#rankin bass goblins

[spearhafoc]

The Ranki-Baas are an alien species from the Andromeda Galaxy. Seen as a barbarian race by most of the universe, the Ranki-Baas didn't develop space travel on their own but had it introduced to them by visitors. However, their resource-limited homeworld made them an unattractive prospect for invaders and traders alike. Ranki-Baas culture is simple in its aesthetic tastes - making things for mostly utilitarian purposes and avoiding ornamentation or art-for-art's sake. The main exception is in their songs, which are renowned abroad, even by those who dismiss other aspects of their culture. Singing is extremely important to them - in fact, several wars have been fought solely because a tribal chief or two wanted a venue to showcase a new acapella war chant or the like. They each have two throats, which aid in their ability to harmonize. 

Ranki-Baas only have one sex, with each member having both male and female features. In a mating scenario, both participants tend to give birth. The have live births, but the young are soon after suspended in nutrient-rich mud until they reach adolescence, when they emerge healthy and strong. Ranki-Baas have expandable throats, like the bullfrog of Earth, with are used in threat displays. Their "horns" are actually the upper canine tusks, which grow upward and pierce through their skin. 

Inspired by the Goblins/Orcs from the Rankin/Bass Tolkien movies. I always liked their designs (even though they're not remotely book-accurate) and they always had the best songs. Their gestation period is based on the infamous "Orc Pods" from Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies. 

[punster-2319]

I love that whenever the animated Hobbit movie is brought up, it’s collectively agreed that Down Down to Goblin Town is the best song in the movie.

[lifeimitatesmeme]

🤘 it's metal af 🤘

[sonic-emporium]

Crush, smack! Whip crack! Smash, grab! Pinch, nab! You go, my lad! Ho, ho! my lad!

The black crack! the black crack! The black crack! the black crack! Down down to Goblin-town Down down to Goblin-town Down down to Goblin-town You go, my lad! Ho, ho! my lad!

Goblins quaff, and Goblins beat Goblins laugh, and Goblins bleat Batter, jabber, whip and hammer hoooooo! You go, my lad! Ho, ho! my lad!

Below, my lad! Ho, ho! my lad!

The black crack! the black crack! The black crack! the black crack! Down, down to Goblin-town Down, down to Goblin-town Down, down to Goblin-town You go, my lad! Ho, ho! my lad!

[ariel-seagull-wings]

@themousefromfantasyland

The Hobbit (1977)

[camelidae]

I watched the animated Hobbit movie so long ago I couldn’t actually remember much about what Smaug looked like, except that as a kid I watched all his scenes with equal parts fear and fascination. I thought I’d look him up, since I was fondly remembering Rankin Bass’s dragons from Flight of Dragons - was not disappointed! What an absolutely rad creature design. Beam eyes, viscerally pleasing pebbly scales, fur all over and the face of a wolf/wildcat/goblin who has Seen Things (probably things he caused himself, but whatever)

I did enjoy bendy-snoot Smaug’s design from the live-action Hobbits, but come on. He’s got nothing on this absolute beast.

[bogleech]

The Rankin Bass goblins were so fucking good. All other issues with it aside the “goblin” design standardized by D&D isn’t interesting and every fantasy setting should have always strived to have a goblin style that’s completely their own. I don’t want to be able to know it’s a goblin just by looking. That shouldn’t have one “look!”

[tyrantisterror]

Top ten favorite Orcs? Either specific characters or a given setting’s take on the species as a whole.

I'm not sure I have enough strong feelings about Orcs to really make an interesting list of ten, but what the hell I'll try.

Tolkien's orcs - not just LOTR orcs, but specifically orcs as written by J.R.R. Tolkien - are pretty high up there for me. I've probably mentioned this more than enough on this blog, but I'm still moved by the moment in The Lord of the Rings where we get this conversation between two orcs when their bosses aren't around, where both of them commiserate with each other about how shitty being drafted into Sauron's war is, how they long to go back to their simpler life as mountain bandits, and how, maybe, if they could find a way to escape being caught by their superiors, they could run off and find someplace far from the war to settle down together. Their names are Shagrat and Gorbag, and later in the book one of the heroes finds them among a pile of dead orcs, their dream of a simpler life tragically unfulfilled. I bring this up because, for all the flak Tolkien's cosmology gets for codifying the fantasy trope of "Always Chaotic Evil" races, there's a lot more moral complexity to his "evil" races than most people think. The orcs we meet in his stories are universally pretty nasty people - even Gorbag and Shagrat can't conceive of a simple life that doesn't involve killing people for their valuables - but it's very clear this is a result of the culture they are living in, which, if you get nerdy and read up on the Lore (TM), is one that has been specifically designed by the Middle Earth equivalent of Satan to turn all living things in it into tools of warfare - a world that exists solely to serve as a vast machine of industrialized conquest and mass murder. And it makes them miserable. Orcs don't like living this way, even though it's the only way they know how to live. They are at once victim and villain, and that's explicitly the canon way to look at them in the text. So it kind of sucks that their reputation in pop culture - and how they're presented in most adaptations, including good ol' PJ's film trilogy - is as one-dimensional evil henchmen, because they do have more going on than that in the books themselves, and it enriches the themes of the story when those dimensions are included.

The orcs in Rune Factory are probably my favorite from a design standpoint. I'm kind of neutral at best with the standard "green skinned humans with optional tusks" look of most orcs. There's nothing wrong with it, but it doesn't thrill me either, existing in the same nebulous space as, like, traditional fantasy elves, dwarves, and hobbit expies - I understand why they're classics, but they feel kind of boring when you've got other options on the table. So seeing these guys when I booted up my first Rune Factory game was a revelation - finally, orcs that look INTERESTING! And they're so cute, these gnarly little Jim Hensen/Brian Froud style pig people. And they'll help you water your plants! A+ Tier orcs as far as I'm concerned.

Dungeon Meshi found a good middle ground between "gnarly boar people" and "humans with tusks" that I really like, and while the orcs aren't given a whole lot of focus, what world building we do get about them is pretty great, taking a lot of the classic orc tropes and giving them that Ryoko Kui caliber thought and detail that makes them so wonderful.

What else... well, ok, my brain still categorizes these guys as "goblins" rather than "orcs," but since the two are more or less synonymized in both Tolkien and the Rankin Bass adaptations of his work, I guess I can include them. They're one of my favorite designs for goblins of all time, and since I generally like goblins more than orcs, I guess this makes them my favorite orc design by default? I just love them, nasty little toad people.

The 1980 Return of the King movie in particular is one of the few adaptations that keeps Tolkien's sympathy for the orcs in tact, with Frodo even having a dream sequence about living in a world where his run in with orcs is fully pleasant, each of them waving at each other as they cross paths, content to share a beautiful world together.

And while it adapts the parts of the text that take place after the deaths of poor Shagrat and Gorbag, it still manages to work in a moment where the orcs lament their lot in life by way of the infamous "Where There's a Whip There's a Way" song written just for the film. I know this song is generally viewed as "bad" and corny and whatever, fuck that, I unironically love it. It's my wakeup alarm for workdays. I am these orcs five days out of the week.

What else...

So, like, kind of a cheat I suppose, but the Darkspawn in Dragon Age take a lot of cues from Tolkien's take on orcs, right down to seeming like they're just always chaotic evil at first glance, and also being the product of Supernatural Crimes Against Nature by semi-divine powers. And indeed, in Dragon Age Origins you're basically given no reason to view them as anything but evil obstacles to destroy, especially when you learn the body-horror involved in how they reproduce (it's more in the vein of Slither than Goblin Slayer, for those unaware - grotesque but, thankfully, not in that way).

But the big ol' DLC for the same game, called Dragon Age Awakening, throws a big monkey wrench in that view of them. We meet Darkspawn who are capable of speech - ones that have been broken free of the evil hivemind their species is ruled by, and, like freed borg drones, are now at a loss of what to do with themselves. They are, like Tolkien's orcs before them, a people who were made for war and violence, and yet still crave something more than that when given the chance to think about it. It's something that hasn't been followed up on much since, sadly, but it's a damn cool take.

What else...

I'm probably the only person who still remembers this movie, especially with any fondness, but I liked the orcs in the Warcraft movie directed by David Bowie's son. They were given a lot of nuance and I honestly think their parts of the film were by the far the best. Actually I remember liking that movie a lot despite some of its pacing issues, I should revisit it.

Ok that's not ten takes but I feel like there are at least 10 designs on display here so I'm calling this done.

[earlgraytay]

@tyrantisterror

The Hobbit (1977)

[laora-ryn]

Omg y'all, my husband's family had a tradition growing up that when any of them were sick (which was pretty often, since he's one of seven kids), they would watch the 1977 Rankin/Bass Hobbit movie. Their dad really loves Tolkien but was generally not a fan of letting the kids use The Tech (tm), so I think this is the compromise the older kids wrangled from him

I have heard about this movie from him and his siblings, but didn't really know anything about it myself since my parents weren't super into Tolkien, so I got into it with the PJ LOTR movies

ANYWAY so we've been sick all week and James found out that movie's on HBO, so he sat me down and made me watch it as a Time Honored Tradition

And I.

Bilbo has approximated Leia buns??? I spent an hour and seventeen minutes looking at him, but still have not figured out what is going on with this guy's hair

They really leaned hard into "there's thorin and uhhhhhhhhhh twelve other dwarves idk their names don't matter." The only ones I could keep straight were fili and kili, since they were blond, and balin and dwalin, because they have like, six-heads and brain wrinkles on their head lol

James always described Gollum in this movie as a booger, and now I understand why. They also made him blind, which doesn't make a ton of sense in the context of Bilbo using the ring to escape, but imo it's a neat design choice nonetheless

They really did THIS to thranduil oropherion I am still laughing my ASS off at this. He also spoke with a really shitty, half assed French accent for no discernable reason

And then there was? Smaug??? Who has laser beams for eyes?? And fur on his back?? And a tiger's face???? And pecs????????

I was too flabbergasted to remember to take more pictures but the conversation right before the battle went like this:

Thorin, Bard, and Thranduil: let's fuck these guys up!!

Gandalf: STOP you fools!!! As we speak there is a FOURTH army of goblins on its way here!!!

Thorin, Bard, and Thranduil:

Thorin: King Thranduil, my dearest friend and greatest ally, I would be honored to join forces with you to defeat this evil

Thranduil: oh mighty king thorin, it would be an honor [I wish I was making this up, if it weren't made in the 70s I would've thought it was a meme]

Also, at the end, bombur shows up in front of Bilbo only to keel over and die, before we cut to Bilbo's conversation with gandalf:

Bilbo: how many of our original thirteen remain??

Gandalf: seven :(

Bilbo: and thorin??

Gandalf: soon, it will be six :((((

No explanation for this or like, explanation of who else they arbitrarily killed off or anything

So anyway, this movie was An Experience (tm) and I wanted to share and also, y'all should watch it if you get the chance bc lol

[mariasklodowskastwixbar]

rankin bass really peaked as a studio with down down to goblin town for the hobbit adaptation they did

[grayrazor]

Made the family marathon the Rankin/Bass Hobbit and Return of the King with the Ralph Bakshi Lord of the Rings in the middle this Christmas break.

It’s kind of strange to see Brian Froud-style cute trolls and goblins in a Middle Earth context, fighting in the armies of Mordor, pushing Grond around.

Not allowed to show violence in a ‘70s TV cartoon, so Elvish blades apparently just send people to the Shadow Realm.

lmao, the Witch King of Angmar sounds like Dr. Quest doing a Starscream impression.

Eowyn kind of looks like the Tolmekian princess from Nausicaa.

On to the 1978 Lord of the Rings. Boromir's costume is decidedly more questionable than the rest. He looks like a cartoon barbarian, a $20 halloween viking costume.

I don’t like Gollum’s voice in the Bakshi version. He sounds less like a sewer mutant and more like a queer-coded Disney villain. I do wonder if Andy Serkis saw this one. His Gollum has very similar body language.

So I’m hearing that Ralph Bakshi and company made another rotoscope-assisted animated feature fantasy film after The Lord of the Rings, “Fire and Ice�� based on Frank Frazetta art. Does it have any merit to its story, or is it just “barbarian cheesecake fanservice: the movie”?

[puppyfriedrice]

The cool Rankin and bass movie where Santa fights goblins is the life and adventures of Santa Claus and it's on the internet archive. There's also a standard animation of it that came out in like the 90s.

My partner has it on DVD :3c

[themothface]

Rankin-Bass Hobbit Creatures

Goblin

I love these guys! They're all mouth! They look like a cross between toads and bulldogs, but with messy hairdos and huge cattle horns. And they love to sing about horrible things!

Gollum

Rankin Bass has my favorite version of this guy. He's so amphibian-like, but still has recognizable vestiges of hobbit-like features like the ears and bedraggled hair, and there's something about his snout that looks like it sort of remembers being a humanoid face. The way his lamp eyes flickered weird when he was angry was cool too! Also, his voice actor was incredible!

Mirkwood Spider

These guys. These guys! They're awesome! I'll admit that when I was younger, I used to quibble a bit about the fact that they have antenna, which spiders don't and they have distinct heads apart from their cephalothoraxes, which spiders (usually) don't. But I really shouldn't quibble. They're designed this way on purpose. They're creepy chimera with fuzzy goblin heads and that's cool! Also, their shaggy antenna could be repurposed pedipalps or chelicerae (spider mouthparts) because they already have teeth.

[jakey-beefed-it]

I often get very obscure and/or stupid things stuck in my head. Tonight's feature is the goblin song from the seventies Rankin-Bass Hobbit movie, which I have not seen in over 30 years.