#rankin bass goblins

[atomic-chronoscaph]

The Hobbit (1977)

#the hobbit gif #rankin bass gif #70s tv specials #j.r.r. tolkien #middle earth #battle of five armies #thorin oakenshield #thranduil #bard the bowman #goblins #the lord of the rings #animation #animated features #fantasy movies #seventies #1977 #gif #chronoscaph gif

[spearhafoc]

The Ranki-Baas are an alien species from the Andromeda Galaxy. Seen as a barbarian race by most of the universe, the Ranki-Baas didn't develop space travel on their own but had it introduced to them by visitors. However, their resource-limited homeworld made them an unattractive prospect for invaders and traders alike. Ranki-Baas culture is simple in its aesthetic tastes - making things for mostly utilitarian purposes and avoiding ornamentation or art-for-art's sake. The main exception is in their songs, which are renowned abroad, even by those who dismiss other aspects of their culture. Singing is extremely important to them - in fact, several wars have been fought solely because a tribal chief or two wanted a venue to showcase a new acapella war chant or the like. They each have two throats, which aid in their ability to harmonize. 

Ranki-Baas only have one sex, with each member having both male and female features. In a mating scenario, both participants tend to give birth. The have live births, but the young are soon after suspended in nutrient-rich mud until they reach adolescence, when they emerge healthy and strong. Ranki-Baas have expandable throats, like the bullfrog of Earth, with are used in threat displays. Their "horns" are actually the upper canine tusks, which grow upward and pierce through their skin. 

Inspired by the Goblins/Orcs from the Rankin/Bass Tolkien movies. I always liked their designs (even though they're not remotely book-accurate) and they always had the best songs. Their gestation period is based on the infamous "Orc Pods" from Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies. 

#art #creature design #creature #monster #alien #aliens #goblins #orc #orcs #goblin #rankin bass #the hobbit #return of the king #lord of the rings #tolkien #andromeda galaxy

[rankinbass-hobbit]

#Micheal McMahn #the hobbit 1977 #misty mountains #roads #maury laws #goblin town #piano #youtube #Youtube #rankin bass #that's what bilbo baggins hates #the greatest adventure #gollum's riddle #in the valley/smaug's death

[striderstable]

The Hobbit (1977) Soundtrack (OST) - 08. Down, Down to Goblin Town

From my Tolkien Reading Day Music Playlist

The best part of The Hobbit Rankin/Bass animated movie is the soundtrack!

#the hobbit 1977 #rankin bass #animated hobbit movie soundtrack #the hobbit 1977 soundtrack #down down to goblin town #j. r. r. tolkien #tolkien's poetry set to music #audio only #today's theme #my posts #Youtube

[cityoftheangelllls]

Day 4, 293 of waiting for the soundtrack for The Hobbit (1977) to be released on iTunes

#hell the soundtrack doesn't even have an official CD release yet!!! #this is long overdue! #almost every song in that movie is a banger! #especially the goblin songs! #and the greatest adventure and roads go ever ever on bring me to tears every time #their version of far o'er the misty mountains cold is soooo good too #the hobbit #the hobbit 1977 #rankin bass #tolkien #lotr #random thoughts from angie

[lifeimitatesmeme]

🤘 it's metal af 🤘

#lotr memes #lotr music #music memes #rankin bass the hobbit #movie soundtrack #tolkien humor #music humor #howard shore #lotr trilogy #a shortcut to mushrooms #the battle of the hornburg #the lighting of the beacons #the battle of the pelennor fields #down down to goblin town #metal as fuck

[b-i-r-0]

THE HOBBIT 1977

Down, Down to Goblin Town

#I got some new incense sticks today that are called Goblin's lair #The Hobbit #Rankin/Bass #jrr tolkien

[bogleech]

The Rankin Bass goblins were so fucking good. All other issues with it aside the “goblin” design standardized by D&D isn’t interesting and every fantasy setting should have always strived to have a goblin style that’s completely their own. I don’t want to be able to know it’s a goblin just by looking. That shouldn’t have one “look!”

[laora-ryn]

Omg y'all, my husband's family had a tradition growing up that when any of them were sick (which was pretty often, since he's one of seven kids), they would watch the 1977 Rankin/Bass Hobbit movie. Their dad really loves Tolkien but was generally not a fan of letting the kids use The Tech (tm), so I think this is the compromise the older kids wrangled from him

I have heard about this movie from him and his siblings, but didn't really know anything about it myself since my parents weren't super into Tolkien, so I got into it with the PJ LOTR movies

ANYWAY so we've been sick all week and James found out that movie's on HBO, so he sat me down and made me watch it as a Time Honored Tradition

And I.

Bilbo has approximated Leia buns??? I spent an hour and seventeen minutes looking at him, but still have not figured out what is going on with this guy's hair

They really leaned hard into "there's thorin and uhhhhhhhhhh twelve other dwarves idk their names don't matter." The only ones I could keep straight were fili and kili, since they were blond, and balin and dwalin, because they have like, six-heads and brain wrinkles on their head lol

James always described Gollum in this movie as a booger, and now I understand why. They also made him blind, which doesn't make a ton of sense in the context of Bilbo using the ring to escape, but imo it's a neat design choice nonetheless

They really did THIS to thranduil oropherion I am still laughing my ASS off at this. He also spoke with a really shitty, half assed French accent for no discernable reason

And then there was? Smaug??? Who has laser beams for eyes?? And fur on his back?? And a tiger's face???? And pecs????????

I was too flabbergasted to remember to take more pictures but the conversation right before the battle went like this:

Thorin, Bard, and Thranduil: let's fuck these guys up!!

Gandalf: STOP you fools!!! As we speak there is a FOURTH army of goblins on its way here!!!

Thorin, Bard, and Thranduil:

Thorin: King Thranduil, my dearest friend and greatest ally, I would be honored to join forces with you to defeat this evil

Thranduil: oh mighty king thorin, it would be an honor [I wish I was making this up, if it weren't made in the 70s I would've thought it was a meme]

Also, at the end, bombur shows up in front of Bilbo only to keel over and die, before we cut to Bilbo's conversation with gandalf:

Bilbo: how many of our original thirteen remain??

Gandalf: seven :(

Bilbo: and thorin??

Gandalf: soon, it will be six :((((

No explanation for this or like, explanation of who else they arbitrarily killed off or anything

So anyway, this movie was An Experience (tm) and I wanted to share and also, y'all should watch it if you get the chance bc lol

#mine #the hobbit #lotr #i think thranduil takes the cake for me #but smaug is such a 'wtf???' that he gets an honorable mention too #sry for long post lol

[grayrazor]

Made the family marathon the Rankin/Bass Hobbit and Return of the King with the Ralph Bakshi Lord of the Rings in the middle this Christmas break.

It’s kind of strange to see Brian Froud-style cute trolls and goblins in a Middle Earth context, fighting in the armies of Mordor, pushing Grond around.

Not allowed to show violence in a ‘70s TV cartoon, so Elvish blades apparently just send people to the Shadow Realm.

lmao, the Witch King of Angmar sounds like Dr. Quest doing a Starscream impression.

Eowyn kind of looks like the Tolmekian princess from Nausicaa.

On to the 1978 Lord of the Rings. Boromir's costume is decidedly more questionable than the rest. He looks like a cartoon barbarian, a $20 halloween viking costume.

I don’t like Gollum’s voice in the Bakshi version. He sounds less like a sewer mutant and more like a queer-coded Disney villain. I do wonder if Andy Serkis saw this one. His Gollum has very similar body language.

So I’m hearing that Ralph Bakshi and company made another rotoscope-assisted animated feature fantasy film after The Lord of the Rings, “Fire and Ice” based on Frank Frazetta art. Does it have any merit to its story, or is it just “barbarian cheesecake fanservice: the movie”?

#the hobbit #the lord of the rings #the return of the king #rankin bass #ralph bakshi #dark age of animation #studio ghibli

[jakey-beefed-it]

I often get very obscure and/or stupid things stuck in my head. Tonight's feature is the goblin song from the seventies Rankin-Bass Hobbit movie, which I have not seen in over 30 years.

#down down to goblin town #you go my lad #ho ho my lad

[fuckyeahclassiclink]

Random thought, but do you think Moblins were inspired by Rankin Bass Goblins/Orcs or perhaps Maleficents Goons (monsters with animal features that work as soldiers) from Sleeping Beauty?

Miyamoto did take inspiration from alot of animated features, anyhow?

Maybe. I do think it's mainly just him trying to put his own creative spin on the typical Goblin type monster that's pretty common as enemy fodder.

Their overworld sprite and the blue moblins in Link's Awakening look like the Rankin Bass Goblins, but their actual artwork? Decidedly less like Rankin Bass Goblins, and more obviously it's own thing.

I wonder why the art work for enemies was so vastly different in style than the actual artwork of characters like Link in the early Zelda games.

[supernova1us]

My personal changes to the Hobbit trilogy films

so a lot of this comes both from personal preference and obviously hindsight years after the movies came out. im not striving terribly hard to gear things solely towards the books but certain things do work better geared that way plus they do have to stretch out to three movies. i did grow up with both the original book and the rankin/bass special so both of those are equel in the standards i hold things to. ill start with some overarching changes then to some smaller, more detailed ones.

-one primarily would be slightly toning down the unlikable traits of the dwarves overall. it just feels like they pushed too hard in making the dwarves rude, standoffish, unruly and unpleasant to really sympathize with in many cases. if just say thorin and dwallin are the standoffish ones, and say another two or three are the rowdy ones, and another one is the blunt or rude one, it would work a bit more but many of these unflattering traits are just too shared among the dwarves and it seemed like an unnecessary addition that keeps the individuals from being fleshed out more.

-i would also tone down the overreliance on connecting to LOTR a bit. i know they are connected in major ways, but the problem is that this story looses its autonomy and focus, simply becoming a prequel rather than its own story that leads into the next. that includes bilbo not continuously having flashes to the eye of sauron, less implication of sauron focusing on commanding the orcs and getting the mountain/dragon for himself and more that he is aiding/encouraging the events. sauron wanting smaug as an ally would more primarily be gandalfs worry. that would also include smaug not being aware of saurons threat.

-azog would not be in the trilogy outside of the moria flashback. bolg, who would have a different design altogether, would rightly be the main villain and fill mostly the same role. it honestly seemed like a very unnecessary change in the first place. the orc hunters in "an unexpected journey" would not appear until the attack when radagast appears, this would also mean that bolg's identity and motivation dont come out until the cliffside finale even though we see him at weathertop.

-smaug would have his traditional 4 legged and winged design from the concept work. its just my personal preference for dragons. he would also get to say his boast speech in full. a shot of his body sinking into the dark depths of the lake would also be added.

-thorin would have a bit of a longer beard.

-kili would have lighter hair to more closely resemble fili. they'd also get more shared scenes/focus instead of primarily kili.

-dwallin would have more grey in his hair

-bombur and bifur would get more attention and be closer with bilbo like bofur. this would play up their being somewhat outsiders for not being of the line of durin, and also because in both the book and rankin/bass special, bombur is one of the most prominent dwarves, but in the films is mostly for fat jokes and has barely any lines.

-the "misty mountains cold" song would be extended.

-when the witch king attacks radagast, he appears in the armored spectral form from the third film, this makes much more sense as to partially hide his identity from unaware viewers, but also because the form we saw was how he appeared in the shadow realm, so he wouldnt appear that way in the physical world.

-a bit more time would be shown to pass in rivendell, including the "bilbo in rivendell" deleted scene. i'd add a scene where some elf children sing a few lines of the elf song from the book, which amuses thorin, showing a bit of his softer side. the bofur song scene would remain in but would be less chaotic and the elf minstrels would join in, showing a smidge better relationship between the dwarves and the less antagonistic elves.

-the goblins would be designed to more closely resemble the moria orcs seen in "fellowship". they would also emerge after dark and join the orcs on the cliffs before the eagles arrive. similar to the books, the Golbin town song would be present as a chant as the dwarves are taken along. the addition of the goblin king recognizing thorin and hinting at azog would not be present.

-the collapsed bridge escape from goblin town would not be quite so ridiculous.

-a larger group of wargs would attack on the cliff and bolg/orcs wouldnt be seen in the scene until they arrive at the cliff, with the wargs having arrived first

-gandalf would briefly address the lord of eagles before they leave

-beorns bear form would get more screentime and he would be a much less grim character outside his dislike for orcs and distrusting the dwarves. too many characters are grim in this trilogy. the deleted scene of the dwarves intro would remain in

-legolas would be a less ruthless/moody and overpowered character. he would still be slightly naive but very skilled.

-the romance between tauriel and kili doesnt exist, rather she strikes a minor friendship with him and fili in their cells while captured. her and legolas following them to lake town is more her devotion to unraveling the larger events.

-the extended river battle does not take place; after the gate is opened, a prolonged battle between the elves and orcs at the river gate would intercut with the dwarves trying to manage going through the rapids before the remaining orcs flee the battle to follow them. more focus on all the elves fighting and not just legolas and tauriel. also kili does not get poison arrowed.

-alfred gets much less screentime and is less weaselly and is either a suck up or a complainer; is much less aggressive and arrogant in personality. he would either die with the master or remain with the survivors but be much less prominent other than getting stuck with bad duties and acting cowardly.

-only kili and fili get left behind in lake town, from being late from drinking. they are taken in by bard, which draws the orcs there by scent. tauriel would then choose to stay to protect them and the children, which legolas agrees with. they thus see the death from smaug's attack which warrants their unnerving towards thorin later. legolas would not leave the city but simply disappears battling the orcs and doesnt reappear until meeting with tauriel on the shore after the town is destroyed.

-the battle of five armies would be less one sided and hopeless for the humans/dwarves/elves until the near end. more elves and humans would survive to fight on till the end; elf archers would remain on the mountain slope like the book while the rest fell back to help secure dale. the orcs would have much less trolls and ogres fighting for them.

-the misty mountains cold instrumental would be used when thorins company lead the dwarf charge

-rather than a trap and dying separately, fili and kili would be cornered by bolg on ravenhill, who kills both in combat in sight of thorin

-there would be more eagles arriving and a few would be seen being shot down before they fully turn the tide.

-beorn would instead arrive shortly after legolas and tauriel and, after telling off thrandruil, the three head for ravenhill and fight off the approaching orcs while thorin fights bolg. a shot of beorn baring thorins body on his back towards erabor would be seen before the funeral scene. legolas and tauriel would be present at the funeral. thrandruil and his remaining elves would be standing outside dale as the memorial horns sound.

-thrandiul does remain and fight on after legolas and gandalfs words and is shown awkwardly embracing his son after the battle. legolas' final conversation with his father and the reference to aragorn are not present-cause that sucked.

-a short montage would show bilbo, gandalf and beorns return journey over time, including them staying at beorns, stopping at rivendell and digging up the troll treasure.

deleted/extended scenes that would remain in the films: bilbo at the hobbit market, extended dwarves raid the pantry scene, dwarves interrogated by grand goblin, dwarves intro to beorn, enchanted river, extended mirkwood scene, dwarves vs elves battle, the women join the battle, bilbo plants the acorn, thorins company during battle, bifur losing his axe, thorins funeral.

so, what are others thoughts on these changes, would they have been a benefit to the films, a hindrance or are they just overall pointless.

#tolkien #the hobbit #the lord of the rings #the hobbit an unexpected journey #the hobbit the desolation of smaug #the hobbit battle of the five armies #bilbo baggins

[rivalsforlife]

OKAY. 1977 RANKIN-BASS VERSION OF THE HOBBIT COMPLETED. Overall I liked this one more than I expected, considering that I did not like their ROTK. It still had a few moments of what seemed like fairly insensitive departures from the text but not nearly to the same extent the ROTK one did.

First off, some things I liked:

They managed to keep in like... a huge amount of the original songs. It was quite impressive for something that was only an hour and 18 minutes. Some of these were barely mentioned, but they kept in the tra la la lally, which is of course, utterly critical. elves MUST be at least a little bit unhinged or there’s no point.

Also, down down to goblin town is a whole bunch of fun. Between this and “where there’s a whip there’s a way” I’m thinking we MUST keep the orcs alive because they’re the only ones who have good songs. And also, this thing has goblins and orcs be the same thing, unlike iirc the Jackson movies which kind of make them separate beings, which is wrong. 

On the subject of appearances, the dwarves looked pretty great, they actually looked book accurate instead of. well. what the jackson movies did with thorin and kili in particular. 

where is the bagginshield fanart where bilbo and thorin look like THIS

come on. there’s got to be at least one, right.

PLUS they actually barely cut out anything for a movie that is, again, one hour and 18 minutes long. This means some scenes were shortened. Beorn got cut out completely, unfortunately. But I think that’s understandable, given that if you don’t have him show up in the battle of five armies he’s one of the more expendable ones.

I think the biggest loss from the shortened time is that a lot of the scenes kind of ended up... losing their cleverness? If that makes sense? Like in the troll confrontation, they turn to stone because Gandalf somehow manages to bring the morning early, not because he makes them argue with each other by imitating their voices until the sun comes up. In addition, Bilbo doesn’t really taunt the spiders to draw them away. I’m assuming these are products of them wanting to keep the scenes in but shortening them, which is a shame.

The biggest departure that bothered me is that they cut out Bilbo’s moment where he considers killing Gollum but then pities him and decides not to, because that is pretty significant to the overall Themes and is also very plot-relevant for LOTR in general. 

Oh and of course the Arkenstone and all the stuff related to that was cut out. Instead the conflict is Bilbo not wanting to fight when there’s 13 dwarves against an army, and Thorin calls him a coward who knows nothing of war, and Bilbo says THEY’RE all cowards because he’s the one who did all the stuff like fighting spiders and confronting Smaug and all that. which was a little weird honestly. 

Fairly minor exclusions: they cut out one of my favorite exchanges which is Bilbo talking to a complaining Thorin like “WELL ARE YOU ALIVE? OR ARE YOU DEAD?” after the barrel scene, but this is replaced by Bilbo making a quip about how being a burglar didn’t mean he had to provide them with first-class accommodations, so it stands.

They also cut out the humor of the “we’re starving” exchange which is unfortunate because Thranduil LOOKS like he’s starving.

man. there’s so much here. going to mentally juxtapose this over thranduil when I’m watching the jackson hobbit movies. like honestly to me it’s funny how many people are convinced the elves are supposed to be ethereal and beautiful yet the only adaptation that’s really tried that is jackson’s. and sometimes you have shit like this.

also in line with my point of the bagginshield fanart where they look like in this movie, I want the kili/tauriel fanart but tauriel looks like one of the wood elves here:

and of course kili looks like kili in this adaptation or his book-accurate self. someone has to have done this.

There was a thing here implying the reason the dwarves get locked up in Mirkwood is because they’re greedy and didn’t want to share the treasure with the dwarves, which was a bit weird, but we’ll get to that later.

... miscellaneous point I can’t fit anywhere else. goblins and spiders get killed and they just kind of spin into nothingness. particularly the death of the great goblin was weird. Although it did sufficiently hype up Glamdring which is great! Overall a thing I noticed about these Rankin-Bass ones in particular is that it takes particular effort to dodge any of the previous lore, like Elrond mentioning Glamdring was wielded by his kin and is from Gondolin, they just say “these were forged for the goblin wars”. which I get for not wanting to confuse the audience but, still.

Smaug has spotlight eyes that put the jackson movies’ sauron to shame. he also looks a bit like a kitty cat

and of course I would be remiss to not mention that bard and the lakedown men have bare legs like in the bakshi adaptation. why do men dress like this

Hm anyway. Throughout this part Gandalf makes Bilbo record a log of his adventures so that Gandalf can “judge his mistakes”, which is so rude and honestly kind of fits Gandalf despite it just being an excuse for Bilbo to narrate things throughout that part.

Okay. They generally go through the gold-sickness by making the dwarves behave irrationally, like hanging out in the treasure room waiting for Smaug. But it also has some other strange stuff like Balin saying “O Great King under the mountain!” and Bilbo going “Balin, it’s only Thorin.” like yeah it is. but he also Is the King Under The Mountain. That’s A Significant Point.

What’s funny about it though is that for the battle of five armies (which has bilbo go “it’s a battle of three armies...” [orcs appear] “it’s a battle of FOUR armies...” [eagles appear] “A BATTLE OF FIVE ARMIES... IT’S TOO MUCH...”) as soon as the orcs come out Thorin reconciles with Thranduil and Bard which is an exchange like:

Thorin: O GREAT ELF KING MY TRUEST FRIEND AND ALLY

Thranduil: OF COURSE KING UNDER THE MOUNTAIN. YOUR PEOPLE ARE LIKE BROTHERS UNTO MINE.

which is just very much not true at all. but whatever. I get what they’re going for but it seems they’re going WAY too far. you could do a “let’s set aside our differences to fight our common enemy, the orcs” without acting like they were ever besties. 

Bilbo also has a line here like “Thorin is correct... I simply do not understand [what? why? could not make out this word]” and whatever that last word is it’s still funny. he’s so mean to thorin. book-accurate. thorin’s death exchange includes:

Thorin: Does it take this for us to see each other... You are no coward, my friend... I am sorry I so named you...

Bilbo: this isn’t important

But overall it stayed true to the death scene which was good and decently emotional. 

What is strange though is that only six of the company survive. I’m not sure if this is including Gandalf. And they don’t tell us who lived! We know Thorin and Bombur die, I’m assuming Fili and Kili do as well, and there were two dwarves at the end but honestly I did not take notes on who was who so I can’t be sure who they were.

And the ending is pretty close to the book as well, though Balin doesn’t visit because he may or may not be dead, it’s just the exchange between Gandalf and Bilbo. But it does have a hook into LOTR, though it’s Gandalf talking about how the Ring is important and one of Bilbo’s family members will be affected by it, which is far more than he should know at this point, but I’ll let it slide.

Overall I did like this one much more than I was expecting. I think it really helped them that they could adapt the whole hobbit and not just the last third of lotr. I of course have minor issues, buuut I think I’m going to like this more than the jackson hobbit movies, though I. tragically. must revisit them. god that’s going to take so long.

anyways that’s that. thank you for bearing with me yet again on these adaptation adventures. see you maybe later this week for jackson hobbit movies.............. ugh.

#tolkien adaptation rankings #long post

[frostyreturns]

The Hobbit (1977) Review

Since there has been no new Middle Earth media since the Hobbit movie trilogy I thought it was a good time to revisit this classic from the late 70's. Since the books cannot be improved upon, and the movies were done in the exact right way at the exact right time...there's no need for there to be any new movies or tv shows based out of Tolkiens middle earth. Thankfully this indisputable fact is acknowedged by everyone and no future Tolkien projects are even in the works. This as a fan is something to be thankful for because any Tolkien work produced today would be absolutely cancerous and the kind of thing that nobody should or would want to watch. And so it is into the past fans must look for a good time in middle earth.

I've read the Hobbit three times in my life, normally I only ever read a book once, maybe twice if I really liked it so to have read a book 3 times means I not only consider it to be a very good book…I consider it to be one of the best books ever written, a book that's near perfect. A book that was as enjoyable as a child as it was as a full grown adult. I've also played the hobbit video game a couple times, and of course watched the Hobbit movies a few times as well. This 1970's cartoon version of the story however I have never seen before now. Partly the reason I avoided it was because the interpretation seemed different than both what I had seen from Peter Jackson which I loved and from what I myself imagined from the books themselves. Particularly I did not care for the character designs at all. Bilbo in particular looks like a giant frog that just somehow has white skin instead of green. Elrond was the weirdest with a weird sparkly halo that surrounded his face, and Gollum was a weird homunculus fish creature, Smaug looked more like a cat wolf hybrid than a dragon. The wood elves looked like goblins on stilts and had a weird accent that was part Indian, part Russian and part French. Even the spiders look like crosses between spiders, rabbits and bats. The characters faces look somehow both creepy and severe while also being cartoonish and silly. It's a bizarre merger between a fantastic art style and horrible design choices. However character designs aside the rest of the art looks terrific and I love it. The backgrounds look phenomenal and everything looks painstakingly drawn with great care and detail.

The sound quality isn't great and at times it can be hard to hear what the voice actors are saying, the voice acting is also not very good. It's almost more like it's an audiobook being read to you with visuals than it is a movie. It comes across like it could be just one guy sitting there with the book in his lap doing all the voices himself, the way a teacher or a parent would read a book to children. Smaug for example sounds like a bored old man waking up from a nap. The background music however is very good and suits the story and the art. The foreground music and original songs I don't care for though. Although I do finally get the reference from the Lemmywinks episode of South park though. I half expected Biblo to have to answer the catatafish riddles. It just doesn't work for me as a musical.

The pacing is also a little strange, you've barely been introduced to any of the characters and already ten minutes into the story and they are up to the part of the book where they run into the trolls. Which also look kind of stupid. Actually now that I look the art somewhat reminds me of a studio Ghibli anime, it looks like it had to have been animated in Japan at least. It's also got the signature classic cartoon style of the Rankin and Bass Christmas specials. It's like a combination of studio Ghibli anime and Rankin Bass holiday cartoon special. I'm not sure if I expect Totoro to show up or if I expected it to be animated with stop motion puppets.

The movie doesn't spend much time on major parts of the story, things are glossed over probably for time and animation costs. Major plot points are treated like slight diversions and some are resolved in minutes. At the approximate 45 minute mark they are dealing with the spiders, which leaves only about 30 minutes for the encounter with the wood elves, the stay in lake town, the journey into the mountain, the encounter with smaug, the death of Smaug, the battle of the five armies and the conclusion and journey home. That's a lot to stuff into 30 minutes. It's like the opposite of the problem with the Hobbit movie trilogy which stretched things out too much.

One other weird thing was the song placement, at one point there were lyrics about the trolls debating how to kill the dwarves but it was played during their escape from the goblins with the Eagles much later on in the story.

All in all I think this is a weird vestige from the stories past, something interesting if not anachronistic to watch once if you've never seen it before or as a way to introduce kids to the story. However I don't think it's good enough to be considered a definitive version of the story. I didn't hate it, it was okay and I can see myself liking it if I had watched it as a kid.

#the hobbit #middle earth #tolkien

[darksteel-relic]

Love how the Goblins and Orcs in the Rankin Bass LOTR adaptations are incredible singers.