El señor de los anillos

It's J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings books 'The Fellowship of the Rings' and 'The Two Towers'. Hobbit Frodo Baggins must guard the one most powerful ring against powerful dark forces with the help of Gandalf, Samwise and others.

Ralph Bakshi directed Wizard. Using the same rotoscoping of live-action footage, it has that fascinating 70s animation style. It's actually very effective for the material especially since the needed special effects haven't been perfected yet. The style is definitely a very interesting vision and gives an adult sensibility in the animation. However there are limitations with the compressed nature of the film and it also doesn't help that this movie never got the needed sequel. It ends in an unsatisfying cliffhanger. It's a fascinating cinematic oddity but not much more.

I really liked this movie, and it is true, too many people compare it to the Peter Jackson films. Even more impressive was that they fitted two books into one film, many people consider that a mistake and that things were missed out, when actually considering the books aren't very easy to adapt, I thought this film wasn't too bad an attempt. The animation was very impressive, a little dated by our standards, but bear in mind people it was made in the 70s and that it is lower budget than that of Disney or Pixar. The music was very well done especially the orks' march to Isanguaard, very haunting indeed. Though speaking of the orks, a very young audience will find them very frightening, and will be deterred by the sight of blood. The film is also overlong and a bit slow, but anyone who's seen the Peter Jackson films will argue that they have the same problem. The voice talents are exceptional, standouts being Christopher Guard as the idealistic Frodo, William Squire as the wise Gandalf(very good but Ian McKellan was better but only marginally) and John Hurt's brave Strider/Aragorn. Some of the scenes in this film are very hard to depict, like the scenes with the Black Riders(the scene in the inn was genuinely creepy), and I must say, that in general, the execution of those scenes were well-above average. In conclusion, despite the flaws, this film is nowhere near as bad as people say it is. My dad and my brother are both die-hard LOTR fans, and they say that this film was very well done. 7/10 Bethany Cox.

As a kid I was quite astonished with the dark and gloomy tone of this film, especially in comparison to Rankin/Bass's take on the same material around the same period. Also at the time I didn't really care for the animation, which I found to be rather cold and creepy (having no idea it was rotoscoped or even what rotoscoping was). However as the years have gone by and the Jackson adaptations come and gone, I feel more and more drawn to this rare piece of absolutism as I would a painting by Vincent Van Gogh or Salvadore Dali.

Bakshi always had a flair for adult-oriented animation, and finally with this he found a subject befitting of his style. Lord of the Rings is some overall dark, intriguing material in comparison with The Hobbit and really was deserving of something imaginative and stylistic as only Bakshi's team could deliver. Most everything comes together quite well here with the bizarre rotoscoped animation, the characterizations, the voice performances, and Leonard Rosenman's supercharged score (one of his career best, up there and quite similar to his work on THE CAR and RACE WITH THE DEVIL). It's rather unfortunate that funding ran out and the project had to be hurriedly wrapped, quite a similar heartbreaking story as to what happened with his previous year's WIZARDS.

The film is clearly unfinished in many regards. The most heinous act it commits is to end right in the middle of a major action scene with absolutely no resolution to speak of! Even ignoring its abbreviation of the books, one has to admit that narratively this film is a complete disaster. I can't imagine the marketing for this movie honestly claiming it to only be the first half of the book trilogy brought to screen. Needless to say I'd be surprised if angry audiences didn't get up and boo at the screen en masse back in 1978 witnessing perhaps the biggest cheat or, dare I say even, "rip off" in cinematic history.

Similarly this film has a very rough feel to it in terms of animation and pacing and is entirely inconsistent. Things begin fairly polished and kid-friendly but get darker, drearier, more violent (with some surprisingly graphic gore), and sloppier as the film goes on. By the end we get the vast majority of the film not even properly animated and more or less just treated film material with undercranked smoke and clouds filling in the for the background plates. It's quite similar to the bizarre psychedelic cost saving measures Bakshi made when he took over the second season of the animated 60's "Spiderman" cartoons. This whole Joseph Conradian experience of a descent into hell is pretty overwhelming, oppressive, and possibly even emotionally scarring for young viewers, but it's something I've strangely come to love about this film over time.

Yes, dare I say it, I just love this movie. You can't deny that it has its share of magical moments like Frodo's escape from the Wraiths, Gandalf opening the doors to Moria, and the showdown with the Balrog. Much like David Lynch's DUNE it created a vivid, creative, and whole-hearted realization of a world out of the severe butchery its source material. There's a small, artistic, and very personal loving feel given to this movie which I found lacking in Jackson's trilogy. Bakshi and his overworked team of animators may not have created the best film ever, but they did a lot with the little they had. I just wish they'd been able to see it through.

I won't dwell on the purists' outrage over Bakshi's liberties with story or characters. For the most part, they are correct. I'm certainly not coming to the filmmaker's defense, but in the context of the material's density, animation technology of 1978, et al., this guy really took a swing at bringing this thing to the silver screen.

Sadly, the film wasn't that good. Much of the animation was disjointed, and most of the backgrounds were crudely drawn and failed to create the correct atmosphere that one gets from reading the book. I will say, though, that I have always liked the rotoscoping, in particular that of the orcs. There is something exceedingly frightening about the way they are displayed, something today's CGI characterizations seems to miss. Bakshi used this technique in his other works as well, particularly in Wizards, which is a better, if different, film than his version of LotR. But mixing purely-drawn characters (hobbits) with those that are rotoscoped (orcs) just didn't look right here.

I must agree with some others who assert that some of the frame direction and scene selection is oddly similar to Peter Jackson's version of late. And if Jackson was influenced by at least SOME of the look of Bakshi's film, then what's the harm?

If you want to be dazzled, this version of LotR probably won't rouse you. There's many more misses than hits. But it isn't as bad as many would have you believe. If it weren't a Tolkien adaptation, I think it would be received much better.

I happened upon this movie as an 8-10 year old on a cold, dark November afternoon. I was outside playing all day, freezing, and when I came in around 4pm, I had a cup of hot cocoa and sat down in front of the TV with a blanket. I was surprised to be watching a cartoon that wasn't all happy and silly--and was in fact dark, and moralistic. It captured my imagination. I'm sure it misses the text, and is abbreviated in all the wrong places for the Tolkien purist. But it still captures the spirit of the story, the choice to carry a burden for the good of others, the consequences of selfish, rash decisions, etc. The quality of animation leaves room for complaint. But the one place where this movie clearly rises above the new films is the voice characterizations. John Hurt is great in this. If you don't like how the character is drawn, look away, and just listen to him. His voice is extraordinary. I've seen it again many, many times and it always brings me back to that time, as a kid, thirsty for some magical adventure. It's for this reason I say 'lucky', the film is nostalgic for me so I overlook its shortcomings. But between John Hurt, and Tolkien's fantasy, it still reached me, and still does.