Review of The Lord of the Rings (1978) by Lynne N — 24 Jul 2008

An interesting movie - particularly if you're a Tolkien fan. In a lot of respects it is more loyal to the books than Peter Jackson's trilogy, although there are still huge chunks of the story cut out.

It's also clear that Peter Jackson saw this film before beginning shooting the books - the scene where the hobbits hide from the ring wraith under the tree roots was pretty much lifted straight from the animation, as was the ring wraiths' visit to the inn at Bree.

Some of the dialogue was well written and the animation was interesting (although a weird combination of traditional techniques and rotoscope). That said, some of the action sequences are drawn out too long and are badly paced and it's obvious they didn't have much time to think through how the whole thing was going to be wrapped up.