The Lord of the Rings

Plot synopsis:
Early in the Second Age of Middle-earth, elven smiths forged nine Rings of Power for mortal men, seven for the Dwarf-Lords, and three for the Elf-Kings. At the same time, the Dark Lord Sauron made the One Ring to rule them all after learning the secrets of how to forge them from the Elves of Hollin--a deviation from Tolkien's work in which Sauron taught ring lore to the Elves and forged all the rings except the three Elvish rings. As the Last Alliance of Elves and Men fell, the Ring fell into the hands of Prince Isildur from across the sea, and after Isildur was killed by orcs, the Ring lay at the bottom of the river Anduin. Over time, Sauron captured the nine Rings made for men and turned their owners into the Ringwraiths, terrible beings who roamed the world searching for the One Ring. The Ring was found by a Stoor named Déagol, whose friend, Sméagol, murdered him and stole it for himself. The Ring warped Sméagol into a twisted, gurgling wretch known only as Gollum (Peter Woodthorpe), and he wandered with it to a cave in the Misty Mountains. Hundreds of years later, the hobbit Bilbo Baggins (Norman Bird) accidentally discovered his "precious" Ring and took it back with him to the Shire.
Years later, during Bilbo's birthday celebrations in the Shire, the wizard Gandalf (William Squire) tells him to leave the Ring for Frodo Baggins (Christopher Guard). Bilbo agrees, and leaves the Shire. Seventeen years pass, during which Gandalf learns that the Shire is in danger: evil forces have discovered that the Ring is in the possession of a Baggins. Gandalf meets with Frodo to explain the Ring's history and the danger it poses to all of Middle-earth. Frodo leaves his home, taking the Ring with him.
He is accompanied by three hobbit friends, Pippin (Dominic Guard), Merry (Simon Chandler), and Sam (Michael Scholes). After a narrow escape from the Ringwraiths pursuing them, the hobbits eventually come to Bree, where they meet Aragorn (John Hurt), who is first introduced to them as Strider, a friend of Gandalf's, who leads them the rest of the way to Rivendell. Frodo is stabbed atop Weathertop mountain by the chief of the Ringwraiths with a knife imbued with evil magic. Part of the knife stays inside him, and he gets sicker as the journey progresses. The Ringwraiths catch up with them shortly after they meet the elf Legolas (Anthony Daniels), and at a standoff at the ford of Rivendell, the Ringwraiths are swept away by the enchanted river. At Rivendell, Frodo is healed by its lord, Elrond. He meets Gandalf again, held captive by his fellow wizard Saruman (Fraser Kerr), who plans to join with Sauron but also wants the Ring for himself. Bilbo, Gandalf, and the others argue about what should be done with the One Ring, and Frodo volunteers to go to Mordor, where the Ring can be destroyed. Frodo sets off from Rivendell with eight companions: Gandalf; Aragorn; Boromir, son of the Steward of Gondor (Michael Graham Cox); Legolas; Gimli the dwarf (David Buck); and Frodo's original three hobbit companions.
Their attempt to cross the Misty Mountains is foiled by heavy snow, and they are forced to take a path under the mountains via Moria. Moria was an ancient dwarf kingdom, but is now full of orcs and other evil creatures, and Gandalf falls into an abyss while battling a balrog. The remaining eight members of the Fellowship continue through the elf-haven Lothlórien, but Boromir tries to take the Ring from Frodo. Frodo decides to leave the others behind and continue his quest alone, although faithful Sam insists on accompanying him.
Boromir is killed by orcs while trying to defend Merry and Pippin. They are captured by the orcs, who intend to take them to Isengard through the land of Rohan. The hobbits escape and flee into Fangorn forest, where they meet Treebeard (John Westbrook), a huge tree-like creature. Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas find Merry and Pippin; they find small footprints and follow them into Fangorn Forest. There, they find Gandalf, whom they believed had died in the mines of Moria. The four ride to Rohan's capital, Edoras, where Gandalf persuades King Théoden (Philip Stone) that his people are in danger. Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas then travel to the defensive fortification Helm's Deep.
Frodo and Sam, meanwhile, discover Gollum stalking them, and capture him. Frodo pities him, and lets him live in return for guidance to Mount Doom. Gollum promises to lead them to a secret entrance to Mordor. At Helm's Deep, Théoden's forces struggle to resist an onslaught of orcs sent by Saruman. Gandalf arrives the next morning with the Riders of Rohan just in time, destroying the orc army.

Tags: fantasy, cult, violence, atmospheric, good versus evil, psychedelic

Review:
More than twenty years before Peter Jackson's visionary adaptation of The Lord Of The Rings, there was this 1978 animated effort from director Ralph Bakshi.
Bakshi's pioneering use of this technique brings the subtleties of Middle Earth to life is a very dark and mysterious way, in particular, the darker of Tolkien's creatures, particularly the Nazgul, are realized in a way that traditional animation or live action have not been able to accomplish.Peter S.
It is a shame beyond all shames that we will, in the end, have to accept Peter Jackson's glitz and glitter Hollywood, action film version of these later events in Tolkien's masterpiece, but, I suppose even that is better than having no cinematic version at all.David.
Godard once said a way to criticize a movie is to just make one, and probably the strongest kind that could be made about Ralph Bakshi's take on Tolkien's magnum opus the Lord of the Rings, has actually been made by Peter Jackson.
But as one who has not read the books, I end up now looking upon the two versions, live-action (albeit partly animated in its big visual effects way) and animated (albeit partly done with actual live action as the framework) in relation to just the basic story, not even complete faithfulness to the books.
Robbed of Return of the King's big climactic rush of the story, and with the other two parts becoming rushed, I ended up liking it more for what it did within its limitations, though as such those same limitations make it disappointing.What's interesting too, after seeing the Jackson films first- which I also slightly regret being that I might've reacted to this differently when I was younger and prior to five years ago- is that the basic elements of the story never get messed up with.
They're maybe the best part of the combination of the animation on top of the live-action, especially during parts where there isn't battle footage (that's really the real hit-or-miss section, as there isn't continuity from the good and bad rotoscoping), and the chiaroscuro comes through with big shapes on top of horseback.
If you enjoy good fantasy stories but hate reading (the books are even better) give this movie a try, keeping in mind it was made 20 odd years ago.Also of particular note: Peter Jackson's adaption of Fellowship follows almost exactly the same strand as Ralph Bakshi's (Jackson has said many times how much he admired Bakshi's effort)..
However as the years have gone by and the Jackson adaptations come and gone, I feel more and more drawn to this rare piece of absolutism as I would a painting by Vincent Van Gogh or Salvadore Dali.Bakshi always had a flair for adult-oriented animation, and finally with this he found a subject befitting of his style.
While this film has its flaws it stays truer to the source, especially so far as the characters are concerned.In the Jackson version Tolkien's Frodo is barely recognizable: from the first scenes he is portrayed as a weakling, constantly wavering, manipulated by forces around him and never standing on his own two feet (this is physically and metaphorically true.) You wonder why fate chose this limp biscuit to carry the one ring to the Cracks of Doom.
Bakshi's film better explores the companionship between Legolas and Gimli in a few judicious scenes that are completely lacking in Jackson's version.
For my liking the camaraderie is more developed in the animated version than the live action.Tolkien's poetry is an important ingredient in the novels and Bakshi makes tribute to this in one of my favorite scenes: when Frodo sings the "Merry Old Inn" song, minutes before stumbling into Strider.
But mixing purely-drawn characters (hobbits) with those that are rotoscoped (orcs) just didn't look right here.I must agree with some others who assert that some of the frame direction and scene selection is oddly similar to Peter Jackson's version of late.
The animation was good for its time, they used a unique method of blending live action with animation to create some interesting effects, and the guy who did the voice for Frodo sounded somewhat like Elijah Wood.Not the greatest adaptation of a book, but trust me, I've seen a lot worse.
Ralph Bakshi has done a terrific job of representing Middle-Earth through some truly inspired animation.It is unfortunate that he had to severely abridge some of the less important scenes but overall he has captured the main thread of things.I was a little disappointed with Sam who was not, as portrayed, a country bumpkin.
He was actually quite intelligent and it was through him that Frodo made the journey to Mount Doom without giving up.It is a shame that the film ends just after the Battle of Helm's Deep as I was looking forward to the main battle at Pelennor Fields and the death of the Nazgul.Overall Ralph Bakshi has done a wonderful job with the funding that was available, and without the aid of 'computers' to enhance anything..
While Peter Jackson couldn't do anything but show the riders simply chasing the party, Bakshi throws in a nightmarish dream with some cool slow motion scenes and thundering sky.But as much I like this film more than Jackson's, the latter are, if only technically, still better.
In a summary the Ralph Bakshi version of LOTR has a superior:-overall atmosphere (it feels more like Middle-Earth) -overall voice acting -music (I really dig the fantasy score by Kont & Rosenman) -Gandalf -Aragorn (One of the John Hurt's finest roles) -King Theoden -Orcs -Black Riders -Elrond (He's not some fairy hippie in this one!)While Jackson version is better:-because it covers the whole story -overall visuals and special effects -Gollum/Smeagol -Balrog -HobbitsLord of the Rings by Ralph Bakshi, even with it's well known shortcomings, is one of the best animation films ever made and it captures the atmosphere of Tolkien's fantasy world very well, if not perfectly.
I agree with the majority that Jackson's trilogy is the essential film adaptation of Tolkien's work, but that does not prevent me from enjoying Bakshi's ambitious pioneering effort.
Its a shame its so underrated.And its a shame too it doesn't have a sequel :\It will fell strange for those who watched the movies of Peter Jackson, as the characters are way different and even the places seem to be completely other things.
I really liked this movie, and it is true, too many people compare it to the Peter Jackson films.
I was a devotee of the BBC Radio adaptation by Brian Sibley originally broadcast in 1981, and instantly recognised the voice of Gollum here -- Peter Woodthorpe would reprise this performance almost note-perfect for the radio three years later.I must say, however, that where I found Jackson's films an increasingly indulgent disappointment, the Bakshi version, for all that it has been cut to the bone, is actually more accurate.
(The only exception to the latter, as others have remarked, is the oddly extended sequence at the ford of Rivendell, where the Ringwraiths, having demonstrated a chilling ability to freeze and draw back Frodo in mid-flight -- which they deploy again when he defies them after crossing the river -- then for some unexplained reason simply chase after him in a prolonged straight gallop, which is initially nightmarish but pointless, plot-wise, and definitely goes on too long.) I would also agree that the Balrog is unsatisfactory, due partly to bad animation, and that Gandalf windmills his arms too much.But having watched both approaches to the film, I feel more than ever that the animated route is the one to take.
In a tale that is half-myth (oddly enough, one thing that is included is a snippet of Aragorn's story of Beren and Luthien) the extreme literalism required by live-action filming, where everything from monsters to mail-shirts has to be created in detail to appear on camera, is counter-productive: latex-faced (or CGI) monsters are less monstrous than sketchily-drawn shapes, heroic costumes tend to look rather silly worn on real bodies, and hobbits or dwarfs with non-human body proportions are easy to animate but hard to film convincingly.
Many reviewers have cited the sniffing Ringwraith in the woods, with its crippled, half-human movements, as one of the scariest moments in the film -- it certainly frightened me silly when I saw it for the first time alone in the dark!The extreme stylisation of the introduction (plus a voice-over done with great skill and economy to sum up the back-story in a few sentences) works very well to depict an almost mythical era, and the change to the comic-book rusticism of the Shire -- I particularly like the Proudfeet -- corresponds effectively to the similar change in tone of Tolkien's prose.
I did feel that there were some missed opportunities where the potential of animation could have been used to great effect: Gandalf threatening Bilbo with his true power in the opening scenes, Bilbo seeming to become a Gollum-like creature under the influence of Ring-lust at Rivendell, and Galadriel's famous temptation speech all were drawn more or less straight, where it would have been trivial to distort the scene to reflect the hobbits' changed perceptions.
But generally speaking the changes in detail and palette -- firelight hues at Bree, bright colours re-emerging at Rivendell and in the Fangorn clearing, dirty greys and browns for Moria and the desolate lands -- work well to reflect the mood of the various episodes, where a live-action approach simply doesn't allow you to blur the background or sketch in a stylised setting.As a fan I didn't care for either Jackson's or Bakshi's depiction of Lothlorien -- again, I feel that the radio soundscape was the best evocation I've come across of a beautiful, slightly uncanny woodland paradise caught out of time -- and I feel that Bakshi got the elven singing at this point pretty badly wrong, but I do like the little montage at this point showing the various members of the Company relaxing together after their travails in Moria.
Aragorn giving a hobbit-fencing-lesson here is as charming (and equally uncanonical) a spectacle as Boromir engaging with the hobbits in Hollin in the Jackson version.The depiction of Aragorn as convincingly weatherworn Ranger is good throughout this film (Viggo Mortensen's scruffy Jesus look really didn't work for me), although it would have been interesting to see how they planned to 'clean up' the character in the second half for Gondor's benefit.
The hobbits are, I suspect, intended to reflect contemporary youth as audience-identification figures: I find the animated style (their proportions are much more 'cartoonish' than those of the human characters) works well to differentiate them, and the whole 'hairy feet' thing as drawn here comes across as much more plausible than in more literal depictions, including much fan art.Personally I have less objection to Boromir as Viking -- he was always a fairly bludgeoning type -- than to beardy-Aragorn (illogical: they were both Numenorians, after all), although I am clearly in a minority here!The big flaw in this picture is always going to be the fact that it was an unfinished project, with a bizarre tacked-on voice-over ending attempting to resolve matters.
After seeing Peter Jackson' miraculously brilliant movie version of The Lord of the Rings, I had to finally see the much maligned 1978 animated version.Let me get this off my chest first.
Voice acting is excellent, and characters feel "true"; Aragorn is not a pretty boy, Gimli is not an idiot, and thank God we are spared from the aggressively soppy love story that was barely hinted in the book but was so overdone in Jackson's movies.
Some of the grandest scenes in the books, like Gandalf's confrontation with the Balrog, are rendered so poorly by the animators that I can't help but laugh.Many Tolkien fans have read the books over and over again, it exists as a film in their own heads.
I think the characters are also a lot better than the new film, john hurt as aragorn is excellent casting so are others including boromir and gandalf.
It's when Tolkien-nerds start to complain about little details like "there's only one two-note horn-call in the entire movie" or any in a million insults directed at Gandalf and Saruman's fantastic beards or the horned-helmets of Sauron and Boromir that I start to wonder if these people even bothered to look at the picture as a whole.I was very pleased with the level of adaption and wasn't too distracted by the opening sequence or even the apparent deviations from the original story.
While I was impressed that the half the story could be fit in a two-hour format it is true that at times the film cuts from one event to another quite abruptly (not that I had any problems following the plot, but I can see why some people do).In all, the movie is quite good, not very clean and I hated how over-joyed the hobbits seemed most of the time, but it is definitely better than most fan-sites would let you think..
The only version of Tolkien's trilogy (or at least, half of it), until Peter Jackson's recent epic, this cartoon has been unfairly maligned over the years when in fact it is not bad at all.With exceptional voice talent on board (especially John Hurt as Aragorn, and Norman Bird as Bilbo), and good drawings, largely true to the characters, this version trips along with excellent pace and structure.The difficulty in translating this complicated novel to the screen shows in the fact that this 'Lord of the Rings' doesn't quite to justice to its source.
The animation is incredibly interesting and sometimes very fluid and realistic.The atmosphere is creepy, weird and wonderful, this is a dark and odd fantasy adaptation of the first two books of the Lord of the Rings (the final book is not covered).As with all adaptations, comparing this film to the book or other renditions is pointless - so don't do it.Something about this movie feels incredibly fantastic and unnerving.
It was a noble effort, but, in the end, it failed in many ways.I really do like it, and I am happy to see that the film has been released on DVD, but all the same it cannot compete with Jackson's vision of Tolkien's books.I would still advise people to go and rent it (or buy it), especially if you have kids who want to see it (Jackson's versions is a bit too intense for many younger kids), because it is still enchanting and wonderful (although a bit dark in some places).You can always rent Return of the King to fill in the end for young viewers.For us older viewers, though, rent it for the pure joy of the animation...
Lots of zesty style and odd rotoscope animation guarantee that this will be a cult classic, much like Bakshi's other film Wizards.
Thankfully there is no one liner action banter with Gimili in the Helm's Deep scenes.Gimli - A real character - this guy is no comic reliefHobbits - Not bad but I would concede they are all better in Jackson's version, especially Samwise (Sean Astin).Gollum/Smeagal - Jackson's Gollum feels far more like a cartoon than Bakshi's ironically.
Bakshi's "The Lord of the Rings" was for a long time the only movie adaptation of the book - and that was a great shame.
But I think this movie had some serious flaws that have nothing to do with it's year of origin, or the state of technology that was present and available at the time it was created.To begin with, a pity is of course the fact that although the crew's initial intention was to make a cartoon version of the *entire* trilogy, after the battle of Helm's Deep they ran out of money and decided to let the end credits roll down the screen.
There's only one way to fairly compare Bakshi's version to Peter Jackson's films: on the decisions each made while making their films, not on thinks like budget, or time constraints.
It isn't that Aragorn SOUNDS bad, he just looks kind of like the Jolly Green Giant.*Galadriel is somewhat interesting in this portrayal; like Tom Bombadil, she seems immune to the Ring's powers of temptation, and her voice actress isn't horrible either.*Boromir's death isn't as heart wrenching as in Jackson's portrayal of the same scene, but it's still appropriately dramatic (and more true to his death in the book, though I don't believe Jackson made a mistake shooting it the way he did).*As my professor pointed out (between whispered threats), the orcs (mainly at Helm's Deep, if I'm correct) resemble the war-ravaged corpses of soldiers, a political statement that works pretty well if you realize what's being attempted.*While this isn't really a positive point about the film, Bakshi can't be blamed for the majority of the failures in this movie, or so I've been told--the project was on a tight budget, and late in its production he lost creative control to some of the higher-ups (who I'm sure hadn't read the books).Let me be clear: I respect Bakshi for even attempting something of this magnitude.
Ralph Bakshi had a good idea--do "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy as three separate animated films.
(Peter Jackson picked up on this in his version of "Rings.") But when Baskhi rotoscopes a large crowd, as in a tavern scene, it looks like a cheap way to, well, animate a large crowd, or an out take from "Yellow Submarine," and the movie suffers.
If you have a chance to step back from what you know the Lord of the Rings to be through Peter Jackson, check out the animated Bakshi version some twenty-five years before.
If there had been any doubt in my mind that Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy was a remarkable achievement of film-making, this tepid animated version of J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy classic (or rather, the first two parts of said classic) would have erased it.