Battle Number 1

I was going to do a massive, "Which Saga Is The Greatest?" type of post, but I'm instead opting to break it down and do a piece here and a piece there. Maybe this'l be this year's "Krunk List." ;-)

So here it is: Star Wars (SW) vs. Lord of the Rings (LOTR) vs. The Matrix (TM)

Today's Question: (an easy one)

Which saga has the greatest music?

John Williams and Star Wars
Howard Shore and Lord of the Rings
or
various artists and The Matrix

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All biases aside, how can one argue against the Star Wars main theme, the Imperial March, Yoda's theme, the Force theme, the Episode I "Duel of the Fates" theme, and Leia's theme? Each one of those is probably instantly recognizable without too much effort.

The Matrix too has great music, but besides the Rage Against the Machine songs that perfectly wrap up the first and second movie, I can't even recall what the music of the Matrix is. The music in the Matrix is easily the weakest of the above mentioned movies.

The Lord of the Rings has some great music that in *some* ways is better than the Star Wars music. Some of the LOTR music could probably stand up really well as a "stand alone" orchestral set. The Star Wars movies can *almost* pull that off, but so much of the Star Wars music is more "set piece" oriented, meaning the music jumps from theme to theme much in the same way that the movie jumps from scene to scene.

But soundtrack music isn't supposed to "stand alone," it's supposed to accompany scenes. And for my movie music tastes, you can't knock the Luke blowing up the Death Star music just because it doesn't stand well on it's own. And I can't knock the music at the end of "Return of the Jedi" when Luke and Vader are going at it, just because it doesn't stand well on it's own. The point of movie music is to accompany a scene, and it just doesn't get any better than the Star Wars music.

I can't really imagine different music for any of the above movie sagas, but Star Wars can almost tie its popularity directly into the music itself. The Star Wars music sold extremely well, and exists in a symbiotic relationship with the movie itself.

So because of the above reasons, I have to give the music edge to Star Wars.

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Round One : Music

Star Wars
Lord of the Rings
The Matrix