Grandeur: Original Star Wars Trilogy vs. LotR

original star wars

With ROTJ, there's no way this is not LOTR for me.

ROTK while the toughest emotionally of the 6 films to endure, is beyond most anything in scale alone. 11 Oscars + honouring the trilogy as a whole.

Having said that, Star Wars alone (IV) is hands down one of the top 3-4 films in all history to be groundbreaking game changer.  
Trilogy you asked, LOTR.  

I think The Hobbit trilogy's shortfalls even adds to its lore - pardon a meme, yet one cannot simply dress a bunch of actors in costume with bigatures & cgi, expecting LOTR style greatness automatically.

Star Wars Trilogy by far. I never cared for Lord of the Rings.

Well, if we're talking influence, it would have to be Star Wars. Like someone else said, A New Hope is one of the all-time most gamechanging films. Then Empire Strikes Back is the dark sequel every future one tries to live up to, and even Jedi arguably set the precedent for every movie series in the next 30 years having to be a trilogy. It was also an original property, whereas the Lord of the Rings films are book adapations that had already been influencing people.

That said, when I think "grand", my mind goes to the three near-perfect Rings films and not the two and a half near-perfect Star Wars ones.

In terms of scale you have to say Star Wars; I mean entire planets are destroyed in that saga. But in terms of connecting with the characters and actually feeling the emotional stakes of a war, it has to be LOTR. I can't count how many times I've seen the Battle of the Pelennor Fields and I still get chills when the Rohirrim horns start blowing as they charge.

Had Peter Jackson's films come even reasonably close to doing justice to the book, the answer would be Lord of the Rings. But they didn't, and it isn't.