> Bakshi's movie isn't a simple child story, it's highly regarded among the comic book artists and critics all over the world.
no it is not... critics tore this movie apart after it was released, that's why he never finished the trilogy. also, this movie was directed at kids, as the-swede already pointed out. you say that jackson's vision didn't do justice to the books, but where in the book can you find descriptions of child-like behaviour of hobbits as bakshi portrays them? there are none. especially right in the beginning, which already has a feeling of impending doom in the book, while bakshi's version doesn't give that feeling at all. instead he threw in some kindergarten-like scenes into the mix...
whether you like jackson's adaption or not is your choice, but claiming that it didn't do justice to the books is a rather big fail, which has little to do with opinion, but rather with analytical skills...especially when you praise bakshi's work over jackson's in the same sentence... apparently millions agreed with jackson and watched his version in cinema, while only the fewest craved bakshi's version and a good portion of them only did so, because there was no better adaptation around until jackson came along.
i like bakshi though. i love fritz the cat 1+2, heavy traffic, american pop and i became highly interested in his lord of the rings version, when i played the 1991 pc-game of LOTR that featured a good portion of his movie as FMVs. while i did like the selected scenes in that game on a standalone basis, i already felt they did little justice to the book and when i was finally able to hunt down the movie, i was shocked to be presented such a boring, almost narcotic 2 hour piece of work. i like animation effects, but what bakshi did looked just terribly uneven. together with his inabilitiy to push the story forward in an interesting manner, i had to stop watching the movie several times, because it just bored the hell out of me... and that was years before jackson's movie was even in the works, so i wasn't even spoiled by his superior work
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perecca
15 years ago
I don't know about the mainstream movie critics, but most of professional illustrators and artists have very much appraised the Bakshi's movie. Critics are often disputed, and not that familiar with art, don't you think? :) And it wasn't finished because of the lacks of money, since it wasn't ment to be a blockbuster and never wasn't properly funded.
> apparently millions agreed with jackson and watched his version in cinema
Yeah, but how much of those millions read a book a dozen times, knew it by heart and actually have a detailed opinion about it? How many gave a thought about the Tolkien's world which is depicted? How many read several other books to round up the picture in their heads and had some kind of visual interpretation to goes with that picture? I'm sure that Jackson's interpretation went well with the majority of viewers because they never had a great expectations, maybe they haven't thought really hard about it, or just had a positive spin. Tolkien's fund also went along with everything for the sake of the money (yet again). So we've got a splashy movie allright.
But try to view it from the late J.R.R. Tolkien's point: I'm positive he wouldn't be delighted about it. The Trilogy would probably never be made as a motion picture if he was alive and have any say in it (he outright declined adaptation into the movie several times during his life). Or - if he gave his assent - he would probably leave the film screening after 15 minutes of it, like Umberto Eco did during the premiere of "The name of the rose". He felt the movie never made justice to his book. It's all about little things, details - like awkward characterization, scene that got skirted, wrong dialogues, subtile misinterpretation went irksome...
I merely suggested that "superior" is the state of the mind... the animated version by Bakshi is made so long ago, maybe a new take on it could prove that artistic approach is better and could prove as an undisputable quality in a long run. For some time I thought about anime adaptation, and what would Japanese studios make of it! :) But in the meantime, we've got ourselves a fan film that goes well above our expectations, and for just a 3000£ spent for its making. It was never about the acceptance or the money.
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