Ask anyone if they have watched ‘the trilogy’, they will think you’re referring to Star Wars or Lord of the Rings. Although Star Wars grew from being a trilogy alone, it was always regarded as one and although there are many trilogies that may meet the quality of Lord of the Rings and Star Wars, such as Back to the Future and The Matrix, these examples have never been branded as being the trilogy.
On the subject of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings however, although you may not know it, the two are rather similar. Both have also had a very large cultural impact. So, which has made the largest impact and which is the best, if there can be a best of the two? In this article, Light Sabres will clash with, well, wands and medieval weaponry I assume.
The very first Star Wars film was created in 1977, the first film being the fourth in the series. The very first Lord of the Rings film was created in 2001. The time between both movies was huge so it is impossible to base any sort of reasoning on special effects.
So since there was a massive jump in technology between Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, how can we decide which trilogy comes out on top?
The Internet Movie Database (http://www.imdb.com/) has a list of 250 of the top films rated by users. Not surprisingly, The Godfather comes out on top alongside classics such as The Shawshank Redemption. But where are the Lord of the Rings films and the Star Wars films? Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back comes in at an appropriate number 8 and the very first Star Wars film comes in at number 10. Lord of the Rings: Return of the King arrives promptly after Star Wars, coming at number 13. The Fellowship of the Ring drags itself in at number 20. So two films from both series are in the top 20 films as voted by Internet users, although Star Wars does manage to arrive ahead of the Lord of the Rings movies, it’s a very tight race.
Why don’t we dive into statistics and figures? The Star Wars Trilogy managed to rack up $2,419,041,555 worldwide at the box office and Lord of the Rings managed to rack up $2,954,933,388 worldwide. So in that respect, Lord of the Rings did manage to wield a much larger bounty than Star Wars. But do these figures really tell us which is best? After all, many awful movies have scored large amounts of money at the box office. Of course, Lucas did manage to release six films and thus cashed in on $4,323,441,555 box office revenue, but let’s keep things fair and just focus on the trilogy.
As far as cultural impact goes, it boils down to opinion. Personally though, I think Star Wars had a much larger cultural impact than Lord of the Rings. Firstly, the time span between the Trilogy and the three film prequels was almost 25 years and yet the hype and the fandom still remained throughout these years and the prequels were hugely successful. Lastly, there is an official religion based on the Star Wars movies known as the Jedi Church. Until I see a religion of hobbits, I will not change my mind that the cultural influence of Star Wars is greater than that of Lord of the Rings or in fact, any movie or series.
After much research, hours of trawling for opinions and searching for various figures, I have to declare that Star Wars is the trilogy.
May the force be with you!
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