Rating: 
Summary: A Wonderful Collection
Review: This is a cartoon from my childhood, and I still love it. I'm looking forward to sharing these with my daughter and taking her to the Lord of the Rings Movie series. The music is great!
Rating: 
Summary: Animated, but not alive
Review: Peter Jackson's exceptional live-action "Lord of the Rings" trilogy roared through theatres like an oliphaunt. Somewhat less successful was the spotty trilogy of animated films -- ranging from pseudo-real to anime -- which tried but failed to bring the trilogy to life. "The Hobbit" is the best of the bunch, an intermittently charming look at the journey of hobbit Bilbo Baggins. Bilbo (Orson Bean) somehow gets drafted into coming with the wizard Gandalf (John Huston) and his band of dwarves, to go retake a mountain fortress from the dragon Smaug. Easy? Of course not, with goblins, Gollum, and hostile Elves along the way. Ralph Bakshi's "The Lord of the Rings" takes us forward several decades -- Bilbo is now a rich and eccentric bachelor, who has adopted his young nephew Frodo. Suddenly Bilbo leaves the Shire on his eleventy-first birthday, leaving Frodo a magical Ring. But Gandalf reveals the true nature of the trinket, Frodo and his faithful pals set out on a possibly suicidal journey through Middle-Earth, to destroy the One Ring of power. "The Return of the King" shifts back to the Rankin-Bass anime style of "The Hobbit," but with hideous results. Frodo has been captured by orcs, Sam is burdened with the One Ring, and the city of Gondor is at breaking point thanks to Sauron's hordes. One of the biggest problems with the animated film trilogy is that the films don't fit together. While "Hobbit" shifts smoothly into Bakshi's film, Bakshi stops halfway through -- and there's a huge story gap between the end of the second film and the start of "Return." What's even worse, "Return" ditches half the cast -- Legolas and Gimli are nowhere to be seen, and neither are Saruman, Faramir, Arwen, and dozens of others. For "Hobbit" and "Return," Rankin-Bass favored a sort of very detailed semi-anime style. It works in most areas, except the Elves -- the Elves don't look like they're from this planet. And Bakshi took an experimental dive with "Lord of the Rings": rotoscoping, where live action is "traced over." Unfortunately, it gives the film a weird, murky look. "Hobbit" and "Lord" are decent enough as far as dialogue and action go. The characterizations can be sketchy, or even hideously bad (such as Samwise Gamgee) but most of them are fairly good. But "Return" goes overboard with too many songs that take way too long -- you'll find yourself rooting for Sauron, in the hope that you won't have to hear the "Frodo of the nine fingers" song again. And the dialogue is so overblown and overwritten that it can't even serve as campy comedy. The animated Tolkien trilogy strives to bring the story to life, but there's little inspiration. The first is okay, the second is sort-of-okay, and the third is an abomination to filmmaking. Instead, for some inspired cinematic genius in Middle-Earth, check out Peter Jackson's adaptation.
Rating:
Summary: Different aims, different misses
Review: "The Hobbit" is the best of these three, in no small part because Tolkien's novel is a children's book. The Rankin/Bass treatment does this story no injustice. The voice casting for Gandalf and Smaug are great. A great children's book made into a good children's movie. I hate Glen Yarborough's singing. "The Lord of the Rings." Oh, dear. An "A" for effort, a "D" on the results. Bakshi tried to cram in too much, and ended up with not enough. Some of the animation is brilliant. Some of the rotoscoped stuff stinks. This is the movie that drags the collection down the most. Brilliant in spots, it manages to simutaneously go too fast and drag on too long. Not sure how they did that... "The Return of the King" makes a good children's movie out of one third of a great adult novel. I must admit that the orc's song, "Where There's a Whip, There's a Way" is a lot of fun, even if it is nothing Tolkien's orcs would sing. The sequence of the breaking of the gate (with Grond) and Eowyn's confrontation with the Lord of the Nazgul are almost word-for-word from the book, and quite well done. The rest of it pretends that The Lord of the Rings is as simple as the Hobbit. Did I mention that I hate Glen Yarborough's singing? If you are a diehard fan, or have kids who would like "The Hobbit," go for it. Otherwise, you probably won't be happy. You also won't be happy if you, like me, hate Glen Yarborough's singing.
Rating: 
Summary: Worth Having
Review: If for no other reason than "completing a media collection", these 3 DVDs are worth owning by fans of LOTR that love the story, but haven't gone over the deep end in terms of what they deem "worthy" renderings of Tolkien's work.
The Hobbit is probably the best of the three, though inexplicably is missing about a third of the sound effect work from the broadcast version - most notably Bilbo slaying the spiders, and Smaug's blasts of fire. Weird. Anyway, with the remarkable cast of voices it stands well on it's own. IMHO, Brother Theodore's version of Gollum's voice is probably the best there will ever be. Great for kids, fun for adults who remember.
Bakshi's "Lord of the Rings" was perhaps over ambitious - some of the rotoscoped scenes drive me nuts - but some things he did very very well. The relationships between the fellowship are completely believable. The black riders are spooky as it gets, and his version of Galadriel's pool/test are right on the money. All in all, I still like pulling it out on a dark pre-snowy autumn night.
Return of the King - this one's an oddity. I agree with some other reviewers here, it's treated like The Hobbit, but it's so dark that it almost gets funny in places. Roddy McDowell is over-the-top big time, painting Sam much harsher than the books, and much is glossed over for time constraints. Though,it too, has it's moments.
Over all, the Rankin Bass offerings are beautiful to look at...the backgrounds are breathtaking - water colors brought to life.
None of these three films are perfect, but given the fact that no major studio would touch any of 'em, _and_ the fact that over 1200 pages of story are being crammed into under 4 hours of movie, I find them mostly satisfying versions of LOTR, and find myself watching them more than I expected to.
Rating: 
Summary: Not very good.
Review: The only film here that is even remotely good is the Hobbit. Bakshi's Lord of the Rings is dreadfully dull, choppy and poorly animated, and is so inferior to the recent live-action films as to be unwatchable. The Rankin-Bass Return of the King is even worse, taking what should be high drama and turning it into a laughable hodge-podge of childish songs and bizarre characterization. Invest in Peter Jackson's trilogy insted, and just wait for him to do the Hobbit.
Rating:
Summary: I love the Rotoscoping
Review: Am I the only person that thinks the rotoscoping animation used in Lord of the Rings is superb? I have always thought that this is what animation should be, by making the characters seem very life like I sometimes forgot I was watching an animated film. Ever since I was a child I have compared every animated film to this one, and but for the recent technological advance in animation, I have always believed that Lord had the best. I echo the comments that Return of the King was a huge letdown after the first two animated films. Too many songs and gaps in the story.
Rating:
Summary: Great Family Fun
Review: THE HOBBIT 4/5
I remember being a little guy (I'm 15 now) and watchinhg The Hobbit every weekend at my Grandma's house. it's childish, I'll admit it, but it sticks to the main storyline, the animation is good, and I felt like I was in the book. It's not that long, and some of the singing makes me a bit sick, but its an old film.
The Lord of the Rings 4.5/5
This is the highlight of this trilogy. I got this on VHS when I was only six for Easter, and the film is nearly worn out. It almost seems that Peter Jackson copied this film for his own. The script is much like Pete's. Be warned: this movie is PG, but it deserved a PG-13 rating. There is a lot of blood in it, so if you have little kids, steer them clear of this one, and stick woth The Hobbit and The Return of the King. The only problem is it stops right after The Two Towers. So many fans were displeased with this, that the makers of The Hobbit cmae back to do The Return of the King. So be prepeared when you see that The Hobbit is much different than The Lord of the Rings, and The Lord of the Rings is much different than The Return of the King.
The Return of the King 4/5
A very well made film, that brings the charecters from The Hobbit back. This is from the same makers of The Hobbit, so there are old friends in this. Now, the only downfall of this is that The Hobbit doesnt go right with The Lord of the Rings, and when you start watching The Return of the King, you might be a bit confused to see that These arent the same charecters you know from The Lord of the Rings. There are two types of charecters. The Hobbit and The Return of the King, and The Lord of the Rings charecters. I hope I am not confusing you. All in all, this trilogy is worth it. Enjoy.
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