Talkie Tuesday: The Lord of the Rings

"One Ring to rule them all, and in the darkness bind them."

Hello everyone!

Okay, so I bet you're all thinking this is some sort of weird blog post considering the fact that I've talked about Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings so much in the previous ones even when they didn't need to be talked about that it's pretty funny, I guess. And then I go and finally make a totally separate post! 

It's not that bad, I swear.

I mean, okay, yes, it's bad because my love and almost-obsession with this thing is probably something I should at some point be ashamed of, but so far I'm not (and I'm ignoring the coughs and eye rolls from people who will take the almost-obsession and strike the almost out of it!). I think it's one of those literary pieces that stay with you, if you only allow it.

Which is exactly what happened with me, of course, though I won't be talking about the book in this blog post.

I've actually seen the movies so many times so far that I probably know the scripts by heart and I can voice along with the rest of them without looking at the screen. But the movie I'm going to talk about wasn't made by Peter Jackson.

In fact, it was made decades before, in 1978 by a man named Ralph Bakshi.

I stumbled upon the movie by accident while searching for one about Egypt (yeah, I know, makes no sense whatsoever), and then of course once I FOUND it, it was like someone had brought Christmas in early for me.

Yeah, yeah, I'm obsessed. Okay, I admit it.

Back to the movie.

For some reason, I thought it was one cartoon to include them all (pun intended), as in, three hours and all three of the parts would be incorporated, so as you can imagine, the closer we got to the end and the more they were still in the Fellowship, the more confused I became. A quick Google search later and I was told that only the first two bits had been adapted, with the Return of the King featuring at a later point in time.

OH.

Ahem.

The story itself is simplified for the cartoon with certain omissions made, and an even more confusing situation with the Frodo-carrying postal service to Rivendell since for some reason LEGOLAS comes to pick him up. I have no clue how that happened, but outside of that, it was the story we all know and love, the Hobbits taking the Ring to Rivendell, the Fellowship continuing on until San Gerbir, and then the story ends pretty much after the battle of Helm's Deep while Frodo and Sam (Gollum included) are on their way to Mordor.

The confusing bits to me were some of the names they used, because for some reason, Saruman became Aruman, and I thought at first that I hadn't heard correctly, but nope, he's Aruman. Don't ask me why.

Hilarious bits do include, but are not limited to Aragorn and Boromir being Men without pants (they sort of just have those long tunics and boots, although it has been confirmed they have underthings as well since one of them rolled somewhere in the movie and produced evidence of the latter), and you can imagine how much time I had to figure this all out seeing as it was what I spent my time doing! 

Legolas walks funny, and it took me forever to realize it's because they apparently got a ballet dancer to pose for him, since that's precisely how one would expect they walk on stage! So now I'm imagining Orlando Bloom in ballet tights ...

They also made Boromir a Viking for some reason as well, which serves to amuse me further since I'm trying to picture Denethor, aka John Noble, impetuously pointing at a map and saying 'We will raid there!'

Of the Hobbits ... well. Frodo kind of looks like a baby in this one, and Merry and Pippin are pretty much the same, aside from being named differently. Poor Sam though got the lot of it. He looks positively dopey! Acts like it, too. And there's a whole lot more of undercurrent going on in this one than in the movies! You know what I mean. Frodo - Sam, etc. etc. Don't tell me no one's thought it, of course you did.

The Nazgul though still scared me, even though in this version they look like they escaped off the Walking Dead set, as extras, with how they moved and blundered about. Yet another reason I will NEVER watch that show!

But what threw me was the weird filming technique they had and I thought it was just me when I saw it, because it looked like the Orcs (with their gorilla masks and all) were out of a live-action movie, slapped over with a gradient, and plonked down into the scene with Hobbits. It was the same thing with the Nazgul and the Rohirrim, and my confusion mounted. So, I turned once more to Google.

This technique is called rotoscoping, which basically means they shoot a live-action version and then get traced onto animation cels. So I wasn't losing it!

All in all though, it was an entertaining watch and I can certainly see how it would influence the other movies, though granted I did have to take a break in watching it. Seems there's only so much of a cartoon version I can take on an evening!

But, as it was LOTR, I enjoyed it anyway.

xx

*images and video not mine