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Epic Battle: Star Wars (IV-VI) vs. The Lord of the Rings

Which is the best epic film trilogy?

  • Star Wars (IV-VI)

    Votes: 6 60.0%
  • The Lord of the Rings

    Votes: 4 40.0%

  • Total voters
    10

nealbie

CF Legend
The original Star Wars trilogy and Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy are two of (if not) the best epic film sagas of all time, but which is best?

I love both sci-fi and fantasy (yes, this can happen) and variations & crossovers thereof, so I rank both highly. Both were vastly enormous and everywhere when they were in the cinema, both are time consuming and both have worse prequel sequels. Star Wars' visual effects for the time were miles ahead, LotR is still visually stunning even in this new age of 3D and HDMI cables. Yes the story is a bit basic in Star Wars, but does Jackson have an unfair advantage in being able to tap 99% of his material from a man with a million times more writing ability than George Lucas? Or does the huge source material penned by Tolkien only stand to make the Lord of the Rings' success as an adaption greater?

__________

Arguably, Star Wars has a better global reach. As a 3/4 year old, Dad produced three dusty VHS tapes from off of the shelf one day and sat down with me to watch one of his favourite films with his son. I was entranced. The spaceships, the scary black robot man with Mufasa's voice and the monsters. All of them were a huge part of my childhood from that point on. Those VHS' ended up on my shelf and as far as I was concerned, even at such a young age, this is what watching the television was for!

I recently rewatched them all (having, shamefully, not done so for about 7/8 years) and they still have the same appeal and wonder, but I'm sort of upset that I did. Because when you're a child, you don't get distracted enough from all of the visual mentalness that is going on to realise that the plot is ropey at best. It's still epic, but somehow not fitting of the perfection I bestowed upon it as an infant. This kind of brings us on to episodes I-III, which I saw aged 8-12 or so (and at the time, enjoyed all the same), but obviously by this point it wasn't ahead of its time for visual effects, so it was just a film, it didn't have the same magic - and, like its predecessors, pretty much devoid of a good and meaningful plot (until the last 20 minutes of III perhaps). Sure they're not as good as the original, to say otherwise would be wrong, but they're not rubbish because the originals certainly aren't rubbish and they suffer from the same problems.

Aged 7, Dad (I really should give him more credit for my upbringing :lol: ) read me what was to become my favourite book instantly: The Hobbit. I loved it, the magic, the dragon (who in my head had the voice of Mufasa) and the monsters. There was another, much larger, book in the house which bore the same name as The Hobbit... The Lord of the Rings. I tried to read this, but struggled :)P ), Dad came to the rescue. I would lie down on the bed with my eyes closed and listen to him read the story to me. Wow. A year or so later, I was in the car on my way to go and see Fellowship of the Ring at the cinema. As we all know, it was amazing. Pretty much everything was as I had visualised it in my head lying down on my bed. For the rest of my childhood and into teenage life, Star Wars (including the original ones to a lesser extent) and The Lord of the Rings were the films that took up most of my time and attention. I loved and adored them both in equal measure.

In 2010 I rewatched Jackson's trilogy, and was still blown away. However, thinking perhaps I'd become much more cynical in the last few years. Over the last couple of days I watched it again to achieve a direct comparison with my mindset to Star Wars, I was still blown away. It is so perfectly on point, I refreshed my memory of the books last April/May, with a few (but, probably, necessary) exclusions and alterations. I didn't factor that the visuals are from early 00s compared to the 70s, because in my mind it's cheating (well, an unfair advantage) on the visual front for films set in worlds akin to our past in style. If they could make structures then, it's childsplay in the modern day. It's always, always much more difficult to create a convincing futuristic/spacey environment. That said, Star Wars is possibly as close to perfect as you'll find with a little imagination.

So, to me, they are both BRILLIANT. But I've pushed Star Wars more to a children's film franchise, it doesn't engage me enough as an adult and is in the genre of being a sci-fi Harry Potteresque trilogy. It is still by far and away the best of its kind though, there's no denying that. The Lord of the Rings trilogy can both engage me as a child (but not quite as well as Star Wars) and as a cynical, critical adult. This edges my vote in its favour as the best epic trilogy of all time.

__________

So... which is your favourite? Or is there another epic film trilogy that you think is better than the both of them? The floor is yours!
 

Casio

Mega Poster
It sounds like I'm in a hugely similar position to you: I watched the original Star Wars when I was 3 or 4, Phantom Menace came out when I was 4 and I absolutely loved it (I went to see it twice in the cinema, possibly the only person ever to do so?). My dad read Lord of the Rings to me when I was 6 or 7, and I loved the films even more. However, unlike you I watched them all over and over again :lol:

I loved the Star Wars prequels as much as the originals when I was that small, obviously I don't see them in the same light now, but I still like them a lot. The whole Star Wars universe is more enthralling for me; I actually generally tend more towards fantasy than sci-fi, but Star Wars is very much fantasy as well.

Lord of the Rings are better to watch now I think, but Star Wars just has that bit more magic.
 

Ian

From CoasterForce
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
Social Media Team
Back To The Future is the most epic film trilogy of all time.

Can't stand fantasy films, maybe because I have a lack of imagination....? I'm not saying for one second that Star Wars is believable but it is compared to LOTR, therefore more tolerable in my eyes. What bored me about LOTR is the amount of staring into the landscape and camera shots swooping over the land. Cut that out and it would only be 10mins long. I don't watch a film to go on an adventure or feel like I'm there, I watch them for throwaway entertainment.
 

Darren B

Giga Poster
The Lord of the Rings is GASH. As are episodes 1-3 of Star Wars. The original 3 Star Wars movies however are simply the best Sci-Fi movies ever made.
 

spicy

Giga Poster
The Lord of the Rings are the best film trilogy of all time in my opinion. Middle Earth has to be one of the best fantasy worlds ever dreamt up. There are so many potential stories that could take place in Middle Earth and is the only reason The Hobbit films are so interesting to me. Such a shame Tolkien never got to finish off the other stories he had for Middle Earth.

The Star Wars world isn't far behind though and there is no doubt the original three episodes and the newer episodes 1-3 are incredibly watchable. However I personally just don't find myself so glued to the screen as I do; if for example I happen to come across the empire strikes back or the two towers on TV I will find the two towers much harder to stop watching and could easily watch the whole movie where as I couldn't necessarily do that with Star Wars if that makes sense.. :lol:
 

MouseAT

Hyper Poster
I think I'll have to go with the classic Star Wars trilogy.

The Lord of the Rings is an amazing story, and an amazing piece of film making, but it suffers from some pretty serious pacing issues. The Fellowship of the Ring works really well, but once the party splits at the end, you end up with essentially two different groups and stories happening simultaneously, one of which is always more interesting than the other. Both the book and the films started to bug me whenever the focus switched away from wherever the exciting things were happening.
 

Jason Voorhees

Hyper Poster
Star Wars anyday. Lord of The Rings are ok but not good enough to sit through for 3 hours. Heck, I even enjoy the prequels of Star Wars.
 
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