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Animated Tolkien

post #1 of 32
9/28/11 at 10:30am
Thread Starter 

My personal favorite Lord of the Rings is the one made by Ralph Bakshi. It turned me on to Tolkien when I was a young child. LoR was considered satanic in my church especially after the Bakshi cartoon came out and it was considered a horror movie. overall it perfectly captures my vision of the book even though some of the drawings are different from how Tolkien described them. It is more faithful than Peter Jackson. The sequel I am writing owes a lot to this cartoon and I wondered if I was alone in loving it. The Return of the King cartoon is okay too but not as good as Bakshis.

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post #2 of 32
9/28/11 at 10:57am
263
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post #3 of 32
9/28/11 at 11:00am
Thread Starter 

I really wish he'd gotten to do the ents at Isengard.

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post #4 of 32
9/28/11 at 11:05am
196
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post #5 of 32
9/28/11 at 11:15am
392
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post #6 of 32
9/28/11 at 11:24am
Thread Starter 

PJ has said that he did the tree scene as a tribute to Bakshi. That picture of Legolas with his leg up is out of context.

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post #7 of 32
9/28/11 at 11:42am
197
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post #8 of 32
9/28/11 at 12:40pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by David Morgan View Post
 It is more faithful than Peter Jackson.


I don't know what version of Lord of the Rings you've been reading but it most certainly is not. Bakshi might've kept certain lines direct from the book but he completely lost the tone and characters of the book. What he did to the character of Sam is pretty unforgivable. He just missed the heart completely. Personally, I thought Bakshi's version was pretty terrible. 

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post #9 of 32
9/28/11 at 2:32pm

In terms of point-by-point storytelling, Beagle's screenplay is more faithful, albeit heavily truncated. I have a copy of the shooting script (as well as the original draft by Chris Conkling, which told the entire story from Merry and Pippin's point of view [!]); but the what Beagle wrote was actually a very faithful rendition of a compressed Lord of the Rings. All of the visual deviations are straight-up Bakshi; even the prologue, which we see by way of shadow play in the film, wasn't written as such. Indeed, neither Aragorn nor Boromir are written as wearing skirts, and Aragorn is described very much as he is in the book -- not as a Native American.

 

However, Jackson, while taking many liberties, definitely captured the tone of the novel in a way Bakshi never did; but he also had 11.5 hours to do it. And in either event, Jackson wins. But Beagle's screenplay featured few of the things that Bakshi is condemned for; and that includes the "(S)Aruman" debacle.

 

(With that said, I REALLY wish Bakshi hadn't robbed John Boorman of the chance to do his four hour live-action opus; not only does Excalibur give us a sense of how it would have looked and felt, but that screenplay is fucking nuts.)

 
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post #10 of 32
10/4/11 at 8:21am
Thread Starter 

Do not get me wrong, I looooooooove PJ's version, but his movies are just the calendar art. Bakshi made it his own. It is very unique.

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post #11 of 32
10/4/11 at 2:21pm

 

Quote:
Originally Posted by David Morgan View Post
Bakshi made it his own. It is very unique.

Bakshi rotoscoped the shit out of actors. And in some cases, merely recolored live-action shots. "His own" should be applied very liberally here. And as far as "unique", yeah considering it's incomplete and only the first 1/2 or so of 3 books, forcing the vastly superior R/B adapters to only be able to put out a RETURN OF THE KING without any context besides song mentions of THE HOBBIT's plot... I guess it IS "unique".

 

I saw it on VHS as a kid and dismissed it as a fever dream until revisiting much later. It's weird, alien, ugly, and lacks any of the warmth from other versions. "Unique" for sure.
 

No offense.

 

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post #12 of 32
10/4/11 at 4:50pm

not gonna lie, i remember watching Fritz the Cat on cinemax at 3am one weekend. one of the select few drug movies that makes me NOT want to do drugs. and thats saying something

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post #13 of 32
10/5/11 at 4:23am
Quote:
Originally Posted by DARKMITE8 View Post

 

Bakshi rotoscoped the shit out of actors. And in some cases, merely recolored live-action shots. "His own" should be applied very liberally here. And as far as "unique", yeah considering it's incomplete and only the first 1/2 or so of 3 books, forcing the vastly superior R/B adapters to only be able to put out a RETURN OF THE KING without any context besides song mentions of THE HOBBIT's plot... I guess it IS "unique".

 

I saw it on VHS as a kid and dismissed it as a fever dream until revisiting much later. It's weird, alien, ugly, and lacks any of the warmth from other versions. "Unique" for sure. 

No offense.

 



Agreed on everything here with the exception of the R/B films being "vastly superior." Have you seen Return of the King recently...? It makes Bakshi's film look successful as an adaptation of Tolkien by comparison.

 

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post #14 of 32
10/5/11 at 6:51pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by erik myers View Post

Agreed on everything here with the exception of the R/B films being "vastly superior." Have you seen Return of the King recently...? It makes Bakshi's film look successful as an adaptation of Tolkien by comparison.

 


Considering how successful they were at THE HOBBIT and Peter S. Beagle's THE LAST UNICORN, I'm gonna chalk it up to being hampered with leftovers and  an attempt to find a focus with a limited running time and no chance to introduce other trilogy-meaningful characters like Legolas, Aragorn, etc. I believe if they were able to do the entire series, we'd be looking at a different version altogether.

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post #15 of 32
10/6/11 at 4:14am
Quote:
Originally Posted by DARKMITE8 View Post

Considering how successful they were at THE HOBBIT and Peter S. Beagle's THE LAST UNICORN, I'm gonna chalk it up to being hampered with leftovers and  an attempt to find a focus with a limited running time and no chance to introduce other trilogy-meaningful characters like Legolas, Aragorn, etc. I believe if they were able to do the entire series, we'd be looking at a different version altogether.



"Successful" is a relative term. Yes, they were successful with children; but as an adaptation of Tolkien, THE HOBBIT wasn't exactly "successful." It just wasn't the screaming shit-fest that was RETURN OF THE KING.

 

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post #16 of 32
7/17/12 at 6:20am
Thread Starter 
Ralph is still talking about doing Part 2. He posts about it at his website. I hope he does. I bet Minus Tirith would be a wonder of animation.
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post #17 of 32
7/17/12 at 7:03am
Quote:
Originally Posted by David Morgan View Post

Ralph is still talking about doing Part 2. He posts about it at his website. I hope he does. I bet Minus Tirith would be a wonder of animation.

 

"Minus Tirith" indeed. Thank God this is never going to happen. The guy hasn't made a movie in 20 years, and if he does succeed in returning to filmmaking, it's not going to be to make the 2nd half of a 35-year-old movie hardly anyone remembers fondly, if they remember it at all, a mere 10 years after an infinitely more succeessful adaption of the same material.

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post #18 of 32
7/17/12 at 7:43am
Thread Starter 
It would still be an interesting vision to behold. And I don't understand why you put Minus Tirith in quotes.
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post #19 of 32
7/17/12 at 8:10am
Quote:
Originally Posted by David Morgan View Post

It would still be an interesting vision to behold. And I don't understand why you put Minus Tirith in quotes.

 

To be an "interesting vision to behold," it would have to be completely different from the Lord of the Rings he made back in the '70s, which is grotesquely ugly, nonsensically plotted, and completely lacking in charm or well realized characters. It's an awful movie, and it's a blessing that it and the Rankin/Bass supplement are no longer the only LOTR adaptations we have.

 

And to spell it out, I put "Minus Tirith" in quotes because that's not the city's name. It's "Minas Tirith." But another Bakshi adaptation certainly would be a "minus."

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post #20 of 32
7/17/12 at 8:15am
Thread Starter 
How is it ugly? There is a lot of beauty there. As for plotting, it is truer to the books than a certain Mr. peterbear Jackson.
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post #21 of 32
7/17/12 at 8:25am
Quote:
Originally Posted by David Morgan View Post

How is it ugly?

 

lotr45.jpg

 

bakshi-wizards-02.jpg

 

lotr_14.jpg

 

oUwT8.jpg

 

Plus, you can see where he just threw up his hands and slapped filters on his live-action footage.

 

As for being truer to the books?  Don't see how when he covered a book and a half in about ninety minutes.

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post #22 of 32
7/17/12 at 8:29am
Quote:
Originally Posted by David Morgan View Post

How is it ugly?

1542-11460.jpg

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post #23 of 32
7/17/12 at 8:49am

As for the movie's appearance, I guess beauty's in the eye of the beholder and all, but I find most of the character designs bland and unappealing, the backgrounds blotchy, night scenes are usually too dark, and the whole rotoscoping thing is just very, very ugly-looking and out of place. I remember the scenes with Galadriel not looking too bad, so I'll give it that.

 

As for the plotting, I'm not talking about its faithfulness to the source material. That's a whole other issue, and where I think it also fails. (I know Jackson made his fair share of changes too, and I disagree with many of them, but at least it all remained faithful to the book's spirit.) I'm talking about the movie on its own merits. Everything is extremely rushed. There isn't enough time for the story to flow the way it needs to. Story elements don't seem to have much relation to one another; it's just one scene after another. Because of the rush, nothing has the scope, importance, or grandeur that it should. We don't get to learn much about most of the characters, they're just "around." Bilbo, Aragorn, Boromir, Elrond, and Théoden are all like this; there aren't really any moments that make them stand out as memorable or compelling. Treebeard just shows up out of nowhere for one short scene, without explanation, and then is never seen again. And then it just ends. I know Bakshi wanted to make the second part but couldn't. But I'm sorry, if you aren't able to do a story justice with the resources you have, be that three movies or one (which is all Bakshi had when he started making it, one movie), then you probably just shouldn't make it to begin with. That's on Bakshi; no one guaranteed him a second movie to finish the story, so responsibility for the fact that the movie ends with the story far from complete falls in his lap. The movie's just an awful mistake.

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post #24 of 32
7/17/12 at 8:57am

Plus the whole "Aruman" thing is just ridiculous.

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post #25 of 32
7/17/12 at 9:05am

Sam was always my favorite character in the books so I'll always hate Bakshi's Lord of the Rings for completely BUTCHERING HIM in the film. Completely. Like, he got EVERYTHING wrong about him in the film.

 

h15.jpg

 

GAH!

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post #26 of 32
7/17/12 at 9:15am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Dickson View Post

 

lotr45.jpg

 

bakshi-wizards-02.jpg

 

lotr_14.jpg

 

oUwT8.jpg

 

Plus, you can see where he just threw up his hands and slapped filters on his live-action footage.

 

As for being truer to the books?  Don't see how when he covered a book and a half in about ninety minutes.

 

Those pictures are fantastic. And by the way, the movie was over two hours long. Check your facts.
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post #27 of 32
7/17/12 at 9:16am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Curiosity Cosby View Post

As for the movie's appearance, I guess beauty's in the eye of the beholder and all, but I find most of the character designs bland and unappealing, the backgrounds blotchy, night scenes are usually too dark, and the whole rotoscoping thing is just very, very ugly-looking and out of place. I remember the scenes with Galadriel not looking too bad, so I'll give it that.

 

As for the plotting, I'm not talking about its faithfulness to the source material. That's a whole other issue, and where I think it also fails. (I know Jackson made his fair share of changes too, and I disagree with many of them, but at least it all remained faithful to the book's spirit.) I'm talking about the movie on its own merits. Everything is extremely rushed. There isn't enough time for the story to flow the way it needs to. Story elements don't seem to have much relation to one another; it's just one scene after another. Because of the rush, nothing has the scope, importance, or grandeur that it should. We don't get to learn much about most of the characters, they're just "around." Bilbo, Aragorn, Boromir, Elrond, and Théoden are all like this; there aren't really any moments that make them stand out as memorable or compelling. Treebeard just shows up out of nowhere for one short scene, without explanation, and then is never seen again. And then it just ends. I know Bakshi wanted to make the second part but couldn't. But I'm sorry, if you aren't able to do a story justice with the resources you have, be that three movies or one (which is all Bakshi had when he started making it, one movie), then you probably just shouldn't make it to begin with. That's on Bakshi; no one guaranteed him a second movie to finish the story, so responsibility for the fact that the movie ends with the story far from complete falls in his lap. The movie's just an awful mistake.

 

The fact that it was called LORD OF THE RINGS and not Part 1 is the studio's fault, not Bakshi's. He was promised two.
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post #28 of 32
7/17/12 at 9:19am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Dickson View Post

 

lotr45.jpg

 

bakshi-wizards-02.jpg

 

lotr_14.jpg

 

oUwT8.jpg

 

Plus, you can see where he just threw up his hands and slapped filters on his live-action footage.

 

As for being truer to the books?  Don't see how when he covered a book and a half in about ninety minutes.

 

Even though (or because?) they look like Black Sabbath album covers, the latter three in particular look good to me.

 

I disagree with the talk of Jackson capturing the tone. The movies are excellent but they're packed with Hollywood bombast, while the book are quiet and English.

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post #29 of 32
7/17/12 at 9:20am
Thread Starter 
Bakshi wanted Lead Zeppelin to score the movie. That would have been great since their music would have complimented the earthy visual style.
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post #30 of 32
7/17/12 at 9:30am

seinfeld.gif

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post #31 of 32
7/17/12 at 10:35pm

I'm not sure I follow.

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post #32 of 32
7/17/12 at 10:59pm

Hi I'm The Rain Dog and I have a shameless weakness for Bakshis LOTR...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...I'll get me coat.

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