LOTR 1978 version

Its plagarism, which PJ denies, as I remeber he claims only the shot of Proudfoot, saying his name at Bilbos Party, is an exact copy- but thats clearly rubbish. The black rider scene is too similar- in both they hide beneath the roots of a tree on the road embankment- PJ cannot claim inspiration from the book, where only Frodo sees the Rider and is lying down in long grass, the other two are behiind roots but just the roots of the trees edging the road not under them.
There are a host of shots, as well as those you mention there are similar shots in angle of Boromir fighting the watcher in the water, the shot as they run by the pillars in Moria. Even Boromirs death scene.
Despite all the flaws of the 1978 film I still think the script is better than PJ's by quite a bit.

Ignore the visuals, ignore the voice acting Eldo and just pay sole attention to the script in this and I will see you on the other side!



First thing is given PJ's version of Fellowship is at least twice the length of the same stroy in the animated version its amazing, given that, that they get so muchof Tolkiens key dialogue int it- and not nasty rewritten Tolkien like PJ presents us with but the genuine article. Despit relocating Gandlaf and Frodo's conversation it is closer to the book version in terms of dialogue than PJ gets anywhere near.

Second- the Saruman scene. Look how many differen concepts they retain fromthe book here that PJ dropped- the Many Colours ascpect, the excellent dialogue "Does that displease you?", Wormtongue being at Isengard
Yes its economic, it has to be for the films length and yet it still retains m ore of the original scene than PJ does in twice the time (granted mostly wasted on a terrible fight).

Third- Merry and Pippin. One line they do it in. One line! Gandalf says "Tell everyone you are moving away, perhaps to live in Bucklebury with those cousins of yours, Merry and Pippin." One line to give the viewer the cover story for how Frodo slips away without causing a huge fuss.

Fourth- Merry and Pippin- by putting the Conspiracy Unmasked bit on the road after the Balck Rider they manage to bother to tell the viewer what Pippin and Merry are doing on this journey at all- something PJ doesn;t seem to think matters and so doesn't even mention. They are just there.

And on a personnal note regarding the animation I like a lot of it, I particularly like how they portray the Black Riders as a literal twisted thing, the meaning of the word wraith. I found it particulary effective watching this as a youngster and its still disturbing ho they move today, a much braver and in my view more effective creepiness than what PJ did in the same scene.

In many ways I would much rather have had PJ's cast and art direction with this script than what we actually got.

Its a strange film and no mistake.
The animation style is kind of a work in progress in need of a lot of progress- it got it mind as he'd pefected his technique by Fire and Ice.
Its main problem is its all just so squeezed. I have a huge deal of admiration for the script writer who is asked to the imposible (cram 1.5 books into one 2hour film) and who nearly pulls it off. I think he did a remarkable job given that restriction. And whilst the dialogue is abridged at leasts it abridgd Tolkien not some pseudo post modern nonsense.


One of my favourite bits fro Fire and Ice- loved this especially when I was a teenager. At its best Bakshi's animation is up there witthe best in my view, just a pity in is LotR's it often doesn't quite technically work.

I have never seen the 'sequel' oddly enough.

For me where Bakshi scores over PJ is in the script and dialogue, truncated to hell as it is in less than half the time it still uses more Tolkien dialogue than PJ does in his entire trilogy.
And the Bakshi's version doesnt make a meal and a cock up out of simple things like Balin in Moria. I still dont know how PJ managed to muddy that to hell when its so straight forward. But its a classic comparison between the treatment of the source between the two versions.

Eldo I largely agree about th Bakshi script- the reason I think it is nowhere near as offensive as PJ's script is its not the scriptwriters fault.
Given the time constraint I think they did an astonishing job of getting in as much as they did, yes because of those constraints it can never fully work or be satisfactory but its a valiant attempt to get Tolkien in there.
PJ's is not. He does have the time, he is not constrained, if the Baskhi script had the time PJ's did I dont think there would be any competion. It would kick PJ's all over the place.
So PJ I can hold to blame, the script writer of Bakshi I can't- they did a good job in the circumstances, PJ did not in his circumstances. For me thats the main difference when comparing the two.

You maybe should watch it again I thik judging on your comments. I can think of several individual senes it does better. Most notably of the top of my head the scens following Caradhras where they discuss the route ahead.