Rating: 
Summary: "It's so easy not to try. . . "
Review: That about sums up this nervous, stumbling production in which the last third of some mutilated cartoon ghost of Tolkien's epic is retold, badly, by Gondor's most incompetent bard. Bad decisions abound: the Nazgul are portrayed as bright plastic skeletons with glowing red eyes, characters are introduced and promptly disappear without context or further mention, crucial relationships are never explained (while minute decisions are accompanied by advice from a disembodied chorus), and the most sophisticated musical number, in a movie shamelessly padded with musical numbers, is the improbably layered (and cheesy) Orc war-chant "When There's A Whip, There's A Way." Samwise, as put-upon as anyone by the crushing awfulness of the narrative, is nevertheless a vast improvement over Ralph Bakshi's mentally retarded four-year-old. He is also, sadly, the occasion of one of the movie's longest and most pointless interludes: wherin, after imagining himself as a mythical hero, he resists the temptation to take posession of the Ring and consoles himself with images of burbly hobbit babies with empty, sparkling eyes. All before he can take another three steps on his search for Frodo. Funny, yes, but excrucitating. The "End of the Ring, Return of the King" number alone will take years off your life. Tear it apart with your witty Tolkenite friends, if you have any, but for God's sake, don't show it to your kids.
Rating:
Summary: Uhm...well...this is unforgivable!
Review: In some ways it can be partially enjoyed by those with limited minds, and in and of itself, I do own (with some difficulty indeed), that it is somewhat decent...
But when one takes to mind what it is supposed to be; not just some studio-person's idea, but an adaptation of one of the finest books ever written, one cringes with horror!
There are far too many flaws to be mentioned, and it really should never have been made--(at least, this way).
The animation quality itself is very puzzlingly drab and in some cases just plain ugly and poor. (I could describe this further but it would take too long.)
There are so many things of importance ommited, and the entire thing in and of itself is like a desecration; a painful mockery of a work of genius. But it sure does make one laugh!
I absolutely do NOT reccomend this, unless you want to both cringe in vomitous horror and laugh at once and walk away feeling puzzled and insulted if you love Tolkein. ;)
For others who have not yet read Tolkein, I certainly recommend you not waste your time on this, and go read the books!!
What a travesty. ;^)
Rating: 
Summary: Good Presentation
Review: I have not read any of the LOTR trilogy yet. I've only read The Hobbit so far. Based on different things I've read and seen, The Hobbit and possibly The Lord of the Rings were originally intended for a younger audience than many people think. (See the extras on the DVD of the Peter Jackson version for one source - comments from someone who reviewed The Hobbit as a child.) The Return of the King and The Hobbit were made for TV by the same group who gave us Frosty The Snowman. Both are made for a younger audience. Overall, I prefer Return of the King because of the songs. Although I don't hate them, I'm not a big fan of folk-type songs. Return of the King has more songs that are easier for me to listen to. I prefer the deeper voices used in the songs that make use of a chorus. Since I haven't read the book, I can't comment on what might be missing. I enjoy what is presented here, and it is definitely darker than The Hobbit was. Frodo and Samwise show their darker sides when they hold The Ring. Most of the characterazation is fairly simple, not much development except with Frodo and Sam. The extras are somewhat bare-bones. Most involve text screens giving information instead of featurettes.
Rating:
Summary: I wish I could RETURN this KING
Review: I hated this video. It was a childish adaptation. The dark sections (such as orcs and nazgul) were rendered as cartoon sillies. Whose bright idea was it to get GlennYarborough to sing all the drippy songs that dominate and ruin this story?
Rating:
Summary: A decent adaptation of the book
Review: "The Return of the King" begins at the end of "The Lord of the Rings" and then proceeds to "flash back" to the beginning of the book "The Return of the King". The dramatists who adapted this movie from the book did a decent job at making a movie that followed the original story. As with all adaptations, things are left out.
However, the reason that I can not give this a 5 out of 5 is the music. The production staff apparently wanted to make this into a musical - of their own invention. The songs they created supplement the story, but they are not true works of Tolkien. The songs found in the movie "The Hobbit" starring Orson Bean are all except one works of Tolkien's hand. I feel that the time wasted on some of these songs could have been used to add more from the book to the movie.
But when all is said, the movie is done well. I speak about the music from a Tolkien-Fanatic point of view. For a family seeking to watch a good movie, this is a great find. (And the music will enhance your viewing of it). For those of you out there who are hard-core Tolkienists: Look into this movie - it will give you another example of how dramatists have portrayed Tolkien's Middle-Earth.
Rating: 
Summary: Only for curious Tolkien fan
Review: If you read the entire Lord of the Rings and are interested in seeing an interpretation of the story, check this out. I must warn you, it contains some very PAINFUL to listen to songs. The style is sort of like a Christmas cartoon. The hobbits look like Santa's elves. Did I mention the music is horrible?
Rating: 
Summary: An All-Singing, All-Dancing Hobbit Extravaganza!
Review: Okay, the other reviews are all true. If you take your Tolkien seriously, this film can be a painful experience. Or... you can make it a drinking game! Every time the narrator or a character mispronounces a name or place, take a drink. If the pronounciation was made explicit in the book, as with THE'oden or KIRith Ungol, take two. When they make up stupid dialogue, or when they actually stick to dialogue (it does happen!), take a drink. When they burst into a song suggested by a single line of the book (i.e. "where there's a whip there's a will"), take a drink. When they skip over huge events and pretend they never happened (like Aragorn seeming not to know about the quest of the ring), just down the whole bottle. The movie is probably a lot more fun for an adult when you're drunk. It does have its good features. While the animation is not and never was state-of-the-art, the backgrounds are, I think, quite lovely -- all moody, evocative watercolors. While the songs are not exactly canon (as they are in "The Hobbit"), they make sense in the context of the movie (where the tale is being told by a bard, who is actually canon). And it's a lot of fun for kids. My sister and I saw this on TV about 18 years ago, and will still laugh ourselves silly with the songs. (We did a rendition of "Frodo of the Nine Fingers" that went, "Frodo of the no earlobe, and the earring of doom... Frodo of the no breath, and the Dentene of doom..." etc.) My son, two years old, learned the word "Frodo" from the movie, which was very cute to my husband and I, both Tolkien fans. If you prefer your Tolkien unadulterated, don't watch this. It will make you cringe with horror. But if you watch it with a kid... or indeed with some like-minded adults, it can be a lot of fun.
Rating:
Summary: No Title can describe this
Review: A watched this movie again for the first time since I was a child. Having read the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings Several times since then, I can only use one word to describe watching this movie now that I am an adult: aghast. The movie starts off with Bilbo's final birthday before he leaves Middle-Earth, the number of which they promptly got wrong, and Bilbo cannot remember why Frodo no longer had the Ring. Then they bring a minstrel out to tell him why. The tale they tell from that point is very much disjointed and far removed from the story that the Professor created, touching it and coming back to it only when whatever demagogue who controlled this productions direction felt like a little veracity. The whole story is given as a narrative from the point of view of Gandalf, and Gandalf in this story is not even a shadow of the ones in the books. The specific points that make this production so horrid are:
Aragorn is portrayed as a lord driven into exile, as opposed to the heir of a line of kings who have stopped claiming the title of king because they are too busy trying to rebuild their kingdom in the North, as well as supporting the kingdom in the South;
the whole story is supposed to take place according to a Prophecy, when in fact the Lord of the Rings had nothing to do with prophecy and the only foretelling in it was about the paths of the dead;
the voices, while all talented, were miscast, particularly the Lord of the Nazghul and Meriadoc(Kasey Kasem just does not work as a hobbit);
they had to throw in the element that this was a proto-history that took place in our world wehich was exactly not what the Professor intended(Gandalf's disertation and ascertation that hobbits were going to involve into men at the end of the movie was really, really too much);
the dialogue of the hobbits was almost completely made out of anything other than what the Professor wrote,the dialogue of the other characters being not much better;
they cut out all mention of the quest, the fellowship, the dwarves, and stripped out of it all the background history that makes this such a rich story. To sum-up, they raped this story, and raped perfectly describes it. I see no merit in any adult watching this production.
As to why this production is so bad, I can only speculate. My hypotheses are as follows:
they could not finish it before they ran out of money;
they needed a quick influx of cash to keep from going out of business;
they thought that nothing could be worse than Ralph Bakshi's production( they could not be more wrong:this production's existence makes that production five star by comparison/at least he tried to not mess anything up);
they thought they were untouchable;
mass-insanity;
someone influential in the production had an attack of megalomania;
several people important to the production died or were lost in a contract dispute and they had to go with an out-line;
or they simply wanted to anger the family of the Professor to such a degree that they never gave permission to do cinema-ize the works again. I have tried to keep my possible explanations from being too far-fetched, but this is the worst adaptation of any book that I have encountered. The best thing about it is the animation, and the best thing that can be said about that was that it was a knife taken to a gunfight. It is written as propaganda that has no ideal to uphold, and I had to force myself to finish watching, several hours later that I started it. I would give it no stars if the option were availible, and if this production were a book, the publishing house would have burned it.
Rating:
Summary: Why didn't Raplh Bakshi made this??
Review: To put it bluntly, Raplh Bakshi (the director of the animated LOTR) would've done a better job on this movie than Rankin and Bass. Bakshi wouldn't fill this animated trash with songs every ten minutes. And Bakshi wouldn't gave Frodo those big eyes either.
The Hobbit was excellent, this movie isn't.
Rating:
Summary: If only Bakshi had done this and not Rankin and Bass.
Review: "The Return of the King" can definitely be compared to "Star Trek
5: the Final Frontier" and "Batman and Robin" in that it is a movie that is pretty lackluster, but because of its inspiration, still expects acclaim anyway. It is poorly animated, voiced, and scripted, but most importantly, is basically just unfun. This movie fails in many areas that no movie should fail in. For instance, it seems to assume you've watched it's predecessor, "the Lord of the Rings" but supposedly acts as a sequel to "the Hobbit". That's really the best description I can give you. It seems like it probably concludes "the Lord of the Rings" but makes so many references to "the Hobbit" that it's confusing. Not having a clear starting point is not what I'd call
a strong start. The first problem you'll notice is the animation. It's pretty poor. and while that was excusable for "the Hobbit" because of the time period, it's not acceptable after the giant leap up LOTR made in the animation department. In fact, the animation actually appears WORSE than "the Hobbit". The voice-over acting is also very shoddy. Only John Huston's Gandalf and Roddy Mcdowall's Sam make it out of this without completely [messing] up. Everyone else portrays his or her character poorly. Most of the actors also speak in American accents. Now, most people couldn't really give a damn about accents, especially since the acting is bad anyway. But it's at least worth mentioning. Characters are also portrayed badly. Aragorn is made a clueless idiot, while Frodo, Pippin, Merry, and Eowyn all have all the personality of Arnold Schwarzenegger characters. Also, Gimli and Legolas are not in the movie at all. We now turn to the songs. I agree with those who were turned off by them. they're probably the most irritating non-Disney songs I've ever heard in a movie. Hearing "the Wearer (or "bearer") of the Ring" over and over was a downright painful experience. and don't even get me started on "Where there's a whip, there's a way". In short, Rankin and Bass [messed] just about everything up for "the Return of the King". I can't honestly think of any good points. If you must see everything Tolkien, suffer through. But, if you don't, skip it.
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