The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

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J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings
An early poster for the film.
Directed by	Ralph Bakshi
Produced by	Saul Zaentz
Written by	Screenplay: Peter S. Beagle Chris Conkling Based on the novels by J. R. R. Tolkien
Starring	Christopher Guard William Squire Michael Scholes John Hurt Simon Chandler Dominic Guard Michael Graham Cox Anthony Daniels David Buck
Music by	Leonard Rosenman Paul Kont (uncredited)
Cinematography	Timothy Galfas
Editing by	Donald W. Ernst
Distributed by	United Artists
Release date(s)	November 15, 1978
Running time	132 minutes
Country	USA
Language	English
Budget	US$8,000,000[1]
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings is a 1978 animated fantasy film directed by Ralph Bakshi. It is an adaptation of the first half of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Set in Middle-earth, the film follows a group of Hobbits, Elves, Men, Dwarves and Wizards who form a Fellowship and embark on a quest to destroy the One Ring made by the Dark Lord Sauron, and with it, ensure his destruction. The screenplay was written by Peter S. Beagle. An earlier draft was written by Chris Conkling, but not used.^[2] The film features the voice work of, among others, William Squire, John Hurt, Michael Graham Cox and Anthony Daniels.

Director Ralph Bakshi first encountered Tolkien's writing in the early days in his career, and made several attempts to produce The Lord of the Rings as an animated film before successfully gaining funding from producer Saul Zaentz and distributor United Artists.^[3] The film was produced mostly utilizing rotoscoping, wherein many scenes were shot in live-action first and then traced onto animation cels.^[3] The film is notable for featuring some of the most extensive use of the technique. Although the film received a mixed reaction from critics, and was deemed to be a flop by the original distributors, who refused to fund a sequel that would have covered the remainder of the story, the film was a success,^[4][5] and sparked new interest in Tolkien's writing, inspiring the production of several further adaptations of the story.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Differences from the book 2.1 Omissions 2.2 Modifications 3 Cast 4 Pre-production 5 Production 5.1 Screenwriting and development 5.2 Animation 5.3 Music 5.4 Sequel 6 Reception 7 References 8 External links

[edit] Plot

In the early years of the Second Age of Middle-earth, the Elven-smiths forged nineteen Rings of Power for mortal Men, the Dwarf-lords, and the tall Elf-kings. Eventually the Dark Lord Sauron made the One Ring to rule them all. As the Last Alliance of Men and Elves fell beneath his power, the Ring fell into the hands of Prince Isildur of the mighty kings from across the sea. After Isildur was killed by Orcs, the Ring lay in the bottom of the river Anduin for years, during which Sauron captured the nine Rings that were made for Men and turned their owners into the Ringwraiths: terrible shadows under his great shadow who roamed the world searching for the One Ring. The Ring was found by two friends. One of them, Sméagol, was so enticed by the Ring's power that he killed his friend Déagol to get it. The Ring warped him into a twisted, gurgling wretch known only as Gollum, until his "precious" was discovered by the hobbit Bilbo Baggins. Years later, in a land called the Shire, Bilbo is celebrating his birthday. In Bilbo's hobbit hole, the wizard Gandalf tells him to leave the Ring for Frodo Baggins. Bilbo finally agrees, and leaves the Shire. Seventeen years pass, during which Gandalf learns that the Shire is in danger — evil forces have learned that the Ring is in the possession of a Baggins. Gandalf meets with Frodo, and explains the Ring's history and the danger it poses to all of Middle-earth. Frodo leaves his home, taking the Ring with him.

In his journey he is accompanied by three hobbit friends, Pippin, Merry, and Sam. From the start, they are pursued by the Ringwraiths. Narrowly escaping them, they eventually come to Bree, where they meet Strider, another friend of Gandalf who leads them the rest of the way to Rivendell. Frodo is stabbed upon the mountain of Weathertop by the chief of the Ringwraiths, with a knife imbued with evil magic. Part of the knife stays inside him, and he gets sicker as the journey progresses. They meet the Elf Legolas. The Ringwraiths catch up with them, and at a standoff at the ford of Rivendell, the former are swept away by the enchanted river itself. At Rivendell, Frodo is healed by its lord, Elrond. He meets Gandalf again, who has been held captive by his fellow wizard Saruman, who plans to join with Sauron but also wants the Ring for himself. Bilbo, Gandalf, and others argue about what should be done with the One Ring. Frodo volunteers to go to Mordor, where the Ring can be destroyed. Frodo sets forth from Rivendell with eight companions: Gandalf; Aragorn and Boromir, son of the Steward of the land of Gondor; Legolas the Elf; Gimli the Dwarf; and Frodo's original three hobbit companions.

Their attempt to cross the Misty Mountains is foiled by heavy snow, so they are forced to take a path under the mountains via Moria, an ancient Dwarf kingdom, now full of Orcs and other evil creatures, where Gandalf falls into the abyss after battling a Balrog. The remaining eight members of the Fellowship then spend some time in the elf-haven of Lothlórien. They leave Lórien by river. Boromir tries to take the Ring from Frodo, who puts it on to escape him. Frodo decides to leave the others behind and continue his quest alone - but the faithful Sam insists on coming along. Boromir is killed by Orcs while trying to defend Merry and Pippin, whom the Orcs capture, meaning to take them to Isengard through the land of Rohan. After managing to escape the Orcs, and flee into Fangorn Forest, Merry and Pippin meet Treebeard, a huge treelike creature. Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas, tracking Merry and Pippin, find small prints and they follow these into Fangorn Forest, where they find Gandalf, whom they believed had perished in the mines of Moria. The four ride to Rohan's capital, Edoras. Gandalf persuades King Théoden that his people are in danger. Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas then travel to the defensive fortification Helm's Deep. Frodo and Sam, meanwhile, discover Gollum stalking them, and capture him. Frodo pities him, and lets him live in return for guidance to Mount Doom. Gollum promises to lead them to a secret entrance to Mordor. At Helm's Deep, Théoden's forces resist an onslaught of Orcs sent by Saruman, and Gandalf arrives the next morning with the Riders of Rohan just in time — and none escape.

[edit] Differences from the book

The movie makes a few deviations from the book, but overall follows Tolkien's narrative quite closely. Many parts of the book explaining the transition from one part of the plot to another were omitted, which could make the middle part of the film somewhat difficult to follow if the viewer is unfamiliar with the story.

[edit] Omissions

In the scene where Frodo finds out that his ring is the One Ring, Gandalf throws the Ring into the fireplace, as in the book, and Gandalf recites the Ring-inscription in the Black Speech, but only the first two lines, after which he says the entire inscription in English — but they never look for the inscription itself as in the book.^[6]

The film greatly condenses Frodo's journey from Bag End to Bree; for example, Crickhollow and the Old Forest do not appear.

Aragorn carries a broken sword (presumably Narsil) up to the Rivendell section of the story where he presents it to the council. However, the sword's reforging into Andúril is never shown (or mentioned) in the film, even though Aragorn carries an unbroken blade for the remainder of the film. Also, Aragorn identifies it as the "sword of Elendil of Gondor", but no connection between Elendil and Isildur (his son) is stated, only that the sword was used to cut the ring from Sauron's finger.

The film omits a scene where Legolas shoots down a Ringwraith's mount as it flies over the river Anduin.

Characters omitted include the whimsical and mysterious Tom Bombadil and his wife Goldberry, and Fatty Bolger, a hobbit who accompanied Frodo at the beginning. Other details omitted include the usage of "Nazgûl", the term for the Ringwraiths in the tongue of Mordor.

[edit] Modifications

In the film's prologue it is suggested that Sauron learned the craft of Ring-making after the 19 lesser rings were made whilst in the original story it is Sauron who teaches the Elven-smiths this ability. Another scene suggests that the Last Alliance of Men and Elves were losing the war against Sauron which contradicts the original story.^[7]

Some changes were cosmetic in nature. For example, Saruman the White adopts the title "Saruman of Many Colours" as in Tolkien's novel. In it he initially wore white but modified his robe.^[7] However, in the film his robes are neither white nor multicolored, but are in different shades of red. Legolas wears silver and grey clothes whereas in the book he is "clad in green and brown".^[7] Aragorn too wore "rusty green and brown"^[8] in the book whereas his garments are in different shades of brown in the film. Boromir wears a horned helmet, which has no precedent in the book.

The hobbits' first encounter with a Ringwraith is treated differently: in the novel, Frodo hides separately from the other hobbits;^[9] in the film, together with them.

The film includes an adaptation of the song which Frodo sings at the Prancing Pony (published as "The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late" in The Tolkien Reader). The first three lines are true to Tolkien's original, but the fourth line (which can only barely be heard) goes "That you never would believe it, so pass the beer all round!" (The original version reads "That the man in the moon himself came down one night to drink his fill")^[10] However, the later line "With a ping and a pong the fiddle strings snapped" is true to the original.^[10]

The scene where the Ringwraiths arrive in the hobbits' room and begin slashing at their beds only to find that they are not there is not in the book, wherein the hobbits only find the aftermath of the attack before dawn of the next day.^[10] Also, Tolkien implies that the attack was carried out by agents of the Ringwraiths in Bree, possibly including one Bill Ferny, not the Ringwraiths themselves (though they were present in the town). As Aragorn states:

"In dark and loneliness they are strongest; they will not openly attack a house where there are lights and many people - not until they are desperate, not while all the long leagues of Eriador still lie before us. But their power is in terror, and already some in Bree are in their clutch. They will drive these wretches to some evil work: Ferny, and some of the strangers, and, maybe, the gatekeeper too."^[11]

The High Elf Glorfindel whom the hobbits and Aragorn meet as they approach Rivendell^[12] is replaced by Legolas, who appears later in the book, at the council in Rivendell.^[7]

"Celeborn" was pronounced as "seleborn", which should have been "keleborn". According to Tolkien, the Elvish tongues have a similar relationship to the hobbits' language as latin has to modern English. Thus the hard "K" sound is represented with c rather than with k.^[13]

The depiction of the battle of Helm's Deep also differs in some details from the book. Notably, the fortress itself is called "Helm's Deep" in the film while in the book it was called the "Hornburg", and "Helm's Deep" is the name of the valley where it is located,^[14] or more precisely, the ravine behind the fortress.^[15] The explosive-like "blasting-fire", here the "Fire of Isengard," appears as magical projectiles shot from Isengard itself. Éomer is portrayed as a renegade who Gandalf finds; together, they save the day at Helm's Deep. In the book, he was present at the battle, and Gandalf arrives with Erkenbrand.^[14]

[edit] Cast

Cast lists for adaptations of The Lord of the Rings
Cast of The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)
Cast of The Lord of the Rings (1981 radio)
Cast of The Lord of the Rings (2001-3 films)

• Christopher Guard .... Frodo Baggins (voice)
• William Squire .... Gandalf (voice)
• Michael Scholes .... Samwise Gamgee (voice)
• John Hurt .... Aragorn (voice)
• Simon Chandler .... Meriadoc (voice)
• Dominic Guard .... Pippin (voice)
• Norman Bird .... Bilbo Baggins (voice)
• Michael Graham Cox .... Boromir (voice)
• Anthony Daniels .... Legolas (voice)
• David Buck .... Gimli (voice)
• Peter Woodthorpe .... Gollum (voice)
• Fraser Kerr .... Saruman (voice)
• Philip Stone .... King Théoden (voice)
• Michael Deacon .... Wormtongue (voice)
• André Morell .... Elrond (voice) (as Andre Morell)
• Alan Tilvern .... Innkeeper (voice)
• Annette Crosbie .... Galadriel (voice)
• John Westbrook .... Treebeard (voice)

[edit] Pre-production

Director Ralph Bakshi was introduced to The Lord of the Rings during the mid-1950s, when he was working as an animator for Terrytoons. In 1957, the young animator started trying to convince people that the story could be told in animation.^[3]

In the 1970s, Bakshi, who had since achieved box office success producing adult-oriented animated films such as Fritz the Cat, learned that a live-action film adaptation was being produced by United Artists, under the direction of John Boorman. According to Bakshi:

"I heard that Boorman was taking the three books and collapsing them into one screenplay, and I thought that was madness, certainly a lack of character on Boorman's part. Why would you want to tamper with anything Tolkien did?"^[16]

When Boorman's proposed adaptation fell apart, Bakshi approached the studio and proposed that he direct a three-part animated film adaptation of the book.

"And here comes the horror story, right? They said fine, because Boorman handed in this 700-page script, and do I want to read it? I said, 'Well, is it all three books in one?' They said, 'Yes, but he's changed a lot of the characters, and he's added characters. He's got some sneakers he's merchandising in the middle.' I said, 'No, I'd rather not read it. I'd rather do the books as close as we can, using Tolkien's exact dialogue and scenes.' They said, 'Fine,' which knocked me down, 'because we don't understand a word Boorman wrote. We never read the books. [...] We ain't got time to read it. You understand it, Ralph, so go do it.'"^[16]

Across the hall from United Artists, located in the same building, was Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

"I walked across the hall [...] Dan Melnick was running MGM, he was the president, [...] I thought he would understand what The Rings meant, because UA did not. Me and Melnick walk across the hall to Mike Medavoy's office and make a deal right there. Melnick gives Medavoy his money back—the Boorman script cost $3 million, so Boorman was happy by the pool, screaming and laughing and drinking, 'cause he got $3 million for his script to be thrown out. [...] Melnick gets fired, the whole deal falls through, and this new guy takes over, I forget his name. I go to the new guy and tell him, 'Danny and I were making Lord Of The Rings,' and he says, 'Lord of the what? We're not going to make this fucking picture, Ralph. We don't understand it. Danny's an idiot and we don't want to make it.'"^[16]

Following this, Bakshi contacted Saul Zaentz (who helped finance Bakshi's first film, Fritz the Cat) and asked him if he wanted to produce The Lord of the Rings. Zaentz agreed to do so. At United Artists, the original three-part adaptation was negotiated down to two parts.

Before the production started, Bakshi met with Tolkien's daughter to discuss how the film would be made. She showed him the room where her father did his writing and drawing.

"I had no idea that he had drawn. For me it was a big emotional experience. "My promise to Tolkien's daughter was to be pure to the book. I wasn't going to say, 'Hey, throw out Gollum and change these two characters.' My job was to say, 'This is what the genius said.'"^[17]

[edit] Production

[edit] Screenwriting and development

An early draft of the screenplay was written by Chris Conkling, who told the bulk of a story in flashback, from Merry Brandybuck's point of view.^[2] After Bakshi and Zaentz saw Conkling's first draft, fantasy author Peter S. Beagle was called in for a rewrite.^[2] According to the website of publisher Conlan Press, Beagle wrote multiple drafts of the script for this movie for only $5,000 on the strength of promises from Saul Zaentz to hire him for other, better-paying projects afterward, and Zaentz later reneged on these promises.^[18]

At one point in the film's development, studio executives thought that the names "Saruman" and "Sauron" were too similar, and would confuse the audience, and decided that Saruman should be renamed "Aruman." This decision was eventually reversed, but some references to "Aruman" remain in the finished film.^[19]

[edit] Animation

Much of the film used live-action footage which was then rotoscoped to produce an animated look.^[20] This saved production costs and gave the animated characters a more realistic look. For the live-action portion of the production, Bakshi and his cast and crew arrived in Spain where the rotoscope models acted out their parts in costume. Many of the actors who contributed voices to this production also acted out their parts for rotoscoped scenes. The actions of Bilbo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee were performed by Billy Barty, while Sharon Baird served as the performance model for Frodo Baggins.^[21] Although some cel animation was produced and shot for the film,^[22][23] very little of it appears in the final film.

Of the rotoscoping, Bakshi stated:

"I didn't start thinking about shooting the film totally in live action until I saw it really start to work so well. I learned lots of things about the process, like rippling. One scene, some figures were standing on a hill and a big gust of wind came up and the shadows moved back and forth on the clothes and it was unbelievable in animation. I don't think I could get the feeling of cold on the screen without showing snow or an icicle on some guy's nose. The characters have weight and they move correctly."^[3]

Following the live-action shoot, each frame of the live footage was printed out, and placed behind an animation cel. The details of each frame were copied and painted onto the cel. Both the live-action and animated sequences were storyboarded.^[24]

"Making two pictures [The live action reference and the actual animated feature.] in two years is crazy. Most directors when they finish editing, they are finished; we were just starting. I got more than I expected. The crew is young. The crew loves it. If the crew loves it, it's usually a great sign. They aren't older animators trying to snow me for jobs next year."^[3]

Tim Burton worked as a cel painter on the film. He would later become an animator for Disney, and later a film director in his own right.^[17][25][26]

[edit] Music

Main article: The Lord of the Rings (soundtrack)

The film's score was composed by Leonard Rosenman. Bakshi had wanted to include music by Led Zeppelin, but was unable to get the rights to do so.^[27] During the battle of Helm's Deep, a song with non-English lyrics is heard on the soundtrack. The words Isengard and Mordor can be clearly discerned. However, it is not in Quenya nor Sindarin, nor even in the Black Speech. For the song, Rosenman had his choir sing nonsense lyrics to get the desired effect.^[19]

[edit] Sequel

The film was originally intended to be distributed as The Lord of the Rings Part 1.^[16][17] According to Bakshi:

"When I finished the film, under tremendous deadline pressure, they said, 'We're dropping the Part One. People won't come in to see half a movie.' I told them they can't drop the Part One, because people are going to come in thinking they'll see the whole film, and it's not there. We had a huge fight, and they released it as Lord Of The Rings. So when it came to the end, people were stunned in the theater, even worse than I ever realized they would be, because they were expecting to see the whole film. People keep telling me I never finished the film. And I keep saying, 'That's right!'"^[16]

"Had it said 'Part One,' I think everyone would have respected it. But because it didn't say 'Part One,' everyone came in expecting to see the entire three books, and that's where the confusion comes in."^[17]

In interviews, Bakshi sometimes refers to the film as The Lord of the Rings Part 1. According to Bakshi, a few A and B-rolls were shot for Part 2, but no other work was done.^[28] In 2006, Bakshi stated that if he were given the opportunity to finish The Lord of the Rings, he would.^[27]

[edit] Reception

Critics were generally mixed in their responses to the film. Roger Ebert called Bakshi's effort a "mixed blessing" and "an entirely respectable, occasionally impressive job ... [which] still falls far short of the charm and sweep of the original story.^[29] Vincent Canby of the New York Times called the film "both numbing and impressive."^[30] Film website Rotten Tomatoes, which compiles reviews from a wide range of critics, gives the film a score of 50% (with nine out of 18 reviewers giving the film a positive review).^[31] The film grossed $30,471,420 at the box office^[1][32] (the budget was $8 million).^[1] In Leonard Maltin's book Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons, Maltin cites The Lord of the Rings and Fritz the Cat as the only major box office successes of Bakshi's career.^[4] United Artists believed the film to be a flop, and refused to fund a sequel which would have completed Tolkien's story on film.

However, Bakshi's film sparked enough interest in Tolkien's work to provoke not only an animated TV special produced by the Rankin-Bass animation studio based on The Return of the King, but a complete adaptation of The Lord of the Rings on BBC Radio. For this broadcast, Michael Graham Cox and Peter Woodthorpe reprised their roles of Boromir and Gollum, respectively.

Bakshi's film has also been cited as an influence on director Peter Jackson's film trilogy based on The Lord of the Rings. Jackson first encountered The Lord of the Rings via Bakshi's film,^[33] and is quoted as saying of the film, "I enjoyed it and wanted to know more."^[34]

Jackson's adaptations borrow heavily from Bakshi's version, most notably the scene of the Nazgûl appearing in the room at Bree and slashing the beds to ribbons thinking the shapes under the sheets to be the hobbits. This is almost identical to Bakshi's version which is significant as the scene is not depicted as described in the book: in the book, it is implied that people from Bree carried out the attack, not the Nazgûl (as covered above).

On the DVD commentary of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Jackson acknowledges one shot, a low angle of a hobbit at Bilbo's birthday party shouting "Proudfeet!", as an intentional homage to Bakshi's film.

Warner Bros. (the rights holder to the post-1974 Rankin-Bass library and most of the Saul Zaentz theatrical backlog) has released The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Return of the King on VHS and DVD, both packaged separately and as a boxed-set "trilogy" of films. In 2003, the Online Film Critics Society ranked the film as the 90th greatest animated film of all time.^[35]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• The Lord of the Rings at the Internet Movie Database
• The Lord of the Rings at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Lord of the Rings at the official Ralph Bakshi website.
• The Lord of the Rings at the TCM Movie Database
• J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings at Movie Tome
• The Lord of the Rings at CED Magic - Screen captures from the laserdisc edition. Also features links to galleries of screen captures from other Tolkien animated films.