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62 of 64 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The path to Tolkien, June 11, 2002
This review is from: J.R.R. Tolkien Animated Films Set (The Hobbit/The Lord of the Rings/The Return of the King) (DVD)
I might feel differently if I had not grown up watching these films, but I will never know. The Rankin/Bass specials were something I always looked forward to watching on television, and the Ralph Bakshi "Lord of the Rings" was one of the first films I ever saw in the theatre. I loved them then. I love them now. Watching them now, I think that the quality still holds up. Rankin/Bass are not masters of fluid, perfect animation. More than anything, they are stylists who achieved the highest quality they could within budget limitations. "The Hobbit" is the best of the bunch, using dialog and story from the book. The background paintings are beautiful, and the whole production has a hand-crafted feel to it that is far more charming than bigger-budget animation. "Return of the King" suffers from the poor casting choices for Merry and Pippin. The best scenes are Frodo and Sam in Mordor. The songs are memorable in both productions, and I dare you not to hum "Frodo of the Nine Fingers and the Ring of Doom" or "Where theres a Whip, theres a Way." Ralph Bakshi's "Lord of the Rings" has suffered most through the passage of time. His experimental animation does not go over well with viewers used to "Toy Story" and "Akira." Personally, I find his vision of the story to be equal parts charming and creepy. He also took dialog from the books, to great effect. His Dark Riders are terrifying, as is his Balrog. It is unfortunate that he was not able to complete the second half as planned. Considering that the audience for these productions are children, and with the understanding that adapting a novel is difficult, I think both the Rankin/Bass and Bakshi versions hold up well. Watching these as a child got me interested in the books, and didn't color my enjoyment of them at all. That's a good recommendation.
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23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Worth Having, April 15, 2002
This review is from: J.R.R. Tolkien Animated Films Set (The Hobbit/The Lord of the Rings/The Return of the King) (DVD)
If for no other reason than "completing a media collection", these 3 DVDs are worth owning by fans of LOTR that love the story, but haven't gone over the deep end in terms of what they deem "worthy" renderings of Tolkien's work. The Hobbit is probably the best of the three, though inexplicably is missing about a third of the sound effect work from the broadcast version - most notably Bilbo slaying the spiders, and Smaug's blasts of fire. Weird. Anyway, with the remarkable cast of voices it stands well on it's own. IMHO, Brother Theodore's version of Gollum's voice is probably the best there will ever be. Great for kids, fun for adults who remember. Bakshi's "Lord of the Rings" was perhaps over ambitious - some of the rotoscoped scenes drive me nuts - but some things he did very very well. The relationships between the fellowship are completely believable. The black riders are spooky as it gets, and his version of Galadriel's pool/test are right on the money. All in all, I still like pulling it out on a dark pre-snowy autumn night. Return of the King - this one's an oddity. I agree with some other reviewers here, it's treated like The Hobbit, but it's so dark that it almost gets funny in places. Roddy McDowell is over-the-top big time, painting Sam much harsher than the books, and much is glossed over for time constraints. Though,it too, has it's moments. Over all, the Rankin Bass offerings are beautiful to look at...the backgrounds are breathtaking - water colors brought to life. None of these three films are perfect, but given the fact that no major studio would touch any of 'em, _and_ the fact that over 1200 pages of story are being crammed into under 4 hours of movie, I find them mostly satisfying versions of LOTR, and find myself watching them more than I expected to.
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26 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Anime + Lord of the Rings = Success!, January 15, 2002
This review is from: J.R.R. Tolkien Animated Films Set (The Hobbit/The Lord of the Rings/The Return of the King) (DVD)
The Rankin/Bass (The people who brought you Thundercats) versions of "The Hobbit" and "Return of The King" are extremely well done and all three films are BEAUTIFULLY restored for DVD! It's too bad it took the release of the Peter Jackson live-action versions to get these beautiful pieces of anime onto DVD but as long as it happened I guess it's all right even though it reeks of band-wagon capitalism. The Bakshi version of Lord of The Rings (Based on "Fellowship of The Ring" and portions of the "Two Towers") is also well done but the animation ranges from cheesy to beautiful and is uneven. I never connected with this middle film even though I appreciate it. It just lacked the organic and emotional feel and cleanliness of the first and the last one. For great battle scenes and images of Minos Tyrith, the third disc has to be seen to be believed! Full of singing and light, these discs straddle the line between kid and adult entertainment like a razor blade. It's really a shame they never put out a good CD compilation of the soundtracks to the first film and the last film (Kind of like the Less Than Zero orchestral score!) because the vocal and instrumental pieces are really beautiful!
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