It is sort of a "gateway book" but after a certain age, it just lost its appeal to me. Silmarillion and The Hobbit I still like though, the first for being a mythology book and the second for being a great kid story.
That said, I want to take a drill to the head of all the people I call "Tolkienfags" - people who've read LotR and NOTHING ELSE, yet still claim it's the best work of fantasy, sometimes even of literature. It's funny and sad at the same time.
Also, people have used loads of different fantasy tropes and narrative devices long before Tolkien, like M.John Harrison's Viriconium, Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast, Michael Moorcock's stuff, Robert Howard, H.P.Lovecraft, The Worm of Ouroboros (which Tolkien himself counted an inspiration) and others. The thing with Tolkien was, he was a linguist. He knew how to write beautifully and invent languages, but didn't know hot to properly develop his characters and make the world more believable, while retaining its splendor. In the end, he himself has many times said he wrote LotR, the Hobbit and Silmarillion chiefly for his own pleasure and amusement, which is why I can respect LotR, though I no longer like it. Along with the fact that it's a "gateway book" and can teach young people and kids to read and make them interested in other fantasy and late, hopefully, into classics and literature as a whole. I know it worked with me.
P.S. With its tropes and devices Star Wars is more fantasy than sci-fi, despite having ships and robots. Lucas himself has cited Tolkien as a big influence.