The Lord of the Rings (1978)
★★★ — The Lord of the Rings (1978)
Ralph Bakshi's animated adaptation of Tolkien's novels arrived at an interesting crossroads, produced under Saul Zaentz (who would later back Amadeus and The English Patient) on a budget that was modest by Hollywood standards even then. Bakshi, coming off a run of provocative adult animations including Fritz the Cat and Wizards, was an unlikely but characteristically bold choice for the material. The film was shot partly in Spain using live-action rotoscope reference footage, a technique Bakshi had leaned on before and would continue to use. United Artists had previously passed on the project, and while Bakshi intended it as the first half of a two-part adaptation, the sequel was never made, leaving the story incomplete on screen. It turned a reasonable profit, but the unresolved ending frustrated many.
Ralph Bakshi’s 1978 The Lord of the Rings is less a film and more a surreal, half-realised vision, a fever dream painted in rotoscoped animation and dark fantasy tones. It’s ambitious, no doubt: an attempt to bring Tolkien’s epic to the screen with a gritty, adult edge, using rotoscoping (tracing over live-action footage) to give the characters a strange, uncanny realism. The result is visually striking when it works, especially the shadowy landscapes, but also jarringly stiff and dreamlike in ways that can pull you out of the story. The film covers roughly the first two-thirds of The Fellowship of the Ring and part of The Two Towers, but then… it just stops. There’s no real ending, just a “to be continued” tease that never came, leaving everything feeling incomplete. You get flashes of brilliance, but they’re stitched together with uneven pacing and narration that tries to fill gaps the runtime can’t cover. It’s not bad, exactly. It’s got atmosphere, ambition, and a haunting musical score. But as an adaptation it’s more curiosity than classic. It captures the darkness of Middle-earth, but not always its soul. You can see what it could have been, a groundbreaking animated epic, but instead, it remains a fascinating, flawed fragment. Imperfect, unfinished, but undeniably bold. A cult piece of animation history that deserves respect, even if it never quite reaches Rivendell.
Rating: ★★★ | Year: 1978 | Watched: 2025-09-19
Where to watch (UK)
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Related on Movies With Macca
More from United Kingdom: Lessons of Darkness (1992) · Shinjuku Boys (1995) · The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) · Blue (1993)
More from the 1970s: Fantastic Planet (1973) · Here and Elsewhere (1976) · Italianamerican (1974) · Punishment Park (1971)
More adventure: Alice in Wonderland (1951) · The Eagle (1925) · Louisiana Story (1948) · The General (1926)
More animation: Fantastic Planet (1973) · Alice in Wonderland (1951) · Mononoke the Movie: The Phantom in the Rain (2024) · Mononoke the Movie: Chapter II - The Ashes of Rage (2025)
