The Return of the King (1980)

Thanks for the memories!

best movie i've ever seen.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

I personally really liked Rankin/Bass' The Hobbit, so I was hoping that their Return of the King would be as good. I will be honest in saying that, although expecting something like Peter Jackson's stunning epic was a tall order, I was a little disappointed judging it on its own terms and in comparing it to Rankin/Bass' Hobbit adaptation. I wouldn't go as far to say that any asset is truly dire, but everything got too much of a mixed reception from me.Animation: I personally did like the background art. Some were lacking in finesse but most did look very pretty. The colours have times when they're luscious but others when they're rather flat and dull-looking. But it was the character designs where the animation fell down hardest on. Not all of them are bad, Gandalf and Aragorn actually look pretty good. I can see the intent in trying to give Gollum the frog-like appearance he's described as, at the same time though in that effort they took the description to extremes. Of the character designs, which generally were quite ugly-looking if I was to be honest, Pippin, Merry and the ring-wraiths fared the worst.Music: In terms of songs, there are a couple that stood out, Frodo of Nine Fingers and especially Where There's a Whip were the standouts. The lyrics do a decent job in retaining the poetry of the prose of the book, and some of the scoring has some whimsy. Too much of the music though is done in a style that doesn't fit with the tone of the story and perhaps too late 70s-early 80s. Some of it is catchy, some also is a little lacking in life.Dialogue: Most of it is not too bad actually, there are some intelligent and thoughtful lines that maintain the spirit of the dialogue of the book. Not all of it however flows very well, coming across as stilted and cheesy instead.Story: There are moments that do work. Aragorn's Coronation Procession was rousing and moving in equal measure. Sam's temptation has a thrilling sense of foreboding and Eowyn's encounter with the ring-wraith likewise. Conversely it ties with the pacing as the film's biggest failing. Too much of it, due to how much was left out, jumps around and while the essence of fantasy and adventure is there a lot of it feels too choppy and confused. The characters are great but the length and pacing doesn't allow us to care for them properly. Important characters and plot strands are either left out or are over in a matter of seconds(that is including that that explains the whole point of the title) which adds to the confused nature of the narrative.Pacing: This was a mix as well, but rather than being an asset that was either good or bad or a bit of both, this was the area where it was a mess that was taken to either extreme. Most of the storytelling is rather pedestrian, further bogged down by the inclusion of dream sequences that while interesting in some instances felt too much after a while. The sprawling and choppy nature of how the story was told also gives some scenes and transitions a rushed feeling.Voice acting: There are some standouts, John Huston embodies Gandalf in a noble and distinguished vocal performance. Brother Theodore is appropriately sinister, and while Gollum here doesn't have enough pathos he does succeed in giving some anyway. Paul Frees is very chilling in his own unique way, and Roddy MacDowell is appropriately loyal as Sam. I was mixed on Orson Bean. I liked his Bilbo in The Hobbit, and he clearly tries hard and has some likable moments, but generally I found his Frodo too over-earnest, not helped by the fact that Frodo comes across as too idealistic in how he is written. Others don't fare very well at all. Casey Kasem's voice is jarring(no offence to him but it was too much Shaggy and not enough Merry), Don Messick sounds as though his voice was recorded inside a filter and Glen Yarbrough has a voice that will go either way with viewers, I personally found his rather bleating sound here a little too hard to take.Overall, neither awful or great. Everything however is too much of a mixed bag for me. 5/10 Bethany Cox

Having recently seen this version for the first time in a number of years, I can see its faults, but many of the reviewers here are way too hard on it. Tolkien's masterful trilogy was unfilmable in live action before the advent of CGI, but fans were clamoring for film versions anyway, and then hated them when they arrived. Oy veh! While this Rankin/Bass version was not as good as their THE HOBBIT, I still found it to be quite entertaining on its own level, as long as you don't compare it to Peter Jackson's impeccable epics. The voice cast was great, and it was quite ambitious for Rankin/Bass, known chiefly for their animated Christmas specials.This film's haters should listen to the lyrics of one of Glenn Yarbrough's---It Is So Easy Not To Try. Rankin/Bass tried, and Tolkien fans who have expressed outrage over this would have been angrier if no one had tried back then. Everyone here needs to take a chill pill.

I don't believe people are giving this movie the benefit of the doubt, because it seems simplistic compared to the Peter Jackson extravaganzas. What people also have to remember is that, unlike the Jackson renditions, this and 'The Hobbit' were made especially for children. The characters designs and the story itself have to be toned down so that children (or stoners) can follow the story without becoming too freaked out by orcs.Roddy McDowall is pretty much the most hilarious sounding Samwise ever, and the character design fits him perfectly, and both elements create a character of great vulnerability. For a 'Rings' movie this short, we are still able to sympathize with Sam. This is not just because of the well-compressed storyline, but because the design for both Frodo and Sam is just so cute. They look like a cross between puppies and elves. And that's cute.I recommend this to anyone with an open mind about an alternate version to the final chapter. It won't really ruin the story for you, it'll just show how this story was made into a film before the use of CGI and before movie studios started puking money at Jackson.

When Rankin and Bass unveiled their version of Tolkien's "The Hobbit" in 1977, it was a charming if abbreviated made-for-television animated film that was fun and even a bit scary. Their voice casting choices were fine, especially Richard Boone, whose cancer-rasped voice brought the dragon Smaug to life, and Theodore as the creepy and loathsome Gollum, who evoked fear and disgust but little pity. In 1978, Ralph Bakshi attempted to bring the first half of "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy to the big screen in his lushly animated epic. Unfortunately, his big-budget film flopped, much to the disappointment of Tolkien's fans, and Bakshi would be unable to make his sequel. In an effort to finish off the unfinished series, Rankin and Bass tried to make their own version to satisfy the audience who wanted to see closure. It was and remains an unmitigated disaster.Why is this cartoon so awful? Well, the answer lies mainly in the word "cartoon". Unlike The Hobbit, which featured beautifully painted scenery that evoked delicate watercolors and ethereal linework, which had so evidently been crafted with loving care and cast with thought to matching characters to actors, The Return of the King had all the earmarks of having been hastily cobbled together. It wasn't so much an animated homage to a great writer's work as a hatchet job. A huge chunk of the events in Tolkien's books were missing between where Bakshi's fairly faithful rendition ended and this abomination began. The drawings were slapped together and were often repetitious and ugly. Voice actors from the first film returned and some of them worked: Orson Bean was fine as Frodo, Theodore was again great as Gollum, Theodore Bikel did a fine job as Aragorn, and Roddy McDowall was wonderful as Samwise Gamgee. The rest were abysmal. Instead of hiring actors to do the characters, cartoon voice actors such as Don Messick (Scooby-Doo) and Casey Kasem (Shaggy) were cast. It was downright painful to hear a Nazgull being done by Scooby Doo through a distortion filter. Many characters integral to Tolkien's story were cast away: Where was Gimli? Faromir? Any of the elves (other than Elrond) such as Legolas or Glorfindel? How about the Army of the Dead or Sauroman? Merry and Pippin didn't develop as characters; Gollum remained merely vile, as if Bakshi's attempts to show this tortured being's strangely noble and pathetic side never happened. The dialog was stilted and sometimes unintentionally hilarious ("As the flag's standard broke the wind. . ."). It was awful beneath description from beginning to end, appearing to be a shameless attempt to cash in on the hopes of frustrated fans who'd wanted the second animated movie made.That, of course, was the entire problem. This cartoon was, despite its trappings and claims, just a cartoon, less charming by far than The Hobbit and far less noble than Bakshi's film. Both of those were honest attempts at creating art, and each succeeded in its limited way until swept aside by Peter Jackson, who finally gave Tolkien's opus the treatment it deserved. The two earlier films merit a place of honor for trying to achieve cinematic beauty. Rankin and Bass's The Return of the King deserves to simply be forgotten.