Rating: 
Summary: Abomination to Animation
Review: This movie is an abomination not only to J.R.R.Tolkien's wonderful long hard work, but to the Animation industry as well. Here is why; The animation made the characters far too flamboyant in their movements (Gandalf pointed his finger in Frodo's face so much I'm surprised he didn't smack him, and this is only one example out of the thousands of animation flaws.) They're mixture of live shots with animation was so bad it looked as if they took pictures of faces from magazines and made them move around in front of the camera. The characters were nothing like how Tolkien described them (especially Samwise Gamgee who they made seem like an utter idiot more correctly like someone said before a "buffoon") and they either extremely over reacted or terribly under reacted to the events that took place. Little or no effort was made in producing a proper script. Visualization techniques were terribly misused. At the beginning there was a great deal of bad shadow play. Second balrog had wings but still fell down a chasm with Gandalf? How does something with wings forget how to fly? Third, whenever someone/something got killed early in the movie there was no blood, but at the end the characters exploded with blood as they and the blood fell toward the viewer in slow motion. Which brings me to another point the movie ended in middle of The Two Towers; the ending was rushed and very abrupt without any true resolution. This wouldn't have been necessary if more time was spent developing the script. Far too much time was wasted with chase scenes and such where the characters just stood around or literally twirling around in circles. There may be a few and I mean only a few redeemable things about this waste of film but they are over shadowed like a thousand midnights by the thousands of things wrong with it. In short the movie is [junk]. Don't waste your money on it in any way. However, Peter Jackson's adaptation rocked! I recommend it a million time over!
Rating: 
Summary: Fair... with some flaws
Review: Overall, I have to say that I enjoyed this movie. I think it is a fair interpretation of the LOTR book given the running time (a bit more than 2h), in some cases more adherent than Jackson's one(the scenes in Brea, for instance). Don't misunderstand me, Jackson's work is absolutely at another level and the two works cannot be remotely compared, I just would like to point out that a certain study of Tolkiens's book is evident in this anime. Moreover, I find interesting the animation tecniques that have been used. Going back to the 70's, I don't think you'll find animes with a better animation. This said, there are a couple of major problems. First, the musical score is terrible: it has the power to completely destroy the atmosphere in critical points of the movie. For instance,in the final part of Helm's Deep battle the arrival of Gandalf is anticipated by a musical theme that makes you think Mary Poppins is coming down from the sky instead of the Rohan's riders leaded by the wizard. This same musical theme is scattered around in the movie ruining many scenes in the same way. The second problem is that graphical representation of some key characters is non convincing (at least to me). Aragorn, for instance, and Boromir, and Elrond, and the Balrog. The characters I imagined reading the books are really different. Last, some dialogue interpretations are too "childish", at least in the italian version.
So, balancing the good and the bad, I'll give 3 stars to this movie. With a brand new musical score and revised (italian) dialogue interpretation in some points it could reach 4 stars.
The final advice? All is about fantasy, anime and Tolkien: if you like at least two of those, buy the movie.
Rating:
Summary: Good movie if you've read the books!
Review: My first warning. If you haven''t read the books, DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE. If you like the books, you will appreciate it. I give it a three for a few reasons. I'll start with the bad. There is way too much blood at the end! There's also a little too much blood when Boromir dies as well. The black rider scenes are a bit too drawn out and Sam Gamgee looks and acts a bit too buffoonish. The last problem I have is the way the movie is timed. The TWO TOWERS part of the movie was pretty sped up and the ending is way too sudden. A narrator comes on and says something about Saruman's forces being defeated and the world being saved by Gandalf. What about the ring? But now to the good. I didn't mind that rotoscope thing at all. It was cool actually. I also didn't have a problem with the character looks and outfits. They were also pretty cool I thought. The movie is totally faithful to the book and I like it. My overall opinion: If you are a Tolkien fan, rent it, and if you like it, buy it. If you haven't read the books, stay away from it.
Rating: 
Summary: A valiant early effort - give it a chance!
Review: Although it is inevitably overshadowed today by Peter Jackson's magnificent films, Ralph Bakshi's animated version of "The Lord of the Rings" is actually quite good. For one thing, the screenplay is a superb adaptation of roughly the first half of the tale (part II never materialized, thanks to financial difficulties) - it is intelligent and literate, simplifying the plot where necessary but not diluting it too much. The voice work is outstanding (notably John Hurt as Aragorn and William Squires as Gandalf), and Leonard Rosenman's score ranks among the finest of its era. I'm sure that Bakshi's decision to capture a fair amount of the action via "rotoscoping" (tracing over live-action images) was motivated, at least in part, by financial considerations, but in all honesty I can't see how he could have done some of the big battle scenes otherwise (not much computer animation happening in 1978). In any case, if you view the film with an open mind, you'll find that the technique distracts far less than the hard-liners would have you believe. For me, anyway, it cannot materially diminish the quality of such a fine adaptation of Tolkien's unforgettable novels. Of course, Peter Jackson's films are in an entirely different league, but I still regret the fact that Bakshi never got to finish his version of the story. I think his vision was and is a compelling one, and I'm sorry he never got to see it through to its conclusion.
Rating:
Summary: A Fair Film
Review: This film has some high points but ultimatly levels out as average. Although faithful to sutle events, major occuences seem to be fast-forwarded. Lorien, for example, is reduced to three short scences. Aragorn says they will go there and all of a sudden Galadriel is welcoming the Fellowship! There is barely any of The Two Towers present. Although I like the Animation, inserting real people induces headaces. I can understand leaving out Glorfindal and Tom Bomadil, but why cut out important characters like Eomer?
What really kills this film is the Costume design. Why place Men is ridiculos looking Tunics? They loook like dresses! And Legolas' outfit screams disco. One more gripe. Gimli is hardly in the story, and he is more major then Eomer.
Recomend to parents of young Children who have had Tolkien read to them and want to see a movie, since Jackson's version is too intense for young children.
Rating:
Summary: Poor Movie.
Review: this is a very bad movie. It's not like the book or the the movie that is out today. If you have seen it, hopefully you didn't like it. If you have not seen it, don't! It stinks!Rated: PG Running Time:133 Minutes
Rating:
Summary: An alright effort from Bakshi!
Review: This is basically just " Fellowship of the Rings" and " Two Towers" crammed into one movie, it's inspired by those two books which tells the usual story of Hobbits and warriors trying to destroy the one ring. The rotoscoping is bizarre, animation is quite good but basically i like the movie, it's nowhere as awesome as the live-action movies but i still like it.
Rating: 
Summary: "Oh Dear, Oh Dear, Oh Dear!"
Review: To quote Anthony Daniels (who does the voice of Legolas in this attempt) as C-3P0: "Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!" To be fair, I am reviewing this movie in the shadow of Peter Jackson's work, which would make anything pale by comparison. My level of disappointment, though, in trying to watch this version of "The Lord of the Rings" as part of the trilogy DVD set of animated Tolkien classics cannot be expressed. The Rankin/Bass productions of "The Hobbit" and "The Return of the King" cause this production to stick out like a sore thumb. Juhn Huston is greatly missed as Gandalf the Grey. Anyone who buys this set thinking that they are getting a cohesive series of movies will be disappointed. Certain characters are introduced at completely inaccurate and inappropriate points in the story. The animation is good at times, but these high-quality segments set such a standard for the surrounding segments that the low-quality remainder looks even worse. On the positive side, the music is GREAT!
Rating:
Summary: Little known info re: Bakshi's Lord of the Rigns
Review: Little do the 'intolerant fans' who lambast this version know..but there was a financial reason why Bakshi could not finish this Lord of the Rings. He intended for it to cover the full trilogy but his producers pulled the plug on his project mid-way. They pulled all funding after disliking the experimental animation. It ran as-is. I on the other hand, find it an interesting supplement to Peter Jacksons, as PJ takes certain liberties and adds his own material not in the book...Bakshi's version has scenes that cannot be found in PJ's version. And the characters are a little darker and overall it has a dramatic dark edge where PJ's FOTR is lighter and more charming. I prefer Bakshi's Gandalf in certain ways, as well as his Ringwraiths. I know some people who prefer Bakshi's Boromir. It has none of the Arwen additions, and stays true to the book in certain places where PJ's goes astray for the sake of appealing to the mainstream. It's a good supplement to PJ's, and it's unfortunate that it gets such poor treatment by fans.
Rating:
Summary: DISGRACE TO THE STORIES!!!
Review: This Warner Bros. version of the classic J. R. R. Tolkien books has got to be the worst adaptation. First of all, the animation is dark but nicely done in a way. But sometimes it's TOO dark that you suddenly begin to lose interest. Second, the Special-FX are just dumb and pathetic. They try to mix poorly made realistic images in with the animation. And finally, some things in the books were obviously left out in this! The story goes through the entire "Fellowship of the Ring" and half of "The Two Towers", making it incomplete! OVERALL: The fight scenes are cheesy and poor, and most of it makes the wonderful books of the series look BORING! I recommend "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" on DVD and the "Two Towers" (now in theatres) instead of this dull film.
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