The Lord of the Rings is the title of an animated film produced by Ralph Bakshi, and released to theaters in 1978. It was an adaptation of the first half of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Animation is the technique in which each frame of a film or movie is produced individually, whether generated as a computer graphic, or by photographing a drawn image, or by repeatedly making small changes to a model unit (see claymation and stop motion), and then photographing the result with a... Film refers to the celluloid media on which movies are printed Film is a term that encompasses motion pictures as individual projects, as well as the field in general. ... Ralph Bakshi (born October 29, 1938, in Haifa, Israel) is a director of animation and occasionally live-action films. ... 1978 was a common year starting on Sunday (the link is to a full 1978 calendar). ... J. R. R. Tolkien in 1972, in his study at Merton Street (from by H. Carpenter) John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (January 3, 1892 – September 2, 1973) was the author of The Hobbit and its sequel The Lord of the Rings. ... Wikicities has a wiki related to this article: The Lord of the Rings Wiki The Encyclopedia of Arda - Mark Fishers tribute site to the works of Tolkien Tolkien Gateway Tolkien Collectors Gateway The Tolkien Wiki Community TheOneRing. ...

Bakshi's most ambitious effort (and his most famous after his animated adaptation of the underground comic Fritz the Cat), the film was seen as a critical disappointment. It was produced by Saul Zaentz's Fantasy Films, but distributed to theaters by United Artists. The term underground comics or comix describes the self-published or small press comic books that sprang up in the US in the late 1960s. ... Fritz the Cat Fritz the Cat is a comic book character created by Robert Crumb during the height of the underground comics movement of the 1960s. ... The United Artists Corporation (aka United Artists Pictures and United Artists Films) was formed on February 5, 1919 by four Hollywood greats: Charles Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and D. W. Griffith. ...

Much of the film used live-action footage which was then rotoscoped to produce an animated look. This saved production costs and arguably could have given the animated characters a more realistic look due to secondary animation that a traditionally animated film would not have included. Most critics seemed to believe that the sections of the film with rotoscoped animation were inferior in quality to "normal" animated films. A rotoscope is a device that enables animators to trace live action movement, frame by frame, for use in animation. ...

Additionally, the film ended somewhat abruptly after the battle of Helm's Deep, but before Sam, Frodo and Gollum traverse the Dead Marshes. The box-office disappointment of the film (combined with finances) forced Bakshi to abandon his plans for a sequel. In J. R. R. Tolkiens fictional universe of Middle-earth, Helms Deep was a large valley in the north-western Ered Nimrais (White Mountains). ... Samwise Gamgee (T.A. 2980-?; S.R. 1380-?), a character from J. R. R. Tolkiens fantasy world Middle-earth, is Frodo Baggins servant who proves to be the most loyal of the Fellowship of the Ring. ... Elijah Wood portrays Frodo Baggins WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!! HURRAYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!! IM FRODO BAGGINS!!! I LOVE BEING FRODO BAGGINS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I ALSO LOVE CHEESE!!!!!!!!! HURAY!!!!!! PIE. ... Andy Serkis provides the voice and movements for the computer generated character, Gollum, in Peter Jacksons film trilogy of Lord of the Rings Gollum is a fictional character from J. R. R. Tolkiens universe of Middle-earth. ... The Dead Marshes is a fictional place from J. R. R. Tolkiens universe, Middle-earth. ...

In an attempt to "finish" Tolkien's story and make it more complete for audiences, the Rankin-Bass animation studio (fresh on the heels of the success of its previous TV adaptation of The Hobbit) produced an animated TV special based on the final part of The Lord of the Rings. Their adaptation of The Return of the King finished the story and answered most of the questions raised by Bakshi's animated film. Rankin-Bass (aka Videocraft International) is an American production company, known for its seasonal television specials. ... A Television Special is a television program that is essentially a television movie or a short film usually intended to be broadcast sporadically, typically once a year at most. ... The Return of the King is the third and final volume of J. R. R. Tolkiens The Lord of the Rings, following The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers. ... The Return of the King is an animated adaptation of the novel by J. R. R. Tolkien which was released by Rankin-Bass as a TV special in 1980. ...

However, several unresolved story developments between The Lord of the Rings and The Return of the King were left unresolved, especially the betrayal of Frodo by Gollum, and the attack of Shelob the monster spider-creature. Shelob is a fictional character from J. R. R. Tolkiens world of Middle-earth. ...

Warner Bros. (the rights holder to the post-1974 Rankin-Bass library and most of the Saul Zaentz theatrical backlog) has released The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Return of the King on VHS and DVD, both as separate packaged and as a boxed-set "trilogy" of films. 1974 is a common year starting on Tuesday (click on link for calendar). ... Top view VHS cassette with US Quarter for scale Bottom view of VHS cassette with magnetic tape exposed The Video Home System, better known by its acronym VHS, is a recording and playing standard for video cassette recorders (VCRs), developed by JVC (with some of its critical technology under lucrative... DVD is an optical disc storage media format that can be used for storing data, including movies with high video and sound quality. ...

Fans of the original novel tend to regard the animated movie as anathema. Nonetheless, many have seen it (often several times) and find its flaws amusing, similar to 'so bad it's good' cult films. A cult film is a movie that attracts a small but devoted group of obsessive fans or one that has remained popular over successive years amongst a small group of followers. ...

Though the film was a commercial and critical failure, it created enough interest in The Lord of the Rings that the BBC decided to adapt it for the radio. A young writer named Brian Sibley expressed interest and was paired with a more experienced writer named Michael Bakewell to write the script. Broadcast in 1981, this version carried over two cast members from Bakshi's film: Michael Graham Cox and Peter Woodthorpe reprised their respective roles of Boromir and Gollum.

External links

• The Lord of the Rings at the Internet Movie Database
• A Critique of Ralph Bakshi's Lord of the Rings, an amusing and shamelessly subjective review.

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb), owned by Amazon. ...