The Lord of the Rings

The Lord of the Rings (1978)

Timing: 2:12 (132 min)

6.6/10
1030

6.934/10
10491

6.2/10
39000

All about film

Video 1

Photo 35

Actors and characters

Release date

1978-11-15

Country

Spain, United Kingdom, United States

Production

United Artists, Fantasy Films, Bakshi Productions, Saul Zaentz Film Productions

Genre

Adventure, Animation, Fantasy

Budget

$8 000 000

Revenue

$30 471 420

Website

Director

Ralph Bakshi

Actors

Christopher Guard, William Squire, Michael Scholes, John Hurt, Simon Chandler, Dominic Guard, Michael Graham Cox, Anthony Daniels, David Buck, Norman Bird
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Producer

Saul Zaentz, Nancy Eichler

Operator

Timothy Galfas

Composer

Leonard Rosenman

Artist

Audition

Editing

Donald W. Ernst, Peter Kirby
All team (46)

• Tim Burton worked as an animator on this film, but he is not credited in the cast. It was his first film project.
• The first project created entirely using rotoscoping (a technique where an animated or combined segment of a film is created by tracing over filmed live-action footage with real actors and sets).
• Director Ralph Bakshi initially dreamed of using music by Led Zeppelin in the film, but was unable to secure the rights. The members of Led Zeppelin are ardent fans of “The Lord of the Rings,” and some of their compositions (such as “Misty Mountain Top,” “Over the Hills and Far Away,” “The Battle of Evermore,” and “Ramble On”) contain references to Tolkien's works (1892-1973).
• Peter Jackson’s introduction to the world of Middle-earth came through this very film, and some scenes in his film trilogy are directly inspired by Bakshi’s film. In one such scene, Frodo and his companions hide from the Black Rider under the roots of a huge tree. Jackson used a similar shot here, although he filmed it from a different angle (and in Tolkien’s book, Frodo hides separately from the other hobbits). In another episode, the camera slowly rotates around Aragorn and the hobbits on the summit of Amon Sûl as they stand back to back, while the Black Riders approach them. In a third case, it concerns how Gollum loses the One Ring in the prologue. Both films tell the same story, but the book has no prologue, and everything unfolds differently than Tolkien wrote. Another episode relates to the meeting of Legolas, Aragorn, and Gimli with Gandalf.
• Once, director John Boorman intended to fit the entire trilogy into a film lasting 1 hour and 40 minutes. Ralph Bakshi heard about this, and, being a fan of the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy and Tolkien’s work in general, was horrified. Boorman’s attempts to adapt Tolkien’s novels to the screen were unsuccessful, and Bakshi turned to Tolkien’s daughter with a proposal to film the trilogy as animated films. Tolkien’s daughter very much liked Bakshi’s cartoon “Wizards” (1976), so he obtained the rights to film “The Lord of the Rings.” Bakshi filmed “The Fellowship of the Ring” and “The Two Towers” (which together formed a single 2.5-hour film) and planned to film “The Return of the King,” but never completed the trilogy.