re: Does anyone really think Star Wars is better than The Lord of the Rings?

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Go back and watch the original Star Wars with fresh eyes, if that's possible. The dialogue and acting is pretty bad. Enjoyable movie, but it's fairly corny.

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Did that a few years ago. Came to the same conclusion.

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Original trilogy Star Wars, original theatrical version, was my favorite movie experience. It holds up for me because of nostalgia, and it gets a lot of bonus points for "being the first", and for having complete mastery of the pre-computer special effects process.
I've seen a recent youtube with some CGI guys who discuss that, and they're just so impressed with what was done and how.

Younger people just can't get it; Star Wars was the "you can't do that live-action" movie. Go watch a Harryhausen movie like Sinbad etc, or a Godzilla movie, or a WW2 movie like Midway etc. The stop-motion is obvious, the miniatures are obvious, the flight and naval footage is stock and shows up in almost every film with WW2 movies etc. It's all clearly fake, and you have to immerse and imagine. This is what Disney did making animated movies, they couldn't do, say, Sleeping Beauty live because it would just be impossible to depict realistically.
But Lucas and the future ILM did it, and they haven't been topped or really even matched.

LOTR is clearly the better acted movies, WETA did a fine job with following the lead of ILM for some practical effects, and they had the benefit of CGI (Gollum, etc).

When you view either critically today, what stands out are a few things:
Star Wars has some bad acting and dialogue. The "enhanced addition" effects cheapen it, because any CGI artist could do that stuff now, and probably better than what was done.

LOTR has some BAD cgi at times. The ghosts in particular, whether it be the green army of the Dead, or the cheap dead from the Dead Marshes. And not really that impressed with either the Wargs, or the crappy comedic turn they did with Gimli at times after Fellowship.

Both are fine movies, I don't think LOTR could have been done with Lucas' original techniques; and I think LOTR was THE series that allowed "good" actors to move into the "epic movie" ranks (we now see Marvel and DC getting actual good actors in their movies, that wouldn't have happened in the past).
I don't think you can say one is "better" than the other, except for certain elements.

I’ve never wanted a movie to end more than return of the king.

I was rooting for the fellowship to lose by the time the fricking ghost army came out of no where.

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, or a Godzilla movie

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Suitmation did revolutionize the genre, though. Allowed you to get away from stop-motion/claymation like the old King Kong type movies.

You sell the original Godzilla short.

Can't believe it took somebody this long to post this

Only thing that needs to be said about Star Wars vs LOTR

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I mean the original Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back are great

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Yes, they are and Empire is probably the best film of the 6 for comparison, although the quality of all of the LOTR films is impressively extraordinary.

Keep in mind the Star Wars films had 3 different directors (Lucas, Kershner and Marquand) - to have a film trilogy be so outstanding, overall, with 3 different directors is an extra tick in Star Wars' column.

On the other hand, Jackson and company took things so seriously for LOTR, that - just as one example, various Orcs on screen for 8 to 12 frames all have clan specific (and canon correct) armor, markings, etc.

That kind of passion, combined with technical excellence and attention to detail often results in outstanding film, assuming the creative folks do their part.

One of the more impressive feats of Star Wars that often gets lost in these discussions:

LOTR is Peter Jackson's great interpretation of Tolkien's literary masterpiece. Jackson was faithful to the property, and did a technically beautiful job of bringing that story to the screen.

Star Wars is George Lucas' on-screen presentation of... George Lucas' own story. It's full of generic characters types, but he was able to craft them into a deep and enduring tale, which has now spawned further developments.

Star Wars was inspired by Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, John Carter, westerns and samurai movies, but it's still a completely distinct tale from those, and now instantly recognizable on it's own.

There's a decent chance that Jackson could take the Star Wars scripts and make great movies, perhaps deeper than Lucas'.
There's a decent chance that Lucas could have done a direct, official adaptation of LOTR, with the same budget and tech, and have made an insanely fun set of movies that perhaps might not have been quite as dramatic, but possibly a little more adventurous and swashbuckling.

I don't think that Jackson could pull a story out of his arse, and craft anything near the level of Star Wars. Lucas did.

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It's full of generic characters types,

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Archetypal, not generic.

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I don't think that Jackson could pull a story out of his arse, and craft anything near the level of Star Wars. Lucas did.

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You raise some interesting points - Jackson isn't known for content creation/world-building, at least not directly, but then neither was Kubrick.

Nolan can straddle the line more comfortably than many, but most are either slaves to their own voice (e.g. QT) or are at some level of adaptation of other works. And even Tarantino is a largely a "deriver" or amalgamter, if not an outright adapter.

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Return of the Jedi is much worse

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Come on now. Chuck Norris went to build-a-bear and created an army. We call this army the Ewoks.