The Lord of the Rings (1978)

Expected more

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Blistering performances.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

I think this may in fact be the first Ralph Bakshi movie I've ever seen. He's mostly forgotten today, but he really was all the rage back in the 1970's, easily the worst decade ever for animation. I guess most of his stuff doesn't hold up well, but we can at least appreciate it. Well, most of us should be familiar with "The Lord Of The Rings". This manages to cover the first two movies in only about two hours. It's still one of the longest animated films ever made. I can always appreciate cartoons that work hard to be epic, given how few of those there are.At first I thought this was a direct sequel to the animated Hobbit TV movie made in 1977. It's easy to tell it isn't, given how different the animation is. Wouldn't you know it, they made a Return Of The King version that isn't connected to either! Anyway, the film itself is at least passable. It is pretty awkward seeing them try to cram all of this stuff in just one movie which is short by the other film's standards! The plot is mostly the same and there aren't many significant changes from the book or at least no more than the live-action movies. The most notable thing about this movie is of course the animation.Eh...it's hard for me to really judge it. A lot of it comes off as very realistic which is kind of odd for a fantasy movie. There's definitely some creativity here, especially with the live-action parts thrown in. The colors are usually nice, but they can be gaudy. It's hard to stand how weird these characters look. Gollum is okay, but he's no Peter Jackson version. This voice just doesn't cut it. It's even hard to keep up with how weird everything looks. It gets a bit dull at times. I would not recommend this film, but I can still appreciate how there's some hard work to adapt such a beloved story. The new movies are infinitely better, but this could have at least been worse. **1/2

Ralph Bakshi's attempt at bringing J.R.R. Tolkien's epic tale to the screen years before Peter Jackson is a valiant effort that falls short for more reasons than the obvious. Many purists will no doubt complain about what's been left out or the depictions of some characters. Others will say that the story ends abruptly and, since there was never a part two, it leaves the movie feeling incomplete. Still others will talk about the uneven mixture of traditional animation and rotoscoping. All of those are valid complaints but not major ones for me. Granted, I saw the Jackson films already so there was a certain degree of comparison that was inevitable, however unfair that may be. I'm certainly not going to slight the movie for not being able to compete with something made decades later with a budget over twenty times what this had (for the first movie of the trilogy alone). I'm also not going to nitpick what was left out or who didn't look like they should because the Jackson series gave fans a gazillion hours of footage of to cover almost every base. The animation is good for the era and I generally appreciate Bakshi's use of rotoscoping. The man was an artist, not an assembly-line animator like most at the time, and that should be praised.The main problem I had with this is that it is not as emotionally involving as the Tolkien story demands. It's a story that deserves a deeper treatment than what we have here. That came later with Jackson, thankfully, but the lack of emotional resonance in this version is a major flaw. I also wish the music score wasn't so unexciting and forgettable. I've read that Bakshi originally wanted to use Led Zeppelin music. At first that sounds like a terrible idea but I can't help but wonder if that would have been so weird that it actually worked. Overall, it's a mixed bag that drags some and never really pulls you in like it should. Bakshi respects the material enough to follow it as closely as he can with the restrictions he had. He also creates some fine atmosphere and fills the movie with so many interesting visuals that it's hard to dismiss it entirely.

If it weren't for Peter Jackson's ambitious live action "Lord of the Rings" trilogy in the early 2000s, Ralph Bakshi's 1978 animated epic would be the definitive screen adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkein's fantasy saga.Having never read Tolkein's books, my understanding of "The Lord of the Rings" came from Peter Jackson's films, and it's surprising how similar this earlier animated version is. Besides following the same storyline, some visual designs and many of the shots are very similar. It's almost as if Jackson used Bakshi's film as a guide for his storyboards, unless the images come from Tolkein's descriptions or the books' illustrations.Bakshi's THE LORD OF THE RINGS is an ambitious undertaking, condensing the first two books of the series into a single epic animated feature. And while many directors considered Tolkein's story impossible to film in live action (until Jackson pulled it off), Bakshi's film is actually largely live action itself. The animation makes heavy use of rotoscoping, i.e., drawing over live action reference footage to capture lifelike movement. In fact, most of the film tries to blend animation with live action footage, with some characters completely animated and others (usually the gruesome orcs) barely filtered live action. And there are times (usually the action scenes) when characters are clearly colorized live action footage, or they sort of phase between animation and live action.It seems like rotoscoping was used as a shortcut, to save the animators the pain and agony of hand-drawing an army of beastly orcs frame-by-frame. And perhaps as a way to capture realistic motion (with flowing capes and lots of running hither and thither). The blending of animation and rotoscoping/live action yields mixed results, but it doesn't get in the way of telling the story.Bakshi's film is not dumbed down for the kiddies. It's dark and violent and, I imagine, faithful to the spirit of Tolkein's work. Of course that's not to say that kids can't enjoy the movie. The tone seems just right and the adventure tale is as captivating as ever.I was very interested to see this animated LORD OF THE RINGS and as I watched it I was impressed by how the film manages to cover most of the important scenes and include most of the important characters I remember from the Peter Jackson trilogy. At the time I was expecting Bakshi's THE LORD OF THE RINGS to fit all three books into a single film, clocking in at just a little over two hours. I was curious to see how he'd done it. But to my surprise, the movie leaves things up in the air with a sense of "to be continued". Apparently the third book, "The Return of the King", was going to be filmed as "Part Two", but such a film never materialized. So the movie we're left with only covers two-thirds of the saga, ending after the battle at Helm's Deep with Frodo and Sam still on their way to Mount Doom. The story of the One Ring is never concluded and Gollum's devious plot is never realized.The film is quite enjoyable, bringing Tolkein's fantasy tale to life, but it ends rather abruptly with empty promises of more adventure to come.

Ralph Bakshi's 1978 LOTR adaptation is one of the most divisive entries in his filmography. Some see it as a bastardization of its source due to having to condense so much into little screen time. Others praise it as a bold work of art. I can understand both views, but after watching this twice, I am sorry to say I cannot come to the conclusion that this is a good movie. And it has nothing to do with how close it is or isn't to the books.To start with the positive side of things, the score is magnificent. In fact, I like it more than the music from the much-loved Peter Jackson LOTR trilogy, probably because it's less gloomy and bombastic. It just exudes fantasy and adventure. The animation is mostly solid and I enjoyed how Bakshi employed rotorscoping with the more sinister characters.However, even though the animation and rotorscoping are good on their own, I do not think they blend well. The mix of realistic characters, more cartoony characters, and the rotorscoped characters make for a messy, rushed aesthetic that feels more annoying than cutting edge. I think the rotorscoping worked much better in Bakshi's previous fantasy film, Wizards (1977), since it was only a mix of non-realistic characters with rotorscoped demons and monsters.The editing is sometimes awkward and the characterization choices are sometimes borderline strange (in Sam's case, it was downright abominable; "OH HOO-RAYYYY!!"). Some of Gandalf's antics are unintentionally funny. The pacing is atrocious and there are stretches where you find yourself groaning and checking your watch every other minute.In conclusion, the film just feels unfinished. Bakshi often had to work with low budgets and one could accuse him of being an undisciplined artist, but he was certainly capable of better than this if Heavy Traffic (1972) and Wizards are anything to go by.