Would Harry Potter still be compared to Lord of the Rings if?

Of course. They are still in the same genre.

Willow is compared to LOTR, as is the Matrix.

Human memory is really cool - your brain stores where the memory is stored in what it is. For the mind to work at a fundamental level it has to compare/classify. Ask someone not to judge - impossibility because you are requiring them to stop being a thinking being. Seriously. To remember the movie, or to allow you to critically process the movie you have to remember it - so whether or not you are conscious of it your brain is comparing it at every point to .. everything you have ever thought or experienced.

How? You can't compare the scale of the books and the period they are set in. Even with the best special effects you can only make the magic and spells appear grand in Harry Potter. But with the effects to create Middle Earth, the orcs, Gollum and what not, it is going to appear far far imaginative and better.

I've never heard them compared much. Only that they both have magic. You need to open your circle of friends.

I would like to see it merged.