The Lord of the Rings (1978): Ralph Bakshi's Ambitious & Messy Tolkien Adaptation (Deluxe Edition Blu-ray)

The Film:

Back in the '70s, long before Sir Peter Jackson delivered his masterful adaptation, it was animator Ralph Bakshi who gave us the first official cinematic adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's beloved classic "The Lord of the Rings," a vision for which he used a curious combination of more traditional animation and rotoscoping to bring it to life. The film, which covers the first two novels in the trilogy, was met with mixed reviews and many complaints of it being incomplete, but that didn't stop it from being a pretty big success. As the film approaches its 50th anniversary, which is a mere three years away, Warner Bros. has decided to celebrate early by releasing a newly-remastered Deluxe Edition Blu-ray, so let's go back and see how well this classic holds up after so many decades.

The film begins with a prologue that tells of how the rings of power were forged, and how the dark lord Sauron took control of them by crafting the One Ring. He is defeated by Prince Isildur, who loses the ring at the bottom of a river, where it is eventually picked up by Deagol. He is killed by his friend Smeagol (Voice of Peter Woodthorpe), who then takes the ring into the Misty Mountains and becomes the creature Gollum. Gollum also loses the ring, but it is found by the Hobbit Bilbo Baggins (Voice of Norman Bird), who takes it back to The Shire. Many years later, during Bilbo's 111th birthday celebration, he is visited by the wizard Gandalf (Voice of William Squire), who tells him to leave the ring with his nephew Frodo (Voice of Christopher Guard) before he departs for Rivendell, which he reluctantly does.

Seventeen years later, Gandalf returns and tells Frodo all about the ring's evil history, explaining that dark forces know he possesses the ring and will come after it. This forces Frodo to leave The Shire with his friend Sam (Voice of Michael Scholes) and his cousins Merry (Voice of Simon Chandler) & Pippin (Voice of Dominic Guard). They make their way to the village of Bree, where they meet up with a ranger named Aragorn (Voice of John Hurt), who accompanies them to Rivendell with the help of an elf named Legolas (Voice of Anthony Daniels). It is here that they are ultimately put on a quest to destroy the One Ring and save all of Middle-earth from Sauron & his evil forces.

Ralph Bakshi's "The Lord of the Rings" is a fascinating early attempt to bring Tolkien's masterpiece to the screen, one that utilized conventional and somewhat unconventional means to do so. It's interesting to note that there were those who wanted to make a fully live-action version of the film back then, including director John Boorman and even The Beatles themselves, but doing so would've been extremely difficult given the limitations at the time, hence why Bakshi had a much easier time getting an animated adaptation made instead.

As far as that animation goes, it's sadly a rather mixed bag of two different styles that simply don't mesh together. You have the traditional cel animation, which looks fantastic for the period, giving us well-designed characters and settings that do a fine job of bringing Tolkien's world of Middle-earth to life, but then you also have the rotoscoping (i.e. live-action turned into animation), which is awkward, dark, unfocused, and doesn't fit into the film very well at all. It's unfortunate because there was really no need to do such a thing, making it seem as though Bakshi was trying far too hard to impress people with his animation skills. A fully-animated version done in the traditional manner would've been a far better choice than trying to combine the two, because doing so merely ends up making it look rather amateurish and clumsy.

As for the adaptation itself, here the film runs into another problem. As mentioned, Bakshi's version covers the first two parts of Tolkien's novel, but it does so in a very unbalanced manner. About two-thirds of the 133-minute film is taken up adapting "The Fellowship of the Ring," which it covers pretty well, though there are times where it feels a little rushed and others where it lingers a bit too long. Unfortunately this leaves only about 45 minutes for "The Two Towers," where the story goes into extreme fast-forward mode, giving very short shrift to key parts of the tale. It begs the question of why they didn't just adapt the two into separate films, a solution that not only would've solved the problem of giving each part its due, but also would've prevented the confusion that came later when people discovered that the film, marketed as "The Lord of the Rings," was incomplete.

Overall, while it is quite interesting to see an early attempt to bring this beloved classic to the screen, it simply has too many issues holding it back, primarily with its sloppy rotoscoping and the unbalanced nature of its adaptation. Luckily, just over 20 years later, technology had advanced enough to where Sir Peter Jackson was able to bring us his brilliant live-action rendition of the story, which not only did a fantastic job of adapting the novel's narrative, but also looked marvelous in all aspects while telling it. Bakshi's film has gained a kind of cult following over the decades, but it more so remains a curio of the time. The attempt was certainly bold & ambitious for its day, with elements that are admirable, but sadly the result just never truly comes together.

Video/Audio:

"The Lord of the Rings" comes to Blu-ray in a 1.85:1, 1080p High Definition transfer of mostly excellent quality. The regular animation has been beautifully remastered, making it look crisp & clear, while sadly the rotoscoped sections still look pretty much as they did before (i.e. dark and unfocused). The 5.1 Dolby TrueHD audio track is fantastic, giving you all of the dialogue, sound effects, and music in outstanding quality. Overall, while there wasn't much that could be done about certain parts of the animation, Warner Bros. has still done a marvelous job cleaning up this nearly-50-year-old classic.

Special Features:

Forging Through the Darkness: The Ralph Bakshi Vision for The Lord of the Rings (30 Minutes): A retrospective that primarily has director Ralph Bakshi discussing the film, his rotoscoping process, and his inspirations, while also featuring interviews with his collaborators.

Conclusion:

Ralph Bakshi's "The Lord of the Rings" is a bold & ambitious attempt to bring the first two parts of Tolkien's beloved novel to the screen, but thanks to the sloppy rotoscoping mixed into the traditional cel animation and the unbalanced nature of the narrative, which gives very short shrift to "The Two Towers," this early adaptation becomes a bit of a mess that unfortunately never quite comes together.

Score: 2.5/5

Now available on Deluxe Edition Blu-ray.

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