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Featured CED VideoDisc No. 22 - Fall 2001

This CED feature covers three CED titles- the 1970's animated versions of J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy novels about the Hobbits and Middle-earth. This page covers "The Lord of the Rings," while the Hobbit and the Return of the King are on separate pages.

I've been planning this CED feature for over a year now in anticipation of the release of the first Lord of the Rings movie, but in light of the September 11 attack, I believe Tolkien's works also serve as an allegory to conditions in this country leading up to the tragedy. America had a false sense of security with its friendly neighbors and geographic isolation, not unlike that of the Hobbits safe in the relative isolation of their Shire with friendly people about, oblivious to the gradually darkening world at large. Well, the Hobbits and their allies rose to the challenge, and we're accomplishing the same thing.

"The Lord of the Rings" is the 1978 Ralph Bakshi animated adaption of about the first one and one-half volumes of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings Trilogy. The plot revolves around a great struggle for power in a section of the world called Middle-earth, with a certain important ring that first turned up in "The Hobbit" playing a pivotal role. This animated version of what might sound like the complete trilogy covers most of "The Fellowship of the Ring" and about half of "The Two Towers." None of "The Return of the King" is covered, although an animated version of that volume was made the following year. There is no way a single movie could cover all three volumes without exercising an extreme hatchet job or being excessively long.

The animation in this adaption is interesting, as it uses a rotoscope technique where live actors were filmed and then animated. This ranges from some characters looking like animation with really fluid motion to some characters looking like live actors with just a little bit of colorization. The scenes where the live actors are really obvious are at the Prancing Pony Inn and in the epic battle sequences. One of the biggest criticisms of this movie is the abrupt ending. For example, the Treebeard character is only shown for about one minute when he was a major character in the book. It is said that Ralph Bakshi ran out of money and had to cut the project short. But even if he had completed "The Two Towers" the ending would have been abrupt, as the book itself ends rather abruptly in anticipation of its sequel "The Return of the King."

Ralph Bakshi also did the CED title Fire and Ice which throughout the movie makes more effective use of the rotoscoping animation technique. If you're looking for "The Lord of the Rings" on eBay, don't confuse it with the similarly named Lords of the Ring. The later is a professional wrestling disc having nothing to do with Tolkien, although being a very rare CED title, it's somewhat of a find in its own right.

SPOILER ALERT!
The pictures below show most of the characters of "The Lord of the Rings" and are intended to loosely review the plot. If you plan to read the books, I recommend not even looking at these pictures beforehand. One of the great things about Tolkien is his ability to evoke images in your mind, which can be spoiled by having a pre-conceived notion of what the character looks like. Clicking on the pictures will bring up pages that provide additional information, like quotes from the book and links to pages concerning those characters in the upcoming live-action movies. The pictures may also be viewed in slide show fashion.

Scenes from The Lord of the Rings
Nine Rings for Mortal Men	Seven for the Dwarf-lords	Three for the Elven-kings
One for the Dark Lord	Hobbiton in the Shire	Bilbo's Birthday Party
Bilbo Contemplates	Gandalf the Grey	Last Look at the Shire
Frodo with Ring	Impervious to Fire	Sam Gamgee Uncovered
Isengard	Saruman the White	The Pinnacle of Orthanc
Departing Hobbiton	Merry and Pippin	A Black Rider
Ringwraith Approaching	Bree in Bree-land	Prancing Pony Inn
Mr. Butterbur	Strange Men	Strider
Aragorn	Weathertop	Frodo is Stabbed
Glorfindel and Asfaloth	Rivendell Ford	Swept Away
Rivendell	Gwaihir the Windlord	Reunited
Council of Elrond	Boromir of Gondor	Elrond
Sting and Mithril Coat	Gimli	Legolas
The Durin Doors	Legolas and Gimli	Watcher in the Water
Serpent Closes the Doors	Daeron's Runes	Orc Attack
Gandalf and Balrog	Lothlorien	Lady Galadriel
Mirror of Galadriel	Frodo Offers	Pillars of the Kings
Boromir Demands	Breaking of the Fellowship	Boromir Blows His Horn
Boromir's Funeral Boat	Pursuit of the Orcs	Hobbits Captive
Discover a Sign	Riders of Rohan	Orcs Carry Halflings
Mount Doom	Gollum	Gollum Captured
Orcs are Trapped	Eomer the Marshal	Grishnakh and Ugluk
Grishnakh Wants Ring	Orcs Last Stand	Forest of Fangorn
Ent Treebeard	Dislike of Orcs	Sign of Treebeard
Is It Saruman ?	Gandalf the White	Gandalf Fights Balrog
To Theoden's Edoras	Wormtongue and Saruman	Helm's Deep
Court of King Theoden	King Theoden	Grima Wormtongue
Gandalf Exposes Grima	Eowyn	Riders to Helm's Deep
Battle Plan	Gollum Spots Nazgul	Flying Carrion Beast
Gollum Debates Smeagol	Defend Helm's Gate	Isengard Orcs Attack
Evil Wargs Attack	Orcs Scale the Walls	Fire of Orthanc
Retreat to Hornburg	Aragorn's Pledge	Stairs of Cirith Ungol
Riders Charge Out	Gandalf Returns	Victory at Helm's Deep

• The Lord of the Rings in the Internet Movie Database

• Lord of the Rings Movie Site

• TheOneRing.net Site

• Purchase the DVD version at Amazon.com

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