Cinema Craze: The Lord of the Rings (Bakshi, 1978)
- Josh
- Jan 27
- 6 min read
Director: Ralph Bakshi
Producer: Saul Zaentz
Writers: Chris Conkling & Peter S. Beagle
My Rating: 7.5/10
The Lord of the Rings (animated 1978)
Even if you weren’t a fantasy fan, you more than likely have heard of The Lord of the Rings. Since its publication from 1954 to 1955, the journey of Frodo Baggins and the Fellowship of the Ring across Middle-Earth to destroy the One Ring has become the quintessential fantasy epic, with many other written works owing a tribute in some form or another.
And thanks to Peter Jackson’s blockbuster trilogy in the early 2000s, its legacy was not only revived but permanently cemented in pop culture. But what most people, even many fans, don’t know is that the trilogy wasn’t the first big-screen adaptation of author J.R.R. Tolkien’s work.
By the mid-1970s, the idea of a Lord of the Rings movie had already been discussed within the film industry, and figures such as Stanley Kubrick and John Boorman, as well as The Beatles themselves, were associated with it at one point or another.
However, the source material’s immense worldbuilding and numerous characters, as well as creatures, made such a project a Herculean project to tackle, and studios were concerned it would be either impossible or expensive to produce (at the time, at least).
Enter adult animation pioneer Ralph Bakshi, who had achieved both controversy and back-to-back success with Fritz the Cat and Heavy Traffic. Having dabbled in the fantasy genre with Wizards and seeing books’ potential in animation in contrast to live-action, he hopped onto the project, working from a script by Chris Conkling and Last Unicorn author Peter S. Beagle.
With the blessing of Tolkien’s daughter Priscilla as well as the backing of United Artists and producer Saul Zaentz (who previously helped finance Fritz the Cat), the first film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings made its way to theaters in late 1978, making about $30 million against a small estimated budget of $4 million. But is the film itself a worthy adaptation, or at least, a welcome precursor to the Jackson trilogy? Well, yes and no.
A Tale of Two Parts
To start, the film only covers the Fellowship of the Ring and half of The Two Towers as a Part I. Bakshi intended to direct a follow-up that would cover the other half of Two Towers and The Return of the King, but United Artists refused to greenlight a sequel despite turning a profit, claiming audiences wouldn’t want to see the second part of a story.
Strange and ironic, given the countless sequels and two-parters released then and today. As a result, we are left with only half of a full story. (Side Note: There is a Return of the King animated film, but a different studio made it without Ralph Bakshi’s involvement. So, it won’t count here.)
The filmmakers try to include as much from Fellowship and half of The Two Towers as possible, such as the backstory of the ring, Bilbo’s birthday, the Council of Elrond, the Mines of Moria, the Battle of Helm’s Deep, and even pieces of Tolkien’s dialogue, almost word-for-word.
With runtime of 134 minutes, however, it also meant they had to shorten, change, or omit many elements from the books altogether, affecting character development, the time taking to get to some of the locations, and explanations for things, such as why the ring must be taken all the way to Mount Doom to be destroyed.
For people unfamiliar with the books or the Jackson trilogy, it could come off as confusing. I believe it could’ve benefited from either a longer running time (although it's doubtful it would’ve happened back then) or another rewrite to mend these story issues.
But the good does manage to outweigh its imperfections, and it even has a couple of nice moments to breathe. So the filmmakers do manage to make the adaptation coherent and enjoyable despite its condensed nature.
The Rotoscope Technique
As for the animation, it’s… interesting. While the backgrounds are hand-painted and beautifully capture the feature’s fantasy feel, the characters themselves are created through rotoscoping, something Bakshi partly experimented with in Wizards.
This technique involves tracing over live-action footage frame by frame to give characters realistic motion. In fact, it was employed extensively by Walt Disney and his men in Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.
Bakshi wanted to avoid making his adaptation look like just a cartoony Lord of the Rings movie, and for the most part, he and his team do achieve what they set out to do. The characters fit well in the world of Middle-Earth, which gives the film a sense of realism and allows for extensive fight scenes.
In terms of the overall acting, however, it is strange. While the voice acting is decent to listen to, the way the live-action actors move at times is bizarre. One example is when Gandalf is reciting the writing on the One Ring, and he walks around like he’s hallucinating before doing a random twirl.
What kind of direction were the actors given in these moments? The facial expressions themselves come off as alright half the time, but then come off as unintentionally silly in the other. It’s a similar issue to motion capture today with realistically animating the complexities of the human face, though not falling as hard into the uncanny valley as 3D animation tends to do.
And several scenes, like with the Ringwraiths and the dance at the Prancing Pony, were shot using a sort of odd filter over the actors, where you can tell the filmmakers were running out of money. Ultimately, the animation is inconsistent in its quality, though not the fault of the people behind it.
At its worst, the animation shows the limitations the film has with its unpolishedness. But at its best, you can see the work put into it, which does help set it apart from other animated films at the time, especially the ones by Disney.
The Musical Score
Finally, for the music, the late Leonard Rosenman composed the score to The Lord of the Rings. Rosenman, in his career, had composed for films such as Rebel Without a Cause, Fantastic Voyage, Beneath as well as Battle for the Planet of the Apes, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Robocop 2, and had won two Academy Awards for his work on Barry Lyndon and Bound for Glory, respectively.
His work adds to the adventurous and ominous tone that Bakshi's take on the story requires. Some of the best parts include when the history of the ring is being told, when the Ringwraiths appear, and when Gandalf and the Riders of Rohan fend off the orcs at Helm’s Deep.
Everyone is familiar with Howard Shore’s work on the Jackson trilogy to some extent, and while the music for this version doesn’t have themes as iconic as Shore’s, that doesn’t mean what Rosenman brought wasn’t good enough. It’s pleasant to listen to by itself and does its job in taking viewers into this fantastical world.
Legacy and Final Thoughts
Having seen it back in the summer of 2018, I can say that Ralph Bakshi’s The Lord of the Rings is a flawed yet fascinating film. It tries to tell a lot in half of an epic story, it tends to show its budget throughout, and it’s strange for both the right and wrong reasons.
At the same time, it has a nostalgic 1970s fantasy feel, a tone that feels mature for fans, and the filmmakers’ respect for the source material is clearly evident in how much they tried to put in from the books. Personally, I wish Bakshi had gotten to make his Part II, at least to see how he would’ve handled it.
It may have been just as bizarre as Part I, but with how much was done in that film, the sequel could’ve been just as interesting. But while it’s incomplete as it is and in no way competes with the source material or eventual film trilogy, it is admirable and entertaining in its own right.
In fact, Peter Jackson himself admitted that this film was what introduced him to Tolkien’s work in his youth. And if you compare the two versions, you can see scenes in the Jackson version that are lifted from Bakshi’s. In other words, this film walked so that Jackson’s trilogy could run.
That itself deserves applause. If you are interested in Lord of the Rings, learning about Ralph Bakshi’s works, seeking out pieces of underrated animation, or have nothing to do on a day off, I would recommend giving this film a watch. It’s not perfect, but its ambition for early adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s work alone makes for a fascinating experience.