Has anyone seen the animated version?

[jerseydevil]

I like the animated one better than jackson's for several reasons. If you read the books - the nazgul are more like the are in the book. They sway back and forth as if sniffing for something.

Other things include the flight to the ford scene - true to the book - not that crap Jackson came up with. The emphasis on the friendship, with the speech from Merry about why they are going with Frodo to Rivendell. I also felt Pippin and Merry were much better in the animated one and not a bunch of brainless idiots that Jackson made them out to be.

[The Nameless One]

For me those are probably the only things they got right in the cartoon version. And saying that Jackson's ford scene is crap is an icreadably blunt statement with no reasons supporting why you think its crap. The only thing I didn't like about that scene is when Arwen says"If you want him, come and claim him." She just sounds corny to me. Other than that I thought it was very well done...especially when she spoke in elvish to bring forth the river.Here's a few reasons I dont like Bakshi's version.

1.) Bakshi's version had no elvish (to my knowledge ) at all in the movie. I could be wrong though cause I haven't seen the video I got in like a year. But I have no recolecing of any elvish. Using elvish would have made the elves a little more believable.

2.) All of the battle scenes are too dark and you can't see whats happening. Especially the scene when the rohirrim battle the orcs near fangorn.

3.) all the orcs look like cavemen and they dance instead of fight.

4.) The Aruman mistake is unforgivable.

5.) The way Boromir prononces Minias Tirith....Minus Tirith? Whats up with that...the poor guy cant even say the name of his own city correctly.

6.) Boromir looks like a Viking ready to rape and pilage and drink ale till he drops.

7.) The Bolrog looks like a freakin manticore....????

8.) the whole movie feels rushed especially when the TTT portion of the movie starts. Like they got tired and lazy and just stoped caring.

9.) Treebeard is in only ONE freakin scene! and he looks like a giant carrot/stump more than a tree.

10.) the last thing Ill mention is the lack of explanation for accuring events. There is little to nothing explaned. The movie plays through like everyone is already familier with the story so therefore they dont have to explain anything because that would take to much time away from dancing orcs and mispronunciations of important key names and cities.

I think Im done. Sorry for wasting your time with my ranting

[jerseydevil]

Originally Posted by The Nameless One

For me those are probably the only things they got right in the cartoon version. And saying that Jackson's ford scene is crap is an icreadably blunt statement with no reasons supporting why you think its crap. The only thing I didn't like about that scene is when Arwen says"If you want him, come and claim him." She just sounds corny to me. Other than that I thought it was very well done...especially when she spoke in elvish to bring forth the river.Here's a few reasons I dont like Bakshi's version.

Anyone who has seen my three years of posting on what I think about jackson's films and why - doesn't need me to go any further than to say that Jackson's flight to the ford scene is crap. There are many people here that can tell you exactly what my problems are with jackson's movies, particularly with that scene. I see no need to go into it for the umpteenth time. There are hundreds of threads in this forum that you can go to - particularly the one that talks about Arwen Xena-Elf.

By the way - I'm more concerned with the '"feel" of the movie - not whether everything is exactly correct. I can forgive a lot more in Bakshi's than I can in jackson's. Jackson lost the heart adn soul of Lord of the Rings - by making it into a dumbed down hollywoodized action flick.

[mithrand1r]

Originally Posted by jerseydevil

I can forgive a lot more in Bakshi's than I can in jackson's. Jackson lost the heart adn soul of Lord of the Rings - by making it into a dumbed down hollywoodized action flick.

I agree with much of this sentiment.

Jackson had a large budget to work with in making the LOTR films. I thought the PJ films were better than average (I did enjoy watching the films, but there were many things that I found disappointing in the theatrical releases of the films). With the budget available, I thought the films could have been much better.

While there are many things to be critical of in Bakshi's version of LOTR, I would have liked to see what Bakshi would have produced if had similar financial resources as PJ did in producing his films.

Bakshi still may have made mistakes, (as PJ proves money does not guarentee error free work ) but I would have been willing to let him try again with a better budget. Not realistic at this time, but you get the general idea.

[Wayfarer]

Originally Posted by jerseydevil

Anyone who has seen my three years of posting on what I think about jackson's films and why - doesn't need me to go any further than to say that Jackson's flight to the ford scene is crap. There are many people here that can tell you exactly what my problems are with jackson's movies, particularly with that scene.

Actually, I think I have an Itemized list floating around somewhere. With bullet points.

[mithrand1r]

Originally Posted by The Nameless One

1.) Bakshi's version had no elvish (to my knowledge ) at all in the movie. I could be wrong though cause I haven't seen the video I got in like a year. But I have no recolecing of any elvish. Using elvish would have made the elves a little more believable.

There was some elvish, (when Aragorn Greeted Legolas, The opening of the mines of Moria) but not much.

Originally Posted by The Nameless One

2.) All of the battle scenes are too dark and you can't see whats happening. Especially the scene when the rohirrim battle the orcs near fangorn.

Will need to rewatch film. Although I do think that some of the battle scenes are a bit confusing. (I always thought it was just me )

Originally Posted by The Nameless One

3.) all the orcs look like cavemen and they dance instead of fight.

I agree that the orcs looked terrible. (I did not care much for the orcs in PJ's LOTR either.)

Originally Posted by The Nameless One

4.) The Aruman mistake is unforgivable.

Stupid yes, but relatively minor compared to some of the other errors in the film.

Originally Posted by The Nameless One

5.) The way Boromir prononces Minias Tirith....Minus Tirith? Whats up with that...the poor guy cant even say the name of his own city correctly.

Related to #4.

Originally Posted by The Nameless One

6.) Boromir looks like a Viking ready to rape and pilage and drink ale till he drops.

Maybe related to Sauron.
While Boromir was not how I mentally pictured him, I did not think his outfit was too bad. (Although, I did think of a Viking when I first saw him. )

Originally Posted by The Nameless One

7.) The Bolrog looks like a freakin manticore....????

I never thought much about the balrog since I was very unfamiliar (till reading here and a few other places) with how a balrog should appear and sound.

Originally Posted by The Nameless One

8.) the whole movie feels rushed especially when the TTT portion of the movie starts. Like they got tired and lazy and just stoped caring.

Definately has that feel towards the end. Regardless of the reason for it. I think this is mainly due to your reason #10.

Originally Posted by The Nameless One

9.) Treebeard is in only ONE freakin scene! and he looks like a giant carrot/stump more than a tree.

I liked how treebeard looked. Since you never saw much of him it is hard for me to form a strong opinion about him. What I did see was ok to me.

Originally Posted by The Nameless One

10.) the last thing Ill mention is the lack of explanation for accuring events. There is little to nothing explaned. The movie plays through like everyone is already familier with the story so therefore they dont have to explain anything because that would take to much time away from dancing orcs and mispronunciations of important key names and cities.

I agree with you here. There could be several reasons for this. Two that I could think of are:
Lack of funds to properly produce the film,
The directing is not very good.

[jerseydevil]

Originally Posted by Wayfarer

Actually, I think I have an Itemized list floating around somewhere. With bullet points.

Hey Wayfarer - haven't seen you around - but then again - I haven't really benn in the Tolkien forums and only popping in and out of general every so often.

Anyway - do you have those bullet points handy? It'll save me a lot of typing and searching. I think as a good summary of my feelings "Jackson's flight to the ford scene was crap" summarizes it quite nicely, don't you?

[The Nameless One]

Originally Posted by mithrand1r

Bakshi still may have made mistakes, (as PJ proves money does not guarentee error free work ) but I would have been willing to let him try again with a better budget. Not realistic at this time, but you get the general idea.

Yeah I would like to see it redone. The Bakshi movie had a lot of potential and could have been great. I did see it before the FOTR came out and I didn't think it was that bad at first, but when PJ's version came out there was no doubt in my mind which one came out on top. I still think Bakshi's will be medeocre at best. Who knows? Maybe 20 years down the line someone else will direct another lotr that will surpass PJ's. But with his self need of "film" perfectionism, I think it will be hard for anyone to surpass his directoral genius.

[Last Child of Ungoliant]

welcome back JD, didn't know you had returned!

to be honest i didn't like the look of treebeard in either versions,
either a carrot or a weird thin tree.
i had visualised him more as an oak-type tree, as this was supported by various lines in the books, i.e: when describing the entmoot, it says how some ents seemed to be related to treebeard, recalling the oak and beech

but he certainly was no carrot,
carrot, i am no carrot, little orc etc

[EarthBound]

I noticed what looked like a new animated series of Hobbit-LOTR at the video store last week. The cover scene looked different than the older two we've all seen (or most of us). It certainly looked like a rerelease and it was in the New Movie Section. The characters looked softer and rounder (like a kids movie type drawing). I only gave a quick glance and immedietely assumed they were new. Likely they were only new to the store, but who knows.

Anyone else seen them in their video stores (new movie section)?

[Wayfarer]

Hey Wayfarer - haven't seen you around - but then again - I haven't really benn in the Tolkien forums and only popping in and out of general every so often.

Anyway - do you have those bullet points handy? It'll save me a lot of typing and searching. I think as a good summary of my feelings "Jackson's flight to the ford scene was crap" summarizes it quite nicely, don't you?

• Jackson's flight to the ford scene was not recognizable as the same scene from the book. The changes were too pervasive to bear any more than a passing resemblance to the written scene it was based on. Up until this point, the story of the films is more or less in agreement with that of the books, but at this point it veers off sharply. As a result of this, later scenes which more closely resemble the original story do not make sense in light of the new events of this scene.
• The behavior of all characters involved in Jackson's 'Flight to the Ford' scene was reduced from a complex interplay of factors into a collection of lame stereotypes. Elaboration below:
• One of the strongest characters in the story (Frodo) was reduced to a simpering, useless, hanger-on. This is important, since the Flight to the Ford scene is one of the pivotal points in the story where he displays his bravery.
• What should have, by any sensible expectation, have been /the/ major threat throughout the first two films (the Nazgul) was downplayed and dismissed. As a result of this, their reoccurance later in the films is laughable. If the Nazgul are so easily defeated in the first film (not only once, but twice) then there is no plausible explaination for why they are suddenly so feared in the later two films.
• Exceptional valor on the behalf of SEVEN characters was completely disregarded entirely. Since five of these characters were to become members of the fellowship, this is a critical mistake, which weakens many of the primary characters throughout the rest of the films.
• An extremely minor character (Arwen) was given the roles of every other character in the scene (except the Nazgul), and not only matches but [isurpasses what they manage to achieve in the story.
• As a result of this, the audience is left wondering why Arwen doesn't go with the fellowship. After all, she's clearly better than Aragorn, Gandalf, and Elrond combined, yet for some reason she's not taking a more active role in the story.
• Things which should have been dramatic (the confrontation with the Nazgul) were rendered pathetically. Needless psuedo-drama was added to compensate (Arwen getting all weepy when Frodo collapses)
• Speaking of which, Arwen misquotes herself. Rather, she wrongly uses the words of her novel alter-ego in a way which does not make any sense whatsoever. Taking a line from the end of the story and inserting it at the beginning of that same story doesn't often work, as the circumstances are often wildly different.
• The actually calling of the flood was both reduced in drama from the original version (It happens fast enough that you could blink and miss it), and cast in such a way that it did not fit with the world as portrayed by either the films or the movies. This leaves me wondering why, if 'The power of the Elves' allows Arwen to call up a flood with a simple chant, we do not see more of this overt spell-slinging in the rest of the movie.

I'm sure I missed a few... But to shorten it up, Frodo, Arwen, and the Nazgul all act in a completely out of character fashion that weakens both them as characters and the overall plot for the rest of the trilogy.

There are scenes which I think are worse, but the Flight to the Ford is the one place where the story really begins to fall apart for Jackson. It's all downhill from here.

Okay. On another note:

I don't know whether Bakashi would have done any better if he'd had more funding. In fact, I'm pretty sure he would have done just as badly if not worse. Before making the LOTR cartoon, Bakashi's biggest success was making cartoon pornography (by comparison, Jackson at least managed to make some cult films in New Zealand). There were plenty of things wrong with his film that didn't have anything to do with the rotoscoping - and as Jackson proves, you can make a film that's great visually but bad overall.

[Millane]

Originally Posted by Wayfarer

[list](by comparison, Jackson at least managed to make some cult films in New Zealand). .

damn straight he did. not just little cult movies that are good for a laugh but some truly great films, Brain Dead and Bad Taste and to a lesser extent Meet the Feebles (still a work of magnificence )
Bakshi's LotR is one of those movie you will enjoy at best (and not for any meritable reasons) but when compared to something like Watership Down it fails miserably. Watership Down now that is truly the best animated adaptation available

[Durin1]

I've read with great amusement some of the opinions of the animated version of LoTR.

I personally thought that it was the bee's knees when I saw it as a youngster!! And I think that's the point: Bakshi's version was attempted at a time when there was nothing else comparable to the size and scope of the task that was involved.
Of course, looking back there were some glaring mistakes or aspects that weren't that good - of course there were! Namely pronunciation and character depiction of Boromir and Sam. However, I take these at face value. There probably wasn't great research done before-hand on pronunciation etc, probably owing to budgetary constraints. There was, however, good emphasis placed on keeping more true to the book. Eg. Flight to the Ford, Merry's " you can trust us to stick withyou through thick and thin, to the bitter end" etc etc.

BTW, Elrond was depicted a lot better too in the animation compared to PJ's version.

Also, I thought the music was quite good too.

[Nurvingiel]

It didn't irritate anyone that it wasn't finished?

[mithrand1r]

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

It didn't irritate anyone that it wasn't finished?

It was annoying to me. It would have been nice if Bakshi finished animating the second part of LOTR. While I seriously doubt he could have properly filmed the rest of the story in two hours (assuming the 2nd film would be about the same length as the first and considering some of the choices made in the first film), I would have liked to see what Bakshi would have done.

Although given some of the poor animating decisions made, perhaps it is just as well that he did not finish.

Actually, if he did a better job with the first film he may have made enough money to fund the completion of the 2nd film.

[Elessar the Elfstone]

Bakshi animated version things that went wrong
1. Sam for ovious resons
2. Boromir the Viking
3. Aragorn the red indian
4. the orcs the looked like vampire cave men gone wrong
5. all battle scenes
6. Elrond looked like he was scratching himself right through the council scene
7. crazy Gandalf
8. the way the film ends with loads of blood shooting out of an orcs chest
9. Aruman]
10. the hobbits hair cuts
11. treebeard the carrot

Bakshi animated version things that went well
1. Merry
2. pippin
3. flight to the ford scene
4. galadriel
5. bilbo's party scene
6. gollum

Peter Jackson version things that went well
1. sam
2. Gandalf
3. Boromir
4. Aragorn
5. the shire scenes
6. Helms deep
7. moria gate
8.treebeard
9.merry and pippin were still ok
10 Golum/smeagol
11. frodo (was good most of the time)
12 the prolouge scene

Peter Jackson version things that went wrong
1. flee to the ford scene
2. arwen
3. the way towards the end of the film frodo always speaks in the same tone of voice.
4. Nazgul
5. Galadriel

[matthew]

I think I saw a different version from y'all...
the one I saw, it was sacrilege. Merry and Pippin appeared to be female. The whole thing was badly done and marketed to kids. It was awful. I only saw about 15 minutes though... I ought to rewath it before I flame it anymore

[me9996]

I think I'v seen it, but I think it is was in two parts, the part I saw as far as helms deep.

[me9996]

I saw the first one you talked about!

[ItalianLegolas]

i've seen it, but I was 7 at the time and the Nazgul really creeped me out... so i don't remember any of it