Product: The Hobbit [VHS] (1977)
Rating: 4.0
Wonderful fantasy animated fare...
Rankin and Bass had the fantasy animation niche cornered and perfected in the late 70s/early 80s with a string of excellent animated flicks including adaptions of "The Last Unicorn" and "Flight of Dragons". "The Hobbit" however was probably the most ambitious considering that so many people love and have read J.R.R. Tolkien's masterpieces multiple times over and his fans are sticklers for detail. Luckily the script for this adaption is savagely faithful to original story and with the simplistic animation which does have alot of movement, beauty and a charm of its own, the book really comes to life on the small screen.This movie along with the other two I mentioned above were not blatantly family friendly, containing some intense moments that put it in a seperate league from the watered down cliched animated fare released nowadays which seems created more to annoy parents than to try and capture their interest to. As an adult I still enjoy this movie and it makes a nice flick to watch to tide one over until the live action big budget movies start to come out starting in 2001.Still think all animation is just for children? Well for those of us who grew up on Rankin and Bass fantasy and Unico, there's Japanese animation which should silence the doubt in all of the skeptics. Whether adult or child, if you enjoy the Tolkien books then give this quaint flick a try.