ThiefHott Too much of everything

Dotsthavesp I wanted to but couldn't!

Listonixio Fresh and Exciting

Onlinewsma Absolutely Brilliant!

earlseth I love Ralph Bakshi's The Lord of the Rings! It open JRR Tolkien for me,who I love very, very much! Most people who hate this film did not grow up in 70's with little Tolkien except these Great Things! The Hildebrandt Brothers great Artwork, and The HOBBIT 1977 TV Movie and the Led Zepplins great song! Because of Bakshi's The Lord of the Rings I started to collect animated Cels! I have a great Cel of Frodo looking through the Ring offering it to Galadriel! I also have animation art from Disney ,Hanna-Barbara,and Heavy Metal Cels (Taarna, Barbarien Leader Cels) I have over 200 cels! People who hate this film must hate Tolkien and the fine art of Animation! This is 23 years BEFORE Peter Jackson Version ,which he used this as some guidance! Like my N.C. Licence Plate FRODOLIV!!!!!

robertguttman Yes, I know that people who have seen Peter Jackson's version insist that this version, assuming they have seen it at all, is vastly inferior in every way. And yes, I know this version of the story actually ends in the middle of the narrative. However, those points being granted, one has to acknowledge that Peter Jackson enjoyed several advantages that Ralph lacked, namely time and a budget. Peter Jackson had three years in which to complete his epic film trilogy, which was far more time than the amount of time Backshi was allotted. In addition it should be mentioned that Ralph Backshi produced his film on a budget of only $4 million, an amount which is dwarfed (or, perhaps one might more accurately say, "hobbited") by the $281 million Peter Jackson spent producing his movie trilogy. For that reason, comparisons between the two versions are more than a little unfair. However, that being said, what Ralph Backshi did have in abundance was imagination and artistic skill. I'm sure there are those who will consider this heresy, but I think one might compare Ralph Backshi to Orson Welles in that none of the animated features that he directed ever really came out as well as he intended. Like Orson Welles, Ralph Backshi never seemed able to get sufficient financial backing to complete his movies as well as he originally visualized them. The 1970s was not a good period for animators, unless one had the backing of a huge studio like Disney, which Backshi certainly never did.So, if you watch this again, bear in mind that it was produced on what today would be considered a tiny financial budget. In fact, it appears that Backshi was so strapped for cash that he was never even able to finish more than the first part. Like Eisenstein's "Ivan the Terrible", Ralph Backshi's "Lord of the Rings" remains unfinished.

Bill Slocum It's not fair at all to dismiss Ralph Bakshi's animated treatment of "Lord Of The Rings" for being what it's not, the three-part, 11- plus-hour version we got 25 years later. You have to judge it on its own terms. So let's do that.On its own terms, "Lord Of The Rings" is a somewhat goopy, occasionally gripping screen handling of the first book and most of the second book from the J. R. R. Tolkien fantasy epic. In it, hobbit Frodo Baggins finds himself the possessor of a powerful magic ring, the key to defeating the growing forces of darkness. Yet the ring can't be used by Frodo in any constructive way. To be of use to him and his good allies, it must be taken to the heart of the enemy, Mordor, and there destroyed."It is altogether evil," Frodo is warned by his wizard friend, Gandalf. "It will corrupt and destroy anyone who wears it, until he passes into the world of shadows under the power of Sauron, the Dark Lord of Mordor."Bakshi was an animator of powerful and unique vision, yet there are too many occasions where marrying that vision to Tolkien's story seems to have been too much. Frodo and his fellow hobbits are too cutely designed in animated form, with their big eyes, moptop haircuts, and tendency to cower in each other arms as their trek grows more perilous. The animation relies heavily on rotoscoping, basically filming real actors and then sketching over them. Bringing this off in concert with more fully animated sequences creates a lot of lulls in the action.For an animated film, it sounds great anyway. Leonard Rosenman's sterling score builds up suspense and grandeur, and provides majestic payoffs all the way through to a riveting finale. The voice acting is solid, especially John Hurt's work as Aragon, the hobbits' valiant ally. Bakshi introduces him effectively in a barroom sequence that is the film's high point. Unfortunately, that's over thirty minutes in. Peter Woodthorpe oozes corruption as the most Bakshi-type character in the trilogy, Gollum, while William Squire's Gandalf brings Alec Guinness-like authority and humor to his work.Mordor's dark emissaries, the Ring Wraiths, are effectively rendered, so much so their glowing eyes and grey robes seem to have gone to Bakshi's head. Every orc and balrog in Middle Earth sports a similar look.As the film goes on, the problems of bringing off Tolkien's grand design seem to accumulate. The bigness of Tolkien's vision is reduced to a few obvious actors moving in the foreground while matte paintings of others stand stationary around them. Some of these paintings are quite breathtaking, but Bakshi leans on them too much. Big crowd scenes seem to consist of Rosenman's music playing majestically while the screen presents still images broken up by a flapping pennant or waving spear. In battle, the fully animated figures of the main characters mesh awkwardly with the real-life rotoscoped actors around them.There's also the problem of ending the film with half the story yet to occur. Of course, that's not Bakshi's fault; he was given to believe he'd have another movie to tie up these loose ends. His job here was to give us an appetite for that next chapter, and guided by Tolkien's story he almost does. It just doesn't grab one as a unified vision. This is more of a compromise, a noble one, but a bit of a failure all the same.

Blueghost Every time I see this film I grin and them grimace some. Mostly grin because it is a respectable effort at a production, but I can't help but believe that the entire tale was never meant to see the screen via Bakshi. I remember opening weekend for this thing. The theatres were packed. Sold out. Or, more correctly, overbooked. Thousands thronged the theatre. Lines ran out into the streets. You couldn't get a seat for the life of you.And then the film ran. And people walked out wondering what it was they had just seen. You hear critics give their opinion, but you don't hear fans voicing their amazement at the visuals, but also feeling like they were sold a bill of goods.The artistry that went into this production is half good, half b-grade material. I think this project was given to Bakshi because he knew that the full tale would not be realized by old guard Hollywood who were paranoid of a culture that harkened back to mythology and days of yore.At the time I saw the film I had a hard time following it, even with the added narrative supplied by the characters. One moment were in location A, then the next we're in location B with some new characters. Next we're in location C confronting some event, and so on and so forth. In short, the Tolkien tale that people wanted never had a chance to materialize. It would take thirty years and an Aussie with some filmmaking know how, a track record, and a vision to propose the project and make all of Tolkien's ring saga come to life. In the meantime Tolkien fans had this half hearted effort that had some interesting visuals on one level, but lacked a lot of care on another level. Again, it was done intentionally.Then again Bakshi's films tend to have an unfinished quality to them. If you look at American Pop, Heavy Traffic, or Cool World, or Wizards, you'll note that the production tends to fall apart somewhat at the end. Cool World feels very rushed at the end, American Pop actually keeps nearly all of its gloss but suffers the same here and there. So it is that we don't just get rotoscoped animation, but full on tinted footage of stuntmen or actors doing things that should have been rendered by hand.The character design is also hit and miss. The hobbits are well done, the wizards are likewise keenly crafted, but the one dwarf in the film looks like a miner from 1849 California, and not a dwarf at all, while the "elves" tend to have feline eyes for some reason. The backgrounds are interesting, however. Taking a page out of Avante-Garde 1960s and early 1970s, the "sets" for this piece are more abstract at times, and it seems to work well from time to time with the piece that's being presented. Other times it feels like a budget saver.What to say about it in the end? All in all the film is a rushed effort, and in my opinion never had a chance from the start. My opinion is that there was probably a fear that Tolkien's tales of white heros might have been seen as socially destabilizing for a country that was just coming out of some very hefty social upheavals regarding race, politics and social status; and this falls in line with Tolkien because orcs, men, dwarfs and elves were all different races, although the orcs are the ones who are cast as the heavies. I have no direct proof of that, but one wonders how Disney Studios might have handled a similar project; which, by the way, is right up their alley (minus some of the more graphic violence).See it once. Odds are you've already made up your mind about this film. Me, I don't have too much love for it, but it's interesting to take a look at it every few years or so.See it once if you're curious about it.