Alright! Today, in the strain of my Office vs. Parks and Rec vs. Community post, I am playing three of the biggest franchises of all time against each other - Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and the Star Wars saga.
For this match, I'll only be using the stuff that pertains directly to the films, except when the questions may deem further explanation. So I'm not counting The Cursed Child, I'm not counting The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, and I'm not counting Knights of the Old Republic. I will, however, be pulling material from things like The Silmarillion, Fantastic Beasts, and The Clone Wars when required.
1. Lore
Star Wars has had amazing lore bestowed upon it by dedicated workers who spent hours contributing to it in the 90s, only for it to be Thanos snapped and wiped from cannon. The existing Star Wars lore is pretty cool, however. A multi-generational saga that shapes the events of the galaxy for millennia to come. You have great characters like Darth Plagueis, Nihilus, Revan, and EU characters like Mara Jade. Tons of cool stories. But again, most of that was replaced and is only now being brought out from the Disney Vault. So in terms of movies and TV shows, Star Wars has good (But not excellent) lore.
Harry Potter just has the least developed lore. No matter how many times the books and movies reference A History of Magic, we never really learn anything about the wizards' past other than Salazar Slytherin wasn't a very chill guy. And the knowledge that "wizards simply relieved themselves wherever they stood, and vanished the evidence" doesn't exactly enthrall me.
Winners: Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Harry Potter. The total score is Lord of the Rings with 1, Star Wars with 2, and Harry Potter with 3.
2. Quality
Winners: Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Star Wars. The total score is Lord of the Rings at 2 and Harry Potter and Star Wars tied at 5.
3. Fanbase
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| Backlash around potential nudity in the Amazon LOTR show demonstrates how passionate fans are about preserving Tolkien's vision. |
Oftentimes, the fanbase of a movie can shape the experience - one of my biggest holdups over Zack Snyder's DC films is how passionate/toxic the fanbase is. It can actively weigh the experience down. And out of the three fanbases, I'm going to have to give Lord of the Rings the best fandom. The movies require a great amount of thought to fully understand and appreciate, which keeps some of the low-brow folk out of the fandom. I can't recall a single scandal from within the fandom. Everyone agrees The Hobbit films aren't the best and everyone agrees that the Gandalf vs. Witch King fight/Aragorn is butchered for the movies, and browsing subreddits like r/LOTR gives me the impression that they're civilized.
Harry Potter has its share of the good, cringe, and toxic fans. Most are casual to deeply entrenched like myself, some run the terrible Instagram meme pages, and the toxic ones are pretty toxic. And there's a lot of strange shipping that goes on, but that doesn't really need to be brought up.
And Star Wars... oof. While most Star Wars fans seem to enjoy the franchise, an equal amount seem to hate the franchise. And some even harass the actors! Jake Lloyd (Young Anakin Skywalker) renounced Star Wars, Hayden Christensen (Anakin Skywalker) basically retired from acting, Kelly Marie Tran was the subject to online harassment, and Ahmed Best (Jar-Jar) considered suicide! That's really bad PR.
Winners: LOTR, Harry Potter, Star Wars. The total score is Lord of the Rings at 3, Harry Potter at 7, and Star Wars at 8.
4. Musical score
We can determine this category from the Oscars - which franchise garnered the most nominations for Best Original Score? Star Wars had 5 nominations with 1 win, Lord of the Rings had 2 nominations with 2 wins, and Harry Potter had 2 nominations with 0 wins. And, although it is subjective, it's just arguable that Star Wars has the best score. It's safe to say that few franchises have ever come up with as many memorable themes as Star Wars has - The main theme, Force theme, Cantina song, Imperial March, Leia's theme, Across the Stars, Anakin's Dark Deeds, Rey's theme, and, most recently, The Mandalorian theme. Each is iconic.
LOTR wins second place through how amazing the music is. I mean, maybe it would take a more loyal fan to discern anything that's not the main theme, but the actual Mordor themes, Shire theme, and Elf themes are all amazing. Just watch The Piano Guys video.
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| The most well known Harry Potter track isn't even the main theme, it's Hedwig's theme. |
The Harry Potter films are all competently scored, but let's be honest here: Most of us only know the main theme, once again created by John Williams, and probably drilled into our heads by the thousands of DVD previews we must've seen in the late 2000s. It's amazing, but not as iconic or well-crafted as the other two.
Winners: Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter. The total score is Lord of the Rings at 5, Star Wars at 9, and Harry Potter at 10.
5. Protagonists
The face of the franchise is one of the most integral parts of said franchise. A controversial pick, but the best protagonist here is Harry Potter. We get to chart Harry's growth over the course of seven years, learn and grow with him. We get to see him grow from a scared 11-year-old kid into a full-blown Horcrux hunter, it's very impressive. Even more impressive might be that they found a child actor who could, like, act.
Next up we have Lord of the Rings. Lord of the Rings, I feel, frequently gets a lot of flak for having kind of bland protagonists - Bilbo and Frodo. While I don't think that's the case, I do see where they're coming from. Tolkien's writings aren't focused on the characterization so much as the overall story and lore. The Silmarillion gets a new protagonist every ten pages. But hey, Bilbo literally uses the most powerful object in existence to bail on his birthday party, so they are pretty relatable.
Anakin Skywalker and Luke Skywalker are some of the greatest protagonists to ever come out of cinema. Unfortunately, I can't really say they stayed great. Anakin's development in the PT is sudden and rapid without seven seasons of The Clone Wars backing it up, and Luke Skywalker's equally jarring transition to a hermit in The Last Jedi wasn't the most well thought out idea. Then there's Rey Skywalker... who's... hmm... not exactly the most well-written character...
Winners: Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars. The total score is Lord of the Rings at 7, Harry Potter at 11, and Star Wars at 12.
6. Scale
From a movie-making standpoint, "scale" is how epic the scope of the story is - look to Dune later this month for something with a huge scale. And yeah, Lord of the Rings sweeps here. The extensive use of practical effects, large-scale battles that required every available person in New Zealand, breathtaking castle sieges, it has it all. Even The Hobbit, with all of its digital glitz, was filmed in 48 frames per second in 3D. It overcompensated needlessly, but it's still incredibly epic.
Next up is Star Wars. Star Wars tells a generations-long saga about how one family's inner turmoil and struggle to do right ended up wrecking an entire galaxy. It's an epic tale of good and evil, which isn't terribly subtle when everyone's color-coded to make sure you know who the bad guys are. Star Wars also visits a diverse range of planets, from desert planets to snow planets to water planets to forest moons. And you could definitely argue that Star Wars, with a galactic scale, has a bigger scale than LOTR. Which I get, I just think LOTR does it better and more consistently.
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| I don't think the movies ever properly delivered on The Battle of Hogwarts. |
Next up is Harry Potter, which unfortunately is about a kid who goes to school. On the surface that's not terribly interesting, but it definitely makes up for it by being a school of magic. 7 of the movies still take place in classrooms, a tan castle, and the occasional trip to Diagon Alley. It's not really trying to be epic in scale, just a good story. And that's perfectly fine, but it's not really the best in a category judging things by their scale.
Winners: Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Harry Potter. The total score is Lord of the Rings at 8, Harry Potter at 14, and Star Wars at 14.
7. Antagonists
A franchise is only as good as its villain, right? Or say the saying goes. Anyways, it's fairly apparent that Star Wars has the best villain. Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine are the most iconic villains in all of cinema. Darth Vader's character arc is the scale of six movies, for crying out loud. We see his transition from peaceful Jedi to Dark Lord of the Sith. And for as poorly thought out as the Sequels are, there's no denying that Adam Driver's powerful performance was the best part of those movies.
After that, we have Lord of the Rings. Sure, "evil incarnate" is a trope done to hell and back, but Lord of the Rings' heavy mythos plays heavily into its ranking. Morgoth, basically Middle-Earth's Satan, defies Ilúvatar and is banished to the realm of Middle-Earth. There he plagues the elves, men, and dwarfs with the help of his right-hand man Sauron, who takes over the dark lord reigns following Morgoth's defeat. Sauron, meanwhile, has the ring of power and his iconic watchful eye. He's the bad guy.
Voldemort is good, but I (Biasedly) prefer the "evil incarnate" stereotype over the "Hitler metaphor." Voldemort doesn't bring much to the table - he murdered the protagonist's parents... how original... and he's basically Harry Potter but evil. But there is something to be said for a villain who simply believes he's better than others because of his lineage. That's always a relevant trait, sadly.
Winners: Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter. The total score is Lord of the Rings at 10, Star Wars at 15, and Harry Potter at 17.
8. Plot
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| I love it when the first episode or movie starts out with the endgame, be it Mount Doom or the Lonely Mountain. |
Harry Potter has the second-best plot, which I'm mostly taking points off for because eventually, the movies can devolve into derivativeness. Every Harry Potter understandably has the same setting and location, but each time it has some new topping to ensure it's unique enough to be different. And some of the toppings (Prisoner of Azkaban) work better than others (Chamber of Secrets).
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| Oscar Isaac looks so sad here... |
Meanwhile, Star Wars has so many plotholes between trilogies it's hard to keep them straight. Why doesn't Obi-Wan remember R2? How can Leia remember her mom? And who can forget my all-time favorite Star Wars line "Somehow... Palpatine returned."
Winners: Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Star Wars. The total score is Lord of the Rings at 11, Harry Potter at 19, and Star Wars at 18.
9. Production
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| The Shire is literally real and still exists as a tourist destination. |
Production is the acting and writing and visual effects that went into it. Can you see the love and dedication? Well, you definitely can in, you guessed it, The Lord of the Rings. Lord of the Rings was filmed back-to-back-to-back, making the production quality between movies seamless. The extensive use of practical effects makes everything better. The entire cast is giving it their all. And it's based on one of the greatest books ever written, so all it has to do is follow the books. And The Hobbit's not bad either, just not as good. Aside from a tacked-on love interest, that entire trilogy, while bloated, is still very good.
After that, we have Harry Potter, which is consistently great the entire time. It cannot be overstated how amazing it is that they were able to find an entire cast of amazing child actors. Not many other movies can claim every single one of their child actors grew up and continued to be incredible actors, but Harry Potter made it look easy. It's perfectly great in its own way, just not as great as Lord of the Rings.
And then we have Star Wars... put your nostalgia aside, every single Star Wars movie is inherently cheesy or poorly written. Anakin's sand monologue may be some of the most iconic dialogue of all time, but it's for all the wrong reasons. And the acting found in the Prequels isn't that great, either. There's no denying the visual effect work is good, but the movies severely skimp out on other aspects of production at some point or another.
Winners: Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Star Wars. The total score is Lord of the Rings at 12, Harry Potter at 21, and Star Wars at 21.
10. Best vibe
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| I still want my Christmas at Hogwarts. |
Vibes are very important to me but extremely subjective. A good vibe is determined by whether or not I can see myself living in that world and interacting with the characters. And for me, that's Harry Potter. Most likely because it's the closest to "regular" life, eg school and growing up, but whenever I watch the movies or read the books I just get this feeling that I've been there. That it could actually exist.
After that, I give Star Wars vibe points, specifically the Prequels/The Clone Wars. The giant cast of Jedi that frequently go on missions and adventures and grow up together really hits home for me. I can't really see a specific setting (Sitting at Honeydukes), but I can see myself as a Jedi. Sometimes the easiest way to know if it has a good vibe is if the ending feels like you just grew up and left for college, and Star Wars, specifically The Siege of Mandalore, gave me that feeling. The end of an era.
Lord of the Rings doesn't really have a "livable" world. Maybe that's just me always thinking that any time before 1920 would be absolutely terrible to live in due to the lack of infrastructure. But I can attribute it to the cast of characters being so small. It's the nine of the Fellowship, and we follow their journeys and their journeys end perfectly. Not much room for fun bonding when you're always on an epic quest across Middle-Earth. Gimli and I aren't getting drinks any time soon, basically. And the elves are so self-important! Who'd even want to hang out with them?
Winners: Harry Potter, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings. The total score is Lord of the Rings at 15, Harry Potter at 22, and Star Wars at 23.
11. Supporting Characters
A bland protagonist can be quickly overcome by supporting characters (Anyone not the protagonist for the purpose of this ranking) that outshine them - like Solo: A Star Wars Story! Speaking of Star Wars, Star Wars has some of the best-supporting characters of all time. Obi-Wan Kenobi, Han Solo, R2-D2, Kylo Ren, Kanan Jarrus, they're all incredible characters, and there are nine movies full of them.
After that, we have Harry Potter. Because the characters in Harry Potter are just kids, Ron and Hermione feel a bit more real than one would assume. Other characters like Dumbledore or Dobby become fan-favorites through their cryptic wisdom or undying loyalty. But here you have eight movies full of incredible supporting characters. Even smaller roles like Colin Creevey and Peeves get time to shine.
And then we have The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Can you name any of the dwarves from The Hobbit? I can name, like, eight, but if you ask me for personalities I'll be drawing a blank slate. Lord of the Rings has a plethora of great supporting characters like Legolas or Faramir, but again. They do have smaller casts and thus less room for secondary characters and vibes.
Winners: Star Wars, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings. The total score is Lord of the Rings at 18, Harry Potter at 24, and Star Wars at 24.
12. Overall satisfaction and payoff
Lord of the Rings wanted to make us absolutely, 100% sure that we knew that the movies were ending. They wanted to be so sure, in fact, that they included about five different perfect endings for the movie. It's impressive, but it definitely drives home the payoff. These characters have their arcs perfectly concluded. And while The Hobbit may be flawed, Gandalf and Bilbo chatting after the Battle of the Five Armies was worth it.
Harry Potter's finale, while imperfect, was still largely satisfying. The Battle of Hogwarts almost takes an entire movie, so tons of time is spent on the build-up and resolution. And then ending the series the way it began, with Harry sending his child off to Hogwarts... even if the actors don't look 40 at all, it can still choke up a devoted fan.
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Winners: Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Star Wars. The total score is Lord of the Rings at 19, Harry Potter at 26, and Star Wars at 27.
13. Books
This is an admittedly stacked category - after all, two of these three franchises were based on pre-existing novels. They do have an inherent advantage. Lord of the Rings sweeps once again. J.R.R. Tolkien literally invented an entire language and culture around this story, and then was able to create The Silmarillion as a history of Middle-Earth. The amount of detail, while exhausting, is unparalleled.
After that, we have Harry Potter, which is one of the easiest things I've ever read. They may sound bad, but it's a good trait. I can pick up any Harry Potter book and instantly be absorbed. The books create such a feel of longing and belonging for Hogwarts and that wizard life that it genuinely hurts for them to be fictional. That's impressive.
Star Wars was always going to lose this category, but they do publish books. Heir to the Empire is the most well-known among them, but that's only three books out of probably thousands. The novelizations of the movies routinely do well, but only so much can be done when adapting The Phantom Menace. And most of the books were wiped from canon. It's a mixed, but worthwhile, bag.
Winners: Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Star Wars. The total score is Lord of the Rings at 20, Harry Potter at 28, and Star Wars at 30
14. Most influential
A good sign of how successful a franchise is is by the shoes it leaves to fill. The biggest shoes created here are awarded to Star Wars, by far and away. Star Wars, while being heavily inspired by its predecessors Flash Gordon and Dune, ranks among the most influential movies, up there with The Birth of A Nation and Citizen Kane. Popular culture was forever changed, special effects and sci-fi taken seriously! And it was one of the very first blockbusters, inspiring countless generations of filmmakers.
It was so influential, in fact, that Peter Jackson cited Star Wars as a major influence for his production of The Lord of the Rings, which takes our #2 spot. The Lord of the Rings not only was a landmark in pop culture, but also fundamentally changed the way big blockbusters were made. Epic scales, big ensembles, and lots of special effects were revitalized in the 12-hour epic. And the rating system was forever numbed to PG-13 violence.
After that we have Harry Potter. Harry Potter had two big impacts on cinema - one, YA franchises became extremely popular, leading to adaptations for the likes of Hunger Games, Twilight, Percy Jackson, Eragon, Artemis Fowl, and The 5th Wave, most of which bombed. But more noticeably, it made the concept of splitting the last book into two movies, which was later utilized by The Hunger Games and The Twilight Saga. It had an impact, but arguably not as much.
Winners: Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter. The total score is Lord of the Rings at 22, Harry Potter at 31, and Star Wars at 31.
15. Legacy
Which franchise left the best taste in the audience's mouth? Which was hasn't been drowned out by disappointing prequels? The answer is none of them, but I'd argue that the one that fared the best is Lord of the Rings, considering that the franchise has ended. Barring a major disappointment from Amazon's series, which isn't part of the Jackson-verse anyways, Middle-Earth is still kicking it. The first three films are seen as some of the best in film history, and while The Hobbit was an unnecessary adventure, the first one is a bona fide classic and the second and third have their moments and are still miles ahead of the other franchise's prequels.
After that we have Star Wars. Some Star Wars fans think the last good Star Wars movie came out in 1980, which is... really unfortunate. But Star Wars routinely has ups and downs. The first two Prequel movies are terrible, but The Clone Wars makes them go down easier. The merits of the Sequel Trilogy are continually debated, but The Mandalorian is an incredible crowd-pleaser. And it looks to be continuing its reign - The Book of Boba Fett, the third season of The Mandalorian, and Obi-Wan Kenobi are all incredibly anticipated.
And then we have Harry Potter. Harry Potter is still popping out movies, but the last one was burdened with the terrible overextension and plot contrivances that kill so many franchises nowadays. No one's really excited for the third Fantastic Beasts movie, the HBOMax series may be a reboot (A terrible idea), and, unlike J.R.R. Tolkien, J.K. Rowling is still alive and here to make you retroactively hate the franchise. You never see good headlines about Harry Potter anymore, it's always some controversial homophobic or transphobic statement. Not great PR.
Winners: Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Harry Potter. The total score is Lord of the Rings at 23, Harry Potter at 34, and Star Wars at 33.
Well, that was... a lot! The winners are The Lord of the Rings with 23 points, Star Wars with 33, and Harry Potter with 34. Again, that's just my personal opinion fractured into several tinier opinions that I conglomerated into one statistical opinion. It doesn't really have any merit outside of this URL, but I thought it was pretty neat.
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