DPAD Top Movies Face/Off Round 2#24: Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan vs LOTR: Fellowship of the Ring

Thread: DPAD Top Movies Face/Off Round 2#24: Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan vs LOTR: Fellowship of the Ring

Which of these two movies is your favourite?

  • Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan

    Votes: 4 23.5%

  • The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring

    Votes: 13 76.5%
  • Total voters
    17
  • Poll closed .
Mickmrly

Mickmrly

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Hello and welcome to the DPAD Top Movies Face/Off series! 😎

The two movies fighting it out for your vote today are:

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
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The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
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Fellowship of the Ring for me. It's the best of the trilogy for me and hews very close to Tolkien's text. Never mind the impossible task of director Peter Jackson to film what many thought an unfilmable book to the big screen.

Not to say Wrath of Khan is in any way a lesser movie. Far from it. It's the best of the Star Trek films for me with a brilliant and tightly written script, great performances from the Original Series cast (especially returning villain Ricardo Montalban as Khan) and visual effects that still hold up. And can I just say that they should have stuck with the end of Spock dying? Always felt like a copout that they brought him back in the next movie.
 
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GreyHorace said:
It's the best of the Star Trek films for me with a brilliant and tightly written script, great performances from the Original Series cast (especially returning villain Ricardo Montalban as Khan) and visual effects that still hold up. And can I just say that they should have stuck with the end of Spock dying? Always felt like a copout that they brought him back in the next movie.
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Like they brought back Gandalf, huh?

Spock's sacrifice is one of the greatest sacrifices you'll see in movies. It's shocking yet completely logical and is part of the theme of a movie - dealing with a no win scenario.

Wrath of Khan is a far superior movie. One of the most intelligently written sci-fi scripts. LOTR is fine.
 
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HE1NZ said:
Like they brought back Gandalf, huh?

Spock's sacrifice is one of the greatest sacrifices you'll see in movies. It's shocking yet completely logical and is part of the theme of a movie - dealing with a no win scenario.

Wrath of Khan is a far superior movie. One of the most intelligently written sci-fi scripts. LOTR is fine.
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Gandalf's return is inline with Tolkien's lore of Middle Earth at least. The makers of Wrath of Khan admitted that they made up the whole Vulcans transferring their katra thing (alongside the Genesis Planet being unstable) as a convenient excuse to resurrect Spock in case Leonard Nimoy decided he wanted to continue.

Again, I'm not discounting WOK's quality. It's amazing what Nicholas Meyer was able to do on a budget after Star Trek: The Motion Picture failed to meet the expected box office.
 
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HE1NZ said:
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Pfft. As I said before, Gandalf's return is in line with the lore, as there are numerous examples within his Legendarium of characters returning from the dead. Glorfindel being one, and Beren as well. And unlike Beren, the lore makes it clear that Gandalf like all the other wizards are not human.

Look George has his opinion, but I don't agree with it. And let's not forget that one of his main characters (Jon SNnow) in A Song of Ice and Fire came back from the dead in Game of Thrones. So he's a hypocrite for calling out Tolkien on this.
 
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The Best of the Jackson Tolkien films vs the best of the Star Trek films.

Tough one.

FotR is visually superb film and absolutely delights the eyes when viewing. The way the story arc plays out is also very enjoyable. The incredibly tranquil beginning in the Shire and then an intensity build up to the double beat at the end with 'losing' Gandalf to the Balrog and then Boromir to the Orcs. Basically ending the movie on a very serious and somber tone. Which makes it such a great start to a trilogy that leaves the audience begging for a continuation.

BUT.... I fucking hated Liv Tyler and Arwen in the film. Cut every scene with her and you would have a better film IMO. Also, I thought the Extended Editions a took away from the film as most of the additional scenes didnt add much and slowed the pacing awkwardly.

RoK is also a fun film. Though unlike FotR I think it relies far more on the IP and Actors to achieve it's greatness than high production values. I am not a big ST fan in general, but RoK to me is peak ST. It felt so much more 'real' than the original series (or even Next generation). Shatner was Kirk and Kirk was three dimensional finally.

And who doesnt like Kahn and his skewed perspective of righteousness? Such a solid villain for Kirk to duel in space. And sacrificing Spock was a boss move to enhance the gravity of peril. (I agree bringing him right back in three was weak sauce)


So, Ultimately I think the Enterprise is going down here and FotR gets the vote.
 
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I love both movies, but I think in this matchup I will go with Wrath of Khan.

The Fellowship of the Ring is a great film with a wonderful score, great visuals and a deep storyline. However, out of the three trilogy movies I feel it is the slowest of the 3. The Two Towers is my favourite of the trilogy and had the battle of Helms deep as its main event, while Return of the King had Minas Tirith. While Moria was a big part of the movie, it wasn't as involved as the other two battles. While the Fellowship is a bit slower, it was necessary to be like this so that it could properly setup the trilogy. However, in the matchup against Wrath of Khan, the slow pacing of Fellowship of the Ring is beaten out by the tight pacing of Wrath of Khan.

The Wrath of Khan also has a wonderful score and also has decent visuals. The storyline is tighter and more focused than not only Fellowship of the Ring, but also its prequel Star Trek movie: The Motion Picture. Unlike the future iteration of the movie, Wrath of Khan has a well casted villain who also has a believable storyline and motives. Captain Kirk is punished for his lax treatment of Khan previously, which ended with Khan marooned in a world of his own, marooned but not dead. The cunning and cruelty of Khan is shown throughout the film, and it takes Kirk and his crew a lot of effort to fight back Khan and his schemes.

While I enjoy rewatching both movies, I think the much longer length and slower story of Fellowship of the Ring lose out to Wrath of Khan to me. I can just put on the movie and enjoy the story, which is a decent length. Not too long and not too short. Fellowship of the Ring on the other hand (especially the extended edition) is a bit more effort to watch, with a good amount of time needed to watch it within one day or even two nights. Out of the LOTR Trilogy I think I would put The Two Towers and Return of the King before Fellowship of the Ring, but I still think they are all fantastic movies.
 
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LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring wins this match up and will be moving on to Round 3.
 
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