Its brevity, while it may take away from the depth of many scenes, is also a benefit, as it makes the film a breeze to watch. The animation with Topcraft is actually pretty solid for a television special, with real attention to detail shown when designing the various creatures and landscapes of Middle-Earth. The Hobbit was a Better Fit for the Rankin/Bass StyleĪlthough it does not bear any of the signature heart or sense of adventure that makes Tolkien’s stories so great, the Rankin/Bass version of The Hobbit is mostly harmless. However, at just 78 minutes long, each of these elements are reduced to their bare essentials, making this version of The Hobbit feel more akin to a general summation than a faithful adaptation. The film follows Bilbo Baggins through his recruitment by the wizard Gandalf, his subsequent adventure with the Dwarves of the Lonely Mountain, his competition of riddles with the creature Gollum, and his ultimate confrontation with the dragon Smaug. Unlike The Return of the King, this adaptation actually tells the entirety of the story it's based on. Preceding The Return of the King by a few years was The Hobbit, the first adaptation of Tolkien’s work that was undertaken by Rankin/Bass and Topcraft. Related: The Lord of the Rings: Revisiting 1980's Animated 'The Return of the King' Anyone unfamiliar with the story will be completely lost when watching it, while anyone who has read the book or even just watched Peter Jackson’s version will be utterly disappointed with how it has been brought to life in this version. There’s no magic to the Rankin/Bass Return of the King. Even Aragorn, the titular king in the film’s name, doesn’t show up until the last 15 minutes – the film itself is nearly 100 minutes long. It throws the viewer right into the middle of the story, and many of the best characters (such as Legolas and Gimli) have been cut entirely. The film adapts just the final book in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, skipping over, summarizing or altogether removing essentially everything from the first two books. The key reason for the lack of longstanding interest in The Return of the King is that it’s just a flat-out terrible Tolkien adaptation. What Makes It the Worst Lord of the Rings Film It did not receive any particular love or praise upon its release, and it has only become less and less popular in the decades since. It was a co-production between Rankin/Bass, which had produced animated holiday classics like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman, and the Japanese studio Topcraft, which would go on to produce Nausicaä of the Valley of the Windand be instrumental in the formation of Studio Ghibli. The film was created as a television special, which aired on ABC, and it followed an adaptation of The Hobbit, which was released in the same manner a few years earlier. The animated version of The Return of the Kingfrom 1980 is one of the most forgotten adaptations of Tolkien’s writing.
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