Star Wars 4-6, Star Wars 1-3 or Lord of the Rings?

fusuf · 13-02-2012 2:01am #1

Heres a question for my fellow AH'ers. Over all, which is the best trilogy? I finally saw Lord of the Rings about a month ago and I re watched Star Wars episodes 4-6 this weekend. IMO Star Wars episodes 4-6 were better but not by much. second comes lotr then the other star wars trilogy third Just interested in what the After Hours community thinks! I'll add a poll if I can find out how..

Please use spoilers if spoiling is necessary

johnnysmack · 13-02-2012 2:04am

LOTR is very childish, everything turned out too perfectly in the end.

minidazzler · 13-02-2012 2:07am

Both stories have their merits and very few drawbacks.

Overheal · 13-02-2012 2:08am

While I like Star Wars no one trilogy was ever totally amazing. Empire Strikes Back was a great movie, for instance, but the first 3 altogether? Just seems not as good as LOTR. No offence to Jedis.

IrishEyes19 · 13-02-2012 2:28am

johnnysmack wrote: »

LOTR is very childish, everything turned out too perfectly in the end.

you obviously didn't pay much attention to the films or books. I wont give the ending away for anyone, but to say it worked out perfectly is not right. Now I better say goodnight, before I get emotional about it. Serious fan here. Sad I know

:o:o

The Golden Miller · 13-02-2012 2:31am

star wars. it changed everything. the beatles of film. its ingrained in popular culture to a ridiculous extent and will never be matched in this regard

Washington Irving · 13-02-2012 2:34am

I havn't seen any of the Star Wars films, so LOTR

Jaxxy · 13-02-2012 2:38am

SW 4 - 6. Epic. Empire Strikes Back is my fav film of all time. That said, I also love LOTR. But not above SW.

RichieC · 13-02-2012 2:43am

Lotr books.

Spunge · 13-02-2012 3:03am

Star Wars must have been completely mind blowing when it came out back in the 70s, and it still looks good today. Im going with star wars 4-6

Logical Fallacy · 13-02-2012 3:06am

Spunge wrote: »

Star Wars must have been completely mind blowing when it came out back in the 70s, and it still looks good today. Im going with star wars 4-6

There is probably some validity to the fact that without Star Wars then LOTR would never have been made.

Star Wars was a monumental game changer for Hollywood.

rossie1977 · 13-02-2012 3:06am

the only good thing about the newest star wars trilogy is this guys reviews of them, brilliant

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxKtZmQgxrI

Doc Ruby · 13-02-2012 3:27am

Spunge wrote: »

Star Wars must have been completely mind blowing when it came out back in the 70s, and it still looks good today. Im going with star wars 4-6

Bigtime, even without CGI they could very credibly be released tomorrow and be very acceptable. More than that, they'd easily give something like Avatar a run for its money. The closest thing since would have to be Firefly.

The LotR in cinema was fairly scalped as I recall, you need the director's cut on DVD to really enjoy it and understand the plot if you hadn't read the books. What I liked about the books was the effort Tolkien put into realising his world in great detail, elaborating beautiful descriptions of even minor events and scenes, a wordsmith at his peak.

It was a very tough job to translate that to cinema but I reckon Jackson did the best job possible with it.

My verdict would have to be both were incredible in their own way, SW 4 to 6 were made for cinema and really took advantage of the medium, with fast punchy scenes, plot and character development. The LotR movies credibly tackled the difficult task of pushing what was basically an epic along the lines of Beowulf, complete with quite archaic language, onto that same medium. Both good for different reasons.

krudler · 13-02-2012 3:50am

the original Star Wars changed movies forever, thats not even up for debate. while the overmarketing and merchandising of summer movies is pretty much down to the merchandising of Star Wars (which 20th Century Fox gave to George Lucas for half nothing as they thought nobody would want little action figures of the characters, Lucas has since made about $500 MILLION from the merchanise alone). the positives in the wake of it can't be ignored, no Star Wars= no Pixar (Lucas owned the company originally before selling it to Steve Jobs in 1986) and without that we wouldnt have some amazing animated movies being made these days. Lucas for all his filmmaking faults is a true pioneer of technology in film, he still cant write a script to save his life though.

It must have been amazing to see Star Wars on its release, I was born in 1981 so missed all of the original movies in the cinema but my dad told me that he went to see it and you could hear the air being sucked out of the cinema from the collective gasp of the audience who had no idea what they were seeing when this happened:

so yeah, Star Wars wins. am really looking forward to The Hobbit though...

PrettyBoy · 13-02-2012 4:22am

Probably one of the few that hasn't seen any of these, sorry but I could never sit through 3 hours of wizards or space wars, etc. I've never seen Star Wars but I do know Darth Vader is Luke's father so not really bothered watching them now...Lord of the Rings movies just look very, very dull and depressing..not something I'd be in any way interested in..very boring stuff altogether

Vicxas · 13-02-2012 8:05am

Im gonna go with the original trilogy Star Wars.

biko · 13-02-2012 8:56am

AH->Films

gimli2112 · 13-02-2012 9:08am

Hmmmm, I don't think I need to leave a comment!

Varik · 13-02-2012 9:49am

star wars 4-6, to be specific the first version I saw.

i.e han shoots second and no gungans shouting "we'z free" at the end.

Theboinkmaster · 13-02-2012 11:00am

star wars 4-6 no contest - watched Empire on Blu Ray recently and looks like it could have been made this year, one of the best films ever made.

LOTR is just 3 films of people walking....

Kidchameleon · 13-02-2012 11:20am

Star Wars episodes i to iii are completely sh*te and i think the orignals were kinda ruined when lucas started adding extra scenes. Lotr is class

Oafley Jones · 13-02-2012 11:29am

Was the inclusion of Star Wars 1-3 another joke option?

fusuf · 13-02-2012 12:35pm

biko wrote: »

AH->Films

can this not be in AH? It was a question for AH'ers.

GastroBoy · 13-02-2012 12:43pm

PrettyBoy wrote: »

Probably one of the few that hasn't seen any of these, sorry but I could never sit through 3 hours of wizards or space wars, etc. I've never seen Star Wars but I do know Darth Vader is Luke's father so not really bothered watching them now...Lord of the Rings movies just look very, very dull and depressing..not something I'd be in any way interested in..very boring stuff altogether

This makes my brain hurt!!!!

2ndcoming · 13-02-2012 1:43pm

Saul-Goode9 wrote: »

I havn't seen any of the Star Wars films, so LOTR

If you haven't seen the alternative how can you vote on which is better?!

kryogen · 13-02-2012 4:10pm

Huge LOTR fan but probably gotta go with Star Wars 4-6, I did thoroughly enjoy Star Wars 3, but the first two were muck

Mickeroo · 13-02-2012 4:50pm

I went with LOTR purely because in terms of consistency its a far better trilogy. I love both episodes 4-6 and LOTR though and the cultural and cinematic impact of Star Wars can't be denied.

Revenge of the Sith is the only half decent of the newers ones, I prefer to think of Genndy Tarkofsky's(SP?) Clone Wars volume 1 & 2 as the first 2 parts of that trilogy proper

Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones belong with the two Ewoks movies(which I loved as a kid but refuse to watch now as I'm sure they're crap).

Giruilla · 13-02-2012 5:03pm

Star Wars is an easy winner. Return of the King was a disaster of a film I thought.

Handsome Bob · 13-02-2012 5:12pm

Fcuking voted for the wrong Star Wars trilogy.

fusuf · 13-02-2012 5:28pm

Handsome Bob wrote: »

Fcuking voted for the wrong Star Wars trilogy.

you and 4 others!

Zubeneschamali · 13-02-2012 5:44pm

Hard to vote for any of these.

LotR was interesting in spots, but suffered badly from being a heavily edited version of much better books, with a certain amount of nonsense inserted because Peter Jackson said so.

Original Star Wars is badly let down by Return of the Jedi, which is crap.

The prequels are all much worse than RotJ.

Goldstein · 13-02-2012 8:59pm

Jackson and crew took the world's most loved book and gave us a big screen adaptation I'd venture noone alive could have surpassed. It is as close to perfection as anyone could possibly have come. It was emotional to witness Tolkien and Lee's work honored so faithfully and with utter devotion by all involved in the production of those three pieces of cinematic history.

As much as I love Star Wars, this is a very easy decision.

Bobby Baccala · 13-02-2012 9:06pm

Star Wars, has to be the most influential sci fi saga of all time, LOTR is lacking.

WatchWolf · 13-02-2012 9:18pm

Star Wars was a rip off of Kirby's New Gods.

The Golden Miller · 13-02-2012 10:46pm

it seems the original star wars trilogy is beginning to reel in lord of the rings in the poll

Vertigo100 · 13-02-2012 11:04pm

Im only 30 so never got to see it in the cinema but I imagine finding out vader was Luke's father would have been the most unreal thing ever.

Also considering I have an imperial logo tattooed on me I better vote star wars.

Cmar-Ireland · 13-02-2012 11:24pm

Vertigo100 wrote: »

Im only 30 so never got to see it in the cinema but I imagine finding out vader was Luke's father would have been the most unreal thing ever.

Probably something like this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbV5hn_ET0U

another vote for Episodes IV-VI

FlashD · 14-02-2012 5:57am

LOTR has Christopher Lee, massive legend that he is!

All three LOTR films are also really consistent unlike Star Wars but nothing comes close to the power of the 'The Empire Strikes Back'...what a masterpiece!

...so for me its Star Wars all the way, the original trilogy not the recent rubbish.

Draupnir · 14-02-2012 10:23am

FlashD wrote: »

LOTR has Christopher Lee, massive legend that he is!

All three LOTR films are also really consistent unlike Star Wars but nothing comes close to the power of the 'The Empire Strikes Back'...what a masterpiece!

...so for me its Star Wars all the way, the original trilogy not the recent rubbish.

He's in the new Star Wars movies too.

nyarlothothep · 14-02-2012 12:28pm

Star Wars 4-6. If I pretend that I had never seen either trilogy I would probably enjoy Star Wars more. Why? Because LOTR suffers from that typical modern Hollywood problem which afflicts so called great films, that is crap characterisation in favour of steaming through the plot. Apart from Gollum most of the characters were just forgettable and I didn't identify with them because they were too conventional. The only problem with Star Wars 4-6 is the Ewoks. Star Wars just inches past LOTR for me and its essentially because the Ewoks incur a -1000 penalty in my scoring system.

Mickeroo · 14-02-2012 1:12pm

nyarlothothep wrote: »

Star Wars 4-6. If I pretend that I had never seen either trilogy I would probably enjoy Star Wars more. Why? Because LOTR suffers from that typical modern Hollywood problem which afflicts so called great films, that is crap characterisation in favour of steaming through the plot. Apart from Gollum most of the characters were just forgettable and I didn't identify with them because they were too conventional. The only problem with Star Wars 4-6 is the Ewoks. Star Wars just inches past LOTR for me and its essentially because the Ewoks incur a -1000 penalty in my scoring system.

I'm confused, have you seen star wars?

Bobby Baccala · 14-02-2012 1:52pm

nyarlothothep wrote: »

Star Wars 4-6. If I pretend that I had never seen either trilogy I would probably enjoy Star Wars more. Why? Because LOTR suffers from that typical modern Hollywood problem which afflicts so called great films, that is crap characterisation in favour of steaming through the plot. Apart from Gollum most of the characters were just forgettable and I didn't identify with them because they were too conventional. The only problem with Star Wars 4-6 is the Ewoks. Star Wars just inches past LOTR for me and its essentially because the Ewoks incur a -1000 penalty in my scoring system.

what have ewoks ever done on you?

Cantona's Collars · 14-02-2012 2:50pm

Star Wars IV-VI for me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxAEo3CWeq8

FlashD · 14-02-2012 2:57pm

Draupnir wrote: »

He's in the new Star Wars movies too.

That's true man, thanks for the reminder though I had to check.

I grew up with the original trilogy so i'm not that familiar with the recent ones, once was enough for me.

Draupnir · 14-02-2012 3:35pm

FlashD wrote: »

That's true man, thanks for the reminder though I had to check.

I grew up with the original trilogy so i'm not that familiar with the recent ones, once was enough for me.

Not to worry, it can be easy to forget these things. Lee is involved in the only two worthwhile scenes in that trilogy though, fighting Tasmanian Yoda and in the captured Obi Wan scene in Attack of the Clones when the trilogy misses the opportunity to become outstanding and relapses into mediocrity.

nyarlothothep · 14-02-2012 9:36pm

Mickeroo wrote: »

I'm confused, have you seen star wars?

um yeah, Hans Solo with his sarcastic wit, Princess Lea with her...bikini outfit, the superb relationship between Luke and Darth, Darth going from 1 dimensional uber powerful kick ass villain to tragic figure, Emperor Palpatine being so iconically evil, C3P0 being an unforgettable character due to his campness, Yoda, another iconic character etc. These characters are more interesting than Aragorn, the typical brooding hero, Legolas the boring elf, Arwen,the forgettable princess, Gandalf, the boring wiseman, Frodo and Sam, boring lovers, random hobbits that are somewhere the film, Pippin et al, Sauruman, the one dimensional villain. With the exception of Gollum and Eowyn who is criminally underused in the films, none of these characters are as distinctive, they don't make that incredibly strong impression that Star Wars characters do. For this reason Star Wars is better than LOTR.

In relation to Ewoks, do you remember those scenes where Palpatine was firing electricity bolts from his hands? Do you remember how it was epic and stirring? Do you remember how those scenes cut to fcking Ewoks! How a few seconds ago you were watching incredible drama on a galactic scale, the ultimate conflict between good and evil, and then you get teddy bears?!! I mean fcking teddy bears??? What?! What the ****?!! Arrraggghh!!!!! I fcking hate whoever decided it was a good idea to have them in a film because The Empire Strikes Back was too dark! Fcking idiots!!!

Mickeroo · 14-02-2012 10:27pm

nyarlothothep wrote: »

um yeah, Hans Solo with his sarcastic wit, Princess Lea with her...bikini outfit, the superb relationship between Luke and Darth, Darth going from 1 dimensional uber powerful kick ass villain to tragic figure, Emperor Palpatine being so iconically evil, C3P0 being an unforgettable character due to his campness, Yoda, another iconic character etc. These characters are more interesting than Aragorn, the typical brooding hero, Legolas the boring elf, Arwen,the forgettable princess, Gandalf, the boring wiseman, Frodo and Sam, boring lovers, random hobbits that are somewhere the film, Pippin et al, Sauruman, the one dimensional villain. With the exception of Gollum and Eowyn who is criminally underused in the films, none of these characters are as distinctive, they don't make that incredibly strong impression that Star Wars characters do. For this reason Star Wars is better than LOTR.

In relation to Ewoks, do you remember those scenes where Palpatine was firing electricity bolts from his hands? Do you remember how it was epic and stirring? Do you remember how those scenes cut to fcking Ewoks! How a few seconds ago you were watching incredible drama on a galactic scale, the ultimate conflict between good and evil, and then you get teddy bears?!! I mean fcking teddy bears??? What?! What the ****?!! Arrraggghh!!!!! I fcking hate whoever decided it was a good idea to have them in a film because The Empire Strikes Back was too dark! Fcking idiots!!!

Syferus · 14-02-2012 11:43pm

The Lord of the Rings, and it isn't even close. As films they are simply better directed, more consistent and at times absolutely gorgeous, and not just because of the advancements in CGI in the intervening years.

Skerries · 15-02-2012 1:48am

I voted for Star Lords

bullvine · 15-02-2012 10:55am

Am I the only person finding it hard to believe when posters are saying they haven't seen Star Wars?

don ramo · 15-02-2012 2:09pm

LOTR for me, feel bad picking one but i really love them films, so many trilogys down the years, why was it just star wars and LOTR, with not add in some matrixs, back to the futures, american pies, spidermans, x-mens, oceans, bournes, jurassic parks, and fridays:D

id say it must have been funny back when the first star wars was released and all the nerd fanboys playing around with there girlfriends with her being leah and him being luke, must have been some freaked out nered when they found out they were brother and sister:D:D:D:D

Star Wars 4-6, Star Wars 1-3 or Lord of the Rings?

The best over all trilogy? 211 votes

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