Ah yeah, the 1978 Lord of the Rings, which actually combined Fellowship and Two Towers together. I'm actually more fond of that version as it's a heavily flawed, yet strangely enduring attempt at the stories.

The technique they used was an advance form of Rotoscoping, a style that Ralph Bakshi had played with earlier in Wizards (1977) and would attempt again in the hilariously bad Fire and Ice (1983).

I think the reason I can appreciate the Bakshi animated film more is that they were trying there best with what they had. Also, the plot is surprisingly close to the books despite certain things being dropped or just glossed over.

One final note on this version is that it technically wasn't even finished when it got released. It had a troubled production and one of the directors actually sent out an early rough cut as the "finished film" just for spite against his partner. So yeah, that's why the film looks so rough and feels jumbled.

score: 2/5... maybe 2 1/2 out of 5.

Animated "Hobbit" - I found it acceptable the first time i watched it, but the next time ... I have to say, Smaug's voice actor was fantastic, and they didn't screw everything up.

Animated "Lord of the Rings" - Hilariously awful. I don't know if my favorite part is the disco-ball flashing of the seasons ("Seventeen years passed sleepily in the Shire" indeed), Gandalf twirling around like a ballerina, Frodo giving the camera a look like "Get me out of here!", the Balrog wearing fluffy bunny slippers, or Barbie!Galadriel's glitter-spouting ring.

I recognize that they had a limited budget, and i certainly don't think that they set out to ruin the story, but every time i watch it i just can't understand how anyone looked at anything in that film and thought, "Yeah, that's good enough, put it in."

Animated "Return of the King" - Have only seen bits and pieces, but that is more than enough.

Yikes! I didn't realize there was such animosity towards the old Lord of the Rings animated movie. My sister Liz is a big Tolkien fan and actually took me to go see that when it first came out in...78? 79? I can't remember the year exactly, but I loved it then and I love it now. And all things considered it's very faithful to the books by and large as I recall, though it's been a really, really long time since my last viewing.

.Animated "Return of the King" - Have only seen bits and pieces, but that is more than enough.

I picked up VHS copies of both Rankin-Bass animated movies from a remainder table for some ridiculously cheap price something like 20 years ago, which was also the first time I realised these films had been produced. The bit that really appalled me from animated Return of the King was the minstrel singing ballad of 9 fingered Frodo. The minstrel's tenor voice might have been dubbed by a talented flock of sheep. I really couldn't stand all that sickly-sweet, honeyed, nasal bleating.

Whilst I appreciated the 1970's attempt at LOTR that had been produced earlier, I did think that Galadriel in it could have been confused with Pinocchio's Blue Fairy.

I have seen the animated Hobbit movie. It was years and years ago and I remember I didn't care for it. I attempted to watch the animated LotR movie but somehow they managed to make it insanely boring so I gave up not far in (I think it was when Frodo was in Bree perhaps? Or maybe on Weathertop? don't remember for sure.)

I watched Brave for the first time last week. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Probably my favorite Pixar film since Wall-E (yes, I have very different tastes in Pixar films than the rest of the world ).

I'm afraid I must disagree with my friend wolf. While I am not happy with much of the animated films, I must say that the music was one of the few things that stand out in my memory. Perhaps it appealed to my take on the medeival music. But then, it has been a decade or more since I last saw them, and as the Mrs. can point out my memory may be a bit muddled.
Did see Brave in the theatre, and must say I enjoyed it. Could have done with less of the bare-bottem scenes, but for the most part it was a good story with a fine message to it.

I hated the animated The Lord of the Rings. Everything about it. And I can see where people got the idea that Frodo and Sam were more than just best friends. Sam's a complete and utter pansy in this and Aragorn is just a black-haired version of He-Man: Defender of the Universe! Yikes!

I defiantly will not be watching the animated lotr by the way people are talking about it. I am not a fan of early animated movies anyway.

Yesterday I re-watched the fellowship of the ring for the first time in 3 years. Still a great movie.

In defense of the old animated LOTR version (Bakshi) there are points it has in its favor, the biggest being Frodo isn't as wimpy as he is in the Jackson versions. When he's not wimpy he just sorta stands there and looks dazed. The animated version shows him (much like the book wrote him) as a strong willed character, who attempts to fight the Ringwraiths off with his sword, and even gives them the What For when they attempt to claim him at Rivendell. I loved the rotoscoping portions, where it looks like there's live action inserted into the background. Gimli is a much more serious participant in the animated version as well (which is how he was largely written).

But Samwise....you know, I think if you take Samwise (who comes across as a weird amalgamation of Richard Simmons and a the mentality of a 3 year old on a sugar rush) out of the thing altogether you'd probably jump the score up at least another point. I liked Aragorn if for no other reason than he was played by John Hurt, who's a great actor. He didn't look so much like a Ranger of the North though as much as he did an Inuit or Eskimo sans the cold weather gear. And his mini-skirt was a bit distracting. The Jackson version is still much better, but the old animated version deserves points where it gets it right.

I just watched the first 5 minuets on youtube out of interest of the cartoon animated movie, I can't say it has applied to me much, the voices of the characters are not right. well bilbo sounds weird.

...Samwise (who comes across as a weird amalgamation of Richard Simmons and a the mentality of a 3 year old on a sugar rush)

LoL, ... Shadowlander ...I'd never seen the animated LOTR, but that lovely description was priceless.

I saw the animated Return of the King at a shop the other day, thought about picking it up - but I was too scared I'd waste a perfectly good 50 cents.

I finally decided to buy the lotr dvd's, I have bought the first and the third because every shop in the area does not have two towers.

The other night my parents, sister's family, and I sat down for an evening viewing of The Princess Bride. ....
We talked about it afterwards and agreed that (in our case, at least), liking it required repeated viewings. I remember going to a Seattle cinema with my brother when it first came out back in 1987 and we came out shaking our heads, not really sure what we'd just seen. But now we can quote most of it.

Indeed. I have found this to be true, even though I have only seen it twice. The first time I was like "huh" ? But the second time I felt much more enjoyed and was certainly laughing a lot more. Of course, it totally helped I was with another NarniaWebber who very much enjoys the movie. Nellie of Narnia, however, was hooked the first time she saw it, really appreciating the dry humour and fun parody of a classic fairy tale.

I hardly ever watch DVDs, but I am quite itching to see a few, although I'm not sure when I'll get around to them:

*Master and Commander
*I am Legend
*The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
*Apollo 13
*The Fellowship of the Ring (by far my favourite of the three LotR's)
*The King's Speech

My dvd collection is huge, well my families, I own many of them however. The kings speech was surprisingly a very good movie, the boy in the striped pajamas was very sad, I hardly ever cry in movies but I nearly did this time. I recently bought all the lotr dvds because they were only $13 each(dvd prices have gone down a lot recently).

I am 3/4 the way through tinker tailor solider spy. The first part of the movie was very slow but about a quatar of the way through I finally got what was going on and it became more interesting. still not my favorite movie but it isn;t terrible.

Got to see The Sound of Music in theaters today! THAT WAS SO TOTALLY COOL!!!!!!!!! Watching it on the small tv screen, I've missed a lot of the more subtle facial movements that Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer made. You get the gist of it, but the actual details can be seen far better on a very large movie screen. You could also pick up a lot of details of the setting better as well. The clothing texture was more visible. My mom noticed that around some of the light switches, the walls looked dirty as if it was an actual lived in house type details.