies these days are what gets a franchise to become a cultural phenomenon and tv series are just a symptom of that status, generally.

Star Trek is a more psychological/dramatic universe than is the Star Wars universe. Star Wars is a brilliant world that mirrors our past in a future setting. Star Trek on the other hand is more about progression. It's about the future's future. It deals with more controversial issues and questions humanities current state and asks: where is it going? In this aspect i actually like star trek better, it's more mature i guess. But Star Trek isn't as fun. It has less factors or niche's than Star Wars. About both the scope of both their universes i'd have to argue that it's much closer to a toss up. You shouldnt measure the size of their respective universe by tallying up their media library(films, series, books, games). I agree maybe star trek is larger but only slightly. The star wars universe goes far beyond the films and tv shows or lack there of. Video games have greatly expanded the star wars universe both 1000s of years in the past and hundreds in the future. And many of the backstories these games are based on have been recorded either previous to the games or after the factin the form of literature, so they definitely need to be accounted for.

Well also it depends on what you consider popularity. I'd argue that while it has less fans there are probably more Star Trek Ubernerds then Star Wars Ubernerds.

One of my favorite things used to be to look up "Star wars vs Star Trek" and watch people argue which universe would win in a fight.

Another good one is "Wolverine VS" pretty much no matter what you put in... like say Darth Vader. Someone will claim wolverine will win.

@Kasz216

Based on the number of conventions devoted to star wars and the number of people that attend them i'd have to say star wars has more hardcore fans.

Someone else said the same thing earlier in the post, idk maybe i'm missing something. Perhaps you're really arguing the intensity of star trek nerds devotion to the franchise vs. Star wars nerds devotion? If that's the case i might be inclined to say star trek wins there. I mean people learn whole fictitious languages and such.