Discussion will the ST restore Star Wars legendary glory, or will the LOTR stay on top???

I don't think LOTR is even in the same league as Star Wars. Peter Jackson makes excessively long and boring films which put anyone who isn't a diehard fan to sleep. The Hobbit was by far the worst film about this. Quite frankly, LOTR simply can't compete on a wider scale with Star Wars.

 

Lmao, I love it when fans make it sound like the Star Wars Franchise has been in decline or some nonsense like that.

Newsflash, the franchise is in better shape today then it was 20-30 years ago. The PT which fans love to bash was a massive success since it brought in a whole new generation of fans to the fandom, which helps keep it going. The big question mark for the franchise is too much Star Wars, 6 films in what 10 years is really pushing it .

 

Apples and oranges.

 

I am glad to read something that actually makes sense about Jackson and his bloated movies. Say what you will about the prequels, but at least we did not have to watch elves on anti-depressants drone on and on and Elijah Woods wimpy portrayal of Frodo.

 

Epic is the word that fits.............there was something very unepic about the entire prequel Trilogy.

 

Star Wars : Episode III Revenge of the Sith .......... IS BETTER THAN ........Star Wars : Episode IV : A New Hope ...................

 

What I want in the new SW films is a real personal feel to them. That's what made the OT so good in the first place. LOTR took the spectacle too far. It gets really boring to watch one huge army run into another huge army. Lucas fell into this trap somewhat in the PT. What really makes Sith so good was not the space battles, but Anakin's turn to the dark side and interaction with Kenobi at the end. In the end Sith was the most personal of the PT movies and was the best IMO.

 

Agreed. Obi-Wan's "You were the Chosen One" speech was pretty epic.

I'd also cite a couple moments that I thought were epic being Obi-Wan looking upon the clone army in formation for the first time on Kamino as well as the entire ending of AOTC from the moment Yoda uttered the final line. Best ending to a Star Wars movie, certainly better than any ending in LOTR which obviously took forever to end.

 

A "real discussion" and that 2nd sentence do not correlate so, please, do be quiet.

Also I'm guessing the avatar of that Dwarf dude from the Hobbit flick indicates some sort of bias. Everyone knows that scene, it came off as quite silly.

 

I have to ask: who is so pathetic that they see film franchises as a contest? When did the enjoyment of a film become directly linked to it "winning"? Winning what?

Yeah, the LotR films won more Oscars, and on average have a better critical reception. So what? Citizen Kane is regarded as the greatest movie ever by many film critics. Are we only allowed to like Star Wars when it's more highly regarded than any film ever?

If "winning" the franchise war is all that matters to you, then just go be a Lord of the Rings fan. Then just jump ship when the next hot thing comes along. Heaven forbid you should actually be a human being and just decide whether you like something or not.

I pity the shell of a person who reduces all art (and yes, fantasy films are a form of art) to a childish pissing contest, where the only thing that matters is picking a side and saying "nah nah" to everyone else.

 

I see absolutely no need to compare the two sagas. We could go back and forth interminably comparing and contrasting. Here's what I think:

- Both are excellent epic stories and I have been thoroughly entertained, for the most part, by both of them.
- The Empire Strikes Back is the best of the bunch.
- Lucas has the benefit of creating his story ex nihilo (basically), while Jackson had the unenviable task of adapting a beloved classic.
- Star Wars' reputation took something of a hit with the PT, though I believe there was much to love in the prequels. There was admittedly much to criticize.

I see no reason to not enjoy and love both. I also really enjoy Star Trek. Competitions between entertainments is lame and causes people to miss out on some really good stuff. Be free from false dilemmas.

 

I am a diehard fan of the books, but I can agree with you both about the movies. Especially The Hobbit- dragging that out into three movies was completely unnecessary, in my opinion.

But anyway, I don't think the two really need to be compared. Apples and oranges.

 

I think adaptation is a benefit and a drawback. While Peter Jackson did have to work hard to please the fans, he didn't have to think up the world of Middle-earth - it was already there, in a book that was a proven classic.

Lucas, on the other hand, had to think of everything from scratch. So he had the freedom to do what he wanted, but at the same time the pressure of not having a book to guide him.

(And the expectations of fans regarding the prequels were just as intense as they would be for an adaptation.)

 

Legendary glory and dwarf tossing do not go together.

 

All of you complaining about the length of the LOTR films are missing the point, the length is one of the reasons they are so epic, they come to great awsome endings. Although I will amit you must have some level of imagination and a creative mind in order to really enjoy the story to the fullest. There are a lot of people in todays society that simply do not have the attention spand.

Let's compare elements........ winner

Gollum vs Jar Jar Binks.................. LOTR*
Saruman the white vs Emperor Palpatine..............Draw
Gandalf vs Yoda.......................................................Gandalf ( prequel Yoda sucks)
Army of bloodthristy orgs vs mass produced cheap battle droids.....LOTR*
A legion of Elves vs clones ....................................................................LOTR*
Aragorn vs Obi-Wan .............................................LOTR*

The list goes on & on...........LOTR at this point is on top, if the ST can recapture the magic 9of A NEW HOPE & EMPIRE.

 

Star Wars > LOTR. Always was.

 

Wow, this is silly. As a Tolkien purist, I enjoyed aspects of the LOTR films, but as others have stated quite eloquently many of Jackson's "Jacksonisms" became laughable by ROTK. Let's see how many times we can cut to slow motion shots. I've contended many times that if Jackson took every slow motion shot in the entire LOTR trilogy and cranked them up to a regular speed it would have cut the running time of the entire trilogy by an hour.. sorry slow motion does not equal epic. Also the neverending mess that was the last 45 minutes of ROTK was painful to sit through... wait the films is endinnnnng now... oops, no wait, now??? Damn, wait, wait this MUST be the ending? Huh?

Finally, The Hobbit was a bloody mess. Jackson tried to walk this careful line between Tolkien's children's story (which The Hobbit was) with the "modernized" sensibilities he brought to LOTR... it failed. Here was Jackson trying to remain true to the spirit of Tolkien's quaint little adventure with talking stone giants, the fat Goblin King, and a band of dwarves, but true to Jackson.. he always errs on the side of modern and takes a children's story and turns it into a bloody festival of severed limbs and heads... Tolkien would be rolling in his grave. What Jackson needed to do, for the Hobbit especially, was take a page from Andrew Adamson's far superior adaptation of C.S. Lewis' classic, "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe." That film found the proper balance for a children's story between remaining true to the source material and making a film for a modern audience.

So please, if you feel the need to revel in the glories of Jackson's Tolkien films there is the Amphitheater sub forum you could take this to, or I'm sure they would be happy to have you over on theOneRing.net

Yancy

 

Like I said, apples and oranges. I'll take SW any day myself.

 

By the way, not tolerating excessive length has nothing to do with a lack of imagination, per se. I and others simply feel adding unnecessary story lines and other filler causes problems with the dramatic structure of the story. Jackson should take note of the Freytag pyramid. Going off on tangents and spending too long in certain phases diminishes the drama.

 

With all due respect for the LOTRs films:

1. The LOTRs BOOKs have had way more cultural impact than the films.
2. All three OT films and TPM are in the top 20 films in ticket sales, while only 1 LOTR film makes the top 50. Ep. III still beats out to other other two LOTR films.
3. There has not been a day in 30 plus years that you couldn't go into a store and find Strt Wars merch, and before you play the "hard core fans will buy anything" card, I will point out that the collectors market is a small percentage of the mass market sales of Star Wars merch. It sells continuously because its timeless.
4. Star Wars is referrenced almost constantly in popular culture. Sure LOTR gets some love, but not nearly as much.

As far as the comparison the OP is trying to make here, there is no real comparision.

In reality, they are very different things with very different audiences, although there is some overlap.

 

Uh-huh. Because "Return of the King" REALLY NEEDED a 30 minute ending after the ring was thrown into Mount Doom. that was totally called for. And very appropriate and dramatic. Because it added to the "epicness". Anyone else ever notice that only Internet People actually like the ending of ROTK? Meanwhile, every single live human being I've ever met on the planet all say it's ending is too long. But Internet People like it! Because it's epic.

 

For my money, the LOTR film series, whatever its merits, has never been on top of Star Wars.

That said, just what can the ST do for the SW franchise? Well, although it would certainly be one heck of a hill to climb, I'd like to think that there's the potential, at least, for the ST to offer the strongest SW films yet. Should that come to pass, I imagine that the sky's the limit.

 

The two are so intertwined. When crafting the OT, Lucas clearly borrowed from the LOTR novels. Similarly, by the time Jackson made LOTR, he borrowed film elements from SW.

My opinion, I recall, when seeing LOTR in theaters, that TTT was the best, and extremely close to ESB in feel. Fellowship was okay, but had that one cheesy scene announcing the fellowship - which reminded me of the reunion scene in ROTJ - and ROTKing basically rehashed the previous two films (kinda like ROTJ). The ghost army scene seemed like a blatant rehash of the tree army scene in TTT (Aragorn convinces an unwilling army to help him).

It is difficult to compare the two based on Oscars. King won Oscars as a reward for the entire franchise, in a different time period with different voters and film styles.

Anyway, perhaps the biggest differentiator is how many people re-watch the films, and how often. I like LOTR, but it is never on TV, and I just cannot bring myself to whip out the 3 hr 30 min DVDs. Ever. I have probably seen the three LOTR films a total of maybe 15 times. Whereas, I have probably seen the SW films about 425 times in total, and about 200 times since the first LOTR came out.