Word: bakshi
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...took Ralph Bakshi, Chris Conkling and Peter S. Beagle (a Tolkien biographer) to show me what people who don't like Tolkien see when they read his books: A world of ludicrous little people, pedantic wizards and interminable sword and sorcery cliches. Conkling and Beagle have a great burden to bear for their treacherous adaptation of Tolkien's story, but the truly responsible party is Bakshi...
...Bakshi's animation fails largely because he tries to dictate all these things from his own vision an interpretation that is dauntingly shallow...
...falling into that trap I'm not going to fund anyone who turns the Battle of Helm's Deep into nothing more than a Cowboys and Indians scene, complete with Gunsmoke music and Gandalf as John Wayne leading the rescue. Maybe that's all the book is, essentially, but Bakshi seems to exaggerate that which is formulaic and even trite in the books. Moreover, his animations are wooden and lazy -- groups of figures will stand without moving while a battle rages around them. The synch of the lips and sound falters and only for brief moments can you forget that...
...BAKSHI AND COMPANY must be blatant since they do not reach below the surface of the books to convey what Tolkien was really writing about: The books succeed, despite admittedly two-dimensional characterization and large doses of sword fightin' and horse ridin', because Tolkien subtly leads you into his world and somehow makes you care about what goes on there, makes you afraid of the evil which threatens it, and involves you in the adventures as if you were there. Bakshi's world is merely a cartoon, somehow you can't get around that whether you know the books...
...Perhaps because some dreams are better left alone lest they shatter at a touch and lose their magic in becoming real. This movie does just that to Tolkien. But that won't stop anyone from turning out the second half of Bakshi's tour de force. Once the Ring took control of its possessor, nothing could stop him from wanting more and more, even if the ultimate result was for the worst. Hollywood has the Ring now, and the business of perversion proceeds as Tolkien might have predicted. "...In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows...