My memory was very kind to this godawful film. I had seen it only once before, on its initial theatrical release when I was thirteen years old. Watching it again last night, and after having read the books and seen Peter Jackson's far superior telling, I was mortified by how truly awful the movie is; every element seems calculated for maximum irksomeness.
First, the animation and art direction: Rotoscoping in and of itself is not a bad thing, but it often feels as if we are watching a live-action film intercut with a Saturday morning cartoon. The Balrog is laughable; the battle of Helm's Deep looks like three guys on ramparts getting shot by arrows. The Orcs are simply fat men in dime-store gorilla masks, black riders limp around like second-rate Lon Chaney impersonators... animation frees the filmmaker to show anything at all that can be drawn, so all I can figure is that Bakshi and his crew had very small imaginations.
The script is equally dreadful: The characters are two-dimensional, simply doing things without the context that lets us understand them as people. The pacing lurches along, dropping large chunks of exposition in between flat action sequences. Frodo deciding whether or not to listen to the Ringwraiths at the ford of Rivendell and Orcs running across Rohan are two sequences that go on far too long. Boring dialogue was at least lifted partially from the books, but is undone by the voice actors, who seem to be afraid to truly inhabit their characters and the world they live in.
I could go on, but there's no point; just pretend like this movie was never made and be sure to dash off a thank-you note to Peter Jackson; someone got it right.
First, the animation and art direction: Rotoscoping in and of itself is not a bad thing, but it often feels as if we are watching a live-action film intercut with a Saturday morning cartoon. The Balrog is laughable; the battle of Helm's Deep looks like three guys on ramparts getting shot by arrows. The Orcs are simply fat men in dime-store gorilla masks, black riders limp around like second-rate Lon Chaney impersonators... animation frees the filmmaker to show anything at all that can be drawn, so all I can figure is that Bakshi and his crew had very small imaginations.
The script is equally dreadful: The characters are two-dimensional, simply doing things without the context that lets us understand them as people. The pacing lurches along, dropping large chunks of exposition in between flat action sequences. Frodo deciding whether or not to listen to the Ringwraiths at the ford of Rivendell and Orcs running across Rohan are two sequences that go on far too long. Boring dialogue was at least lifted partially from the books, but is undone by the voice actors, who seem to be afraid to truly inhabit their characters and the world they live in.
I could go on, but there's no point; just pretend like this movie was never made and be sure to dash off a thank-you note to Peter Jackson; someone got it right.