Talk:The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)/Archive 5

Archival
Why was the last Talk archived? It only covered just over one month, and had three items in it? I have restored two of them, as I do not believe these were sorted out. So I have restored A Critique and United Artists deemed the film a flop from Archive 4.StephenBuxton 17:01, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Both of these issues have been resolved. I didn't want these old discussions to take up so much space. As they have been taken care of, there is no need for anyone to be concerned with them. (Ibaranoff24 21:39, 23 January 2007 (UTC))
 * Regarding the idea that the film might have been a flop, I flipped through Leonard Maltin's book on animation while in New York a while ago. According to him, Bakshi had only two major successes in his career, and LOTR was one of them (the other was Fritz the Cat). I added that bit of info to the article. I'm not sure what page this was on, though. (Ibaranoff24 06:31, 4 March 2007 (UTC))

Plot
The film's plot is too long. Keeping with the current criteria for Featured Articles, they must meet the Manual of Style for their respective WikiProject, which wants plots closer to 600 words, unless they are complicated plots. LOTR isn't a complicated plot. It may have a lot of detail, but complicated it's not.  BIGNOLE    (Question?)  (What I do)  19:49, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Film Book
When the film was released it appears that there were still tentative plans to produce a sequel. The tie-in 'Film Book' (a simplified re-telling of the novel) was published in 1979, and the text of the inside cover jacket states: "The Lord of the Rings is to be released as two films and this book follows the story of the first."

Does anyone have this book? Can someone Wikify this text and add it back to the article using the cite book template? (Ibaranoff24 04:55, 6 June 2007 (UTC))
 * Never mind, I found it on Google Books. (Ibaranoff24 12:42, 5 September 2007 (UTC))

Comic book adaptation
Please use citations when adding material to the article. Information that cannot be factually verified will be removed. (Ibaranoff24 15:15, 17 August 2007 (UTC))

Legacy
There has been some concern that the images in the 'Legacy' section are not clear/bright enough. We should definitely try for the clearest images possible, but my computer is down at the moment, so I can't capture or upload any screenshots at the moment. If anyone wants to upload new images for the Legacy section (illustrating the similarity in shot set-ups between the Ralph Bakshi and Peter Jackson film adaptations), feel free. (Ibaranoff24 02:21, 24 August 2007 (UTC))


 * I don't know how to create screenshots, so I can't help, but if someone else is going to make new screenshots, the "Proudfeet" moment might have a more solid fair use rationale than the Nazgûl in Bree, because Jackson explicitly acknowledged that as a tribute to Bakshi's film. At the moment, the similarity between the two Bree scenes is unsourced.  (I personally agree that Jackson's version of that scene, and the first encounter with the Black Rider where the hobbits hide in the tree roots, owes a debt to Bakshi, but we really should have a source for that other than our own interpretations.) —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 03:11, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Copyedit
Some copyediting concerns:
 * I have some concerns about the amount of the article based on Bakshi's quotes - I blockquoted them to improve the readability of the page, but I think more information from sources other than Bakshi would improve the article.
 * I commented out an Aragorn quote because I couldn't understand its relevance to the passage.
 * Sometimes Aragorn is referred to as Aragorn and sometimes as Strider. This needs clarification. Cricketgirl 16:31, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Bakshi quote on Jackson
An anonymous editor recently removed the sentence "I thought that was kind of fucked up" from Bakshi's quote about Peter Jackson's version of LOTR, apparently under the mistaken impression that it had been added as vandalism. It's not — it's in the cited source (see here), although the IGN site censors the quote to "kind of f***** up". I've restored the quote, but I figured it should be discussed here: first of all, does the sentence add anything to the article? And second, does it matter that the source censors the phrase "fucked up" and we don't? I don't have strong opinions on either question, but I figured that someone else might (one way or the other), so here it is. Discuss. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 02:26, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, the The Lord of the Rings article quotes one of Tolkien's peers: "Not another fucking elf!" And Wikipedia isn't supposed to be censored. Though "Bakshi is quoted as saying "Peter Jackson did say ... fucked up." can be reduced to "Bakshi attributed Jackson's change of tone [about having seen Bakshi's version] to his own vocal complaints through interviews." What Bakshi called "fucked up" was Jackson's behavior, not his films. Uthanc 13:35, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

plot summary
This might have already been covered in past talk but lemme ask again - does it really make sense to have a detailed summary of the plot of LoT in this article? Presumably, most readers are going to be familiar with the story and most of that info is in the proper article already. This article should focus on the film rather than the book. This would mostly involve cutting out a lot of present material, but sometimes shorter is better. Thoughts?radek (talk) 04:19, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Critical response to the movie
"Tolkien himself was not a fan of the film. In his Letters, number 210, he writes in criticism of the depiction of the Balrog: "The Balrog never speaks or makes any vocal sound at all... [Bakshi] may think he knows more about Balrogs than I do, but he cannot expect me to agree with him."[32]"

Considering the movie was relesed in 1978 and Tolkein died in 1973 is this completely certain? 82.37.178.177 (talk) 12:02, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Screenshot
The article should include a screenshot to demonstrate the rotoscoped imagery used in the film. Some guy (talk) 05:20, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Vandalism?
The article has been almost entirely replaced by something in Spanish.75.24.79.139 (talk) 15:49, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Vandalism fixed
Now seems OK.75.24.79.139 (talk) 15:50, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Influence
I'm skeptical that the film had much influence on sales of the book, which was already prominent. But Jackson details his debt, as I said, though only for the first film.

My DVD reference is actually based on the extended edition. Anyone who has the ordinary edition could check how much is there.

If you watch the start of both films, Jackson has lifted Bakshi's opening, from a brief history to Gandalf in his cart, though of course it is done far better. It is distinctive and quite different from either the book or the BBC radio series. --GwydionM (talk) 18:23, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

"Refused to fund a sequel"
I have twice added a cn tag to the bit in the lead saying the the dibstributors refused to fund a sequel. It has been twice reverted saying it's referenced in the body of the article. But it's not even mentioned in the body let alone referenced there. I'm adding the cn tag again until someone provides a reference or shows me where in the body the reason for there being no sequel is mentioned. GDallimore (Talk) 21:44, 15 November 2011 (UTC)


 * OK, you are right. Let's change the lead to match the body (just that it was never released, not the comments about why)71.246.144.154 (talk) 22:33, 15 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Actually, the article doesn't even say that. Which strikes me as a major omission contrary to FA Criteria 1(b). There's got to be some source on this somewhere. There's the implication that Bakshi didn't want to make the sequel, but it's not very strong. GDallimore (Talk) 22:50, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Frodo of the nine fingers...new section for the article
I have this song stamped in my brain from my youth. It was from some sort of LOTR movie. Is this the one? It was really kind of hokey. But very catchy. Like a commercial jingle you can't extract from your brain. Frodo of the nine fingers...

So um...to make this non forum-like, should we have a section on this? I am sure it must be resonating in other people's brains.

71.246.144.154 (talk) 22:43, 15 November 2011 (UTC)


 * That was from the live-action movies but it is nowhere notable enough to have its own section or to be mentioned in a Wikipedia article. De728631 (talk) 18:19, 16 November 2011 (UTC)


 * It could be from an unauthorised & very dire cartoon made before Bakshi, in which orcs sing 'where there's a whip, there's a way'. But this is second-hand.


 * Check the end of the book and I think it does say "Frodo of the nine fingers". --GwydionM (talk) 18:16, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Ambiguous
The film was originally intended to be distributed as The Lord of the Rings Part One.[4][5] According to Bakshi, when he completed the film, United Artists executives told him that they were planning to release the film without indicating that a sequel would follow, because they felt that audiences would not pay to see half of a film: "I told them they can't drop the Part One, because people are going to come in thinking they'll see the whole film, and it's not there. We had a huge fight, and they released it as Lord of the Rings. So when it came to the end, people were stunned in the theater, even worse than I ever realized they would be, because they were expecting to see the whole film. People keep telling me I never finished the film. And I keep saying, 'That's right!'"[4] "Had it said 'Part One,' I think everyone would have respected it. But because it didn't say 'Part One,' everyone came in expecting to see the entire three books, and that's where the confusion comes in."[5] ---

I don't quite understand. Is it saying that a sequel was never planned in the first place?

Ambiguous
The film was originally intended to be distributed as The Lord of the Rings Part One.[4][5] According to Bakshi, when he completed the film, United Artists executives told him that they were planning to release the film without indicating that a sequel would follow, because they felt that audiences would not pay to see half of a film: "I told them they can't drop the Part One, because people are going to come in thinking they'll see the whole film, and it's not there. We had a huge fight, and they released it as Lord of the Rings. So when it came to the end, people were stunned in the theater, even worse than I ever realized they would be, because they were expecting to see the whole film. People keep telling me I never finished the film. And I keep saying, 'That's right!'"[4] "Had it said 'Part One,' I think everyone would have respected it. But because it didn't say 'Part One,' everyone came in expecting to see the entire three books, and that's where the confusion comes in."[5] ---

I don't quite understand. Is it saying that a sequel was never planned in the first place?ZFT (talk) 04:33, 19 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Clearly a sequel was planned ("they were planning to release the film without indicating that a sequel would follow") but for some reason that isn't clear, it never happened. Richerman (talk) 14:30, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Just voice roles?
The article states that the film "features the voices of" the actors involved, but is this really accurate? The majority of the feature was filmed in live action and then rotoscoped. The actors didn't sit in a sound booth and deliver their lines into a mic. They acted out their roles; dressing up in costume, riding horses and fighting chorographed fight scenes with swords. To say that these were "voice roles" is a bit unfair. 21:51, 15 June 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kingadrock (talk • contribs)

Poster image - Replace with original?
The current poster image is not the original done by Tom Jung - Difference in the images is the color palette used - I have been helping Tom with a legacy project for a few years now - The originals can be viewed at: IMPAwards http://impawards.com/1978/lord_of_the_rings.html The Academy Library http://catalog.oscars.org/vwebv/holdingsInfo?searchId=116&recCount=50&recPointer=16&bibId=42479

Wondering if anyone has concerns about swapping out the images?Jobrjobr (talk) 21:23, 13 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Completed July 19, 2012. Jobrjobr (talk) 01:20, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Untitled
According to Middle-earth in film, Disney never owned the rights to LOTR, and Tolkien sold the rights to United Artists in 1969.

Production location
If the film was produced at the Fantasy Film studio, in San francisco, then the film should be categorized as such. Id like to see info about the production facilities for the rotoscoping and animation.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 04:34, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Excellent idea, go for it!  Richerman ''   (talk) 08:55, 26 November 2012 (UTC)