23 years before Peter Jackson launched his massively successful movie trilogy, animator Ralph Bakshi became the first to create a cinematic adaptation of JRR Tolkien’s beloved novels. This brought us 1978’s animated The Lord of the Rings.

In the realm of Middle-earth, the Dark Lord Sauron loses the massively powerful One Ring and spends eons in search of it. The item eventually ends up in the hands of hobbit Bilbo Baggins (voiced by Norman Bird), though he passes it on to nephew Frodo (Christopher Guard) after wizard Gandalf (William Squire) urges him to do so.

Because the One Ring possesses too much might to trust with one person, Gandalf instructs Frodo to embark on a quest to destroy it. Along with the multi-member Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo marches toward Mount Doom to eliminate the One Ring and foil Sauron’s evil desires.

Frodo and company don’t get there for one simple reason: despite its title, Rings doesn’t adapt the entire trilogy of books. It gets into the ground covered by The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers but it stops before it reaches the saga’s conclusion with The Return of the King.

Actually, the film ends partway through Towers, as Bakshi sought to avoid a clear cliffhanger. Nonetheless, he wanted to create a second flick to complete the tale, one that didn’t come to fruition for a variety of reasons.

I feel sure this frustrated fans of this movie. They finally found a cinematic adaptation of Tolkien’s work nearly a quarter century after its release but they only got half the story.

Of course, Peter Jackson finally fulfilled those dreams in the early 2000s, and he did so in a much more satisfying manner. Though it comes with some strengths, Bakshi’s Rings sputters too much.

Though it does fare better than expected in some ways. Given it devotes 133 minutes to material Jackson took roughly twice as long to cover – and still needed to omit parts of the source – I figured Bakshi’s Rings would become little more than a “greatest hits” summary.

And to some degree, it does. The film rushes through events and needs to lose even more of the books than Jackson did.

Nonetheless, Bakshi’s adaptation manages to make this all fit smoothly and create a comprehensible story in its own right. I do wonder how much my familiarity with the source helped me connect the dots, though.

This Rings simplifies matters greatly so I don’t think my foreknowledge made much difference. Still, I can’t claim that the tale would make perfect sense to someone new to the series.

In any case, the story does progress pretty well. Bare bones as it may become, it still gets into the basics in a satisfying manner.

Rings also comes with largely satisfying voice acting. A few weak links emerge – like Fraser Kerr’s Sauruman, who he makes sound like a Scooby-Doo villain – but most provide more than competent performances.

Bakshi’s Rings falters in one significant domain, however: the animation. The film uses a mix of techniques and these fail to mesh.

That’s being generous, honestly, Rings combines traditional animation with rotoscoped work, and the two approaches butt heads in a problematic manner.

Rings really should’ve stayed with one or the other. The combination of the two styles fails to mesh and turns into a major distraction.

Granted, there’s some logic behind what elements use which techniques. However, the movie doesn’t execute these choices in a coherent manner, so the viewer winds up stuck with bizarre combinations that seem off-putting.

Would Rings satisfy if it went with traditional animation or rotosctoping? No, for though it would fare better without the irritating shifts in style, both nonetheless seem erratically executed.

Though the rotoscoped footage remains the most flawed. Even without the manner in which those elements conflict with the rest, these scenes still would look weird.

The traditional animation doesn’t emerge scot-free either, mainly because the quality varies. Some shots look fairly smooth but others seem jerky or wobbly.

For instance, a shot of freezing hobbits makes their shivering look like they suffer from seizures. Characters tend to over-gesticulate and some elements jiggle uncomfortably.

All of this leads to a Tolkien adaptation with some positives but too many negatives to satisfy. If the movie came with stronger animation, it’d fare much better, but the problems with the visuals make it an inconsistent experience.

The Lord of the Rings appears in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. The image seemed inconsistent

For the most part, sharpness worked fine. Some soft spots emerged, but those usually stemmed from the erratic nature of the source’s combination of animation styles.

No issues with jagged edges or shimmering occurred, and I saw no edge haloes. Grain seemed reasonably natural.

Print flaws turned into more of a problem. It could become difficult to separate inherent cel dust from specks, but it appeared a number of the latter arrived, and I also saw gate weave and some streaks.

Colors varied but tended to feel flat. Though the film came with a broad array of hues, it didn’t make them look especially appealing – and I still can’t figure out why Galadriel turned green for one scene, though I guess that was a weird stylistic choice on the part of the filmmakers.

Blacks seemed a bit muddy, and low-light shots lacked great definition. While the movie felt watchable, its ups and downs left this as a “C-“ presentation.

Remixed from the original monaural audio – which didn’t appear as an option here - the movie’s Dolby TrueHD 5.1 soundtrack fared better but still came with its own issues. On the positive side, audio quality held up pretty well over the last 47 years.

Music felt reasonably robust, and despite some edgy lines, dialogue remained acceptably concise. Effects didn’t boast great dimensionality but they came across as mostly solid and lacked much distortion.

However, the soundscape seemed less positive, mainly related to effects. Music showed fairly positive stereo spread at least.

The effects lacked much specificity, unfortunately. Sometimes they cropped up in logical spots but on other occasions, they appeared in places that made little sense.

The soundfield could feel overly aggressive given the nature of the source as well. For instance, any use of footsteps pushed them into the back speakers so heavily that they became a distraction.

Honestly, I’d rather hear the original mono mix, as it’d make more sense for the circa 1978 footage. Though not bad, the 5.1 reworking came with too many issues to earn a grade above a “C+”.

A featurette called Forging Through the Darkness runs 30 minutes, 25 seconds. It brings notes from director Ralph Bakshi, daughter Victoria Bakshi-Yudis, son/film professor Edward L. Bakshi, son/producer Mark Bakshi, animator Tom Tataranowicz, The Complete Ralph Bakshi author Chris McDonnell, Associate Professor of English Scott Kleinman, cinematographer Timothy Galfas, and co-writer Chris Conkling.

“Darkness” covers the state of cinematic animation in the 1970s, Ralph Bakshi’s life and career, and his adaptation of Lord of the Rings. Though it bites off a little more than it can chew for a show that barely lasts half an hour, “Darkness” nonetheless becomes a fairly satisfying overview.

We find a previews for Star Wars: The Clone Wars Complete Season One. No trailer for Rings appears here.

As the first cinematic adaptation of the Tolkien novels, the 1978 Lord of the Rings enjoys a particular place in history. Unfortunately, it seems too erratic as a film to become anything truly satisfying. The Blu-ray comes with mediocre visuals and erratic audio as well as a decent behind the scenes program. Though always watchable, the movie could use an updated scan.

Note that this 2025 release of The Lord of the Rings offers a literal duplicate of a Blu-ray that came out in 2010. Don’t expect any remastering or other changes, as it offers exactly the same disc fans got 15 years earlier.