10/10/2024

RALPH BAKSHI ANIMATED ADAPTATION 'THE LORD OF THE RINGS'

Ralph Bakshi's THE LORD OF THE RINGS Year: 1978 Rating: **

As the Hobbits' legendary adventure begins... in animator Ralph Bashki's mostly maligned albeit cult-appreciated version of J. R. R. Tolkien's iconic fantasy THE LORD OF THE RINGS... it's pretty decent, involving...

And with vibrant colors more richly deep-toned than the intentionally child-geared storybook-aesthetic of the Rankin/Bass HOBBIT from the previous year, RINGS follows pretty close to the source, in both exteriors and interiors, until those chosen little ones... suddenly without their leader Gandalf the Wizard... arrive at The Prancing Pony...

Bad Rotoscoping from Ralph Bakshi's THE LORD OF THE RINGS

Where you experience a surreal background of dancing/drunken locals that are actual human performers bathed in a kind of glowing lacquer, awkwardly clashing with the cartoon Hobbits watching them; and later, the demonic orcs are also half-animated, but in a murky infrared: all this known as Rotoscoping... an otherwise groundbreaking process that director Ralph Bashki would perfect five-years later for his Frank Frazetta fantasy FIRE AND ICE... where actors/actresses are initially filmed so the entirely drawn-over animation smoothly follows genuine movements, particularly important in action sequences...

But here, the viewer goes from a mellow, semi-adult cartoon version of the most classic fantasy tale ever (that Peter Jackson lifted several shots of) into what resembles a low-budget blueprint that director Bashki couldn't seem to finish since... along with the story condensed into only two instead of three books... his LORD OF THE RINGS is a double-whammy shortcoming of both plot and process.

Bad Rotoscoping from Ralph Bakshi's THE LORD OF THE RINGS
Bad Rotoscoping from Ralph Bakshi's THE LORD OF THE RINGS
From Ralph Bakshi's THE LORD OF THE RINGS with John Hurt
From Ralph Bakshi's THE LORD OF THE RINGS
From Ralph Bakshi's THE LORD OF THE RINGS
From Ralph Bakshi's THE LORD OF THE RINGS
From Ralph Bakshi's THE LORD OF THE RINGS
From Ralph Bakshi's THE LORD OF THE RINGS
Bad Rotoscoping from Ralph Bakshi's THE LORD OF THE RINGS
Fom Ralph Bakshi's THE LORD OF THE RINGS
Fom Ralph Bakshi's THE LORD OF THE RINGS

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