Scott here! This past Thursday (December 6, 2001) I got the chance to view "The Lord of The Rings - The Fellowship of The Ring". Star Wars and LOTR have a lot of connections. Both have obsessed fans. Both have a lot of internet hype. Lucas has been accused of ripping off Tolkien (though more justifiably for Willow than Star Wars). Fans of both movies have had a little rivalry going on as well. But how do the films compare with each other? And will LOTR outdo Star Wars at the box office? Here's one SW geek's impression:

PLOT AND PACING

The Fellowship of The Ring is not really for kids. While a 6 yr old could follow Star Wars pretty easily, LOTR is a much more adult film. The plot is a little more complex though it does stick to the hero's quest formula that Star Wars does. Both films have an unlikely hero going on a mission to save the world along with a rag tag group of friends, but beyond that they're very different.

LOTR clocks in at 3 hours. That's great for getting your money's worth. I'd love to have a 3 hour Star Wars film. However, the film does tend to get slow in spots. George Lucas is a bit better at the pacing of his films ("Faster! More intense!"), but Peter Jackson had to stick to what was in the novel. Between action scenes, it can get really slow. Despite that, the film has some very cool action scenes. The opening battle scene is really spectacular and the fight sequence in the Mines of Moria is one of the best of the entire year. Those scenes are worth the price of admission alone.

SPECIAL EFFECTS

The effects in LOTR are as good as anything that ILM has produced.

The battle scenes in the opening of the film blow away the Gungan / Battledroid fight in Episode I. The sight of thousands of warriors marching into battle against thousands of orcs was really impressive. The main bad guy Sauron slashes his way through warriors and sends them flying left and right. The camera flys dramatically over the epic battle. You know how in the fan trailers people always take scenes from Braveheart and put in lightsabers? It's the kind of thing you'd hope to see in a Star Wars film.

The worlds are more impressive, too. In Episode I we got a couple of wide shots of Naboo, Tatooine, or Coruscant. In Lord of the Rings, the camera flies toward a castle, circles a tower, then spins towards the ground and into an underground cavern and through the tunnels. You see hundreds of figures working everywhere. It gives the environments a grander feel. It's these kind of elaborate scenes that make it much more impressive as far as setting the scene.

Episode I offered a totally CGI character with Jar Jar Binks. He was a good effect, but he still felt like a CGI creation to me. In FOTR, we see Gollum. You really only get three glimpses of him in the dark, but each time I saw him I thought he was a puppet effect or a guy in a costume. I was amazed to find out later that he was totally CGI. His eyes reflected light in the dark. His hands moved realistically. The little bit they showed of him was cool and more will come in the sequels. But to be fair, Jar Jar was shown in broad daylight in most of the film while Gollum was always in the shadows. Maybe that's why Gollum looked better. We'll see if he holds up in the sequels.

The film also takes normal sized actors and reduces them to Hobbit and dwarf size through camera tricks, short doubles, and CG effects. They pulled this off remarkably well. Most of the time you can't even tell how they did it. Ian McKellen really looks twice the size of Elijah Wood.

CHARACTERS/ACTORS

In Episode I, George Lucas hired great actors, but then gave them little to work with in the way of dialogue or character development. Let's face it, Portman and McGregor are great actors but they weren't given much to work with in The Phantom Menace. In Lord of the Rings, Tolkien has already done all the work for Peter Jackson. The dialogue is written and the characters are developed. It's up to the actors to pull it off, and they do so pretty well. Ian McKellen really deserves a best supporting actor nomination for playing Gandalf. He really embodies the character. When McKellen meets Bilbo again, they seem like old friends. When he entertains the Hobbits with fireworks, he seems like a lighthearted old fellow. When he goes into battle, he's pretty intense and fearful. This makes him a much more interesting character and ends up making his cousin Obi-Wan seem a bit two-dimensional.

Christopher Lee also stars in Lord of the Rings as the evil wizard Saruman. He also plays Count Dooku in Episode II. I had some doubts about whether he could play an imposing bad guy at an age of 79, and I also wondered how he'd pull off the action scenes in AOTC. However, LOTR convinced me he could really pull it off. His voice is menacing and powerful. He also gets into a very violent and physical wizard battle with Gandalf. They use magic to throw each other through the air and against stone walls. Though a little bit Matrix-like, it is still impressive. Lee will be a good bad guy for Star Wars.

MUSIC

The music of Lord of the Rings was good, but not truly memorable like that of Star Wars. You may find yourself humming the tune of Duel of the Fates after Episode I, but you'd be hard pressed to remember any tunes from LOTR. There was some fantastic music from the battle scene in the Mines of Moria. The music from the Hobbiton scenes was also nice and perfectly suited for the moment. Enya provides a couple of songs for LOTR, but they left me unimpressed. Overall, the soundtrack is well done, but not a classic.

BOX OFFICE

My prediction on the box office? Lord of the Rings is going to do well. Very well. It may even top a couple of Star Wars records. However, I don't think it will ultimately overtake Episode I. The reason I think that's so is because it is three hours long, so they won't be able to crank out as many showings of the film, thus fewer tickets. I also don't think it will be picked up by younger kids like Star Wars was. I think Star Wars has a much broader audience appeal than Lord of the Rings does, so more tickets are sold. I think right now fantasy may be a little less accessible to general movie audiences than Star Wars is. That may change, though, as the sequels come out and more people dive into the world of Lord of the Rings.

That being said, I thoroughly enjoyed the film and I highly recommend it. If you like Star Wars, you'll enjoy Lord of the Rings. I thought it was a great film and I think you can expect some Academy Awards for it. The success of LOTR will mean we'll get to see more good fantasy movies and I'm all for that. Forget the hype, forget the competition. Just go in and have fun watching it. There's room in the world for both franchises. I also think this film will raise the bar for George Lucas. LOTR is going to make him have to step things up a little bit on Episode II and III, and that's a good thing for Star Wars fans, too.

For my full review of the film, visit MovieHeadlines.Net!