The Question:

Between Star Wars, the Matrix, and Lord of the Rings, which one has the best adversarial military?

The Orcs, Orukai, and Ringwreaths from "Lord of the Rings"

The Stormtroopers and the Imperial Navy from "Star Wars"

The Agents and Sentinels from "The Matrix"

----------------------------------------------------------

This one is simple and easy. I could just name these in order and be done with it, but I shall elaborate a little bit first...

-----------------------------------------------------------

The Lord of the Rings

As a military, the orcs, orukai, and the ringwreaths are relatively strong in both numbers and s(kills). Their basic tenant of fighting is reminiscent of the Union side of the civil war; just throw as many beings as you can into the mix and hope that your masses kill more of their limited numbers. As a military, they would have won too had it not been for Frodo throwing the ring into Mt. Doom.

But they do have some pretty glaring weaknesses in how they plan for things. In their effort to just throw as many bodies into the mix as possible, they left some avenues open that eventually led to their defeat. In "The Two Towers" and "Return of the King," they were defeated because they didn't have all of their flanks covered. In both movies, they were defeated when the cavalry came up on them from the sides. That's one glaring weakness.

The other being leaving Mt. Doom completely open. Although they had every reason to believe that the ring carrier was with Aragorn and his crew, I would have left about a few thousands orcs surrounding Mt. Doom...you know...just in case.

----------------------------------------------------------

Star Wars

The Storm Troopers can't hit the broadside of a barn. They are absolutely horrible and ineffective. They *look* cool, and carry cool weapons, but what good are cool weapons and uniforms when you can't hit the target? Who trained these guys, Stevie Wonder?

The Imperial Navy with their Star Destroyers and Death Stars only get marginally better marks. They're pretty effective in destroying their targets, but their leadership is horrible. I can think of a few glaring mistakes just off the top of my geeky head.

-When they're making their first attack run on Yavin in Episode IV, they only send...the Death Star??? That's like the Japanese sending only one ship to Pearl Harbor. If I were in charge of the Empire, I would have sent the Death Star and every ship imaginable to destroy the rebels. Who knows, maybe Luke would have destroyed the Death Star anyways, but what would have been left of the rebels at that point?

-They somewhat learned their lesson in "Return of the Jedi," but they once again failed miserably. The Imperial Navy thought that they would surprise attack the rebels with the Death Star, when their Star Destroyers would have done just fine against the Rebel Fleet. If they had combined the Death Star with the Imperial Fleet initially, they would have either completely wiped out the rebels, or they would have forced them to retreat.

Not to get all Abu Ghraib up in here, but their interrogation processes sucked (as cool looking as that floating ball was), in that they couldn't get Princess Leia to give them the name of the hidden base on two separate occasions. But then again, maybe I'll chalk that up to Leia being a bad ass.

The Battle for Hoth was obviously a victory for the Empire, but can you think of another time when they weren't just a bunch of bumbling fools? Even with the Battle of Hoth, Darth Vader would chalk that victory up as hollow since his commanders ruined the element of surprise and let most of the rebels flee.

----------------------------------------------------------

The Matrix

The Agents and the Sentinels were about as highly effective a fighting force as any army that's ever been on screen. They were highly evolved and well thought out, and didn't fall victim to the same pratfalls that plagued the above militaries.

In case of the Agents, they were fighting both an informational war, and a war against physical entities. In the case of the war for information, they were constantly using double agents like Cypher to try and get the Zion access codes. When it came to fighting actual adversaries, it says something that Neo is the *only* person who can win an actual fight with an agent.

When it comes to sentinels, they are the very definition of efficient. Their purpose is to kill, and to kill at will. And when they are programmed to kill at will, they do a pretty damned good job of it. Their only weakness is that there aren't bigger sentinels out there that can take down entire vessels such as the one Morpheus pilots. A ship that size usually takes a number of sentinels to destroy. But they usually do a pretty good job of fulfilling their mission.

Of course, the sentinels have great leadership from the Matrix itself. Being robots, they move on command, rarely miss when they're firing at something, and don't fail due to human error. They're about as efficient as a well oiled machine.

And of the three sagas, they're the only military force that didn't outright lose the war. Although the Matrix movies ended with a bit of a Korean War non-ending, you can't really say that the Matrix lost.

----------------------------------------------------------

Final tally:

"The Matrix" wins this one with their efficient methods of attack through both sentinels and agents.

"The Lord of the Rings" is my solid second choice. They have a strategy. Too bad for them that the good guys have a better one. They have good leaders. Too bad for them that the good guys have some that are better.

"Star Wars" comes in solidly third. They had the potential to be the best. Too bad they can't hit the broad side of a barn, couldn't strategize their way out of a wet paper bag. Any other cliche sayings you can think of apply here. They couldn't catch a cold. They couldn't win if their lives depended on it...which it did.

*force chokes*

----------------------------------------------------------

matt out