Watched this for the first time last night and I must say that this cartoon is absolutely horrible. About the only redeaming feature I can find in it is that if you ever feel like complaining about something in PJ's version, just go watch the Bakshi one and things wont seem so bad

What I want to know is were they on drug when they made this, what with the backgrounds half the the time being psycodelic, and the other half looking like something out of a John Blanche painting. Not to mention how porly the rotorscoping and animation went together. >.<

Watching it makes me wonder if they actually read the books, or if they were working off of a boiled down synopsis of it.

Other points of wtf-ery include:
Why wasn't Aragorn wearing trousers?
Why did Boromir look like a Viking stereotype?
What was up with the scaling? Frodo towered over the other Hobbits and was barely shorter than the other characters, plus Gimli was almost as tall as Legolas!
Speaking of Legolas, what was up with his face? And Sam's for that matter?
Why did the orcs look like cavemen with stereotypical viking helmets?
The Balrog, just the Balrog!
Since when was Elrond Julius Ceaser?
Why is Grima Hobbitsized and dressed like the witch from Snow White?
Since when is Gollum Livapudlian?
The ending confused me a bit. Gandalf shows up, charges the orcs then starts tossing his sword into the air, and then the narrator (Elrond?) says that the Forces of Evil have been driven from Middle-earth forever. Umm, if that's the case, what's the need of another film? If there's no evil, Frodo doesn't have to destroy the Ring surely? And if there's no evil around, there's not going to be a problem destroying it anyway.

And I'm sure there's more if I could be arsed to go back and watch it again and take notes.


Appologies for the rant, but it had to be done.

it actualy takes place over the period the other 2 films do and ends at the same point (which is strange considering that the book doesn't end the two Towers there. Perosnly i think it's ok.....now the Return of the king one that someone made.....now that was crap.
As it's relivent i will post a link to a perosn who compares the Baski and Jackson versions (guess which wins?) *Warning...he swears allot*
http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses/nostalgia-critic/9754-lotr

jaws900 wrote:

it actualy takes place over the period the other 2 films do and ends at the same point (which is strange considering that the book doesn't end the two Towers there.

Sorta true, but it's mainly how they're done which makes PJ's ending good and Bashki's c**p. In the PJ version you have the three seperate groups having their respective storylines tied up at roughly the same time forming a backdrop to Sam's hopeful speech, and then going onto Sam, Frodo and Gollum heading towards Minas Morgul with foreshaddowing of Gollum's treachery, whereas in the Bashki version suddenly Gandalf, Eomer and some riders show up, charge the orcs and a few seconds later the battle's won, coupled with Elrond narrating that the Forces of Evil are vanqueshed once and for all and that this is the end of pt1 of LotR.

The Bashti film had some promising elements and parts of it were closer to the book which gets a thumbs up from me. Unfortunately, too much of it was just nonsensical for it to even compare Jackson's version. It’s been a long time since I watched it but even as a child I was wondering what Bashti was on when he made it. They hardly even got any of the pronunciations right - who the hec is Aruman?

ArtificialWinter wrote:

They hardly even got any of the pronunciations right - who the hec is Aruman?

True. In the Aruman case, supposedly it was because they thought people would get confused between Sauron and Saruman. Shame tha Sauron is hardly ever mentioned in the film and that they kept switching between Saruman and Aruman

Quote :

that they kept switching between Saruman and Aruman

I think that's what annoyed me the most about it - if they had picked Aruman and stuck with it throughout I could have let it slide, but how is flitting between two names for the same character going to cause less confusion than Sauron/Saruman similarities?

The only bit I remember Sauron from is the prologue behind the gauze - and that was terrible.

I think they did mention Sauron's name once or twice, but that was it beyond the proligue. Plus if I recall correctly, everyone pronounced it a different way >.<