# Why has Middle Earth not gained/held the same cultural cachet that Star Wars has? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** middle-earth\ **Created:** [September 23, 2019, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-middle-earth-not-gained-held-the-same-cultural-cachet-that-star-wars-has/840697 "2019-09-23T13:04:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![ralfy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ralfy/32/600_2.png) [@ralfy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralfy)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-middle-earth-not-gained-held-the-same-cultural-cachet-that-star-wars-has/840697/81 "2019-09-29T02:15:28Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#): > > My main barometer here is the amount of bumper stickers and tee shirts seen. For Star Wars I see these kinds of things all the time. > > But for Middle Earth, I see nada. Yeah, SW is in the middle of their current trilogy, while the final Hobbit film came out 5 years ago, sure. But even during the runs of the original ME trilogies I didn’t see much in the way of tees and such. I’d say I see more Harry Potter than ME stuff in point of fact… > > But-in the 60’s JRRT was a real big thing, esp. among the counterculture. > > Any rationales, or am I just overanalysing? I think it’s because SW involves advanced technologies which are related to fantasies about the future. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-middle-earth-not-gained-held-the-same-cultural-cachet-that-star-wars-has/840697/82 "2019-09-29T02:38:10Z")
> [@ralfy](#): > > Tolkien was said to have been inspired by European epics and legends but watered down somewhat for kids. While _The Hobbit_ was definitely written with a child audience in mind, I’d dispute the idea that Tolkien’s other Middle-Earth works (_The Lord of the Rings_ and _The Silmarillion_) were written for children – they’re long and dense, and challenging for many adult readers, much less kids. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-middle-earth-not-gained-held-the-same-cultural-cachet-that-star-wars-has/840697/83 "2019-09-29T03:05:57Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Like you would be hard pressed to find a fantasy story that didn’t have some version of “orcs”, “goblins”, “dragons”, “elves”, “dwarfs”, and associated anachronistic arms, armor and architecture. One of the reasons I liked Game of Thrones so much is because it’s all about humans. No elves, no goblins, no nothing except dragons. Winner winner chicken dinner! > [@salinqmind](#): > > Oh. This one is easy. Fantasy and science fiction are beloved mainly by boys, men. (Yes, I know, I know, plenty of girls and women, too - I was one of them and wrote my own sci-fi stories, with illustrations, on my own time back in the 60’s.) … From early ages, they have all been entranced by the thought of putting on a space helmet and blasting off to the moon. Vroooom vroooom. We have liftoff! And fightin’ space monsters with ray guns, and blasting things, ‘pew pew pew’…Compare THAT big excitement to slogging through a forest with singing elves and semi-mystical companions who can’t even fly!.. and medieval type battle scenes like you have to read about in boring old textbooks in school. That is why Star Wars is so admired and goes on and on. Middle earth? Pbbbttt…might was well go camping for a weekend, meh! As a guy and former pre-teen boy, going camping was awesome and pretending to swordfight with sticks was super fun. My pre-teen mindset was that swords and armor were the coolest things ever and guns with bullets absolutely _ruined everything_! In fairness, Star Wars effectively “stole” swords from fantasy in the form of light sabers, which it probably did for exactly that reason. The one thing that just doesn’t belong in any context that includes guns (blasters) is friggin’ swords, so tip of the hat to Lucas for managing to include swords in an organic way. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-middle-earth-not-gained-held-the-same-cultural-cachet-that-star-wars-has/840697/84 "2019-09-29T03:29:05Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#): > > The funny thing tho is that, on the big screen at least, we haven’t gotten much JRRT style epic fantasy lately, at least since the final Hobbit film. [Game of Thrones on the small screen sure, tho the tone there is pretty different, along with stuff like World of Warcraft on the gaming side of things] Since then we’ve gotten something like 2 dozen superhero films of various sorts, by way of comparison. I’ve noticed this too. The only reason I can think of is that perhaps medieval fantasy works best when you have to mentally envisage it, whereas SF benefits from graphics. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-middle-earth-not-gained-held-the-same-cultural-cachet-that-star-wars-has/840697/85 "2019-09-29T03:40:36Z")
> [@EllisDee](#): > > One of the reasons I liked Game of Thrones so much is because it’s all about humans. No elves, no goblins, no nothing except dragons… White Walkers? Wights? Manticores? Lizard-lions? Shadowcats…? ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-middle-earth-not-gained-held-the-same-cultural-cachet-that-star-wars-has/840697/86 "2019-09-29T03:42:41Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > White Walkers? Wights? Manticores? Lizard-lions? Shadowcats…? My point is that all the humanoids are human, as opposed to the standard humans, elves, dwarves, orcs, goblins, etc… trope that I was responding to. They did have those stupid tree elf things, which I railed against during their first appearance on the show and hated ever since. (Stupid fireballs…) ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-middle-earth-not-gained-held-the-same-cultural-cachet-that-star-wars-has/840697/87 "2019-09-29T03:59:59Z")
> [@EllisDee](#): > > My point is that all the humanoids are human, Going to go out on a limb and suggest that in addition to the “tree elves”, the giants probably weren’t human variants either - too damn big. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-middle-earth-not-gained-held-the-same-cultural-cachet-that-star-wars-has/840697/88 "2019-09-29T04:12:39Z")
Are you guys being deliberately obtuse or just SDMB-standard nitpicky? I was responding to the following statement: > [@](#): > > Like you would be hard pressed to find a fantasy story that didn’t have some version of “orcs”, “goblins”, “dragons”, “elves”, “dwarfs” Game of Thrones is one such fantasy story. ---
**Author:** ![Locrian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/locrian/32/14146_2.png) [@Locrian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Locrian)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-middle-earth-not-gained-held-the-same-cultural-cachet-that-star-wars-has/840697/89 "2019-09-29T05:28:34Z")
Star Wars came out when I was 6. Saw it in theater. If there were no toys related to the film, my entire generation would’ve forgotten about it and wondered why there was a sequel. LOTR was read at age 13. and it didn’t just have light and dark sides and some moon (That’s no moon…) that had a major design flaw, as did the next one and the next one. It also didn’t have toys on TV. Droid and Wookie aren’t languages. Elvish is a language (not real, but still a language). Only thing in common is the quest of a noble yet unexpected hero. And how many stories have that? Hey, King Arthur. ---
**Author:** ![kitap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b9e5f3/32.png) [@kitap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kitap)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-middle-earth-not-gained-held-the-same-cultural-cachet-that-star-wars-has/840697/90 "2019-09-29T07:01:15Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > I was actually going to post something similar. I think it’s because much of Middle Earth is heavily borrowed from Medieval European folklore, fashion, culture and military combined with the fact that it has influenced nearly every pre-industrial fantasy universe for the past 50+ years has made it almost ubiquitous. Like you would be hard pressed to find a fantasy story that didn’t have some version of “orcs”, “goblins”, “dragons”, “elves”, “dwarfs”, and associated anachronistic arms, armor and architecture. Andre Norton’s Witch World series comes to mind. Also it had women in significant roles. I wouldn’t count Earthsea, either as dragons predate Tolkien. Or Mercedes Lackey’s Valdemar series. The original trilogy only really had Leia, but the others have expanded the amount of women in the cast. With LoTR you have Galadriel and Eowyn and Arwen. (And for those who say “well, Eowyn was the first female fantasy fighter” I respond with Jirel of Joiry.) That’s it. Three choices to cosplay as. Am I saying all fiction should have women? No. But it’s irritating that many of his imitators follow that same pattern. ---
**Author:** ![Crossbreed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a4c791/32.png) [@Crossbreed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crossbreed)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-middle-earth-not-gained-held-the-same-cultural-cachet-that-star-wars-has/840697/91 "2019-09-29T07:36:37Z")
To the OP, I think the disparity arises from Star Wars being a _science_ fantasy vs. LOTR et al. being a _straight_ fantasy. Science fantasy is a hybrid of science fiction & fantasy. Its sci-fi aspects are expected to be technically feasible/rationale. (That inherent limitation calls for more clever solutions to a problem.) Straight fantasy relies more on magic and succeeds “just because” with little to no attempt to justify its results. For fans of the former, that is too deus-ex-machina (and lazy). ---
**Author:** ![Brayne\_Ded](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Brayne\_Ded](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brayne_Ded)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 8:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-middle-earth-not-gained-held-the-same-cultural-cachet-that-star-wars-has/840697/92 "2019-09-29T08:55:39Z")
> [@BeagleJesus](#): > > 1 - LOTR is pretentious as fuck making it very inaccessible to casual fans Well yes, the film does veer towards being pretentious and self-important, but unfortunately any sport of quest story quickly goes that way because that quest is so _important_. It’s. like, they’re saving the world, man. Even the best-intentioned film strips away away the philosophical musings of the book, which is a complex and multi-layered work. Even so, it comes off better than just about any other in the same genre, and the one that I find truly indigestible is the Narnia series. The funny thing is that that was also written by a British academic with a religious bent, and the two knew each other. But Narnia is a lightweight children’s story with a preachy message (the lion as Christ) and some adorable little brats. The film was so Hollywood, while LotR avoided some of the worst grossness. But only just. Acceesible? I have still not got through all of LotR, it’s hard work. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-middle-earth-not-gained-held-the-same-cultural-cachet-that-star-wars-has/840697/93 "2019-09-29T16:48:27Z")
> [@EllisDee](#): > > Are you guys being deliberately obtuse or just SDMB-standard nitpicky? > > I was responding to the following statement: > Game of Thrones is one such fantasy story. I’m only a couple seasons into the videos, and I’ve only read the first book, but game of thrones has “the people of the forest”, Giants, dragons, and creepy death wizards. More importantly, as a huge Tolkein fan since childhood, this is the first really successful story in the style of the Lord of the Rings. It’s a vast, well imagined world, with multiple nations and languages, a deep history, its own religions, with several legendary characters. It’s original enough not to use exactly the same trappings, and it’s on a more human scale, not about the literal end of the world. And it’s got female characters. But it’s very much in the tradition of Tolkein, and owes a lot to him. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-middle-earth-not-gained-held-the-same-cultural-cachet-that-star-wars-has/840697/94 "2019-09-29T17:15:16Z")
Right, but there are no elves, dwarfs, orcs, or goblins. Every single society we see is all human, all the time. As presented in the show, there are[spoiler]only two or three giants left in the entire world, and similarly it’s implied that there are only two or three children of the forest in the entire world as well. At the end of the seriesthere are only humans. All giants and children of the forest are dead. (And the undead are also gone from the world.)[/spoiler] ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-middle-earth-not-gained-held-the-same-cultural-cachet-that-star-wars-has/840697/95 "2019-09-29T17:36:32Z")
> [@EllisDee](#): > > Are you guys being deliberately obtuse or just SDMB-standard nitpicky? SDMB-standard nitpicky, mostly. My obtuseness is entirely involuntary :). ---
**Author:** ![Telperion](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telperion/32/509_2.png) [@Telperion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telperion)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-middle-earth-not-gained-held-the-same-cultural-cachet-that-star-wars-has/840697/96 "2019-09-29T17:39:16Z")
> [@EllisDee](#): > > Right, but there are no elves, dwarfs, orcs, or goblins. Every single society we see is all human, all the time. How is that any different from the ending of Lord of the Rings? The elves leave Middle-Earth, the dwarves go deep underground and the hobbits go into hiding, which leaves only the realms of men as far as most people are concerned. Besides, other humanoids are known to exist on Planetos, such as Sothoryi and Ifequevron, and quite possibly merlings, but they aren’t covered on the TV show. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-middle-earth-not-gained-held-the-same-cultural-cachet-that-star-wars-has/840697/97 "2019-09-29T18:26:28Z")
> [@Telperion](#): > > How is that any different from the ending of Lord of the Rings? The elves leave Middle-Earth, the dwarves go deep underground and the hobbits go into hiding, which leaves only the realms of men as far as most people are concerned. The ending? When the story _begins_ in Game of Thrones, there are only human societies. There is no society of giants, or children of the forest, or elves, dwarves, orcs, etc… There are only humans, with the exception of maybe six non-human humanoids. Not six types, six individuals. How is that remotely the same? ---
**Author:** ![Telperion](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telperion/32/509_2.png) [@Telperion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telperion)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-middle-earth-not-gained-held-the-same-cultural-cachet-that-star-wars-has/840697/98 "2019-09-29T18:52:09Z")
> [@EllisDee](#): > > The ending? When the story _begins_ in Game of Thrones, there are only human societies. There is no society of giants, or children of the forest, or elves, dwarves, orcs, etc… There are only humans, with the exception of maybe six non-human humanoids. Not six types, six individuals. > > How is that remotely the same? They clearly have societies, even if those aren’t completely spelled out. We’re told Mag was a king of his people, which implies the giants have a rather more complex social structure than you’d think just by looking at them. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-middle-earth-not-gained-held-the-same-cultural-cachet-that-star-wars-has/840697/99 "2019-09-29T18:54:45Z")
> [@Telperion](#): > > How is that any different from the ending of Lord of the Rings? The elves leave Middle-Earth, the dwarves go deep underground and the hobbits go into hiding, which leaves only the realms of men as far as most people are concerned. Not that I should argue Middle-Earth semantics with someone named [Telperion](http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Telperion), but… 😃 All of those things were foretold to happen in _The Lord of the Rings_, as the Third Age transitioned into the Fourth Age (a.k.a. the “age of men”), but by the end of _The Return of the King_, none of them had entirely occurred _yet_. The elves had been leaving Middle-Earth for many years, and though the final chapter of _The Return of the King_ showed two of the most powerful remaining elves (Galadriel and Elrond) finally departing, there were still elves left in Middle-Earth. Cirdan the Shipwright appears in that scene, but he was said to have planned to be on the last ship to sail for the West, at some point early in the Fourth Age. Hobbits and dwarves are still, apparently, thriving, and interacting with men, at the end of the book, even as it had been foretold that they would eventually fade from view. Presumably, the ents are still continuing their fruitless search for the entwives at that point, but, too, are fated to fade away. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-middle-earth-not-gained-held-the-same-cultural-cachet-that-star-wars-has/840697/100 "2019-09-29T18:58:38Z")
> [@Telperion](#): > > They clearly have societies, even if those aren’t completely spelled out. We’re told Mag was a king of his people, which implies the giants have a rather more complex social structure than you’d think just by looking at them. All three of them? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-middle-earth-not-gained-held-the-same-cultural-cachet-that-star-wars-has/840697.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-middle-earth-not-gained-held-the-same-cultural-cachet-that-star-wars-has/840697.md?page=6)