Adapting Lord of the Rings

''and has a superior musical score.'' ????????

that's utter barking nonsense. Shores soundtrack was masterful and beautiful.

" Bakshi has the better script, gets the mood right most of the time, and has a superior musical score."

You have GOT to be kidding me!

I particularly hate Legolas the half Mongol poofter......Mrs Figg

''Bakshi left open the possibility that the book was a great work of literature (which it is).''

by 'left open' does he mean utterly failed to convey the book was a great work of literature? its very disingenuous, you cant justify using the absence of something as an argument against another director. Bakshi also 'left open' the beauty of Middle Earth and 'left open' its atmosphere, in other words it failed to do these things, whereas PJ for all his faults did indeed convey the book was epic fantasy on a grand scale complete with sweeping vistas and soaring musical score.

I think Bakshi's version on the whole convinced people to never come near LotR, while PJ's version actually drew people to it. They may not have gotten quite what they expected, but it didn't drive them away in scorn the way Bakshi did.

I challenge any Bakshi supporter to find a single person who saw that film then went out to buy the books because of it. We know LotR books had a surge in popularity after PJ's movies. Bakshi supporters seem to be so stuck on the script (and exact Tolkien dialogue) that if it was performed in a water closet by a troupe of clowns they'd still call it superior.

Bakshi? Superior musical score?

No comment.

I'm not sure Bakshi ever had a decent budget to work with.- Rhadagast

The pinnacle for me of Bakshi animation work, and the one time he did get a budget to do it with is Fire and Ice, its where he perfected his rotoscoping technique and could afford to do it properly. Its basically a 70's Dungeons and Dragons style tale with some borrowing from Lord of the Rings and even star Wars, but its very entertaining and almost always amazing to look at, it also has an excellent soundtrack-



Shows what he can do when a studio gives him the funds and the talent to do it with.


'I think Bakshi's version on the whole convinced people to never come near LotR'- Halfy


Sorry Halfy but you are talking complete pish here.
The film was a huge success- it made 30 million at the box office of the back of a 3 million budget. It also inspired as a direct result of it the making of the other animated film by Rankin and the BBC adaptation,who used many of the same actors (I had thought it came first but apparently Bakshi was first by a few years) and according to wiki it also led to a surge in book sales. Its also rated the 36th greatest animated film of all time by Time magazine, primarily because of its legacy, not least evident in PJ's own work. In fact no Bakshi version, no PJ version, as it wasnt love of Tolkien inspired Pj, it was watching Bakshi's version as a kid.

Regards the soundtrack I am also a fan of Leonard Rosenman (he a ton of soundtracks and was still doing so up until he retired in 20010 among his last soundtracks were Robocop 2 and Star Trek IV) I love how uplifting his main theme is- its pure hobbity bravery and courage in a tune.



In fact a lot of the sound work in Bakshi's is inventive imaginative and effective, a particular favourite of mine are the Black Rider voices at the Ford- nothing in PJ's gives me anything like the chills I get hearing Bakshi's Wraiths crying after Frodo as he flees, "Come back, come back. To Mordor we shall take you."

I think the success was simply because it was the first screen adaptation, so readers wanted to see it. I doubt many went back for a second viewing. Not sure which wiki you are talking about, as wikipedia mentions no surge in book sales.

I'm not saying Bakshi's film is a better or even a good version. And I don't think anyone is really extolling its virtues (that much anyway). Even the review I linked to on the previous page wonders why anyone would bother to make an LotR movie if they could only do it cheaply? The argument is, rather, that Bakshi doesn't veer from characters or plot points. He doesn't change the story as if it were his own to do with as he pleased.

I don't agree that Bakshi's movie had the better script, as far as being treated like one. I think he was too lavish in his fidelity to the source and that kind of helped undermine his effort, but it was an admirable effort, given the tight constraints he had to work with.

As for the score, I'm neutral. I don't feel incline to watch either version to form an opinion

That LOTRs theme sounded so iconically 60's I almost expected to see a bunch of street ragamuffins, dancing in step & singing "gor blimey Guv" As in the film "Oliver" I kinda have a soft spot for baddies in a lot of films & the Wraith sniffing the ground with determination when the Hobbits 1st set out is creepy cuz you know the Wraith isnt gonna give up

'Others recognize it as a creative high watermark that inspired a generation of ’70s kids to pick up Tolkien and read—one of them notably being Jackson himself. '

From an interview with Bakshi with ToRN of all places (its quite hostile interview mind you- as Bakshi is not very happy he gave a 2 hour interview to ToRN and they never bothered publishing any of it).

I have been looking at sales figures but it seems very hard to find a decade by decade break down to see the exact figures- but ToRN is not the only source which mentions increased book sales off the back of the Bakshi film- given its box office success its likely it would do to some extent, though certainly not to the Pj extent if only because midway through making his film the studio Bakshi worked for changed hands, and they were not interested, would provide no more money and even after it made a lot of money had no interest i allowing him to finish the story. They also refused to spend much money marketing it- so it was a whole different kettle of fish ion terms of how the studio approached the film compared to PJ.

But to say 'I think Bakshi's version on the whole convinced people to never come near LotR' is obviously wrong as it inspired further adaptations up to and including PJ's.

Yeah, notably, PJ borrows Bakshi's opening expositional sequence device.

I have to say I nearly didnt read LOTRs going by Bakshi's version. I liked the story of LOTRs but I dont think I enjoyed the medium. I had to read LOTRs at school & I re-read it years after, Actually this is what got my interest going again, can you believe it !!

The Rankin-Bass Return of the King was just an effort to conclude the only film version out there, and you don't see signs of them being 'inspired' by it. But if it inspired anyone, it was out of a need to do it right for a change. Granted PJ stole some of the visuals, but he didn't steal the feel, which was totally off kilter.

@ the "superior soundtrack" comment

halfwise wrote:I challenge any Bakshi supporter to find a single person who saw that film then went out to buy the books because of it.  We know LotR books had a surge in popularity after PJ's movies.  Bakshi supporters seem to be so stuck on the script (and exact Tolkien dialogue) that if it was performed in a water closet by a troupe of clowns they'd still call it superior.

Well ... not that I think this is necessarily to Bakshi's credit, but PJ maintains that that's what he did. But generally speaking I agree with your point.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Sorry Halfy but you are talking complete pish here.
The film was a huge success- it made 30 million at the box office of the back of a 3 million budget. It also inspired as a direct result of it the making of the other animated film by Rankin and the BBC adaptation,who used many of the same actors (I had thought it came first but apparently Bakshi was first by a few years) and according to wiki it also led to a surge in book sales. Its also rated the 36th greatest animated film of all time by Time magazine, primarily because of its legacy, not least evident in PJ's own work. In fact no Bakshi version, no PJ version, as it wasnt love of Tolkien inspired Pj, it was watching Bakshi's version as a kid.

$30 million was not a huge success even in 1978.  It did fairly good, and the film probably turned a profit because the budget was so low, but it didn't set the world on fire.  If it had, the studio would have pressed ahead with a sequel to complete the story.  And it most certainly did not inspire the other animated films.  Rankin/Bass' The Hobbit came out before Bakshi's film and their sequel was already in the works when Bakshi's film was released (my source for that is JW Braun's book on the film adaptations, which I read several years ago and is also cited by the authors of the Wikipedia article on the 1980 ROTK film).  I also couldn't find any reference to increased book sales on the Wikipedia page for Bakshi's film so I'd appreciate it you could point me in the direction of that.  Also, the only list of greatest animated films from Time magazine that I could find in a few minutes of Googling only goes up to #25.

I used to have that poster on my bedroom wall Azriel! I once used it as an illustration in a book report speech I had to give at school!

On the soundtrack again- there's a lot I like- the Black Riders theme is really disturbing, and I like it how its juxtaposted with the cheery hobbit themes-





I also like helms Deep- says Orc to me more than PJ's does. I like all the horns.



I also like the music for the Helms Deep section in the BBC version too (starting about 13.43) and how they use it in that medium-



*there is also some wonderful crabbit Gandalf at 12.20!

We can't deny that at least some people read the book because of Bakshi because we have anecdotal evidence that proves at least one famous person did so. But at the same time, I'm gonna need something more than TORn fanboyism to believe that it made a major difference in sales.  Keep in mind that Bakshi's film was made just after LOTR the book's greatest period of mainstream success.  It's not like the book was by any means obscure when PJ's film was made, but it was no longer one of the hottest properties around, though it obviously had a huge latent fanbase that made PJ's big-budget adaptation a safe enough bet for New Line.

The wiki page doesnt have the sales mention Eldo- that was an error on my part confusing two sources I read last night- wasn't till Halfy mentioned it and I went and checked out and made the correction above that that claim comes from the ToRN interview.

And anything which makes a profit of 26 million the 70's is a success. It's just churlish to suggest otherwise.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:The wiki page doesnt have the sales mention Eldo- that was an error on my part confusing two sources I read last night- wasn't till Halfy mentioned it and I went and checked out and made the correction above that that claim comes from the ToRN interview.

No problem. I refer to my immediately preceding post (which was probably made while you were typing this one), though.

And anything which makes a profit of 26 million the 70's is a success. It's just churlish to suggest otherwise.

Do you even read my posts, or do you just scan through them for buzzwords?  I just fucking said that the film would have turned a profit.  There's not the wealth of box office data for the '70s that we have for more recent decades but it was probably in the top 20 grossing films of the year in North America.  But it was not a "huge success", which is what you said and what I was responding to.

I would say 28 million in profit is a huge success. I wouldnt say no to it.

And why so angry Eldo? I dont feel your language used against me here is at all appropriate to the debate. Did Bakshi tamper with you as a child or something? As I find your levels of personal hostility on this matter rather puzzling to say the least.
I made my post before whilst you were posting your. It was in response to your previous post asking for clarification.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:'Others recognize it as a creative high watermark that inspired a generation of ’70s kids to pick up Tolkien and read—one of them notably being Jackson himself. '

From an interview with Bakshi with ToRN of all places (its quite hostile interview mind you- as Bakshi is not very happy he gave a 2 hour interview to ToRN and they never bothered publishing any of it).

I have been looking at sales figures but it seems very hard to find a decade by decade break down to see the exact figures- but ToRN is not the only source which mentions increased book sales off the back of the Bakshi film- given its box office success its likely it would do to some extent, though certainly not to the Pj extent if only because midway through making his film the studio Bakshi worked for changed hands, and they were not interested, would provide no more money and even after it made a lot of money had no interest i allowing him to finish the story. They also refused to spend much money marketing it- so it was a whole different kettle of fish ion terms of how the studio approached the film compared to PJ.

But to say 'I think Bakshi's version on the whole convinced people to never come near LotR' is obviously wrong as it inspired further adaptations up to and including PJ's.

So really you only have Bakshi to blame for PJ then.

Bungo- yup- sad but true- no Bakshi no PJ version. Just goes to show that you can never foresee all repercussions from an event!

Pettytyrant101 wrote:I would say 28 million in profit is a huge success. I wouldnt say no to it.

It didn't make $27 or $28 million in profit.  The studio would only have taken a cut of that.  Nowadays that's typically around 55% of the final gross, but I don't know what the exact figure would have been 40 years ago.  The $3 million budget probably did not include marketing or distribution costs either, which wouldn't have added a ton to it, but eats into profit as well.  But more to the point, just look at some of the other films from that era on, say, boxofficemojo.com.  It did pretty good, but it would not have been one of the best performing movies of the year.  Context is key here.

And why so angry Eldo? I dont feel your language used against me here is at all appropriate to the debate. Did Bakshi tamper with you as a child or something? As I find your levels of personal hostility on this matter rather puzzling to say the least.  

I find your habit of continually shifting the goalposts to be inappropriate, as is your habit of making personal comments and speculation about why people (whether it's me here or in the BBS, or others in the Doctor Who thread) have the gall to disagree with you.

I made my post before whilst you were posting your. It was in response to your previous post asking for clarification.

I get that that happens.  It's not a problem.

I repeat (with some amplification) the success would be due to fans of the books who just had to see the only existing film adaptation. After which they likely walked out in disgust, never to return. The success was not due to any intrinsic artistic merit. A few like PJ might have been inspired by some of the visuals but the effect was nothing compared to those who disliked it.

'as is your habit of making personal comments '- Eldo

Where did I do this?

As to shifting the goalposts- I suggest you go back an d look at my Bakhi v Pj thread, where I say exactly the same things I have been saying here- and that was written four years ago. So I fail to see how I am shifting the goalposts- my views on this have been utterly consistent.