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.
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.