4. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Long before Peter Jackson's epic trilogy made movie history, fans of The Lord of the Rings eagerly anticipated the 1978 big screen version by animator/director Ralph Bakshi. While hardly a perfect film, and certainly unworthy of comparison to the Peter Jackson trilogy, Bakshis film was highly stylized, well produced and contained moments that inspired Jackson in his own interpretation. The buzz at the time had to do with Bakshis rotoscoping technique; that is, filming actors and then having animators render the live-action footage frame-by-frame as animated cells. The idea was that the movements of animated characters would be more lifelike. The animation is, in places, quite exquisite, and audiences were initially enthusiastic. But The Lord of the Rings was open-ended, leaving out the storyline from The Return of the King. Its abrupt ending left many movie goers confused and disappointed, since the film was not titled or promoted as a part one. The film was not a flop, earning more than $30 million at the box office. But it was obviously not enough for producers to foot the bill for the next one. Bakshi went on to do American Pop and Cool World, and what fans ultimately got was the tiring Rankin/Bass musical version of The Return of the King which aired on television. Until 2001 the animated Lord of the Rings was all fans had. It did well on videocassette and DVD. Yet it seems incomplete because it is, and it needs a concluding chapter. While highly improbable, it would be interesting to see The Return of the King in the style of the animated Lord of the Rings. Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol has been made and remade over the years, live action and animated, so why not Rings? But for now, Bakshi's vision of Middle Earth remains an incomplete footnote in cinema history.