I agree with the original poster. Aside from Gladiator that is, which while not a classic, is far from cookie cutter trash ala Troy, King Arthur, Kingdom of Heaven etc...although yes, O' Brother was without a doubt the better epic.
Also, LOTR gets way more credit than it deserves. It's a good trilogy, but no more. The score is woeful, the acting is hit and miss, and the interpretation of the books is suspect at times. The only thing they truly nailed was the actual look of the movie. The characters and locations certainly look incredible, and totally nail Middle Earth and its characters, as represented in the books - but then, there was already a pretty good template for this with the loads of fantasic LOTR themed art...also, with the loads of cg that was used it's going to look pretty dated in a decade or so. Hell, in parts it already looks dated - the ghosts in Return of the King were straight out of the Ghostbusters effects basket for god's sake!
