Lord of the Rings (1978)

Depending on how much you know about J.R.R. Tolkien, you will either be bored or outraged by Ralph Bakshi's Lord of the Rings. Despite lovely backgrounds and Bakshi's always beautiful use of color, the film is not exactly the high point in Bakshi's career. In fact, it is still remembered and reviled by many Tolkien fans, who resent Bakshi's heavy-handed treatment of the first third of the Ring Trilogy.

Much of this resentment comes from The Lord of the Rings' unique position in fantasy literature. Unlike roughly contemporaneous works like Howard's Conan saga or Lieber's Fahfrid and the Grey Mouser, the Ring Trilogy found popularity and acceptance outside the fantasy community. Scholars respected Tolkien's poetry and deep understanding of Celtic and Norse mythos; hippies viewed the book as allegorical and containing wisdom; war gamers adopted the Tolkien world into the massively popular Dungeons and Dragons adventure games. Tolkien was possibly the last quality writer before Stephen King to have a diverse and major following, and his works meant a great deal to many people. His fantasy world, based as it was on half-forgotten legends, possessed a logic and conviction that few others can rival.

Instead of attempting to live up to this tall order, Bakshi instead offers a film which is the equivalent of the various posters and calendars based on Tolkien's work. Visually, the work is gorgeous in a 70s-fantasy-illustration-kind-of-way. It's also an incredibly shallow work, and is written in such a way that much of the proceedings will puzzle a non-Tolkien fan. For example, the designs for the Ringwraiths and Orcs are very similar - both are very dark, horned, and have red eyes. The Ringwraiths, however, are far more unique and deadly adversaries (only nine of these evil spirits exist). Confusion then follows for the audience when the Ringwraiths are presented as unstoppable evil whereas the Orcs are quite easily killed. In a similar vein, three of the four Hobbits are drawn virtually identically, making it difficult for the viewer to distinguish the lead characters. Gollum presents himself in the last third of the picture with very little introduction indeed, as do the Ents. Bakshi assumes that you've already read the books and thus spends little time on characterization. In retrospect, this strategy is one that is familiar to fans of Japanese OAVs, but that doesn't make it any less lazy than it was in the 1970s. Many of the British accents in the film are on the precious side, making the dialogue even more ponderous ("By all the Shire, you shall have neither the Ring nor me!")

Naturally, as in any Bakshi film, there are scattered moments of brilliance. Gandalf's imprisonment at Saruman's tower, the various battle scenes, the early sequences with the Ringwraiths, and Frodo's dance in a tavern all come to mind. These all remain dazzling. Unfortunately, too many human characters (Aragorn and Boromir in particular) are far too simplified to maintain our interest. The film's score, initially charming, quickly becomes repetitive, and Bakshi's decision to end the film while two-thirds of the story still remains leaves the viewer unsatisfied. (Bakshi never filmed a proposed sequel).

Perhaps college English professors might use the Lord of the Rings film to pad out a class on Heroic Literature.

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