Which Trilogy is Better? Star Wars or Lord of the Rings

[Dragon565333]

This came up when my friend and I were playing the lord of the rings the third age (good game if you want to be challenged) and my sister was on the pc playing sim2 freetime. My friend never saw Star Wars of LOTR's which was pretty sad... So my sister said Star wars because there was a lot more romance then fighting with swords. I went with LOTR b/c I like that stuff sword fighting the action and... whatever... And to me this is like Zelda. I forget how but if I know I can tell you! :) So which is better? Which Trilogy is better.. Star Wars of LOTR? Which you choose. Make it simplier which is better For all you twilight fans Edward or Jacob... Ps I don't really like twilight:lol:

[LozzyKate]

I don't like either, but Star Wars is much better. Lord of the Rings is just way too long.

[Tony]

I like them both...but I like LOTR way better Lotr has a bigger universe and better action scenes, but star wars has a spot in my heart too.

[Atsuma]

Gotta love Lord of the rings. I've seen both trilogies and I guess it is not a hard choice to make for me, I enjoy fantasy a lot, so Lord of the Rings gets my vote. The movies were great, the book was okay.

[Bigelover88]

LOTR hands down. It is not only an epic story but it has a very fascinating world. All kinda races like Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, Hobbits etc.
Star Wars is classical and will always be classical but the whole LOTR world is so fascinating. I must say I might be a bit biased because I'm really a huuuuge LOTR freak but when you read the Silmarillion, Hobbit and LOTR (they are all connected) you know why. Both trilogies have something in common...a prophecy will be fullfilled. I think in general SW has more fans but I personally think LOTR has a deeper and more fascinating storyline

[Dragon565333]

LOTR hands down. It is not only an epic story but it has a very fascinating world. All kinda races like Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, Hobbits etc.
Star Wars is classical and will always be classical but the whole LOTR world is so fascinating. I must say I might be a bit biased because I'm really a huuuuge LOTR freak but when you read the Silmarillion, Hobbit and LOTR (they are all connected) you know why. Both trilogies have something in common...a prophecy will be fullfilled. I think in general SW has more fans but I personally think LOTR has a deeper and more fascinating storyline


Mostly I have read all the books lol and I think all of you are true people in general like star wars lol. But its your opinion! I loved LOTR Because as you said more races and fascinating storyline.

[yann]

The Lord of the Rings is a piece of epic literature which has been turned into one of the best Fantasy films ever, whereas Star Wars was and will be the most well recognised Sci-Fi series to have come out of Hollywood.

I choose LOTR, the amount of time that Tolkien must have put into that one trilogy is outstanding, and this is without mentioning the rest of the back story behind Middle-Earth and the world of Arda.
I suggest anyone who has voted for Star Wars read the Silmarrilion and in particular a story within it called "The Children of Hurin", it's the darkest story ever made by Tolkien which is set thousands of years before the Lord of the Rings and it will really make you think about the entire Middle-Earth universe as a whole.

[DisappearingMist]

LOTR is way more developed in my opinion. Tolkien created an entire world from creation on, and many books besides just LOTR and the Hobbit. Star Wars was created for a movie and then it expanded. Yes there is a whole "universe" created about it now, though.

I love both series, but I think LOTR is a bit more classic and timeless.

[Kybyrian]

Star Wars never captured my fancy, just never could get into it. There are a lot of Star Wars fans out there, and I'm not one of them. Lord of the Rings, however, was absolutely incredible. Read the books and watched the movies, and loved every bit of it. I own all of the movies, in fact. I haven't watched them in a while, though.

Star Wars is just... ugh

[Austin]

I'm an extremely rabid Star Wars fanboy and I haven't seen the Lord of the Rings movies very often, so it's hard for me to answer this question objectively. However, since this thread is largely tilted towards the LoTR side, I feel the need to balance it out. I could talk for quite a bit about how I favor the science-fiction futuristic setting of Star Wars over the medieval setting of LoTR and various other tidbits like that, but I can make my argument with a single point.

Everyone wants to be a Jedi. Everyone. I do, you do, your grandmother does, it's impossible not to want. Even if you think you don't want to be a Jedi, deep down you do. Hell, even if you're the most anti-Star Wars person on the planet, somewhere deep down buried in your subconscious, you desperately want to make contact with the Force. I mean, come on, these guys are epic. They have lightsabers, telekinesis, telepathy, precognition, tele-friggin-kinesis, they can use the Force to do anything. Literally, anything. Anything they want. If I'm allowed to step outside the context of the movies for a second to point out the expanded universe, there are Jedi that can kill entire planets or make themselves immortal by constantly piecing together their utterly shattered bodies. It's the power to do anything. Look me in the eye and tell me you don't want the power to do anything.

Now, I'm not saying LoTR is a bad trilogy by any means, nor am I necessarily saying the Star Wars is better. I'm just saying that I infinitely prefer one over the other. I've seen Fellowship of the Ring a few times, bits and pieces of Two Towers and most of Return of the King (forgive me if the titles are incorrect). I actually remember leaving Return of the King before the movie had stopped due to the fact that it refused to simply end and I had long since lost interest. My mind may change if I pick up the books, which I probably will someday, but for now, Star Wars exceeds LoTR in my opinion, at least.

[Dragon565333]

Very interestin points ^^ and my grandmothers dead... lol

[TheGreen]

Everyone wants to be a Jedi. Everyone. I do, you do, your grandmother does

lol


I don't like either

I didn't know there was such a person! XD

Personally I'm a Star Wars fan. I prefer this trilogy to LOTR. The films just ooze awesome and I strongly believe that the characters in the Star Wars trilogy are way more developed than those of LOTR. I don't know how, but that Turd Burglar George Lucas made some fantastic films back in the day. The story telling is unsurpassed IMO.

I'm also a big LOTR fan too. The characters of these films do not compare to those of Star Wars. The literature really does each character more justice than the movies. Gimli is reduced to comic relief. It's almost disgusting. The story is great too. Again, I think that the literature out does the movies, but a story is a story and the films really do portray them beautifully.

The villains:
who is more sinister?!?
To this day I cannot decide (unless you take the Star Wars prequels into account (which I don't)) and both make the movies really fun to watch. I think the themes of good vs. evil are what make both trilogies so great.

[zeldatwilight]

Star Wars is defiantly better than Lord of the Rings. I think the Star Wars movies have better plots, and are always really fun to watch. I have only seen a glimpse of LOTR, but what I saw never appealed to me.

[Hanyou]

This thread is limited to the movie trilogies of Lord of the Rings and Star Wars, right? And by "Star Wars trilogy," we mean the original Star Wars trilogy, right?

In that case, Star Wars wins, hands-down. As movies, the Star Wars films have tighter production, more believable special effects (in my opinion), and showcase far better storytelling and character development. The Lord of the Rings films are absolutely fantastic, but have a tendency to take themselves too seriously and suffer from, in some cases, simply being overdone. This is not to say they are bad, but they simply cannot measure up to the humor, action, and very believable confrontations which permeate the Star Wars universe. Part of this may simply be due to the fact that there is too much going on in the Lord of the Rings films; we are not called to focus on any one or two characters, but on the entire cast. Furthermore (and this is largely Tolkein's "fault"), Lord of the Rings simply meanders much too often; the entirety of The Two Towers is a digression from the main plot. Star Wars never digresses, because its plot is organic and divided over 3 movies (though arguably Return of the Jedi does feature several digressions--no wonder it is widely considered the weakest of the three).

On top of that, The Empire Strikes Back is easily one of the greatest movies ever made. It stands alone among the Star Wars movies as a really classy film, up there with The Godfather or Scorsese's Taxi Driver. Everything about it, from the lighting to the level of emotion each of the actors conveys, is really quite deep and well put together. While I do enjoy all of the Lord of the Rings films, I simply don't think any of them is orderly enough to compete with the perfectly-constructed narrative of Empire.

As far as action is concerned, Star Wars tops Lord of the Rings, if only because it is minimalist by comparison (that's funny to say, isn't it?). Both are economical enough, and in truth a greater proportion of time in Star Wars is probably taken up by shooting things; but Lord of the Rings sometimes just takes things ridiculously far. The battle in Return of the King was ferociously...boring. The sheer amount of density (something the disastrous Star Wars prequels also demonstrated) keeps the scenes from having the tightness and tension they should. Also, Empire contains what I consider to be one of the single greatest action scenes in movie history--the duel between Luke and Vader. This is great because it is, once again, focused on the two major characters, and elicits a level of tension and gravity most similar duels simply don't have. This is what I love about the Star Wars films. They're action movies, yes, but the action always contributes to the story and the characters.

Meanwhile, in Lord of the Rings, the action meanders often so that the films come to a standstill (as with the battle in Return of the King, as previously stated). However, I still believe the battle of Helm's Deep in The Two Towers is quite possibly the best large-scale battle ever filmed, and in spite of how messy it is, it manages to be quite powerful.

I sound like I've been bashing Lord of the Rings, don't I? well, to be fair, Star Wars sinks into utter silliness in Return of the Jedi, by far the weakest of the trilogy, and the characters lose their depth. It's telling that RotJ is a good film, but if we were to be completely honest with ourselves, the only real masterpiece among the Star Wars movies was Empire (oh, but what a masterpiece it was). The first Star Wars was about as good as popcorn films get, and Return of the Jedi was...good. Better than mediocre. Meanwhile, virtually all of the Lord of the Rings films are damn near masterpieces of filmmaking, and I would not change a thing about them. They adapt the books as properly as they could hope to.

So let's end with this. Both fantasy trilogies have their strengths and very few weaknesses.


I mean, come on, these guys are epic. They have lightsabers, telekinesis, telepathy, precognition, tele-friggin-kinesis, they can use the Force to do anything. Literally, anything. Anything they want. If I'm allowed to step outside the context of the movies for a second to point out the expanded universe, there are Jedi that can kill entire planets or make themselves immortal by constantly piecing together their utterly shattered bodies. It's the power to do anything. Look me in the eye and tell me you don't want the power to do anything.

Actually, I think this is a weakness, not a strength. To make all of the major characters so powerful actually cripples the plot; the quality of a story always involves working around one's limitations. I realize the Sith are a powerful foe, but part of what made the Jedi so mystical were characters like Yoda--even he had his limitations. Also, part of what made Star Wars so good in the first place was its Dune-like realism; remember all the raving about a "used future" reviewers were putting out back in the day? I have no interest in seeing something so far removed from any conception of physics that it divorces itself from being relatable to me. Fantasy films must walk that tightrope, and Star Wars and Lord of the Rings both did a good job of not taking things too far at first; unfortunately, the "used future" aspect has subsequently been sacrificed as far as Star Wars is concerned and replaced with stock fantasy "uber-power" childishness. I would only find any of this "cool" if it were on a heavy metal album cover.

Part of the problem with the prequel trilogy is that it really did make the Jedi virtually immortal, so that their deaths were completely arbitrary. Duels were ridiculous and had no emotional weight. One of the things I appreciated about both the Star Wars and Lord of the Rings trilogy was that the characters had very real limitations which were crippling at times, and even the force itself was not free from this. Zahn's Thrawn trilogy was so great in part because it limited force powers, even if the limitation is a bit contrived; it's sad to see that the rest of the Star Wars EU may as well be a bad 1,000-episode anime or video game in terms of how the characters use the force.

So while I do prefer Star Wars to Lord of the Rings, I'd actually take a few points off for the portrayal of the force. Fortunately, the original trilogy was not plagued by this ridiculously DBZ-esque use of "powers," or it would have boring as hell.

[BlackDragon88]

Which Is better huh? Star Wars Hand DOWN! I love the force and the lightsabers! The romance and secrets... very interseting! 0.0

[Raindrop14]

I would have to say Lord of the Rings, not only is it an epic fantasy, but J.R.R.Tolken has very excellent writing skills and Star Wars was a little on the cheesy side (no offence to those who voted for Star Wars). I also like fantasy more.

[Aurelia]

I didn't really get into Lord of the Rings that much, I just felt like it was a bit draggy and I didn't like it much.. And Star War's made me laugh countless of times. So yeah, Star War's. :)

[Turo602]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0sc-gS9AqM

Nuff Said.

[pokemonclub]

STAR WARS ISNT EVEN A TRILOGY! (I like lord of the rings more)

[Meego]

I love them both.

I'll start with Star Wars. The story is very well planned outl the special effects are great and the whole way it was done was genius. I loved it all and I watch the spin off series too, I love all the characters and if anyone asks me what religion I am, I say Jedi :P I like the force concept too, but I think 4, 5 and 6 are a lot better then 1, 2 and 3.

But then...LotR happens. I have to say Lord of the Rings definitely favours over Star Wars. For one thing, I'm a Zelda fan for the same reason, LotR is more like Zelda. I love all the races, the story, the hobbits, the location. It's all amazing and makes me dream that I could live in Middle Earth. I loved reading The Hobbit and I can't wait until the movie comes out. My imagination is just a lot more into LotR. It actually changed my life. The best trilogy of films in history, in my opinion.

[Zelway]

I definitely think Star Wars is much better in my opinion.