Hi-De-Ho Rene,

As promised:

	The Lord of the Rings	The Godfather	Star Wars	The Matrix
Original conflict/problem	Forces of good must destroy the One Ring before Sauron or their own thirst for power destroys them	Competing forces of respectability and familial responsibility tear Michael, Corleone family apart	Rebels must fight the Empire's will to subjugate and/or destroy them; Luke must come to terms with destiny	Rebels fight to free mankind from the Machines, who have subjugated and exploited them for their life force
Continuity of conflict/problem	Absolutely	Absolutely	Absolutely	Nope
How resolved	The One Ring is destroyed	Michael dies a broken man	The Empire is defeated	Rebels make deal with the Machines
Epic timeframe	13 months (not counting prologue and epilogue)	Michael's adult lifetime	A few years	A couple years
Ultimate hero	Frodo	Michael	Luke	Neo
Ultimate villain	Sauron	Michael	The Emperor	Agent Smith
Continuity of hero/villain	Yes	Yes	To an extent -- Vader was the villain of the first film	Not really -- The Machines ended up uneasy allies
Character continuity(1-10, 10 highest)	7: Grima Wormtongue only in TT, Saruman absent in ROTK, Gimli becomes pure comic relief, some characters have continuity in yet-unfilmed Hobbit	7: Michael and Kay offer significant continuity, but the rest of the cast has dwindled by Part III	9: Even dead characters reappear later, at least as voices and spectres	8: Death necessitated new actress as Oracle, but most characters showed continuity; Morpheus became stale and impotent
Hunky guy score	7: Aragorn, Faramir, Boromir, Eomer, Legolas (in a metrosexual way)	8: Michael, young Vito, Vincent, Sal Tessio (just kidding)	7: Han Solo, Lando, Luke (when I was 7, maybe)	5: Morpheus (in the original), Neo, Trinity (whoops…)
Butt-kicking femme score	8: Not many women in sight, but Eowyn kicks serious Nazgul keister	4: Kay and Connie get run over but eventually push back	7: Princess Leia, eventually	10: Trinity
Core fan base frenzy level	10	6	10	10
Best line	9: "All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us."	10: "Leave the gun. Take the cannoli."	10: "May the force be with you."	8: "Free your mind."
Grade Chapter 1	9	9	9	9
Grade Chapter 2	8	10	8	5
Grade Chapter 3	9	7	8	6
(Presence of George Hamilton)	No (+1)	Yes (-1)	No (+1)	No (+1)
Ultimate Score	68	60	69	54
Footnote: Academy Awards	6 (so far)	9	10	4 (so far)

There you have it -- and there's really nothing to argue about any more, is there?

Later,
Kari