jab@uokvax.UUCP (10/20/83)
#N:uokvax:3900006:000:922
uokvax!jab Oct 17 21:34:00 1983
What is all this useless verbage about Bakshi and "rotoscoping"?
Bakshi is very good at what he does, which is entertaining me. I enjoyed
"Wizards" a great deal, thought that "Lord of the Rings" was "pretty",
and that "American Pop" was "okay". I haven't seen "Fritz the Cat",
although I hear that it's okay, too.
I thought that the rotoscoping of "Lord of the Rings" was distracting,
though, and that the movie left out an awful lot. (The trip into Mordor
was never seen, probably because of time, but that WAS why the quest
was made, wasn't it?)
The first half of "American Pop" was quite enjoyable, I thought, but
I find the second half laughable. I just couldn't take it seriously.
Bakshe makes entertaining films, although I wouldn't rank him very high
in the lists of filmmakers. (If you ever compile such a list, put the
Disney cartoonist, Don Bluthe, near the top.)
Jeff ("Old Disney Fan") Bowles
Lisle, ILrene@umcp-cs.UUCP (10/21/83)
"The Lord of the Rings" was only meant to be the first half of the
famous Tolkien trilogy - that's why the journey into Mordor was left
out. They didn't destroy the ring or anything, remember? The second
half, "The Return of the King" was done by Rankin-Bass, and I thought
it was awful. At least TLotR had acceptable animation and was
relatively faithful to the original. TRotK was of Saturday Morning
cartoon (e.g. Scooby-doo, etc.) quality, and was mostly non-plot
filled with monotonous repetitions of "The bearer of the ring, the
bearer of the ring, the bearer of the ring, ..." etc, etc. etc.
The only redeeming feature was the song "Where there's a whip, there's
a way" sung by the orcs, and even that wasn't all that great. Give me
Bakshi any time.
- rene
--
Arpa: rene.umcp-cs@CSNet-relay
Uucp:...{allegra,seismo}!umcp-cs!renedp@astrovax.UUCP (10/26/83)
Although I agree with the opinion that "...the bearer of the ring..." lyrics drag on "ad infinitum" in the Rankin-Bass "Return of the King", the assertion that its animation (and presumably the animation of their previous effort, "The Hobbit") is Saturday morning quality is ludicrous. The characters and backgrounds in these films were done in a graphic style reminescent of Disney's "101 Dalmations", which is superior in animation to any episode of "Scooby-Doo" you care to name. On the other hand, Bakshi's so-called animation, is beneath consideration for honors on my list. The lack of interaction between the animated (and rotoscoped) characters and the sometimes decent backgrounds leads to some pretty hilarious results, as when Aragorn runs across (rather than over) an obvious pile of skulls. Bakshi also seems to subscribe to the Fred Flintstone school of lighting; there is only one (non-background) shadow in the entire movie. In addition, I always laugh near the end of "LotR" when the rotoscoped eyes of the orcs seem unable to remain fixed to one location on their faces, etc. I am also partial to the voices used in the Rankin-Bass production (although Anthony Daniels makes an o.k. elf in Bakshi's film). Thus, on these grounds and others which I don't have time to enumerate, the Rankin-Bass Tolkien adaptations rate far higher in my estimation than does Bakshi's effort. Deborah Padgett