Lord of the Rings vs Star Wars

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Nice to see my thread revived after 3 months. What did you think of my comparison?

[opinion]

I personally prefer the Star Wars movies (minus Ewoks and Jar Jar Binks) because they feel more unique and original.

However, this is likely due to the fact that The Lord of The Rings suffers from a textbook case of the "Seinfeld is unfunny" trope.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... dIsUnfunny

The LOTR books were published in 1954 - 1955, and the latest incarnation of movie adaptions (Peter Jackson) started in 2001.

In the meantime, just about everything in the books has been exploited, adapted, reinterpreted etc., most famously by Gary Gygax in the Dungeons & Dragons franchise (DnD even had to change "hobbit" to halfling for copyright reasons").

For instance, Gandalf and Saruman are supposed to be über-powerful wizards, but in comparison with Elminister (a Gandalf clone) from The Forgotten Realms and Raistlin Majere from Dragonlance, they are incredibly weak. And orcs (pretty much invented by Tolkien), elves and dwarves are such core components in Fantasy nowadays that people would be surprised if they were absent.

For me, this makes the LOTR movies somewhat boring.

I think that Star Wars has kept more of its originality because (1) it is a more recent franchise and (2) because the aggressive trademark policy of LucasArts has kept tight reins on the key elements of the franchise: The Force and Lightsabers.

Of course, the original Star Wars movies could end up falling victim to the same trope as well. For instance, the lightsaber battles in the first 3 movies are quite mundane compared to Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan vs. Darth Maul and Joda vs. Dooku. Similarly, the most extravagant display of the Force in the original movies - Palpatine's lightning - is rather meh compared to displays of the Force in the Star Wars novels and games.

Oh, and Darth Vader is consistently rated as one of the greatest movie villains of all time, while LOTR seems to lack "really" iconic characters.

[/opinion]

Though I prefer Lord of the Rings they both have 3 things in common:
Amazing original trilogy
Not as good prequel one
Massive fan bases
I think Star Wars is more remembered because of it's wider demographic and somewhat simpler story while Lord of the Rings has a huge backstory to it that can create confusion among less informed or younger audiences.
Harry Potter has been built by Universal, Star Wars is being built by Disney and we are still waiting for the theme park rights of Middle Earth to be given.

I like both film franchises, their soundtracks, and their characters and I admit that the prequel trilogies of them don't have the same quality as the original trilogies. Personally, I prefer Lord of the Rings because I find them more adventurous and more eventful than Star Wars since the Lord of the Rings films are longer than Star Wars films.

Like Star Wars more due to Darth Vader, Boba Fett, Han Solo, Chewbacca, and the expanded universe stuff that is now Legends. Star Wars always has a feeling of being able to tell any kind of stories in the setting, where as Lord of the Rings doesn't feel like that. It has also been used for nearly every Fantasy trope around, while Star Wars has been less copied. You hear references to stories being epic like LotR but stories rarely get mentioned as being more than similar to Star Wars.

LotR has been copied in endless forms by different authors while Star Wars has rarely been copied but some stories have been written set in the setting. New movies aspire to be the new Star Wars, but this rarely applies to LotR since it happens so much with a new fantasy being epic like it or just as fantasy.

To be completely honest, I kinda of prefer Ron Howard's (Not the guy from happy days) Conan stories, especially since LotR has been copied so much that it has stop being LotR to me. It is not original that much anymore.

I prefer LoTR over SW, which is not to denigrate G.Lucas' Magnum Opus, but to say that I was familiar with Middle Earth by the time G.Lucas was working on his first draft of THX-1138.

I waited nearly 50 years to see LoTR come to life, and it was well worth the wait!

Star Wars lost my interest when the father-son relationship between the Skywalkers got sappy.

LotR

I pretty strongly prefer Star Wars, the movies are way shorter and less heavy. If LOTR came out now I probably wouldn't be able to watch it, I saw them in theaters when I was a kid so I didn't have much of a choice but to sit there and watch it. Star Wars I can rewatch over and over again, I can just have it on tv and enjoy it. I've never been into wizards and dragons and stuff like that too much either, I just thought Star Wars was cooler. I would say the LOTR was better written tho and there is more to dislike about in Star Wars(ewoks, Jaja, Episode 1) as opposed to Tolkien's classic novel.

Why there is not an option for both?

Well, the point was to compare the two, so you can like both but you're supposed to choose the one that you prefer.

I started this thread 2 years and I didn't get any notification that someone had recently replied to it. I guess that subscriptions to most threads on the old WP site must of been canceled due to the migration. I see that Lord of the Rings is still in the lead though, even after the new votes.

Lord of the Rings could be in the lead partially because of the recent Hobbit movies. Last Star Wars is already 10 years ago. Maybe things will change when the new Star Wars movies arrive.
(I haven't voted yet, still on the fence)

I only intended to compare the original Star Wars trilogy with the main Lord of the Rings trilogy. Though I guess that now that all the Hobbit movies are out, you can compare the Hobbit trilogy with the Star Wars prequels. When the Star Wars sequel trilogy comes out, there will not be a third trilogy in the Lord of the Rings franchise to compare it with, so I don't think that you can have a fair comparison of all nine Star Wars films with the LotR franchise. If you choose a specific trilogy in each franchise, then that allows for a more direct comparison.

^^^ I think that most people will see "Star Wars vs LotR" as the whole franchise rather than specific movies. Some people like one, some the other, and some like both. There is probably quite a bit of overlap in LotR, Star Wars and even Star Trek.

This thread brings to mind the argument between Randal and a customer about Star Wars vs. Lord Of The Rings , in Clerks II. The customer becomes so emotionally embroiled in the argument that he vomits.

I still have to see the Clerks movies, I only saw Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, which has princess Leia as a nun.

Oh that. I saw a clip of that exact scene on Youtube a while back. It's pretty funny but the sexual puns make me a bit nauseous though: