As a kid in primary school here in the UK, I have vivid memories of our teacher in primary 5 reading us The Hobbit during story time each day. It probably took us most of a term to get through the whole book, but I was so captivated by that world and the characters. That makes it kind of weird that I never made the effort to read any of the Lord of the Rings books or even check out this 1978 animated movie. However, when the Peter Jackson trilogy came out, I thought it was amazing and I still do now.
How to Download The Lord of the Rings (1978)
The Lord of the Rings was released on November 15, 1978. You can download or stream the film from a digital platform. Click on the Download button at the end of this review and make your choice.
The Movie Review
The thing with the 1978 animated, The Lord of the Rings movie is that I feel I really needed to have seen this when I was a kid to appreciate it. The fact I saw this AFTER the Peter Jackson trilogy meant that it had far too much to live up to. I have watched this a couple of times and I think that it is ok. Yet I am certain if I had seen this as a kid in the 80s I would have loved it.
Ralph Bakshi’s Unique Animation Style
The Lord of the Rings is brought to us by the legend that is Ralph Bakshi, his animation style and the fact that he made animated movies for adults made him a true pioneer. With this movie, it was done via rotoscoping, so they had actors act out most of the scenes and then they would draw over them. It gives the movie a very unique look that may take a little while to get used to, but I think that it does give the movie its own personality.
The Story and Missing Sequel
What we have here is the story of the first book, but it does omit a few things, probably to try and keep that running time as close to two hours as possible! It is a decent telling of the story, even with the stuff that they decided to take out. You get most of what you would expect and also a little bit of The Two Towers as well.
However, there is something that this movie is pretty famous for and that is the fact it is only half a movie! They never got the chance to follow this up and this makes it a kind of incomplete experience. Looking back, I am not sure why they did not as it was a box office success so you would think that the studio would have gone above and beyond to complete this story.
Blu-Ray Quality and Viewing Experience
I have the Blu-Ray and the picture quality is average at best, I would be very interested in checking out the DVD release as I cannot imagine the Blu-Ray is that much of an improvement as it is very grainy and the colors are not great. However, the Blu-Ray does have an awesome feature about the movie and how it came to be. While this may have die hard fans of this movie yelling at me, I find the extra feature on the Blu-Ray to be more interesting than the movie itself.
Personal Reflection and Future Prospects
To be fair, I saw this after I saw the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings movies. There was simply no way that this could ever live up to that. I have heard a few people who did see this as kids though say that they love it and it holds a very special place for them. As I said, to fully appreciate this, I do think that I had to have seen it as a kid, I am kind of bummed out that I did not to be honest with you. I was big into fantasy as well so I am not sure why I did not.
Before I sign off, I was going to say that I could probably not watch this again and be ok with it, but that is not actually true. I think I would make the effort to watch a 4K release of this as the Blu-Ray quality is rather poor. A fully remastered 4K release that looked amazing could very well be just what I need to make me like the movie more.
