Director: Ralph Bakshi
Release Date: November 15, 1978
Rating: ★
Review:
I’m going to spend only a few words on this film: it is not an animation film. It may be drawn, animated it is not. Practically every movement is rotoscoped, with some scenes containing little more than colored live action footage.
The result is a surplus of movement, a severe inconsistency of style, a general feel of cheapness, and, animationwise, absolutely nothing to enjoy. On the contrary: the result is appalling.
Furthermore, the acting is tiresome, the pace painstakingly slow, the characters more often than not rather unsympathetic, the story incomplete, and the settings often in lack of dramatic effect, though I must admit that the film shares some strikingly similar scenes with the Peter Jackson’s later live action version (which incidentally contains much, much more animation than Bakshi’s film).
In short, Bakshi’s ‘The Lord of the Rings’ is by all means a failure, and one of the most hideously ugly films I’ve ever seen in any genre.
Watch the Balrog scene from ‘The Lord of the Rings’ yourself and tell me what you think:
Dr. Grob's Animation Review 
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October 6, 2014 at 06:00
Grokenstein
Back in the ’80s this was something you had to watch, and vocally admire, to be part of the animation “scene,” but of course you are correct in everything you said about it. (There’s a webpage out there devoted to tearing it apart line by line and frame by frame.) At the time, there was simply no other alternative. (To be honest, I find Rankin-Bass’ sort-of-sequel The Return of the King to be equally excruciating, but at least it’s not rotoscoped or recolored cosplay.)
Peter Jackson deliberately duplicated a couple of the better shots from Bakshi’s “film” as a tribute. This turned out to be a mistake, as the ever-classy Bakshi proceeded to go on a public tear about how Jackson ripped him off.