Mutant Reviewers from Hell do
"I have come but I do not choose to do now what I have come to do!"

1980 NR / Animated Fantasy Directed by: Jules Bass & Arthur Rankin Jr. Starring: Orson Bean, John Huston, Roddy McDowall

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Summary Capsule

A mind-bogglingly horrible sequel to a spectacularly bad cartoon; on the other hand, there's the Hobbit love.

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Amazon.com: DVD

Justin's Rating: That's it. NO more Tolkein movies for 21 years!
Justin's Review: Maestro, a little history lesson, if you please. In 1978, Ralph Bakshi’s highly-anticipated animated version of The Lord of the Rings came to the big screen, and was notable for two outstanding reasons. One, it sucked. Sucked hard. Two, Bakshi never quite told anyone that his movie was not all of the trilogy. As viewers waded through his incredibly bad adaption, they discovered that it not only was a stinker, but only encapsulated the first book and a chunk of The Two Towers. Then it ended. Fantasy fans screamed and fell to the theater floors in horror, while their dates shook their heads and just walked out. Since Bakshi was lynched, it fell upon The Hobbit-makers Rankin and Bass to pick up the slack and continue a terrible legacy of lackluster 70’s animation.

"The theme of this film is No One Ever Shuts Up. If someone’s not talking, someone’s doing some serious inner narration. If there’s no inner narration, then someone’s singing in the background."

Lacking the bloodthirstiness of its ancestor (as well as any mention of Legolas and Gimli), at least Rankin and Bass declined not to start making sense at this point, gracing us with a very mock-worthy flick. Since it was a made for TV version and aimed at the kiddies, they decided not to continue from the last scene of The Lord of the Rings. Instead, we get a ham-fisted introduction where Bilbo has a birthday and asks Frodo what happened to his 10th finger and, you know, that pesky ring. A bard nearby (sure, you remember him from the books!) is eager to help out with poorly-penned folk tunes. Thus, the entire film becomes a crappy flashback. In SONG.

The theme of this film is No One Ever Shuts Up. If someone’s not talking, someone’s doing some serious inner narration. If there’s no inner narration, then someone’s singing in the background. If there’s no singing, then someone’s gabbing their trap again. The Return Of The King is probably the same experience to you if you’re blind or not, since all action is talked about before and during:

[SAM starts to climb some stairs.]

SAM: Wow, there sure are a lot of stairs! And they go UP!

[SAM takes one step forward.]

SAM: I hope I don’t get tired, climbing these stairs! Where do they go, I wonder? Well up, of course, but to what end? Etc etc etc…

And while that’s certainly bad enough, the filmmakers obviously had no idea how to cram in all of the relevant information that’s necessary to follow the plot of LOTR into this 90 minute spectacle, so they ended up throwing in large gobs of pointless exposition that usually has nothing to do with the scene at hand. This serves only to confuse the 10-year old kids that were targeted by this animated special.

My favorite example of this technique is when Sam is rescuing Frodo from the orc tower. Frodo, depressed and shirtless, starts moaning about evil. "You can’t get away from evil," he tells Sam. "Evil is everywhere. You can’t escape it. And only the elves can escape Middle-Earth. They built big white ships that will let them sail to a far off land." And lo and behold, the scene fades to white ships sailing on the ocean, as the blasted minstrel of the film sings about an ocean voyage.

I swear to you, I did not change one iota of that scene; that’s literally how it happened. A musing on evil, then a weird, disjointed segue to elves (of whom we’ve only seen one in the movie so far), and then a cut to ships and a song. Bizarre doesn’t begin to cover it. It’s so ridiculous that I had to pause the film, I was laughing so hard. It’s like they wrote down the plot to the books on index cards, shuffled them, then randomly assigned narrative duties out to the various characters. "Okay Gandalf, here you’re fighting a battle, and that would be a great time to talk about how Aragorn wants to be king but can’t. Oh, and throw in something there about the history of the Shire, too."

I mean, hey, I watched the Peter Jackson version of the film and read the books many times, and this movie version still confounds me. But at least the dialogue is so overwrought that it brings a sarcastic smile to my heart.

For a film about a king and his ballyhooed return, we see very little of him. In fact, the filmmakers decided to make Sam and Frodo the main story, which makes little sense as they didn’t really do much in the final book. Their solution is (a) time-wasting songs, (b) endless dialogue between Sam and Frodo or between Sam and Sam, and (c) events that didn’t strictly happen in the book, such as Sam turning an orc army against a human army so they can sneak by. At various points does Gandalf and the seige at Minis Tirith make appearances, but they’re really just special effects bookmarks. The animation ranges from poor to passable, but at least they gave up on that horrible rotoscoping that was used in the previous film.

Let’s just say that there’s a good reason that even die-hard Tolkein fans quickly forgot this film series. That doesn’t mean we should, however. This is perfect material to rent in front of your disbelieving rental clerk’s eye and inflict on your little cousins, dashing their hopes after you told them you’d be getting them "those Lord of the Rings movies!"

Wow. The hobbit slash fiction writes itself. Mr. Happy Orc! The Bride of

Didja Notice? [some sources: IMDb]

• The film literally spoils itself as it shows and tells you ALL of the endings in the first couple minutes
• Frodo’s soooo non-chalant about getting rid of the ring when he tells Bilbo
• The shameful plug for "The Hobbit" thrown into a flashback montage
• Okay, Frodo is talking like a bad English term paper. I’m pretty sure none of his opening exposition was in the books.
• Nobody’s told Bilbo ANYTHING about this major quest. That cracks me up. Bilbo acts so surprised about the ring being gone and Frodo’s missing finger.
• OH CRAP! They’re gonna SING the whole story as a flashback! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! Also… "The minstrel of Gondor"? Was he anywhere near a Tolkein book?
• Another "Hobbit" flashback scene! Way to get your money’s worth out of your previous film!
• Eight minutes in, they’ve already covered all of the books, more or less.
• The narrator goes on and on about how brave and gallant Sam in, all while Sam is shown trying to physically ram down 100-foot iron doors with his shoulders. Stupid fat hobbit.
• There’s TWO titles for this film ("Return of the King" is shown twice)
• Sam’s horrible inner narration
• Sting not only pulses, but makes a terribly annoying sound
• Sam keeps screaming up to the tower, where the enemy is right in front of open windows.
• Sam’s horrible outer narration
• Sam envisions himself as a conquerer… heh.. You’re so stupidly cute, Sam.
• The ring, the ultimate evil power, causes Sam to… become a world-wide gardener? Sam, you’re not very good at being evil.
• Minis Tirith actually looks a bit like the film version
• Okay, minute 23 and they’re still feeding us chunks of exposition trying to explain the plot
• Everyone in this film talks way, way too much
• Galdalf becomes a big wuss, moaning and being scared
• So Sam has no idea what the Elvish vial is and what it’s for?
• The ring can make you glow green, too!
• Apparently, if Frodo tells anyone about the "secrets" of the vial the elves gave him, the "power will die"
• Roddy McDowall and Casey Kasem as voice talents (Merry‘s voice sounds like Shaggy)
• Gollum laughs like a melodramatic super villain
• Dude, Eowyn is HOT! For a cartoon character.
• Aragorn finally gets a line, 1 hour and 18 minutes into the flick.
• The eagles airlifting an entire army

Is It Worth Staying Through End Credits?

For more songs, if you have a death wish.

Intermission! [some sources: IMDb]

Scott R. wrote in: "Almost all reviews I've read of this film claim that Bilobo's 129th birthday party and the Minstrel of Gondor were invented for the film. Actually they are in the books. Chapter 6 of ROTK, MANY PARTINGS deals with Bilbo's birthday, and he really does have a memory lapse concerning the ring. What happened is that the animated special took these things out of context, and blew them up out of proportion. The Minstrel of Gondor is mentioned in maybe one sentence, as is a different minstrel in Rohan. They are not important to the story of course. And they do not serve as narrators."

Groovy Quotes

Sam: BEHOLD… THE GARDENS OF MY DELIGHT! SO SHALL I TRANSFORM THE WORLD!

Sam: Stop or I’ll skin you alive!

Frodo: (about the ring) I’d forgotten about its malevolent trickery!

Sam: I'd hate to think of you with naught but a bit of leather between you and a stab in the dark.

Frodo: I have come but I do not choose to do now what I have come to do!

DVD Review

Very skimpy, just some brief background info and that's about it.

Soundtrack Review

Since I had to suffer, here's a taste of the complete soundtrack in this film:
• "Frodo of the Nine Fingers" - The bard begins this flashback tune warbling like Frank Sinatra singing from the bottom of the deep end of a pool. There’s a lot of talking and exposition in this "song". Sample line: "Frodoooooo of the Nine Fingers… and the ring of doooooooom!" This song goes on for approximately six hours. It serves to recap The Hobbit, The Fellowship of the Ring, and The Two Towers.
• "It’s So Easy Not To Try" - a pretty pathetic, nostalgic tune that does some more flashback action, covering the first couple LOTR books. "Move along when troubles come… like a mindless butterfly." It’s only the second song, and I want to physically harm this "minstrel" in such a way that his sperm count will be dropped to zero. Hey, you would too if you heard this.
• "The Bearer of the Ring" - A melodramatic chorus about Sam, happily it’s over quick. Quick tip: "bearer" and "wearer" rhymes.
• "Less Can Be More" - For fear of over-generalization, let’s just say that no good music came out of the seventies. This cheesy, meandering, pointless song shows us why. "Less can be more, and small can be beautiful!"
• "The Ship Sailing Song" - Since the same guy sings most of these songs, in the same exact fashion, they end up sounding like one agonizingly long tune. This one is the famous little ditty about elves sailing their ships for no good reason.
• "The Power of the Ring" - Great just to see the reflection in Frodo’s eyes where Sam turns into an Orc.
• "It’s So Easy Not To Try PART TWO" - AH! Why did you bring this back to torture me?
• "When There’s A Whip There’s A Way" - The only good song on here, and it uses whip lashes as musical cues! I should put this on my answering machine.
• "Leave Tomorrow Till It Comes" - Okay, maybe I was a bit out of my authority denouncing all seventies musical styles, but can we at least agree that folk SUCKS? If you disagree, I’m going to play this song for you. If you disagree again, the song again. We’ll keep it up until you give in or your ears start bleeding (which should be about three minutes). In this classic tune, an imaginary world where hobbits and orcs get along (I’m serious) is created.
• "The Cracks of Doom" - Ooh, it’s scary. Very scary. And by scary, I mean, "sung slowly by guys in as low of a voice as they can."
• "The Bearer of the Ring AGAIN" - The song that is so thrilling, you have to hear it twice.
• "The Bearer of the Ring PART THREE" - And the hits just keep on coming…
• "Win The Battle, Lose The War" - A marching tune for the whole family!
• "Frodo and the Nine Fingers REPRISE" - Yum!
• "The End of the Ring, The Return of the King" - We get to see Faramir for the first time.
• "Frodo of the Nine Fingers FINALE"

If you liked this movie, try these:

• Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
• The Lord of the Rings
• The Hobbit