First of all, the choise is between a saga of high fantasy and another of space fantasy. References are not the sames. Tolkien, who was an accademic read old scandinave legends like Sigurd and Gudrun, and old English poemes like Beuolf. Jeorge Lucas read Tolkien but also Asimov and Frank Herbert. He likes westerns, samurai movies (like those of Akira Kurosawa) and old Amirican serials of the 30s like those of Flash Gordon. He made lots of references to serials in Indiana Jones too.
And John Williams made a good music. Howard Shore's music for LOTR is great, but it's for the embiance of this saga. I don't think Howard Shore's music would have been as cheered as if there were used for Star Wars.
And comparing Sauron and Darth Vader ("Dark Vador" is not the name in the original version but we speak English here), is like comparing Voldemort and lex Luthor. Sauron is a mayar, Vader a human. A lord of the siths of course, but a human. And Voldemort is a dark wizard and Luthor a mad scientist or a megalomaniac businessman.
Concerning the background, Tolkien created entierly his lore, and George Lucas didn't create the biggest part of the extended universe, canon or legend. But it's still interesting.
And for the visual effects, I can't say, I'm blind.
So, that's impossible to me to chose, but if I really have to do so, I'll chose Star Wars. My choice is based on films.
First of all, I'll talk about originality. And don't tell me Star Wars is not original. I heard people who said it was a plagiarism of Dune of Frank Herbert.
By the name of the great Cthulhu ! You have elements in Star Wars which are from Dune, I'm ok. But in Dune and Star Wars, you have elements from The Lord of the Rings, and LOTR has elements from traditional stories. So, if you accuse Star Wars of plagiarism, fine ! But accuse all stories of everytime to plagiate those before.
So, yes, Star Wars is original. It was the first story to mix space opera, fantasy, fairy tale, heroe's quest, war, western, and fight of samurais. However, LOTR is adapted from a book. The first book of Star Wars appeared 6 months before the movie, but was adapted from George Lucas's script. And before Peter Jackson, Tolkien was adapted several times in radio series (two of the three radio series are from the BBC and you can always find the incredible version of 1981, but the American version of 1979 is not very good imho), in animated movies (we can remember the TV film of The Hobbit in 1977 and Ralf Bakshi's Lord of the Rings in 1978) and in concept albums like Nightfall of Midle Earth of the German power metal band Blind Guardians in 1998. And I think I forgot other adaptations.
So, yes, Peter Jackson's films are indeed incredible. But they are still an adaptation and Star Wars is not. So, I made my choice because of it. But if you ask me to chose between the two sagas in their globality (animation, films, radio, books, comics…), I couldn't.
