Review of The Lord of the Rings (1978) by Caleb M — 28 Dec 2008

An interesting failure. Bakshi's ideas never seem fully realized. The rotoscoping looks terrible, not only because it doesn't match the hand-drawn images, but because it looks so primitive. The story drags and skips over important plot points and characters, choosing instead to focus on things that are not only uninteresting, but we have already seen earlier. Plus, the ending isn't even a real ending! The score isn't bad, but it isn't particularly memorable either. The voice acting ranges from poor to decent, John Hurt gives the best performance.

This is an interesting artifact from the 70s. I can only wonder how Tolkien fans felt back in '78 when they saw this on the big screen. For all its flaws, Bakshi's Lord of the RIngs is worth watching, if only because it is such a big, overblown yet underdeveloped mess. Any fans of Jackson's epic versions should check this out as well.