Poll: Star Wars vs. The Lord of the Rings / The Hobbit

Avoiding lasers for a second, I think Gandalf and the other wizards are intrinsically tied to Middle Earth itself and their powers would not work if they climbed on a spaceship and left it.

This doesn't necessarily mean that Jedi or Sith would lose their powers if they landed on Middle Earth, but the Valar and/or the Maiar could stop Star Wars magic and technology from working on Middle Earth if they decreed it so.

If you gave the Jedi swords or gave the heroes of Gondor lasers, it might equal out.

Jedi and wizards don't use the same strategy though. Essentially the Jedi fight for the Republic. Even when the Jedi are not fighting, it's clones fighting, not ordinary Republic citizens. Gandalf and the wizards are individually powerful but their true purpose is to inspire ordinary people to greatness, not be great on their behalf.

Even the non-wizard heroes, Aaragon, Gimili and Legolas are there to inspire. Sure, Gimli and Legolas kill about 60 enemies each but there are thousands in Sauron's army.

Arguably, the actions of normal people in the Star Wars universe don't really matter, whereas in Middle Earth the actions of normal people define the battle between good and evil.

That is why I ultimately like LOTR much more.

 

Did I not compare two dissimilar things to your liking.

 

I was thinking that in an apples to apples comparison, LOTR hasn't been humiliated by franchise fatigue and Frankenstein monster adaptation as much as Star Wars.

But I was wrong.

I thought Zaslov could be the first major company executive to right a corporate ship, but no.

I used to be upset by movies without artistic merit. But it is possible for a movie without artistic merit to entertain people and money. Michael Bay built his career on this.

I cannot see how this LOTR will make money. I can't. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills sometimes.

 

That video is very optimistic. I am not optimistic.

Pessimists are happier than optimists. 90% of the time they are right and 10% of the time they are pleasantly surprised.

On the plus side, it is almost guaranteed that anything Warner Brother does will be better than Rings of Power and having WB debut Middle Earth content at roughly the same time Rings of Prime Seasons hit the internet will only make Amazon fail harder and faster, or at least a piece of their streaming service.

That's cold comfort, as shadenfreude is not as enjoyable for me as watching something good.

 

Here's a really gushing video talking about the technical and artistic marvel that The Lord of Rings was and lamenting how nothing that came out afterwards measured up to it, including The Hobbit.

If I can boil down the lightning in a bottle to one thing, it would the answer to one of Gollum's riddles, "TIME!"

One thing that apart LOTR trilogy from other blockbuster movies (and from The Hobbit movies even) was that the production crew was given lots of time to get things right. The Hobbit movies had a much bigger budget but looked worse, I'm going to posit this was largely because Peter Jackson was put on a tight schedule.

I'm not sure generous production schedules are a magic bullet to guarantee a box office hit/fan favorite but I do see a correlation between franchise movies and shows flopping and unforgiving rushed production schedules.