Today we have another Ralph Bakshi classic, but not in a good way. This was his total destruction of The Lord of the Rings. In this train wreck of a cartoon, he tells the story of The Fellowship of the Ring and HALF of The Two Towers. It ends just as Aragorn and Theoden ride out of Helmsdeep to face overwhelming numbers of orcs. Unfortunately those overwhelming orcs were UNDERwelming rotoscopes of really really bad costumes.
This was a disaster from beginning to end with little in the way of saving graces. The balrog looked like it was wearing fuzzy bunny slippers, Saruman was renamed Arrowman so people wouldn't confuse him with Sauron, and Samwise looked like a bronze medalist at the special olympics.
It was a crap movie and needless to say I watched the hell out of it throughout the 80's. I'm not proud of it, but there it is.
This was a disaster from beginning to end with little in the way of saving graces. The balrog looked like it was wearing fuzzy bunny slippers, Saruman was renamed Arrowman so people wouldn't confuse him with Sauron, and Samwise looked like a bronze medalist at the special olympics.
It was a crap movie and needless to say I watched the hell out of it throughout the 80's. I'm not proud of it, but there it is.
Is this the one with the songs? "Frodo of the Nine Fingers and the Ring of Dooooooooom" Ugh.
ReplyDeleteThat was in Return of the King by Rankin & Bass who also did The Hobbit. Which I can sorta give a pass on because they were made for little kids, Bakshi has no excuse for this heresy he committed to film
ReplyDeleteThere were a handful of moments, throughout the film, where you almost think Bakshi is going to redeem himself, only to have your hopes dashed once again.
ReplyDeleteEven R&B's Hobbit and Return of the King are better than Bakshi's effort. My Father read the Hobbit and LOTR trilogy to us when I was a pre-teen, and he took me to see this in the theatre. Was one of my few exclusive early father-son outings, and to have it be this movie? :(
not long after this came out, my brother heard that The Two Towers came out so we rushed to go see it. Turns out it was A Tale of Two Cities...not quite the sequal
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