Frequently Bought Together
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Product details
|
Reviews
Amazon.co.uk Review
Ralph Bakshi's 1978 animated adaptation of The Lord of the Rings is a bold, colourful, ambitious failure. Severely truncated, this two-hour version tackles only about half the story, climaxing with the battle of Helm's Deep and leaving poor Frodo and Sam still stuck on the borders of Mordor with Gollum. Allegedly, the director ran out of money and was unable to complete the project. As far as the film does go, however, it is a generally successful attempt at rendering Tolkien's landscapes of the imagination. Bakshi's animation uses a blend of conventional drawing and rotoscoped (traced) animated movements from live-action footage. The latter is at least in part a money-saving device, but it does succeed in lending some depth and a sense of otherworldly menace to the Black Riders and hordes of Orcs: Frodo's encounter at the ford of Rivendell, for example, is one of the movie's best scenes thanks to this mixture of animation techniques. Backdrops are detailed and well-conceived, and all the main characters are strongly drawn. Among a good cast, John Hurt (Aragorn) and C3PO himself, Anthony Daniels (Legolas), provide sterling voice characterisation, while Peter Woodthorpe gives what is surely the definitive Gollum (he revived his portrayal a couple of years later for BBC Radio's exhaustive 13-hour dramatisation). The film's other outstanding virtue is avant-garde composer Leonard Rosenman's magnificent score in which chaotic musical fragments gradually coalesce to produce the triumphant march theme that closes the picture. None of which makes up for the incompleteness of the movie, nor the severe abridging of the story actually filmed. Add to that some oddities--such as intermittently referring to Saruman as "Aruman"--and the final verdict must be that this is a brave yet ultimately unsatisfying work, noteworthy as the first attempt at transferring Tolkien to the big screen but one whose virtues are overshadowed by incompleteness. --Mark Walker
Special Features
1.85 Wide Screen
DVD 9
French\Italian
English\Italian
English
Region 2
Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround English\Mono French Italian
Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround
Mono
Interactive Menus
Scene Access
Arabic\Bulgarian\Dutch\English\French\German\Italian\Portuguese\Romanian\Spanish
DVD 9
French\Italian
English\Italian
English
Region 2
Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround English\Mono French Italian
Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround
Mono
Interactive Menus
Scene Access
Arabic\Bulgarian\Dutch\English\French\German\Italian\Portuguese\Romanian\Spanish
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Hate Disney? Tired of compu-mation? Love this,
By
This review is from: The Lord of the Rings (Animated Version) [DVD] [1978] (DVD)
I have loved this film for years, since I watched it as a child, it got me reading the books and now my kids love it too. We have the films -which are fantastic- but watch this more.
I know it's incomplete, I know it's showing it's age, but come on, what film doesn't? How many book adaptions transfer more than a potted version? Even Jackson's work which takes about a week to sit through doesn't do the books justice. Visually beautiful (remember the beholder thing before commenting on this) and just very different experience than most animation, it has comedy moments, moody scenes, great use of sound, and good cast. Until a film is made that portray the Hobbits, especially Sam in the correct way (read the books, he is the true hero, all would be lost without him) with innocence and heart of gold, this is, for me, the 'proper' version.
52 of 60 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A classic of it's time - visually inspiring.,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Lord of the Rings (Animated Version) [DVD] [1978] (DVD)
I remember going to see this when it was first released in the cinema. I was very disappointed at the abrupt ending and from the first appearance of Treebeard onwards the film seemed very rushed. Years later it is all explained as Ralph Bakshi began to run out of money and did his best to complete the movie at a climatic point - the battle at Helms Deep. The third criticism I have was of the representation of Treebeard himself, while a very difficult character to visualise - I think Bakshi could have done much better.That aside, the first three quarters of the film, the script and especially the visuals and tone of the film capture middle earth in a way that I believe, to those that have seen this film, remains with you. I do not think it appropriate or fair to compare the animated version with the upcoming movies, that was then - this is now as the saying goes, technology of the 21st Century is making the new trilogy possible. I am as excited as everyone else about the new movies, but I certainly will not use it as a vehicle to rubbish anything that came before it. The BBC Radio adaptation is also excellent and has its place and so does Bakshi's Lord of the Rings, as indeed will Peter Jackson's trilogy. Buy the Ralph Bakshi version, you'll enjoy it. I bet you will even see some (now famous) images that actually first appeared here and have been borrowed by various artists and Peter Jackson. One example is the Hobbits hiding, from a Ring Wraith, under a tree on the way to Bree, take a look at this and then the Peter Jackson scene of this you will see that - well take a look for yourself. Bear in mind it was this film that first got Peter Jackson interested in Tolkien's LOTR. What also comes out of this film is not just Bakshi's vision of Middle Earth, but the research and thoughts that came from his personal discussions with Tolkien's family. I wish the new films the best of luck and will be there to watch them, but I also thank Ralph Bakshi for giving me a visual feast that I will continue to revisit.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
proud to be different,
By
This review is from: The Lord of the Rings (Animated Version) [DVD] [1978] (DVD)
some weeks ago i came across the gem for under £2 in a second hand shop, and was both horrified at how such a classic story could be priced so low, and also intrigued at how a much earlier, british director would handle the saga.
firstly, it should be made known that this premake/original is missing the final chapters of "the return of the king", which if you have seen the new movies, matters little anyway. secondly, for the hardcore readers who expect a word-to-word adaptation, you won't find this either. rather, what i would interpret this film as is this: a fairytale, almost disney-esque telling of quite a violent and adult live-action follow up. rather than except peter jackson's empirical trilogy, that is to say, "the one and only movie adaptation", it is nice to see an alternative, visually inventive and overall more optimistic telling of a milestone in the fantasy genre. this film does more for adults therefore than the very young, acting as a reminder of the innocence and imagination of yesteryear.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews |
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
