The
Lord Of The Rings - Animated (1978). Cert. PG. Director - Ralph Bakshi Writer - JRR Tolkien Starring - John Hurt & Anthony
Daniels.
Premise -
Tolkiens classic tale of good vs evil brought to life through
animation. This is
just terrible. I know the film was made in 1978, but it looks awful.
Bakshi has used a mixture of traditional animation and raytracing (filming
live actors and painting over them) that fails on every level to convey
the worlds that Tolkien created. You only
have to look at old animated films like Snow White to see that quality
animation was possible back then, but Bakshi has somehow managed to make
LOTR look like some cheap Saturday morning cartoon. The
traditionally animated parts aren't that bad, the animation is jumpy, but
it's watchable. It really falls apart in the raytraced scenes though. It
reminded me a lot of Tron, static painted backdrops, with lousy looking
characters running about. The
choices made as to what to keep from the book and what stay's are also
questionable. The film jumps about all over the place with little or no
explanation as to why the characters are doing what they are doing. If I
hadn't read the books I would have been mighty confused. To add
insult to injury the film ends halfway through 'The Two Towers' at the
most unlikely of points. I have read that Bakshi run out of money, well
maybe that's a good thing. I wouldn't want to sit through the
rest. The only
thing the film has going for it is the classic Tolkien story at it's
heart. No other redeeming features are to be found. I only
rented the flick out of curiosity and my hunger for all things LOTR. I
wish I hadn't bothered.
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2/10 for The Lord Of The Rings. Poster Quote - Lord Of The Brown Ring. |