J.R.R. Tolkien Animated Films Set (The Hobbit/The Lord of the Rings/The Return of the King)

Rating:
Summary: The path to Tolkien
Review: I might feel differently if I had not grown up watching these films, but I will never know. The Rankin/Bass specials were something I always looked forward to watching on television, and the Ralph Bakshi "Lord of the Rings" was one of the first films I ever saw in the theatre. I loved them then. I love them now.

Watching them now, I think that the quality still holds up. Rankin/Bass are not masters of fluid, perfect animation. More than anything, they are stylists who achieved the highest quality they could within budget limitations. "The Hobbit" is the best of the bunch, using dialog and story from the book. The background paintings are beautiful, and the whole production has a hand-crafted feel to it that is far more charming than bigger-budget animation. "Return of the King" suffers from the poor casting choices for Merry and Pippin. The best scenes are Frodo and Sam in Mordor. The songs are memorable in both productions, and I dare you not to hum "Frodo of the Nine Fingers and the Ring of Doom" or "Where theres a Whip, theres a Way."

Ralph Bakshi's "Lord of the Rings" has suffered most through the passage of time. His experimental animation does not go over well with viewers used to "Toy Story" and "Akira." Personally, I find his vision of the story to be equal parts charming and creepy. He also took dialog from the books, to great effect. His Dark Riders are terrifying, as is his Balrog. It is unfortunate that he was not able to complete the second half as planned.

Considering that the audience for these productions are children, and with the understanding that adapting a novel is difficult, I think both the Rankin/Bass and Bakshi versions hold up well. Watching these as a child got me interested in the books, and didn't color my enjoyment of them at all. That's a good recommendation.

Rating:
Summary: Two good and one bad
Review: As with any interpretation of a book somethings are left out beacause of time comstraints. I have enjoed watching the first two stories but the third is a waste of time.

This version of "The Hobbit" was my introduction to Tolkien's work as a child. It is very good, created by one of the animators(Rankin and Bass) who brought us "Rudolph The red nosed reindeer" and other holiday classics.

The "Lord of the Rings" DVD covers the Fellowship and The Two Towers. It is quite true to Tolkien's work and pretty good, but I didn't like the animation style.It is very different from the other two in this set.

"Return of the King" was quite a let down.This is not for purists Tolkien. By trying to cover too much material in too short a time frame Bass butchered the story. The narrative has been deconsructed and reassembled as some other story. It was only recognizable as part of the LOTR trillogy because of the characters. If you just have to get more Tolkien by this set knowing that the third is loosly baised on the book it is named after.

Rating:
Summary: A Happy shows
Review: It a happy. The Frodo looks more real-like in the 'Lord of the Ring' portion, but the Gollimp looks like a frog in part 1. His voice soundes like a horse throat int the first one. The urcs look like big bears in the parts 2 and three, but look like halloween masks in the middle show (The Lord of the Ring cartoon)The drawning was bad in all of them. I think I could draw better. The elf looks like a brown yodda or ET.
The songs are sounding really poor. The dancing rock songs the urcs sing in the last film sounds like disco.Sam acts like a dummy. Too much singing and thinking in the shows. I saw these shows in high school and rememebr the fellows talking about it the next day. I thought they were all crazy until the ree-run cam on the next year. After I saw it I told the guys I saw it but they didnt not care any more.

Boy, these are bad drawn and poor films. I am they dont come on cable much these days.

Rating:
Summary: Fair, But Buy Live Action Instead
Review: This was o.k. It was not nearly as good as Peter Jacksons live action version, but it wasn't all that bad. It was pretty corney, the orcs and all the things like that in the live action were way cooler, and the music is extroridnarly cheesy. But if you have a little kid who is too young to see the live action, this is a good alternative.

Rating:
Summary: Anime + Lord of the Rings = Success!
Review: The Rankin/Bass (The people who brought you Thundercats) versions of "The Hobbit" and "Return of The King" are extremely well done and all three films are BEAUTIFULLY restored for DVD! It's too bad it took the release of the Peter Jackson live-action versions to get these beautiful pieces of anime onto DVD but as long as it happened I guess it's all right even though it reeks of band-wagon capitalism. The Bakshi version of Lord of The Rings (Based on "Fellowship of The Ring" and portions of the "Two Towers") is also well done but the animation ranges from cheesy to beautiful and is uneven. I never connected with this middle film even though I appreciate it. It just lacked the organic and emotional feel and cleanliness of the first and the last one. For great battle scenes and images of Minos Tyrith, the third disc has to be seen to be believed! Full of singing and light, these discs straddle the line between kid and adult entertainment like a razor blade. It's really a shame they never put out a good CD compilation of the soundtracks to the first film and the last film (Kind of like the Less Than Zero orchestral score!) because the vocal and instrumental pieces are really beautiful!

Rating:
Summary: Two good and one bad
Review: As with any interpretation of a book somethings are left out beacause of time comstraints. I have enjoed watching the first two stories but the third is a waste of time.

This version of "The Hobbit" was my introduction to Tolkien's work as a child. It is very good, created by one of the animators(Rankin and Bass) who brought us "Rudolph The red nosed reindeer" and other holiday classics.

The "Lord of the Rings" DVD covers the Fellowship and The Two Towers. It is quite true to Tolkien's work and pretty good, but I didn't like the animation style.It is very different from the other two in this set.

"Return of the King" was quite a let down.This is not for purists Tolkien. By trying to cover too much material in too short a time frame Bass butchered the story. The narrative has been deconsructed and reassembled as some other story. It was only recognizable as part of the LOTR trillogy because of the characters. If you just have to get more Tolkien by this set knowing that the third is loosly baised on the book it is named after.

Rating:
Summary: Tolkien Below Par
Review: To see this animated series is to be enduringly grateful for the herculean effort Peter Jackson made to get Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy right. One might quarrel at times with the Jackson interpretation, but there is no doubt that he took Tolkien seriously.
This is not an impression one gets with these animated cartoons. They might be described as Tolkien for children--in the worst sense of this expression, because it seems to be assumed here that children are not beings one need bother about.
While there is little if anything redeemable about the Lord of the Rings cartoons per se (that is, the cartoons that purport to cover the story told in Tolkien's huge trilogy), the same cannot be said of the cartoon version of The Hobbit. I found this charming; and not only that--I would say that this telling of Bilbo Baggins' story would repay the attention of intelligent children. And that is saying a lot.

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic Animated Movies!
Review: All three of these animated movies, 'The Hobbit'; 'The Lord of the Rings'; and 'The Return of the King', are fantastic because they have good excitement, fantasy, and adventure to offer. The animation is very well done in each film and the voice acting is great! And, to top it all off, each of these must-see animated movies, notably 'The Lord of the Rings', have brilliant enchanting music-score in them. I highly recommend that you buy the J.R.R. Tolkien Animated Films Set ('The Hobbit'/'The Lord of the Rings'/'The Return of the King') DVD!

Rating:
Summary: Lord of the Rings/Lord of the DVD's
Review: Excellent, exciting,wonderful. This years winners mfor all catagories. Tolken put the story on paper for us to enjoy. We did more than enjoy it. It's faithful readers kept sacred the trilogy and all that it stands for. The Books as well as the DVD's, should be sought out for reading and watching, by all ages of children. With a wonderful cast, that delivered their characters to Oscar status and with Jackson's vision of the Tolken story so well directed that at times I knew he had been reading my mind. I fell in love with the trilogy when I read it and I was only 22, and now at the age of 51, Jackson, his vision, and wonderful cast, have given back to me encouragement, adventure, warmth and love, and most of all that no one anywhere will be alone. They will alway have those wonderful adventures and wonderful characters to always be with them as friends.

Rating:
Summary: Slightly different take on these movies
Review: The animated movie, The Hobbit, was my first introduction into the world of J.R.R. Tolkien when it was released in 1978. As a child, I was so intrigued by this cartoon that I read the book. That started me on a love of Tolkien that is still unquenched today, over 25 years later. Granted, it's nothing like the splendor of Peter Jackson's epic movies, but also remember when the cartoon was made. Certainly there were some liberties taken for these cartoons. Peter Jackson took some liberties of his own.

For the youngsters out there looking to get a hint of Middle Earth, the first and last cartoons in this group are worth watching. They may be missing some elements that are present in the new LotR movies, but they do have something that the current movies are missing, Tolkien's poems and songs. The Hobbit and The Return of the King feature several of Tolkien's lyrics put wonderfully to music by Glenn Yarbrough. The first time I heard "The Greatest Adventure" and "Roads go Ever, Ever On" on my father's CED video disk (the predecessor to laser disk), I grabbed my guitar, listened, went back, listened, etc. until I got the chords.

If you are looking for a way to break younger children into Tolkien, the first and third cartoon in this set is the way to go. Personally, I'd still steer clear of the the second, The Lord of the Rings. It was done using rotoscope (animation drawn over live action), an interesting experiment that failed. It was also a serious departure from the style of the other two.