This was a panel from my first go-round at Dragoncon, and it was a really fun one–both because the Tolkien track at Dragoncon really sets things up well, and because the turnout at these things is insanely crazy.  I got the chance to focus on redemption in LOTR and Star Wars, and it was a fascinating experience to delve into the aspects of work which (though I love Star Wars) I hadn’t analyzed in detail before. In the end, Tolkien and Lucas were much more similar in various aspects of their stories than I had expected them to be.