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The Lord of the Rings (1978)

The years have not been kind to Ralph Bakshi’s take on The Lord of the Rings. Even if we hadn’t received Peter Jackson's big-budget adaptation years later, this film would still have been ambitious, but unimpressive.

Early in the Second Age of Middle-earth, the dark lord Sauron forged the One Ring, with which he would dominate all other races. A desperate, final alliance between Elves and Men defeated him, but as long as the ring remains lost, its master is not truly gone. Decades later, a hobbit named Frodo (voiced by Christopher Guard) inherits the ring, sparking a quest to destroy it before Sauron’s renewed forces conquer all of Middle-earth. Frodo, his faithful friends Pippin (Dominic Guard), Merry (Simon Chandler) and Sam (Michael Scholes), the wizard Gandalf (William Squire), elf Legolas (Anthony Daniels), dwarf Gimli (David Buck), and two men - Boromir (Michael Graham Cox) and the enigmatic Strider (John Hurt) - form a small group that hopes to sneak past Sauron’s lines and throw the One Ring into the fires that forged it, destroying it once and for all.

Even if no other adaptation of The Lord of the Rings had been made, this admittedly influential 1978 film would struggle to validate anyone watching it because of the conclusion. The film ends in a big battle, the characters wipe the sweat off their brow and say “Alright, now how about that evil ring?”, the narrator informs us that "Here ends the first part of the history of the War of the Ring" but no "part 2" was ever made.

Moving past that, the movie’s just not good. The plot moves at breakneck speed because there's too much ground to cover, even for 133 minutes. Characters are quickly introduced then dropped. Many get only a few lines and aren't developed at all. Several important actions/events are done off-screen or only alluded to. You’re not even sure who is important enough to get attached to, making every death and perilous situation feel weightless and empty.

The animation style is interesting, but it feels like an experiment, a trial to see what could be done with rotoscoping to ensure future project successes. Director Ralph Bakshi calls for several scenes in which large groups of Sauron's forces battle our heroes. Hand drawing the hundreds of warriors required would have been impossible. The solution chosen was to shoot live actors in costumes and then draw/paint over them to transform them into armies of orcs. If the whole film had been done this way, it would've been a stylish choice. Instead, we have nicely animated characters suddenly go up against enemies that look like errors. It doesn’t help that the battles are as well-choreographed as a bad school play, but the rotoscoping technique isn’t even used well. A sequence with a demon-like creature is laughable. It's clear the stunt person was hoisted up on cables and swung back-and-forth with the hope that their costume's rubber wings flopping around would look like flight. It doesn't.

1978's The Lord of the Rings simultaneously moves so quickly you can hardly keep up, and is so boring it feels like time is standing still. It’s an older picture. It didn’t have other epic fantasies to draw inspiration from. They had to take shortcuts to make make the then-unproven story happen. Its ambition should be applauded, but anyone who thinks they can whip up a Thanksgiving dinner with nothing but carrots and a 2L of milk is setting themselves up to fail on top of disappointing the incoming guests.

Do not let the awesome-looking cover to this adaptation of Lord of the Rings fool you. Even hardcore fans of the J.R.R. Tolkien's novels will struggle through it. It’s not all bad but any highlights are dwarfed by flaws. The animation is subpar and inconsistent, the story is confusing and not particularly compelling, the performances are lousy. It's a curiosity at best. Call me unfair, but with the 2000’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, there’s no reason to give this earlier adaptation the time of day. (On VHS, June 12, 2016)