Rating: 
Summary: A Stunning, Nostalgic, Fantastic Adventure!!!!!!!!!!!
Review: Regardless of what anyone says, the animation in LOTR is utterly gorgous! The filmmakers must be acknowledged and admired for taking on such a tremendous task in the creation of this film. Each character seems like a real person moving gracefully and realisticly. I love this film! Its one of my favorites!
Rating: 
Summary: A Good and Bad DVD
Review: The good things about this DVD is... 1) Its in widescreen. 2) It finaly has got its Dolby Stereo soundtrack back! (Which has been missing ever since it was first released on VHS tape.)The bad about this DVD is.... 1) Its MISSING its trailer (even tho it is listed on the back cover its NOT on the DVD!) Also if there are TV spots on this DVD I can't find them either! 2) Its should have had a new Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack remix. 3) A audio cometary track would have also been nice.All in all its a good improvmemt over the past VHS releases.~Rob~
Rating: 
Summary: Lame
Review: It's not worth it. I didn't even buy it. My roommate did. I can't even sit through the entire thing. If you're a fan of The Lord of the Rings then put this back onto the shelf, or delete it from your shopping cart. Save yourself sanity and money.
Rating:
Summary: excellent
Review: If you like the Lord of the Rings, then I don't understand how you can't like this movie. It is one of the finest animated movies ever made, period. Yes, they cram two books into one two hour movie, who cares?? It is still the Lord of the Rings man! Also, we all have a picture in our minds of what things looked and sounded like from these incredible books, (as it should be) but are the drawings that far off?? Of course not, every single drawing I've ever seen from these books (about six artists worth) are all similar, and if you disagree, then you need to have your vision checked. To conclude: If you love Lord of the Rings, then you WILL enjoy this!!
Rating:
Summary: the lord of the rings
Review: this movie is a prime example of how annimation was done in the 70's and 80's. ralph bakshi used a lot of imagination to bring this movie about. how many people remember "tron"? yeah, "lord of the rings" is not a great movie, but for people like me we enjoy something that is different. look at "final fantasy" was that a ground-breaker like "star wars"? no it was not, but at least the producers had the guts to try something different. or they could have made a politcally correct movie like the latest version of "the bad news bears."
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Adaptation for LOTR Fans
Review: It has always been much to my disappointment that this seminal work by Ralph Bakshi continues to be dismissed. In the months leading up to Peter Jackson's re-take on "Lord of the Rings," it's time to appreciate the achievement of this 1978 film. As a huge fan of the JRR Tolkien novel (I have read Lord of the Rings 5 times), I have always held a special place for this film. It captures the dialogue, look, characters. It's dark and haunting. Superbly voiced. A remarkable score by Leonard Roseman. Entertainment Weekly recently, in its insensitive review, criticized the animation as "cheesy psychedelic backgrounds and shoddy rotoscoping (in which live actors are filmed and then drawn over)." It is to be noted that this "cheesy" technique is being used in Richard Linklater's upcoming "Waking Life," already being hailed as a "groundbreaking achievement." It's time to appreciate this film as a remarkable adaptation and as a groundbreaking piece of filmmaking.
Rating:
Summary: This is the Worst "movie" I have ever seen in my life.
Review: I mean, Last time I watched it I became Phisicaly ill! If you are looking for a Tolkien movie why dont you just wait for the "real" one to comne out in December? At least in the real one names will be pronounced right and nobody will go around sharpining their swords on rocks. The worst thing about this movie is the mix beetween Animation and live action.
Rating: 
Summary: mediocrity is the word
Review: Oh does this movie have problems.The Peter Beagle screenplay is competant, albeit cryptic to those who haven't read the books and know what's going on. It could have benefited from some additional expository narrative. There's plenty of fluff that could be cut to make room for more exposition and development, most notably the frequent extended aimless moving around just to show off the rotoscoping. One obvious failure of exposition: why did the Nazgul abandon his search when he knew that the hobbit with the ring was cowered in some nook nearby? The movie implies that it's because Frodo didn't put on the ring; an unsatisfactory explanation at best. In the book, the sound of elves singing drove off the Nazgul. That would have involved the meeting with the high-elves, a relatively minor side-story except that it resolved the near-miss with the Nazgul. The meeting with the Noldor could have been done in a single 30-second scene, and it would have been worth it to tie up that loose end. Speaking of fluff, the battle at Helm's gate was both "too much" and "not enough". It had lots of fluff and unnecessary gore, but one is left to wonder what all the fuss is all about. You can see that there's only a hundred or so extras comprising all the orcs, against a dozen or so of Theoden's people and another dozen riding with Eomer and Gandalf. The over-use of the rotoscope doomed the effectiveness of this sequence; either there should have been enough extras to make a credible battle or it should have been totally animated and not have the limitation when you run out of extras. Character designs range from wonderful to "what were they thinking?" Excellent hobbits, wizards, men, and dwarves; but that makes the elves all the more jarring, especially "surfer-boy" Legolas and "escapee from Bakshi's X-rated flicks" Galadriel. Interesting (albeit inaccurate) "reanimated corpse" Nazgul. Good troll, great Gollum, but the balrog leaves one wondering "what's the big deal about this bad guy that makes him so much scarier". The less said about the ent the better. Nasty Wormtongue. Scene designs also range from wondeful to "huh??" Tolkien purists would undoubtably cringe at the mispronunciation of so many proper names. Given that Tolkien was a philologist and wrote detailed appendices, among which is a pronunication guide, they could have avoided such cringers as pronouncing Celeborn as "sell-a-born" and "Minas" as "My-nass". The real problem is that it's doubtful that director Ralph Bakshi ever read the books. If you've seen his earlier effort "Wizards", you'll recognize it immediately in this effort. He's very obviously doing a remake of "Wizards", with a Tolkien theme. Hence the final rating of 3 stars. It's a enjoyable remake of "Wizards", with the main negatives being inadequate exposition and jarring use of rotoscoping. Tolkien fans are best off blocking off their memory of the book (except perhaps to explain some otherwise puzzling scene) and watch this movie as being some other story. If they changed its name to something like "Ring Quest", changed all the names of the characters, called the hobbits "munchkins" or something, the movie probably would have done a lot better at the box office.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent...
Review: This was my first contact with JRR Tolkiens The Lord of the Rings. And I really loved it, now I am a Tolkien fan and still reads the trilogy at least 5 times a year.
If any of you still havent watched this movie, WATCH IT.
Rating:
Summary: A Poor Effort
Review: I saw this movie in 1978 when it was in the theaters. I was 10. And I even hated it then. The only other movie I hated from my youth was a version of Black Beauty with a fake star badly painted on Black Beauty that didn't even have the colors of the horses correct, much less anything else. But I digress. The problem with this movie does not lie in the admittedly quirky visuals, but in the adaptation. I don't blame the writers and directors necessarily - I'm not sure the task can be done. In fact, I am both eagerly awaiting and dreading the live version for the same reason. The books cover about 5 years of action in excruciating, day-by-day detail, which cannot possibly be covered in the format of a movie in the same way. Unfortunately, the plot(s) are so twisted and complex that losing detail makes it very difficult to understand what is going on, and robs the characters of depth and motivation, making their actions seem arbitrary. Yes, if you have read the books and are going to be bothered by alterations from Tolkien's original you are not going to like this. But I think people who have not read the books but expect their movies to have complex, consistent characters and plots that make sense in terms of all the supporting details being there are going to be disappointed in this film as well. I know friends who never read the books who have disliked the film, so it's not just my admittedly purist leanings. Forewarned is forearmed. Decide what expectations you have for a film and make your own decision.
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