The 2001-2003 Peter Jackson movie adaptations of J.R.R Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings are highly regarded by many, but not everyone is aware of the fact that they are not the first adaptations of the popular book series. In 1978, an animated version was released, directed by Ralph Bakshi.

One of the initial things I noticed in the film was Ralph Bakshi’s trademark use of rotoscoping. For those not familiar with rotoscoping, it is an animation technique in which animators trace over live-action footage, frame by frame, to create animation. The problem with rotoscoping is that, if not done right, it can look very off-putting and out of place. The film starts out with an introduction, in which the history of the story’s main item of focus, The  One Ring, is told by a narrator alongside various scenes shown in silhouette form against a red backdrop. The silhouettes were done via rotoscoping, and they don’t appear to be animated at all, it looks like a bunch of real people running around behind a red curtain. The whole scene is poorly done and nearly scared me away, thinking the rest of the movie might be done in a similar manner.

But despite its rocky start, the film began to improve once it changed to a more traditional animation style, and the characters were introduced. The main characters, Frodo Baggins, Gandalf the Grey, and their companions, all look fairly pleasant and cartoony, with actually drawn out faces and features. But the villains, the orcs and the black riders, are done with rotoscoping similar to the characters in the intro. They simply appear as live-action people, in low-budget costumes, poorly traced over with black and dark-grey colors. I think most people would agree with me when I say that the animation is definitely the biggest issue in this movie. Aside from that, the voice acting from most of the characters is actually quite well done, and the dialogue was fine.

Another major flaw in the film is its poor attempt to have all three of the novels in a single movie. While still in the events of book one, the film is actually quite watchable, with solid voice acting, decent dialogue, and alright looking backgrounds. But once the film enters book two, the quality drops noticeably, as the plot begins to get quite rushed, and the backgrounds become much more low-budget. Then, when the film reaches the end of The Battle of Helm’s Deep, which took place about half-way through the second of the three books, it stops. It just stops, and says that after that battle all the great evil was defeated and basically everyone lived happily ever after. A bit of research has informed me that the film had experienced major budget problems, and had eventually just ran out of money. It was a bit disappointing actually, I was hoping to see how some of the later events of the story would be done, although an animated adaptation of the third book was later produced by Rankin/Bass Productions. The low budget is apparent throughout the movie, and while some scenes were actually pretty well done, the whole movie just seems unfinished.

The film was not well received at the time, and is still highly panned by many people today, and while I certainly have my issues with the film, I find myself to be one of the few defenders of the film. It had many weak points, and it is by no means a fantastic film, but I found the first part of it to be interesting at times, and whenever the film took a break from the heavily rotoscoped villains, the animation actually had a bit of charm to it. If I were to watch it, I would probably stop watching once it reached the second book, because at that point it really does become pretty bad, but there clearly was effort put into the first half of the film and it has some high points, such as Frodo and Gandald’s conversation near the beginning, and Frodo’s meeting with the ranger, Aragorn.
Overall I would say that the film, while not great, is alright and kind of fun in an old cheesy sort of way, and I would recommend it, or at least the first half of it, to any fans of the books or the 2001-2003 adaptions who are interested in seeing another take on the famous books.