re: How much of a joke is it that Star Wars was ever thought to be equal to Lord of the Rings?

To be fair to Lucas, he didn't have the wonderful road map that Tolkien gave Jackson. Now, that doesn't mean Jackson didn't knock it out of the park himself, because it certainly isn't easy adapting something so faithfully. Lucas, however, was coming up with his own stuff.

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I'm guessing that some modern day Disney Star Wars shills or NPCs were attempting to make this comparison?

I've never heard anyone say SW was 'equal to' LOTR. Either the movies or the source material.

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I guess it depends a lot on your perspective.

For those of us who lived through both original movie trilogies, Star Wars was the first.
When LOTR came out, the comparisons started, because they are both epic fantasy trilogies at the top of their respective genres, and both elevated those genres in public perception and cultural significance.

Really the only other films to approach that was the MCU, as it got to Avengers. But then that franchise kept rolling on and is a totally different idea or event, more like the Bond series in that it keeps going.

You dont have to say one is better than the other, because they are different achievements.

But this much is true: Star Wars OT doesn't get made, if Star Wars the original movie wasn't such a gigantic success. And LOTR doesn't get made to the scale it was, if SW wasn't already established as proof trilogies can work.

And the MCU is far more similar to SW than LOTR. It was standalone movies, that intersected into a larger movie. LOTR is and always was 1 big story, that if you were going to commit to make, you had to make all of it.

As for history/backstories, they're also what and what. Star Wars had none, other than a couple mentions of things in the movies. Lucas then went back and created a history book, and tried to put a couple characters into that.
Tolkien had his works that later were published as the Silmarillion (and Unfinished Tales, etc). The Hobbit ironically isn't relevant, it was merely the children's book he got published that started his publishing career. He rewrote it later to fit better, but the Ring wasn't a big deal at first. The truly big stories have not been translated to film

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I’m just going to come out and say it: Star Wars is the most overrated thing of all time

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There is something interesting about this. I was in 6th grade when Phantom Menace came and no one at school ever talked about Star Wars or liked it honestly. If people did like it they got picked on, what’s funny now seems everyone loves it who hated it back then.

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Weird melt.

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Uh consider the source.

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LOTR gave us Gollum, which was a huge step, but not a massive game changer like Star Wars.

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Lord of the Rings did start the big fantasy craze of the 2000s (alongside Harry Potter). There are a lot of films and television shows that would not have been made had Jackson not masterfully adapted Lord of the Rings, so it was very influential in that way. Without Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones would have never happened. You wouldn’t have had the MCU either.

I’m not a huge fan of either but it blows my mind that people put Star Wars in the same universe (no pun intended) as LOTR.

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I mean you can literally say the same thing for Star Wars.

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Lord of the Rings probably would have eventually been shot if there was no Star Wars, but Star Wars was definitely a big influence on how good the films became, because without Star Wars we may have gotten the disaster of a single two hour Lord of the Rings that Harvey Weinstein wanted.

But while Star Wars is definitely one of the five most influential movies ever, I’d say Lord of the Rings is almost certainly the most important and influential film of the 21st century.

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say Lord of the Rings is almost certainly the most important and influential film of the 21st century.

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i’m interested in your arguement for this point.

I love the movies but idk if i’ve ever considered them “important”

also it’s probably Iron Man. The ripple from the marvel MCU can be felt not only in the superhero Genre but how all studios approach franchises and even all theatrical releases for better or worse.

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There’s no Iron Man/MCU without Lord of the Rings. Sorry, they wouldn’t have taken that gamble without its extreme levels of success.

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I dont think that’s true.

Superhero movies were making money for decades before LOTR.

Superman was a Monster Success in 1978
Batman was a monster success in 1989

Sony had printed money with Spiderman and that game out I think at the same time as the 2 towers so it’s not like they greenlit it because of the success of Fellowship.

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And I’d say that the Dark Knight was the bigger and more important comic book film.

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did it launch an interconnected cinematic universe that throttled box offices for 11 years?

It’s a great movie but it’s basically just lead to shitty movies being dark and gritty.