Star Wars and Lord Of The Rings

[originel]

WARNING SPOILERS!!!!

Ok, so i went to see Return of the King again tonight with my family and i noticed something. I had noticed this once before, but i noticed it a lot more this time.

There is a ridiculous amount of similarities between the two movies, especially in return of the king. I'm not exactly sure why, but i have a lot of theories. First of all Lucas based his movies off of mythology and it seems also off of LOTR. I was talking with my dad and he said that Lucas was good friends with this person involved in mythology that had studied at the same school as Tolkien years prior (i'll try and find out how accurate that is). This would make perfect sense. Also i would not doubt that Jackson also paid homage to Lucas with other shots as well. so here are the things i have noticed, and i'm sure i've missed others so please do add to the list. (btw i don't consider ep I or II to be real star wars, so they don't count for the discussion )

1) As vader is dying in luke's arms:
Luke:"I'm going to save you"
Vader:"You already have Luke, you already have"
As Theoden is dying in Aowen's arms:
Aowen:"I'm going to save you father"
Theoden:"You have already saved me"

2) The elephants attacking Minas Tirith remind me of the AT-AT walkers. also note how Legolas scales one of the elephants to take it down in a similar way in which Luke scaled (or rather cranked) his way to the belly of an AT-AT to take it down

3) The overall idea of good versus evil in the grandest sense and how the Evil Empire is set to take over control over the universe in the same way in which sauron means to take over middle earth

6) Only the super elite enemy forces are not complete idiots. anyone ever seen a storm trooper hit anything more than 5 feet away from them? Likewise, how many important characters has an orc killed? the only one i can think of was the Elf leader in Two Towers at Helm's Deep (which wasn't in the book from what i hear anyways).

7) Character Similarities - they're everywhere
Emporer Palpatine - Sauron

Luke - Combination of Frodo and Aragorn

Gandalf - Obiwan (especially take note of the similar relationship
between Frodo-Gandalf and Luke-Obiwan)

Vader - Combination of Sauroman and Theodin. Sauroman for obvious reasons and Theoden because he fell to the dark side much as Theoden had fallen to sauron and then comes back to the light side later.

Han Solo - Aragorn and Sam

R2D2 and C3P0 - Mary and Pippen

Leah - Aowen

Wedge - Sam

btw, please excuse spelling and/or forgotten names as checking all of this would take a week Also i don't think this is Jackson ripping off Lucas, but more Lucas taking ideas from tolkien (although there is obviously some homage by Jackson of Lucas)

[ShawnD1]

Who is wedge?

[originel]

ya know...that other x-wing pilot who is always there beside luke...he's the last guy with luke in the first one who fires the torpedo and misses and then in the third one he's the guy who goes in with lando into the death star (he's kinda relegated to the sidelines mostly, not very important guy unfortunately)

EDIT: oh yeah, he is also the one who finds han and luke on hoth in the second one

[Mike]

It's scary that I actually remember Wedge.

Originel: My advice? Get a hobby, man! You're almost as bad as those guys over at moviemistakes.com Some neat similarities, but I am too tired to care.

Lucas and Jackson, still, are just superb directors.

[ShawnD1]

My god, I never knew such a krew of losers exists.

The trebuchets shown during the battle at the White City defy the laws of physics. Firstly, some of the trebuchets have baskets attached directly to the end of the lever arm, which would cause the projectile to be embedded in the ground just a few feet in front of the trebuchet. Secondly, a trebuchet attempts to lunge forward when it's fired, but the trebuchets in the movie remain motionless even though there's nothing holding them down. Thirdly, the large projectiles shown landing in the battlefield would have required a humongous trebuchet to launch them, but all of the trebuchets shown in the movie are even smaller than the projectiles themselves (a trebuchet of the required size would be easily visible from nearly any viewing angle on the White City). Lastly, trebuchets are only useful as offensive weapons, used primarily to punch a whole in the fortress wall to allow the army to invade. They don't work as defensive weapons because the projectiles are small, and even if you did manage to target a single individual, he would see it coming and would have ample time to step to one side (a fact depicted in the film). The defensive weapon idea only works in the movie due to the oversize nature of the projectiles, and the idiotic behavior of the orcs of standing in large groups within trebuchet range and not moving until it's too late.

It's just a movie ffs

[U-96]

the idiotic behavior of the orcs of standing in large groups

Up untill the Second World War, that's how most armies did fight. Just look at Civil War or Napoleon or WW1 trench attacks. Soldiers walked into musket fire, cannonballs, grapeshot, machine guns etc because that's what they were told to do. Taking cover is a relatively recent idea

As for criticising the physics, I agree. It's kind of pointless in a world with balrogs, magic swords, rings or invisibility and so on...

[nomaxim]

Good point U-96.

Romans, Greeks, uhh I think just about EVERYONE did that.

What's next, errr Talking Trees!

[ShawnD1]

He's not a tree; he's a tree hearder.

[originel]

He's not a tree; he's a tree hearder.

and i'm supposed to be the one with no life j/k

in my defense tho the only one i really caught on my own was the first quote. the others were things my dad noticed.

Lucas and Jackson, still, are just superb directors.

absolutely, in fact they are two of the only directors who could a) successfully make a movie series and b) take tolkien's work and actually make a great movie from it.