Lord of the Rings vs Star Wars

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I see there is already a thread comparing Harry Potter and Star Wars. However, since Star Wars is now made up of a film saga of 2 trilogies, the original trilogy and prequel trilogy, and Lord of the Rings plus The Hobbit is soon to be 2 two trilogies, I thought why not compare the two? Especially given that Peter Jackson's adaptations of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings have made a similar impact as George Lucas's original Star Wars trilogy, as well as creating a whole new generation of Tolkien fans.

It seems like George Lucas, in some ways drew some inspiration from Lord of the Rings for Star Wars, since although the stories are quite different, there are some similarities, mostly between the characters. For instance, we have

Sauron = Emperor Palpatine (in terms of being the main, behind the scenes villain boss)

Although Sauron and Palpatine play similar roles, the main difference here is that in Lord of the Rings, the people of Middle Earth are fighting to prevent themselves from being conquered by Sauron's forces while in the original Star Wars trilogy, Palpatine's empire already exists and the heroes are a group of rebels.

Saruman = Darth Vader

Both were good at one point but turned to evil. Both Saruman and Darth Vader are also the more prominent villains in Lord of the Rings and the original Star Wars trilogy respectively, while they are also both subservient to a more evil villain. Saruman is subservient to Sauron and Darth Vader is subservient to Emperor Palpatine.

Frodo = Luke Skywalker (in terms of being the main hero)

Both are more or less the main hero of each story and both are tasked with something (though the context of they're tasked with are quite different). Luke Skywalker is tasked with becoming a Jedi knight and Frodo is tasked with bearing the burden of the one ring. Arguably, I'd say that Frodo has the greater burden here, since he has to resist the evil of the ring, while as Jedi knight, Luke Skywalker is more of a hero who's supposed to defend the innocent. The both get tempted by the "dark side" in a sense except that Frodo eventually succumbs to it while Luke successfully overcomes it.

On threads on the same topic in other forums on the internet, I've also seen people compare Gandalf with Obi-Wan and Aragorn with Han Solo but I don't want to compare them here.

On similar threads I've seen, people usually only allow the comparison between the films. However, I think it's possible discuss the books as well because both universes have what I would call mythopoeia (literally greek for myth-making), which is just a fancy word for invented mythology. In LOTR, this means Tolkien's original books as well as all the legends he created around Middle-Earth. In the Star Wars universe we've got the EU (expanded universe). Middle-Earth has a history going back centuries and the same could be said of the Star Wars universe. However, the main difference here is that LOTR was literature first and the movies are adaptations of the books, while with the Star Wars universe it's the other way round. So, the mythology of Middle-Earth already existed long before the movies while the mythology of the Star Wars universe was created around the first three films. Additionally, a lot of the legends in The Silmarillion are influence heavily by real myths and legends and Tolkien spend most of his life creating them.

While the Lord of the Rings trilogy was far better written than Star Wars, and Lucas may even have drawn from Tolkien, the fact is, Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, etc. have captured my attention and imagination in a way that Frodo, Gandalf, Sauron, etc. never have.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Star Wars started to suck when they did the deliberate cliffhanger after the 2nd movie (end of Cloud City). For those of us who were around when the movies first came out, it meant waiting a couple years to see what came next. Felt like a cheat.

LOTR may have it's flaws (why didn't they just take the eagles in the first place to Mt. Doom), but at least it's a consistent story and well-made.

To the extent that Star Wars and Lord Of The Rings may seem similar I think would be because Lucas, like Tolkein I suspect, was following the pattern of the hero's journey - see Joseph Cambell's Hero With A Thousand Faces - http://www.moongadget.com/origins/myth.html for info how Star Wars ties in, and http://greenbooks.theonering.net/guest/ ... 01_02.html for how LOTR ties in. Basically Campbell's work basically identifies a pattern to myths and other great stories - it identifies common elements that all of these stories tend to share regardless of culture, etc. Its not that these elements are consciously being woven into the stories by the authors or creators of the stories, its that somehow these elements are in tune with what resonates as great stories to humans. Lucas might have done this more consciously than Tolkein (he admitted as much), but all of these epic stories tend to follow similar structures and patterns.

For example, one of Campbell's elements is that the hero along his journey comes to a "healing forest" at some point - think Degobah for Luke, and for Frodo, I forget what it was called but in the first movie he encounters the blond female elf who helps him. I think another element that Campbell identifies in these stories is dealing with the loss of a mentor or father figure - Obi Won for Luke, Gandalf for Frodo.

Tolkien definitely was influenced by myth - in particular Norse/Germanic/Anglo-Saxon mythology, with some Celtic thrown in for good measure. In fact, Tolkien had a personal grudge against Hitler, for blackening Northern myth by incorporating it into Nazi propaganda.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

I think your analysis in the OP is much better than that in the Harry Potter thread, Jono, well done.

I have nothing to add beyond what ScrewyWabbit says.

Thanks. Not many people have voted yet but it seems like the poll so far is nearly split 50/50, with LotR leading just barely. Interesting.

It seems as though at least 2 people have voted without yet posting in the thread. Come on, let us know what you think.

My own opinion is that I like both franchises. However, since I was a Tolkien fan before the movies came out, I tend to like Lord of the Rings more actually.

There are many common themes and styles to both stories. At first we see Middle-Earth through the eyes of the Hobbits, the same way we start out with R2D2 and C3PO in Star Wars. Not exactly the most important people in their respective worlds.

I would say there is not so much similarity between Frodo and Luke. Luke starts out as a farmer and turns into a jedi-ninja-superhero who does the right thing in the end, while Frodo more or less fails (though it was a suicide mission anyway). Aragorn is more the "hero" type with the badass sword and the just so slightly superhuman abilities, redeeming the faults of Isildur, just like Luke tries to redeem his father.
Redemption is another main theme of both. Both the Force and the Ring are apparently physical forces that can turn people into evil traitors. Boromir is redeemed, while Saruman is not. Count Dooku was played by the same guy, but they are otherwise similar as well. Both are traitors (to the Jedi/White Council) and later they are themselves betrayed or abandoned by their new masters.

I did acknowledge the difference between Frodo and Luke in my analysis in the OP. The thing is, the hero doing the right thing in the end is common to most stories, originating from traditional myths and legends. It's kind of understandable that this trope was almost universally part of the traditional myths and legends that inspired our modern heroic storytelling because those traditional stories were part of religions in the same way that the stories in Bible are part of Christianity and Judaism. So, they were expected to show how good triumphs in the end because the traditional storytellers were intending to encourage people to behave morally, or so they believed. In the case of LotR, Tolkien broke from this trope, even though his stories were heavily inspired by traditional mythology, because he realised that in reality, good does not always triumph and so sometimes one must choose between the lesser of two evils. This realisation was heavily influenced by Tolkien's personal experiences as he actually fought in World War I and lived through World War II. Consider how Sauron was eventually defeated, it was not by Frodo doing the right thing and throwing the ring into the fire because by that stage he could no longer strong enough to resist the temptation of the ring. Sauron was defeated because Gollum tried to acquire the ring for himself, thus the evil of Sauron was defeated due to a lesser evil act being committed. Frodo is still in a sense a hero because at least he managed to resist the corruption of the ring long enough to get as far as he did.

There's also a good reason why Boromir could be redeemed while Saruman could not. First, I can't say that Boromir was ever truly the bad guy since his preference for taking the ring back to Minus Tirith was actually good. Boromir believed that the power of the ring could be turned against Sauron himself, so he thought that Gondor could use his own weapon against him. Unfortunately, the ring can't be used at all without corrupting the one who uses it, so even Boromir's belief and obsession with it led him to be the first to be corrupted by it. Saruman on the other hand, simply wanted power and that's why he couldn't be redeemed.

If you ask me, I guess it comes down to whether you're a fantasy fanatic or a sci-fi lover.

I'm more of a fantasy kind of person myself, so there's my answer.

Sci-fi and fantasy are both sub-genres of speculative fiction, so I still think it's possible to compare the two. Even though I'm normally a sci-fi fan, I still prefer LotR. Then again, even as a sci-fi fan, I was always still more of a Star Trek fan than a Star Wars fan anyway.

I see people are still voting on the poll even though they're posting in this thread. Currently, it says that 75% see Lord of the Rings as the better film franchise while only 25% see Star Wars as the better one. Currently, the only Star Wars fan to actually post in the thread though is Kraichgauer. (I don't mean that the others don't like like Star Wars in general, by fan I'm just referring to people who like the Star Wars franchise better than Lord of the Rings).

Good to be noticed.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

I didn't vote because I haven't made up my mind yet. I like both, but for LotR I like the books much more than the films. I feel they did a good job on the films, but got too far away from the books. I understand why things are left out (because of time and pacing) but I don't understand why they deliberately put in things that never happened in the books. Arwen fighting the Nazgûl. Elrond travelling to Rohan to bring Andúril to Aragorn which in the books Aragorn took with him from Rivendell. Aragorn falling into a river and getting rescued by his horse or something. Haldir and his fellow Elves come to Helm's Deep for no reason.

I'm also not sure about the new Hobbit film. I really liked how they have done the Dwarves, and how they brought in the War of Dwarves and Orcs that was in an appendix of LotR. Except they did it a bit backwards: in the books the war is started because Azog beheads Thrór and sends the head to Thráin and that starts the war, but in the film it seems the war is already going and Thrór (or Thráin?) is beheaded in battle, leaving out the casus belli. Perhaps this will become more clear in the next two films.
Another thing was those moving mountains (frost or mountain giants or whatever they called it?). In the books the giants are mentioned in such a way they could just be legends or metaphors for bad weather on the Misty Mountains. They aren't really mentioned anywhere else in the books. Not even Silmarillion if I remember correctly.
That was also one of the things I liked in the books. Many things were left ambiguous and both the characters and the narrator didn't know what happened: where are the Ent-wives, if anywhere? What was that monster with tentacles near Moria? What's the deal with Beorn? Nobody knows.
I do think it was a good achievement to turn a novel written primarily for children into a movie for a broader audience.


And about Boromir: he was told by Gandalf that taking the Ring to Gondor wouldn't end well. Though he argued about that, I think it was primarily the power of the Ring that made him attack Frodo, because immediately afterwards when Frodo is gone he realises what he has done and that he was wrong.
It also serves to make a point later on when his behaviour is contrasted with that of his brother Faramir.

I haven't said anything about Star Wars yet. I don't think I can make a choice. I liked both since I was a child, so perhaps there is also some nostalgia for both.

I love both but i favor star wars .