J.R.R. Tolkien Animated Films Set (The Hobbit/The Lord of the Rings/The Return of the King) |...

J.R.R. Tolkien Animated Films Set (The Hobbit/The Lord of the Rings/The Return of the King) | Orson Bean, Richard Boone | A truly nifty combination

DVDs:

J.R.R. Tolkien Ani...

	J.R.R. Tolkien Animated Films Set (The Hobbit/The Lord of the Rings/The Return of the King) Orson Bean, Richard Boone Warner Home Video, 2001 average customer review:based on 74 reviews view larger image
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Animated versions of three Tolkien classics: The Hobbit The Lord of the Rings and The Return of the King.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: CHILDREN/FAMILY UPC: 085392633128

Entertaining anf true to the books

These are entertaining movies that remain fairly true to the books. The animation is a little odd, especially in the Lord of the Rings where the orks seem to be real people. If you liked these as a kid and the 70s you will still like them now.

A truly nifty combination

This package of three titles brings together a Ralph Bakshi production with two by Rankin-Bass (who would have thought?).

'The Hobbit' and 'The Return of the King' are the R-B Productions, and in quality they evoke much of what endeared other R-B animation to TV viewers during the holidays. As one reviewer has already pointed out, the animators they use prove to be great stylists within a limited budget. I always thought R-B was trying to rival Disney at a fraction of the cost, and in retrospect they clearly had. Especially because Disney went into a down period with its animation (though the Black Cauldron from the same era as these is films is Disney animation at its most spectacular and unsaccharine). With the R-B films you get beautiful landscapes and backgrounds, nice voice characterizations, and some enjoyable music.

Bakshi's 'Lord of the Rings' is a sorely under-rated animated feature (and a rather long one for the genre). Watching this again decades after I had seen it in a shopping mall movie theatre, I was struck with something that couldn't possibly have occurred to me when I first saw the film. In terms of visualizing about the first half of Tolkien's trilogy, this film is obviously extremely influential on the later Jackson smash hit films. In some ways it almost seems like a storyboard come to animated life if you watch this film with the Jackson films in mind. It also struck me as more true to Tolkien's plot, characters and action in some respects.

The downsides include: (1) A musical score that sounds like a Sousa martial anthem (I guess that was the idea, since after all these books are quite 'martial'). (2) Sometimes flat voice characterizations. (3) Extensive use of a technique called 'rotoscoping' that actually makes this 'LOTR' look like a cartoon-colored live action film, especially the many battle and fight scenes where it looks like psychedelically red tinted live action photography. (3) Some characters and movements that look no better than what you would have seen on a Saturday morning cartoon of that era (Aragorn/Strider and Boromir are especially disappointing, though their voicing is fine).

Reviewers of that era often compared Bakshi's 'LOTR' unfavorablly with Rosen's 'Watership Down'. I think both in retrospect are successful in challenging the Disney near-monopoly on animated features for theatrical release. But it is important to remember that this was an era when animated features were overall not that popular, and audiences were being enthralled by science fiction laden with miniature effects, like 'Star Wars' and 'Battlestar Galactica' (on TV). Another factor affecting the Bakshi film's limited impact was that Tolkien's works were still largely of cult status, read and enjoyed only by people who liked SF and fantasy (and might not be that interested in film because SF and fantasy were almost always associated with lousy budgets and cheesy effects). Fantasy plots and creatures like 'LOTR' were still seen as silly by the mass of movie goers then; they hadn't read the books and were not going to go out of their way to see an animated film.

To conclude, this nifty package brings together an alternative set of films that let's you enjoy much of the content of the 'Hobbit' and the 'LOTR' trilogy in three animated features. The Rankin-Bass productions evoke much of the gentleness and human touches you find in their other productions. Bakshi's production is much more rough-edged and would appeal to those who like cult horror. I have no doubt there is a Bakshi-Jackson connection there, since Jackson showed himself to be a master of cult horror before he got to be a mainstream Hollywood director commanding huge budgets and large numbers of effects production teams.

I think another experiment for comparison and contrast would be to watch Bakshi's work with Disney's the 'Black Cauldron'. Bakshi had the rights to the literary masterpiece, but Disney had the budget and the animators to produce something much more lush and easy on the eye than Bakshi's film (though I think at the time much was made of how high the production costs of 'LOTR' were--perhaps too much of the money was blown on shooting the live action scenes that got rotoscoped).

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JUST LOVE LORD OF THE RINGS IN ANY FORM..

I already had this boxed set but I have a son-in-law that wanted it as he has all the movies and figurines. He is enjoying it very much

Great pack for the price!

I used to have all these on VHS, but I decided it was time to upgrade them to DVD. However, there seems to be a problem with the formatting or something with the DVD because the sound is VERY low and the picture has black lines on the right and left side for some reason instead of being widescreen.

Classic trilogy

Great condition. After the live action movies, these cartoons may seem very different, but the story is still good. They are very easy to get into and enjoy.

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