Shudder. I can't say which is worse, this or its lousy seventies predecessor. The fact that the Minstrel of Gondor (bad 1980 hair meets bad 1980 strummy ballads) has a bigger part than Merry should be your first indication that something is very very wrong. I will restrict my comments to two stylistic issues, and leave the trashing of the scraggly animation, nightmarishly comic music, the horrible script, the wretched line delivery, and laughable character designs to someone else.

1) "Be bloody, bold, and resolute, and laugh to scorn the power of man, for none of woman born shall harm Macbeth."
It is very very easy to turn the Witch-King of Angmar into Macbeth, and this film falls right into the trap. There is a certain subtle idea in the stories of knighthood and chivalry of Destiny and Personal Touch; many worthy knights try a certain task and fail at it through no fault of their own, only because that task is Reserved for another knight. It is this sense of Eowyn's destiny that Tolkein is trying to capture, not the heavy-handed pseudo-invulnerability we're used to in Macbeth. The Nazgul's laugh, "No living man may hinder me," is a lighthearted hint that Eowyn's goose is cooked, and her response, "No living man am I!" is a joke, laughter in the face of despair, Eowyn's trademark delight in hopelessness. She's not brandishing her femininity as a brand of Doom, she's letting the Witch-King know that's she's desperate enough to tackle him. The Witch-King is not Macbeth, and Lady Eowyn's announcement that she is a woman is not a Trumpet-Call of Heaven deisgnating her as the Chosen Slayer. I will comment further on this on the novel board.

2) The Return of the King
This movie makes a huge deal out of Aragorn as the Returning King, and Gandalf moans and groans that if the Orcs destroy Minas Tirith, Aragorn will have no kingdom to return to. Nobody bothers to mention who Aragorn is or why he left his kingdom or why anyone should care that he regains the throne. And frankly, I think that if a city is destroyed, it creates bigger evils than its king's loss of his job. If I were to take this movie at face value, I'd tell Gandalf to stop worrying about the pathetic king and care about the fact that they're all going to die if the city is taken.

And Denethor is a flaming screeching mad scientist whose bad hair, balding pate, and bugging eyes make him look like the witch in last year's Simpsons Halloween special.


For the sake of discussion, I will re-post Wes Collins' remarks on this wretched monstrosity:

The Return of the King. Where to start? Though they claim that this film is based on the "original versions of The Hobbit and the Return of the King," I don't believe it. It seems far more likley to me that theis piece of trash was based on either Rankin, or Bass's acid induced hallucinations of The Hobbit and The Return of the King. As with The Lord of the Rings, I will list my complaints/nits:
1.) There must be something around twenty-six dream sequences in this movie, leaving around two minutes of running time for scenes which Tolkien actually wrote. The worst (to be honest, I've TRIED not to remember them all) are the indigestible "Samwise the Strong" sequence, and the detestable scene where an orc smiles and waves at Sam and Frodo.
2.) I never knew that the Nazgul were skeltons that flew on winged horses that GALLOP through the air. [Kira's note-- nine horsemen of the Apocalypse, anyone?]
3.) I also had no idea that Pippin had a ten foot long neck, and spoke with an American accent, or that his character was totally one-dimensional. [Kira's note-- and sideburns like Martin Van Buren!]
4.)On that token, how many SECONDS is Meriadoc in the film? Thirty? Forty? Hardly a character at all.
5.) So denethor was a crippled, old, Charles Montgomery Burns, eh? I did not know that. And all he has to do is appearantly stand BEHIND a fire, and that will kill him? Whoa.
6.) Gandalf the White, instead of being the great leader of men that he is in the book, is here a self-pitying cry-baby, who sits slumped over in a tower while the Battle of the Pellenor is raging around him. Oh woe is him.
7.) The songs must be heard to be believed, but I don't suggest that you try if you have any heart conditions of any kind. "Where there's a whip, there's a way?" My God.

So, as you can see, the Animated Trilogy of JRR Tolkien is rife with foolishness, and produced one good entry, one bad entry, and one let's-buy-each-copy-of-this-film-and buy-the-rights-and-set it-all-on-fire entry. I thank Peter Jackson for giving me what I needed for a Tolkien film Praise him with Great Praise!

I have to wonder what possesed Rankin and Bass to totally disregard the most basic ideas of the book, when they had done so well on The Hobbit. I've given it some thought, and I think that many factors were against this film being at all true to the book. Now I also think that they loved Tolkien's writings. Of that I have no doubt. But they were ill at ease to do another mostly faithful adaptation of him. They wanted to be creative, and yet do Tolkien at the same time. Sadly, they failer on both points. They also seemed bent on doing a children's picture, which The Return of the King (the book) is certainly not. By adding songs and taking demension away from the characters, they thought they would create something that a child could enjoy. I think they failed there, too. Their interpertation of the look of Middle-Earth, which was quite good in The Hobbit is quite inapropriate here.
And just where are Legolas and Gimli?

I don't really wonder, honestly. Their problems is that they were working with about 90 minutes and 7 books (i.e. Book I, Book II, etc.) worth of material. They decided they wanted a real ending, and that meant that had to cut straight to Return of the King, and in doing so, lose a lot of the ideas. They decided they wanted this to be meant for children, so they toned down some of the carnage and made some of the characters sillier and all of the hobbits less reliant on Gandalf. And since Return of the King is not known for its internal songs (most of the good ones are in I-IV and the rest,with one exception, are laments for Theoden) they decided to add more.

I think the biggest problem they had with this feature, those three stylistic choices aside, was BUDGET. Somehow for "The Hobbit" they were able to dig up the funds to have really really talented artists and animators do the backgrounds and character art. There is an enormous difference between the "look" of Middle Earth in "Hobbit" and "Return," and this is why. Strangely enough, I recall "The Hobbit" as having the darker look, which shows the lousy skills and clueless nature of the guys they hired the second time around. "The Hobbit" also had a more "classic" and less pseudo-pop score, as well as Tolkein lyrics and not those of some two-bit underpaid hack.

In general, I think both the artists and the composer were trying to be daring with their limited budget and make the characters look and sound hipper. Unfortunately, this backfired, and now we all can have a good laugh and the outrageous sideburns, bad seventies hair, and awful strummy ballads. They also made a valiant efforts to make the four (three?) hobbits look distinct, which was a good idea in and of itself, but not when it's put into practice by giving Pippin a giraffe-neck and sideburns.

In one point I disagree with you, though, Wes. Legolas and Gimil are not cut from the stage production of "Return of the King" that is currently running in Chicago, and I hate to say it, but they're really really extraneous. The major tasks of Legolas and Gimli are done in Books II and III, and in "The Return of the King" they appear as everyone's faithful friends and not much else. There's nothing plotwise they have to do. People who know the story will miss them, of course, but kids who are going straight from "The Hobbit" could easily be confused by the addition of too many useless characters.

One good thing I will say about this rotten orange. Unlike in Bashiki's dead fish or Peter Jackson's masterpiece, Frodo and Sam (and Merry, wherever the heck he is) here look like hobbits and not like human children. Rankin/Bass hobbits are broad-shouldered, rough-featured, large-eyed creatures, who clearly come from another race than humans. They're not the most handsome of beings (according to our narrow elfin standards of beauty), but you get used to them after a while and they kind of grow on you. And if they were drawn better and animated less shakily, I think the hobbits in this film might be closer to what Tolkein had in mind than blue-eyed dreamboat Elijah Wood.

I've had some arguments with my good friend about how human Hobbits are supposed to look. The way I see it, they had to have looked a good deal like you or me, only smaller. Here's why. Tolkien alludes, in The Hobbit if my memeory serves me, that Hobbits are still around in today's world, but are rarely seen. Now this means that when they are seen, they are not seen MUCH differently than any human. However, I will allow for the changes a species might undergo in five thousand (at least i think it's supposed to be around there) years.

I think the hobbits in this film might be closer to what Tolkein had in mind than blue-eyed dreamboat Elijah Wood. - Kira Sharp

Hobbits should look mostly human, not "pixie rabbits". Elijah Wood acted the part well and looked hobbitish (maybe a bit too thin, though, but Frodo is supposed to be thinner than most)

I loved this cartoon!

At least, I loved it when I was six years old... Since then, I read the books. Oh well, what can you do?

I won't mention the problems that eveyone else has already noted, just a few short takes of differences from the book that bothered me because of their implausibility:

1. When Denethor pulls out the palantir, Pippin exclaims, "What's that?!" Please! Pippin knows very well what it is!

2. Instead of Sam taking the Ring from the seemingly dead Frodo, Sam just happens to find it laying on the ground after the orcs have captured Frodo. Not only that, he also finds Sting, the Phial of Galadriel, and Frodo's "hero's cloak". This irked me so much! First of all, the orcs may not be super-intelligent, but they're not sloppy enough to see all this stuff just sitting there and not take it, or to miss it altogether. Second, if they were that sloppy, the Ring would still welcome any chance to be found swiftly, and would call out in any way possible. Third, rather than fighting among each other with general slaughter over Frodo's confiscated mithril coat, here we see the orcs fighting among each other with general slaughter over Frodo's "hero's cloak", which was apparently worth so much to them that they left it on the ground outside of the tower!

3. Like in the book, in the cartoon Frodo and Sam escape the company of orcs they are running with when a fight breaks out between the orcs and a company of men that are both trying to pass the same way. However, rather than have the fight break out due to the natural orkish disposition, here Sam has to goad the orc leader into the fight. Had Sam really been foolish enough to do this, he would have been swiftly skewered, not only for defying and insulting a superior (I would think), but mainly for making quite obvious the fact that he's a HOBBIT! Or maybe orcs just have really bad eyesight...

4. Is it just me, or did Aragorn look a little chubby?

Kira: I made a mistake... Frodo is, according to Gandalf, fairer than most, not thinner. I guess he is a dreamboat, then.

An interesting twist on this is done in the Jackson, where most hobbits are sandy-haired or chestnut-hairer, and Frodo is strikingly elvish because he has dark hair.

As a dark brunnette, I tend to notice these things. J

Interesting. In the books, except possibly for Frodo (based on Gandalf's statement) Lighter-haired hobbits were unknown until the generation after the War: Sam and Rosie's children and the progenitors of the Fairbairns of Far Haven were the first.

Near the end of this movie, someone (Gandalf?) made the comment that hobbits were getting larger and larger and would eventually blend in with the race of man. He demonstrated by putting the hobbits in order of age and showing that Merry and Pippin, the youngest, were the tallest. Actually, Tolkien had it the other way around, that Hobbits gradually became smaller as they segregated themselves from the rest of the world. Pippin and Merry were taller because of Treebeard's Ent-draughts.

I think the producers of this cartoon did an absoltely wonderful job considering they obviously never read the book!

Actually, from the admittedly little I know about the film, I get the distinct impression that the writers/producers had not read FotR or T2T, only ROTK (and The Hobbit).

Kira - That would be eight horsemen of the apocalypse, not nine, as the Lord of the Nazgul was more accurately portrayed.

Pippin and Merry sound really strange - all the voices are American, which in itself is unusual for a Tolkien adaptation, but while I can get over the others Merry and Pippin still sound out of place.

The filmmakers decided to put the Despair of Denethor early on in the film, so Pippin brings Gandalf not from the gate of Minas Tirith but from a turret. At the point where this scene is supposed to be (after Grond has smashed the gate and the Lord of the Nazgul made his appearance) Gandalf and Pippin rush out into the battle!

Since Denethor, therefore, sees the Black Fleet in his palantir long before it arrives, Gandalf tells Pippin that the seeing-stones can be used to look into the future, which they can't.

In the book, a messenger called Hirgon rode from Minas Tirith to Edoras, where he delivered the Red Arrow to King Theoden. Because he was slain as he returned, that is why no-one in Minas Tirith knew if the Rohirrim were coming or not. In this film, Merry is the messenger, delivers a Black Arrow in some outdoor place (Helm's Deep or Dunharrow by the looks of it) and he stays with the Rohirrim. No-one bothers to send word to Minas Tirith that they're going there in the first place.

Cirith Ungol is meant to be pronounced Kirith Ungol (JRRT himself spelled it that way at times), not Sirith Ungol.

Sam calls the plateau 'Gorgororoth' then later on Frodo and Sam call it 'Gorogoroth.' The map correctly calls it Gorgoroth.

Since Denethor, therefore, sees the Black Fleet in his palantir long before it arrives, Gandalf tells Pippin that the seeing-stones can be used to look into the future, which they can't.

I'm not sure about this. IIRC, Unfinished Tales refers to them being able to see through time. Disclaimer: I'm at work, and don't have my copy of UT.

According to Gandalf in "The Two Towers" the palantiri can see through time, at least they can see the past. Gandalf was musing upon how he'd like to see if he could turn it where he would to see Tirion and perceive Feanor at work.

they don't have to see into the future. Thats the crux of it infact. The "black fleet" had already set sail. It leaving port was past tense. Thats part of what unhinged Denethor infact. Its setting sail was past tense. It was pretty safe to assume that if a fleet sets sail it is going to dock somewhere. That isn't to much of a stretch. It just didn't show who was going to get off the ships when they landed. Thats not to say it couldn't, just that it didn't. There is no problem here. It can stand either way.

But in this film, Gandalf specifically says that the (principal or only) purpose of a palantir is to see into the future.

And as for seeing into the past, perhaps Gandalf was thinking of accessing its 'memory'?

Padawan Observer wrote:
The filmmakers [...]

LOL!

Another thing - Just before Aragorn rides through Minas Tirith, Gandalf announces that we're now several months later and in springtime. In the book, the Ring was destroyed in March, so several months later would not be springtime.

Our buddy, the minstril of Gondor, in singing about Bilbo finding that shiny ring in Gollum's cave of gloom, says, "Our story begins two ages ago..." if I heard correctly. If his song really began two ages ago, he'd be singing about the end of the Elder Days, a good 6000+ years before Bilbo. Where's this minstril getting his definition of "age" from?

In the book, Gollum attacks Frodo a mere moment after he puts on the Ring at the Cracks of Doom (the Chamber of Fire, the fires of DOOM!). Here in the cartoon, the narrator (our good Mr. John Huston) says Sam searched around inside Mt. Doom for days looking for Frodo after he put the Ring on. If that were the case, Sauron would have long since spotted Frodo, sent the Nazgul, captured him, and screwed up the end of the story.

Far be it for me to argue, Padawan, but to me it doesn't sound like everyone is calling Gorgoroth, "Gorgororoth". It sounds to me like "Goragorath", which isn't much better.

I understand that this cartoon had to cut a lot of corners in trying to explain things that the first two books make clear without telling the entire story, but the whole business of Sam not knowing about the Phial of Galadriel (or "Gladriel" according to Frodo's pronounciation) and then when he asks Frodo about it, having Frodo declare, "I can't say any more. If I betray the secret, it will lose its powers", is just corny.

Far be it for me to argue, Padawan, but to me it doesn't sound like everyone is calling Gorgoroth, "Gorgororoth". It sounds to me like "Goragorath", which isn't much better.

I never said everyone was calling it Gorgororoth. I said that was what Sam called it to begin with, and that afterwards it's pronounced 'Gorogoroth'.

Padawan, sorry. You're right.

One more note, and it need not be a nit, but I thought it was funny that as Sam is climbing the stairs at Cirith Ungol, the voice inside his head is panting for breath. (At least it looks like it to me. If his mouth is moving, it's not to the words he's saying.)

Actually, upon repeat viewing, I have discovered that it is called Gorogoroth every time.

In the book, Gollum attacks Frodo a mere moment after he puts on the Ring at the Cracks of Doom (the Chamber of Fire, the fires of DOOM!). Here in the cartoon, the narrator (our good Mr. John Huston) says Sam searched around inside Mt. Doom for days looking for Frodo after he put the Ring on. If that were the case, Sauron would have long since spotted Frodo, sent the Nazgul, captured him, and screwed up the end of the story. - Duke of Earl Grey

Yep. Evidently Rankin, Bass and/or Romeo Muller decided that it would be more dramatic to show events out of sequence - show Theoden's death, followed by Frodo keeping the Ring, then have Eowyn slay the Lord of the Nazgul. That is all well and good, after all, Tolkien wrote about things out of chronological order himself (as described in great detail in Tom Shippey's Tolkien: Author of the Century). Unfortunately, Gandalf's narration tells us that the events are being shown in chronological order, that Eowyn did slay the Witch-king after Frodo claimed the Ring in Mount Doom. This perversion of the timeline (as Tolkien would have called it) leads to some strange and problematic side-effects, such as Frodo supposedly having the Ring on for *days* (how did Sam survive all that time, in a *volcano*, with so little food and water?) and the relocated Despair of Denethor I menioned earlier.

What drove me crazy, aside from... well, okay, it ALL drove me crazy, especially the songs.

The confrontation between Gandalf and the Lead Nazgul started so right! The voice was great and the figure was menacing. I had hope for this travesty to right itself a bit.

Then he took off the cowl. Still looked pretty good. But suddenly his voice was some sort of #%%$# cartoon robot!

If you pick up songs easily, or songs tend to get stuck in your head, this film may threaten your life.