Lord of the Rings - Peter Jackson vs Bakshi and Rankin-Bass

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When most people think of the "Lord of the Rings", they nowadays think of the Peter Jackson trilogy. However, what is less well known was that prior to the release of Peter Jackson's film trilogy, there was actually a previous film adaptation of Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings". This older "Lord of the Rings" movie was made in 1978 and was actually an animated film by Ralph Bakshi and was noted for it's extensive use of rotoscoping. Rotoscoping was a film technique where one filmed live actors and then animated over the actors, it was actually sort of like the predecessor to the modern technique of dressing an actor up in green suit and then putting computer generated CGI around the character like what they did to create Gollum in the Peter Jackson films or Jar Jar Binks in the Star Wars prequels. Unfortunately, I've heard that Bakshi's movie was a bit rushed because the studio didn't allow him to make the "Lord of the Rings" into a trilogy like he wanted and he had to do it in only 2 movies. A bit dissatisfies with how his first "Lord of the Rings" film turned, he never made the second part, so his film basically tries to cover "Fellowship of the Ring" and "The Two Towers" in a 2 hour film.

Realising that Bakshi wasn't going to do "Return of the King", Arthur Rankin of the Rankin-Bass Company decided to do his own version of "Return of the King" in 1980. He also did an animated version of "The Hobbit" in 1976. So I was wondering, for those of you who've seen Bakshi's "Lord of the Rings" and the Rankin-Bass version of "Return of the King", how do you think they compare to the Peter Jackson films? For comparison, I've found these clips on Youtube:

Here's the death of Boromir as depicted in Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings":

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dc6aciIhO6c[/youtube]

Here's the equivalent scene in Bakshi's "Lord of the Rings". I have no idea why Bakshi's version has Aragorn looking like a native american and Boromir looking like a viking, oh well:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZpmZyTK2dI[/youtube]

Here's the infamous scene in Peter Jackson's version of "Return of the King" where Eowyn confronts the Witch King of Angmar:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQ_-rmuPZC4[/youtube]

By comparison, the equivalent scene the Rankin-Bass version of "Return of the King" kept the same dialogue as in the book, however it seems to me that the Witch King is portrayed incredibly badly. The 2 little guys in this scene are Merry and Pippin:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWjt6LGhHsI[/youtube]

Nostalgia Critic did an Old vs New comparison:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tn0JSZTr_j4[/youtube]

bakshi did a unique trick with some of his rotoscoping, he videotaped scenes using high-band video and then copied that onto film which he then edited and then rotoscoped. at the time, some critics said that gave the film a uniquely eerie dark ambience.

I have seen the animated LOTR but not the animted Return of the King. I found the animated LORT to be pretty eerie from the dark visuals, which I liked. I'm not too fond of the characters designs though. They seems kind of...ugly I guess. Anyway, Peter Jackson's LOTR trilogy are my favorite films ever. Everything was so well done. I fell in love with these movies. I've watched them, especially the extended editions so many times. And I've watched every behind the scenes and special feature. I have read LOTR twice and I love it as well. It is one of my favoritew books. In my opinion, the movies are such great adaptations. They had greater productions values than the animated feature of course, which is why they are superior. But, the animated films are still worth watching, I think.

What I can say is that Peter Jackson's orcs seem to score a 0 in singing ability:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdXQJS3Yv0Y[/youtube]

Here is another version you may not have seen. Enjoy!

And you've revived a 7 year old thread of mine. Well done.

Anyway, that's a Sesame street parody of Lord of the Rings, it's not actually an adaptation of the books, like what this thread was originally about.