The Animated Movie

[mithrand1r]

Some info. about LOTR from http://us.imdb.com/

Lord of the Rings, The (1978)

Directed by
Ralph Bakshi

Cast overview, first billed only:
Christopher Guard .... Frodo Baggins
William Squire .... Gandalf
Michael Scholes .... Sam
John Hurt .... Aragorn
Simon Chandler .... Meriadoc
Dominic Guard .... Pippin
Norman Bird .... Bilbo Baggins
Michael Graham Cox .... Boromir
Anthony Daniels .... Legolas
David Buck .... Gimli
Peter Woodthorpe .... Gollum
Fraser Kerr .... Saruman
Phillip Stone .... King Theoden
Michael Deacon .... Wormtongue
André Morell .... Elrond

J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings (1978) (USA: complete title)
Runtime: 132
Country: USA
Language: English


Sincerely,
Anthony

[Legolas_BowKing]

I am very glad i haven't seen these movies that you speek of.

[Khadrane]

I thought the Hobbit movie was pretty good. But I got every single one of those idiotic songs stuck in my head for 2 weeks straight.

[Thrain]

The Hobbit Cartoon was made by one company while Lord of the Rings which stops half way through is a different company. There is a Return of the King which is made by the company that made the Hobbit.
My opinion. There all total trash,
Later

[Thrain]

The Hobbit and ROTK are made by the same company. The LOTR is made by aanother co. There all trash.2\

[Khamûl]

If it hadn't been for the animated Hobbit, I might not have gotten into LotR. I saw it when I was probably 5 or 6 and kinda forgot about it until one day when I was wandering through the library and a book called to me from the shelf. I looked at it and it was The Hobbit. I didn't know what a hobbit was, but I vaguely remembered that it had a dragon in it and I liked dragons. So, long story short, I read it, loved it, read LotR, loved it, and here I am on Entmoot.

My only problem with animated Hobbit was some of the songs. I just didn't picture them bursting into song while getting kidnapped by goblins or anything like that. (Down, down to goblin town, anyone?) Which I guess they wrote songs about everything else (like baths), so why not sing about getting chased by goblins? I honestly didn't think it was that bad.

[Thrain]

TRASH

[ekrenbrand]

Originally posted by surjay
The animated Hobbit is a great movie! Sure it's a simple movie, but I think it goes along well with the overall mood of the book.

It is by far the most accurate of any of these films, with only a few things left out due to time constraints. At least it didn't blatently change things like the other two movies mentioned in this thread.

It's a fun movie and I think it is enjoyable as such. I don't think it should be looked at for anything more then that.

The songs are great! I have them all downloaded.


"Fifteen birds...........in five fir trees!"

i have to agree with this person's entire post. i think it accomplished a lot and really gave the feeling that i thought master tolkien wanted to give in his book. I would also like to say that the songs although they remind me a lot of kenny g were very good and i enjoyed listening to them as a child

thanks

[Laughing Woman]

Dear Hobbit friends,

thank you so much for encouraging me to look at the Hobbit movie as a child might look at it. I think that is the key to really understanding Tolkein, because while he did not write for Tolkein he wrote to awaken us to the child in all of us. We are to be like little children. We are to use our imaginations to go the worlds that we can only experience through our imaginations. I like to think that we live in more than one nation. The United States of America is our political nation, but the nation of our true selves is the imagi-nation. And even children are losing the ability to find ways to go to that nation.
May we all be citizens of our imaginations and may we all find ways to direct our fellow humans to explore that country as well. For to be truly human is to live in that wonderful nation. Thanks again.

[barrelrider110]

Well spoken, Laughing woman.

The Hobbit movie first aired in '77 and I was reading the book at the time. I thought it was interesting and entertaining, but I can't say I loved it.

The voices of John Huston as Gandalf and Richard Boone as Smaug were outstanding. I was a folk-music fan from the 60s so I liked the Glen Yarborough songs, but by 1977 the Folk Music genre was old so even then they were dated. The animation of Gollum and the wood-elves were way off. The king of the wood-elves looked like a green pixie, had a kabukie-style head piece and spoke with a thick Austrian accent (the voice of Otto Preminger). One would have thought the animators would have taken a little time to research Tolkien literature first.

Years later, my 8-year old daughter and I watched the Hobbit movie together, and she thought it was cool. So as a children's movie, it served the purpose of telling the story well and introducing kids to Middle Earth. She’s 13 now and read the Hobbit and LoTR twice and she wants to try the Silmarillion. She logs onto the Entmoot as foolofatook11 and I am thankful to the Rankin Bass movie for starting her Tolkien obsession, which is something we share.

As far as the other two animated versions, I thought that Bakshi's version would have been awesome had it been finished. Ralph Bakshi, who made a name for himself by producing a witty, off-beat animated full-length movie called Fritz the Cat, ran out of money and decided to fund the second half of LoTR with profits from the first. One problem--very few people went to see the first half. All the critics panned it. It was a financial disaster and needless to say there were no profits and no second half of LoTR made.

In his version of LoTR, Bakshi tried hard to stay as close to the original story line as possible and his alterations really only were made to save time. The illustrations were better than the Rankin-Bass movie (except that Boromir was pictured as Viking). The ringwraiths were excellent, and Bormir’s death scene was very moving. He used a technique called Rotoscoping that combines live-action footage overlaid with hand-drawn animation. Even though I liked it, more people than not thought it was garbage. I think half of the people in the theatre left well before the movie was finished.

I was unimpressed with the Rankin-Bass treatment of RoTK. That style was much better suited to the children’s story of the Hobbit and the animators continued draw Gollum as a *bleep-bleep* mutant frog.

[Laughing Woman]

Thank you barrelrider,

Your analysis was very helpful. Also, I am delighted to here about your 13 year old daughter. It is such a joy to be able to pass along a love for learning i.e. reading to your children. I am grateful for that with my own.(now 22, 26)

Your quote about "luck" has so many theological implications. I was at the Conference on Christianity and literature two weeks ago. There were two papers and a keynote speaker who discussed some of those implications. Tolkein's genius (pointed out by one of the speakers) is that unlike Lewis (another favorite but not in the same way) Tolkein being a cradle to grave Christian realized that God does not come as Aslan in anyone's "real" experience. Instead, God comes in reflecting on our "luck" as the littlest, and weakest of his creatures--and yet chosen to bear his image on our life journey. Thanks again.

[Xivigg]

Tolkien write The Hobbit for his children so it's a child stories i think they were around 7-10 at that time (this is soo far in my memories i can be very wrong. The age of Tolkien kids i mean)

Then he start to write The Lord of the Rings for his children when they would be older.

I think it's why they are so good... he write for his children... for the love of them.

My view

[Laughing Woman]

Dear Elven Warrior and fellow citizens of the imagination,

I am glad that Tolkein could write intelligent prose for children. It is so rare. Pablum is I am afraid what we are receiving in much of the media today.

I hope that you all will write your own stories some day.

[TwirlingString]

Originally posted by bmilder
What did you think of it? I thought it had its moments, but overall was a bit disappointing. I think it was the best of all the animated movies set in Tolkien's world, though. The "cuteness" fit in with the themes of the Hobbit, but that weird RotK movie didn't really benefit from it. Also, it was very weird in the RotK movie the way it referred to the Hobbit movie, since it was made by the same company, and not the previous LotR movie...

It was quite possably the most boring and confusing movie on earth. I'd read the book an I still didn't know what was goimg on (or the point) half the time.

[Laughing Woman]

Dear Twirling String,

Why are you named that? I really like the names of the Hobbit group. The poem is awesome. Thanks for sharing it. I think it would be neat for the kids in my tutoring group to memorize it.

I am looking forward to more conversations. I'm really not going to show much of the movie. Just enough for the children to get intrigued so that they then can read parts of the book. If they read some of the easier passages to help them to learn to read more efficiently and understand more deeply what they read, then I will have accomplished my purpose.
'Thanks again for replying.

[TwirlingString]

Originally posted by Laughing Woman
Dear Twirling String,

Why are you named that? I really like the names of the Hobbit group. The poem is awesome. Thanks for sharing it. I think it would be neat for the kids in my tutoring group to memorize it.

I am looking forward to more conversations. I'm really not going to show much of the movie. Just enough for the children to get intrigued so that they then can read parts of the book. If they read some of the easier passages to help them to learn to read more efficiently and understand more deeply what they read, then I will have accomplished my purpose.
'Thanks again for replying.

Happy to obligie. I've got a post up about how I got my name. (I wonder, is it going against ethics to help a teacher give homework?) Why do you start every post with a dear something?

[Laughing Woman]

Dear Twirling String,

I don't know why I start every reply with a dear something. I think it is because I was taught to write letters this way. Giving homework is a teacher's job, right? However, to clarify, I am really not giving the children more homework although they might see it that way. I am really helping them learn to read. I assist them with their homework, and I help them by giving them practice in reading, writing, speaking and math.

I hope that helps to explain it.

Thanks for replying

[TwirlingString]

Maybe that's why. LOTR may not be the best for introducing people into loving reading.

[samwiselvr2008]

I think that the Hobbit was not that good, but it was okay. the best tolkien animated movie i have seen!

[Willow Oran]

I just watched The Hobbit a few days ago at a cast party. The play we had just finished doing was The Hobbit and to tell the truth I think that our version of it was a far better adaption. Our script was much truer to the book and the tunes which we had composed for the songs were far more melodious than the ones in the movie. I also think we did a better portrayal of the elves. As I watched the movie I found myself wondering several things, Why were ther stars orbiting Elrond's head and why did he have a goatee? (I played Elrond in our play and so I'm a bit touchy about bad prtrayals of him now.) But the movie really wasn't all that bad till it got to mirkwood and we discovered that someone had done away with the wood elves and placed a bunch of blue goblinesque, furwearing things in their part. I didn't really like how they did smaug either but thats probably because we had played smaug as female and I was used to hearing female voices (mine included) in that part of the story. Anyway, that's my little spiel on the subject. Bye.