I grew up with this movie. I still remember my mom rushing to pop in a VHS tape and hit record for me when I found this playing on TV on a Sunday morning. I watched that tape countless times as a little kid. I love this movie and it will always have a special place in my heart.
I think they increased the Dwarf kill count to make a point about the casualties of war. I was really upset when I first heard how many died because I relaly loved the dwarves in this adaptation. On that note, another thing the cartoon does right is the BotFA. The whole war is shown from a distance, and heavily truncated, as wars are often depicted by Tolkien. Tolkien never wanted to glorify war, even accidentally.
Every year around October or so, as soon as the weather begins to cool, my sons demand that I read The Hobbit to them, one chapter per night. Growing up listening to an album recording of the entire Rankin Bass version hundreds of times, I cannot help reading all dialogue by Gandalf in my best impersonation of John Huston, and Gollum in the voice of the Rankin Bass British accented one.
This was my first introduction to Tolkien as a child in the 70's and where my love of Middle-earth began. Then came reading The Hobbit as a preteen in the 80's and LotR as a teen in the early 90's. I feel like Tolkien and his interpreters have continued to give me gifts each decade of my life. I am hopeful for the upcoming Amazon series. Love your look at the movie.
One thing to note about this movie is that many of the official releases are missing parts of the sound effects so that a lot of things that are happening that should have a sound are just completely silent. I highly recommend a version of the film called the Hi-Fi Hobbit and you can find it on archive.org it restores all of the missing sound effects.
Thank you! I'm also very fond of this movie's interpretation of Gollum. I like the charracter and that it's not the iconic Gollum that so many others have done. This one and the voice of Gollum read by Nicol Williamson in an unfortunately abbreviated audiobook version of "The Hobbit" is amazing.
This is what got me started. My mama would buy my sister and me random cartoons when we were kids. She found it (VHS tape back then) in a discount bin in a salvage center. I used to fast forward through the Riddles in the Dark scene because it scared me! I still have the tape but got the DVD not too long ago.
ive not had a hair cut in over a year so lower than shoulders now but with not being able to get razor blades for a few weeks I now look like a back woods man
I always enjoyed how they made the characters look like the actors in this version. Gandalf looks like John Huston, Thorin looks like Hans Conreid, etc.
Its funny you mentioned Elrond having a beard. I was looking through some Alan Lee art and found a council of Elrond piece where he has a beard. Strange
Do you know which writings explain facial hair in elves or lack thereof? The only race know of that for sure doesn't grow any are hobbits. However, maybe Alan Lee took liberty of the fact that Elrond is half elven. Just a thought.
I think there is something in the History of Middle-Earth series but I can’t remember off hand which volume. Generally though if a character has a beard it seems to be mentioned (Theoden for instance). If I remember right the text I’m thinking of even says Aragorn didn’t have a beard due to his Elven ancestry so I doubt Elrond had one! Only Elf known to have a beard is Cirdan.
Rankin/Bass just had strange takes on elves in general. For another example, look at The Flight of Dragons. Really interesting adaptation that plays with fantasy interacting with real-world intuition. Something that takes the source material and really runs with it to make something inspired while still treating the original work with reverence. The elf looks like Bilbo from this movie went on a diet but gave up halfway through.
It was my understanding, in regards to the number Dwarfs who died, that R&B were VERY anti-War, and made that one of the driving theme's they wanted to portray here. So they upped the death count to make it more impactful, at least in their eyes.
Especially since they couldn’t show necessarily the brutality and blood and gore, but still found a way to get across that war is still very brutal, cruel, and that Bilbo was right about war.
Enjoyed this video a lot. I watched The Hobbit when it first appeared (yes, I am that old, you might say I have seen the light of the Two Trees). I remember my excitement. Ha and in later viewings I remember noting the goofy effect for deaths. I never liked any of the elves' animation in this though, including the Rivindell elves. For me the real standout scene here has always been Bilbo and Smaug (and that's a pretty important climax in the book). Because Richard Boone was just that good. Much better than Benedict Cumberbatch. Cumberbatch is good, but is just a little too much dramatic pause and gleeful consonant smacking. Boone was an old pro (I'm a Have Gun, Will Travel fan) and had the right pipes (like lazy molten butter). You're building in a big way to the dragon and you cannot afford to let him be off or underwhelming. Cumberbatch was not underwhelming, but that was his problem and it made him off for me--just a little too much scenery chewing, just a little too much trying too hard that reminds you he is an actor and not a dragon. Not so with Boone. I liked Otto Preminger as Thranduil. It just worked for me, made these elves seem more foreign, isolated. Of course their appearance is ludicrous. And Hans Conried was Thorin! That worked for me too, although I was not crazy about the dwarves' appearance when I was older. Too much like Disney Snow White dwarves.
I'm a child of the 70s and my first introduction to Tolkien was when I was 8 and it first appeared on television. By the 6th grade, many of us kids could be found engrossed in the Bantam published Lord of the Rings series as well as The Hobbit, with their dreary art cover. I love the music and songs in this. Totally agree about wtf with the way the wood elves are drawn. Who signed off on that?! John Huston's narrating voice is perfect for Gandalf. This animation captures the heart of The Hobbit extremely well, all things taken into consideration. The story of the reluctant hero, to "wear a sword instead of a walking stick".....
First of all, I love your channel and your videos. But, I have to tell you my story about the Rankin-Bass version of The Hobbit. Before this movie came out I, and my cousin Michael, had read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. We were in love with Tolkien's world and wanted to share it with our families. But how could we do it? They just thought it was a silly children's book and we couldn't get them to read it. Then we heard that this movie was coming out and would be on TV. We thought, "Great! This is our chance to show our families the story we love and show them that it's not just a foolish book for kids." We convinced our families to have a combined get-together, complete with dinner, and then watch the movie together. The moment arrived, we were all gathered in the family room in front of the TV. It came on, and . . . boy were we disappointed!! It was totally done as a kids' show. First of all, I don't think we knew that it was going to be a cartoon. Maybe we did, I don't really remember. Anyway, as soon as it started, Michael and I just looked at each other and realized that this was dumbing-down the whole story and was very juvenile. We hated it. We were embarrassed during the whole thing. We kept saying, "That's not how it happened in the book!" and "That's not right!", etc., etc. And what was worse, was that it ended up convincing our parents that they were right, this was just a kids' story after all. A position which they maintain to this very day. So this movie just exacerbated a divide between my parents and me, which still remains. My father is no longer with us, but my mother (now in her 90's) still thinks of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings as just childish foolishness. She never watched Peter Jackson's version, nor does she want to. And it all comes back to this Rankin-Bass version of The Hobbit, I believe. So, I beg your pardon, but I will not watch this version ever again. I didn't like it at the time, and it brings back too many painful memories. (And, I really don't like watching Peter Jackson's version of The Hobbit either.)
16 seconds in I was certain this was going to be a great video. I love the Rankin/Bass Hobbit. I watched it at every opportunity as a kid, and now own a copy which I re-watch several times a year. The art is amazing, the voice acting great, and while the story was trimmed for time, what was shown was all loyal to cannon. Decades of difference in avail technology make a comparison between this TV special and Peter Jackson's movies unfair. I would think most Tolkien fans would appreciate both and develop a specific appreciation for the Rankin/Bass edition.
Totally agreed that this is still the best Tolkien adaptation to date. It's very nearly perfect. Captures the spirit, the playfulness, and the sense of adventure in the story. One negative I might add is that Gollum's appearance doesn't match his Stoor-like ancestry as explained in LOTR. He looks more like a frog. But that appearance does really match his character somehow. Anyone who loves The Hobbit should go get this and watch it.
I know there are points in the book where Bilbo wonders whether Gandalf guessed that he'd found a ring, but I think the cartoon tried to make it a little too obvious.
The Wood Elves were designed by the Japanese animation company that animated the movie - it's the Japanese equivalent to an elf: a Yōsei. The voice is Otto Preminger, a retired film director - at the time any named voice performer was a plus in a TV cartoon - another director, Jon Huston, voiced Gandalf. I don't like the elves either.
Good review, but this isn't the shortest video adaptation of The Hobbit. There's a 1966 animated version (another source says 1967) that is less than 12 minutes long! And it mentions the Arkenstone, too. The background of why it was made this way had to do with retaining film rights at the time, etc. There's more info online. Here's a link to the video. PJ's version might look like a masterpiece compared to this. :D ua-cam.com/video/r4GDP-mRYCc/v-deo.html
@@TolkienLorePodcast Exactly my thoughts. Why would anyone put that on youtube? I suppose it shows that Rankin Bass and Jackson didn't do so badly after all....relatively speaking, that is.
I agree I thought it was a very good depiction of the book and in respects stronger than the movies. We're in sync about the Fellowship of the Ring movie being fairly close with the books... Two comments though. First a lawyer friend of mine I met through Community organizing absolutely reminded me of the Elrond character in the cartoon minus the beard. Even now when I see him I think of that particular Elrond. It also doesn't help that he actually is insightful and a good conselor. Secondly the wood elves, I kind of wonder if that was RB trying to convey the idea that common elves were not as developed as the noldor. Nevertheless to me it looks like they had been messed with by Morgoth on the way to becoming Orcs. Off-topic now, this is definitely not canon and might cause you to think about tying yourself to a railroad track to miss the opportunity, but under what conditions would you consider reviewing the Lord of the Rings Musical?
A dissenting view, as I found the Rankin Bass film almost unbearably cringeworthy when I watched it for the first and only time on November 27, 1977 (the original television broadcast). My background coming to it was: - Read The Hobbit in 1975; - Read The Lord of the Rings in 1976; - Slogged through the recently published The Silmarillion as I had received a 1st Edition for my 8th birthday earlier in the year (I found the content interesting, but not the history text book style). What I would have wanted to see was something pushing the limits of the imagination, and instead saw something that was too much like a hybrid of Disney and Hanna-Barbera (never a fan of either) that talked down to me as if I were an ignorant child instead of challenging my comprehension. If someone today were to do Tolkien animation, the style of Fushigi Yûgi would not be a bad starting point (of course replacing the anime/Japanese look with something resembling medieval Europe/Norse legends). Music could draw inspiration from the unworldly (Nulla impresa per uom si tenta invano from Monteverdi's L'Orfeo), the fantastic (Thus The Gloomy World from Purcell's The Faerie Queene), and for loss and mourning John Dowland.
![George Orwell - Animal Farm [Full HD Audiobook]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/iosHzNmVYbA/mqdefault.jpg)
I really appreciate how passionate you are about Tolkien.
Homeboy opens with Pardon my hair and I'm over here with what was my Curly Fauxhawk Fade now looking like a Flattop.
This was my introduction to Tolkien as a little boy. It's not the novel, but it led me to it. I agree, infinitely better than Jackson in faithfulness!
I grew up with this movie. I still remember my mom rushing to pop in a VHS tape and hit record for me when I found this playing on TV on a Sunday morning. I watched that tape countless times as a little kid. I love this movie and it will always have a special place in my heart.
I think they increased the Dwarf kill count to make a point about the casualties of war. I was really upset when I first heard how many died because I relaly loved the dwarves in this adaptation. On that note, another thing the cartoon does right is the BotFA. The whole war is shown from a distance, and heavily truncated, as wars are often depicted by Tolkien. Tolkien never wanted to glorify war, even accidentally.
Every year around October or so, as soon as the weather begins to cool, my sons demand that I read The Hobbit to them, one chapter per night. Growing up listening to an album recording of the entire Rankin Bass version hundreds of times, I cannot help reading all dialogue by Gandalf in my best impersonation of John Huston, and Gollum in the voice of the Rankin Bass British accented one.
This was my first introduction to Tolkien as a child in the 70's and where my love of Middle-earth began. Then came reading The Hobbit as a preteen in the 80's and LotR as a teen in the early 90's. I feel like Tolkien and his interpreters have continued to give me gifts each decade of my life. I am hopeful for the upcoming Amazon series. Love your look at the movie.
"Glamdring! The Foe Hammer!"
"Nooo!!"
One thing to note about this movie is that many of the official releases are missing parts of the sound effects so that a lot of things that are happening that should have a sound are just completely silent. I highly recommend a version of the film called the Hi-Fi Hobbit and you can find it on archive.org it restores all of the missing sound effects.
I have been searching for exactly this for many years now so thank you so much for pointing me in the right direction! 😁
@@mrmoneybags No problem! I'm glad this information was helpful. 👍
Thanks for that. I burned it to a blank DVD and set for life. lol
Thank you! I'm also very fond of this movie's interpretation of Gollum. I like the charracter and that it's not the iconic Gollum that so many others have done. This one and the voice of Gollum read by Nicol Williamson in an unfortunately abbreviated audiobook version of "The Hobbit" is amazing.
I couldn't agree with you more.
This is what got me started. My mama would buy my sister and me random cartoons when we were kids. She found it (VHS tape back then) in a discount bin in a salvage center. I used to fast forward through the Riddles in the Dark scene because it scared me! I still have the tape but got the DVD not too long ago.
I remember being scared of Gandalf!😆
@@timbotook6447 I suppose The Hobbit is just all-around frightening! Ha ha! I'm glad I didn't let it scare me away from Tolkien. :)
From his opening scene with the lightning and all? I could see that lol
@@TolkienLorePodcast yeah, I was 4. It was the lightning.
@@shelby_harriel_author me too!!!
The hair is fine; we understand! It's the content we're here for. Great review!
ive not had a hair cut in over a year so lower than shoulders now but with not being able to get razor blades for a few weeks I now look like a back woods man
You have a great channel and great hair. Keep up the good work!
I always enjoyed how they made the characters look like the actors in this version. Gandalf looks like John Huston, Thorin looks like Hans Conreid, etc.
Its funny you mentioned Elrond having a beard. I was looking through some Alan Lee art and found a council of Elrond piece where he has a beard. Strange
Is it online? I’d be curious to see it.
@@TolkienLorePodcast silmarillionseries.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/sda-alan-lee-the-council-of-elrond.jpg
@@TolkienLorePodcast whats really funny is that i had seen it right before the video and thought it strange too
Do you know which writings explain facial hair in elves or lack thereof? The only race know of that for sure doesn't grow any are hobbits.
However, maybe Alan Lee took liberty of the fact that Elrond is half elven. Just a thought.
I think there is something in the History of Middle-Earth series but I can’t remember off hand which volume. Generally though if a character has a beard it seems to be mentioned (Theoden for instance). If I remember right the text I’m thinking of even says Aragorn didn’t have a beard due to his Elven ancestry so I doubt Elrond had one! Only Elf known to have a beard is Cirdan.
Rankin/Bass just had strange takes on elves in general. For another example, look at The Flight of Dragons.
Really interesting adaptation that plays with fantasy interacting with real-world intuition. Something that takes the source material and really runs with it to make something inspired while still treating the original work with reverence.
The elf looks like Bilbo from this movie went on a diet but gave up halfway through.
It was my understanding, in regards to the number Dwarfs who died, that R&B were VERY anti-War, and made that one of the driving theme's they wanted to portray here. So they upped the death count to make it more impactful, at least in their eyes.
Especially since they couldn’t show necessarily the brutality and blood and gore, but still found a way to get across that war is still very brutal, cruel, and that Bilbo was right about war.
Enjoyed this video a lot. I watched The Hobbit when it first appeared (yes, I am that old, you might say I have seen the light of the Two Trees). I remember my excitement. Ha and in later viewings I remember noting the goofy effect for deaths.
I never liked any of the elves' animation in this though, including the Rivindell elves.
For me the real standout scene here has always been Bilbo and Smaug (and that's a pretty important climax in the book). Because Richard Boone was just that good. Much better than Benedict Cumberbatch. Cumberbatch is good, but is just a little too much dramatic pause and gleeful consonant smacking. Boone was an old pro (I'm a Have Gun, Will Travel fan) and had the right pipes (like lazy molten butter). You're building in a big way to the dragon and you cannot afford to let him be off or underwhelming. Cumberbatch was not underwhelming, but that was his problem and it made him off for me--just a little too much scenery chewing, just a little too much trying too hard that reminds you he is an actor and not a dragon. Not so with Boone.
I liked Otto Preminger as Thranduil. It just worked for me, made these elves seem more foreign, isolated. Of course their appearance is ludicrous.
And Hans Conried was Thorin! That worked for me too, although I was not crazy about the dwarves' appearance when I was older. Too much like Disney Snow White dwarves.
You nailed it.
I'm a child of the 70s and my first introduction to Tolkien was when I was 8 and it first appeared on television. By the 6th grade, many of us kids could be found engrossed in the Bantam published Lord of the Rings series as well as The Hobbit, with their dreary art cover.
I love the music and songs in this. Totally agree about wtf with the way the wood elves are drawn. Who signed off on that?!
John Huston's narrating voice is perfect for Gandalf. This animation captures the heart of The Hobbit extremely well, all things taken into consideration.
The story of the reluctant hero, to "wear a sword instead of a walking stick".....
First of all, I love your channel and your videos. But, I have to tell you my story about the Rankin-Bass version of The Hobbit. Before this movie came out I, and my cousin Michael, had read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. We were in love with Tolkien's world and wanted to share it with our families. But how could we do it? They just thought it was a silly children's book and we couldn't get them to read it. Then we heard that this movie was coming out and would be on TV. We thought, "Great! This is our chance to show our families the story we love and show them that it's not just a foolish book for kids." We convinced our families to have a combined get-together, complete with dinner, and then watch the movie together. The moment arrived, we were all gathered in the family room in front of the TV. It came on, and . . . boy were we disappointed!! It was totally done as a kids' show. First of all, I don't think we knew that it was going to be a cartoon. Maybe we did, I don't really remember. Anyway, as soon as it started, Michael and I just looked at each other and realized that this was dumbing-down the whole story and was very juvenile. We hated it. We were embarrassed during the whole thing. We kept saying, "That's not how it happened in the book!" and "That's not right!", etc., etc. And what was worse, was that it ended up convincing our parents that they were right, this was just a kids' story after all. A position which they maintain to this very day. So this movie just exacerbated a divide between my parents and me, which still remains. My father is no longer with us, but my mother (now in her 90's) still thinks of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings as just childish foolishness. She never watched Peter Jackson's version, nor does she want to. And it all comes back to this Rankin-Bass version of The Hobbit, I believe. So, I beg your pardon, but I will not watch this version ever again. I didn't like it at the time, and it brings back too many painful memories. (And, I really don't like watching Peter Jackson's version of The Hobbit either.)
Please do a review of the 2003 Hobbit video game
Along with the game the Rankin/Bass version is what I image when I read the book
Never played it so unfortunately can’t really review it lol
gigachad Bilbo using the one ring *IN MIRKWOOD* while Sauron is just to the south in Dol Goldur.
This movie gives me chills every time I watch it or see a clip from it. I love the voice acting and the music is so old school lol fantastic movie
16 seconds in I was certain this was going to be a great video. I love the Rankin/Bass Hobbit. I watched it at every opportunity as a kid, and now own a copy which I re-watch several times a year. The art is amazing, the voice acting great, and while the story was trimmed for time, what was shown was all loyal to cannon. Decades of difference in avail technology make a comparison between this TV special and Peter Jackson's movies unfair. I would think most Tolkien fans would appreciate both and develop a specific appreciation for the Rankin/Bass edition.
I adore the frog!wood-elves with all of my heart
Also that last bit is there for the audience to tease a sequel.
Totally agreed that this is still the best Tolkien adaptation to date. It's very nearly perfect. Captures the spirit, the playfulness, and the sense of adventure in the story.
One negative I might add is that Gollum's appearance doesn't match his Stoor-like ancestry as explained in LOTR. He looks more like a frog. But that appearance does really match his character somehow.
Anyone who loves The Hobbit should go get this and watch it.
I know there are points in the book where Bilbo wonders whether Gandalf guessed that he'd found a ring, but I think the cartoon tried to make it a little too obvious.
The Wood Elves were designed by the Japanese animation company that animated the movie - it's the Japanese equivalent to an elf: a Yōsei. The voice is Otto Preminger, a retired film director - at the time any named voice performer was a plus in a TV cartoon - another director, Jon Huston, voiced Gandalf. I don't like the elves either.
I didn’t think so when I watched this movie back when I was a kid, of course, but looking back, I always thought that Smaug sounded bored.
Can you do a movie review of the lord of the rings 1978🙏🏻🙏🏻
Already have. ;) Movie Review: Ralph Bakshi's "The Lord of the Rings" (1978)
@@TolkienLorePodcast Cool 😲
See above. I added the link
@@TolkienLorePodcast So I already found it👍🏻🙏🏻
The Elven king actually has a German accent, not surprising considering he was voiced by German film director Otto Preminger.
Wood elves look like evil pixies in this film lol.
This is a great review. Thank you!
The excessive dwarven deaths is to illustrate to the young target audience that war is a terrible thing.
Good review, but this isn't the shortest video adaptation of The Hobbit. There's a 1966 animated version (another source says 1967) that is less than 12 minutes long! And it mentions the Arkenstone, too. The background of why it was made this way had to do with retaining film rights at the time, etc. There's more info online. Here's a link to the video. PJ's version might look like a masterpiece compared to this. :D
ua-cam.com/video/r4GDP-mRYCc/v-deo.html
What the heck did I just watch? 😂
@@TolkienLorePodcast And now you can never wash those images out of your brain (ha ha)!
@@TolkienLorePodcast Exactly my thoughts. Why would anyone put that on youtube? I suppose it shows that Rankin Bass and Jackson didn't do so badly after all....relatively speaking, that is.
@@TolkienLorePodcast Lol! Yeah! : )
I agree I thought it was a very good depiction of the book and in respects stronger than the movies. We're in sync about the Fellowship of the Ring movie being fairly close with the books... Two comments though. First a lawyer friend of mine I met through Community organizing absolutely reminded me of the Elrond character in the cartoon minus the beard. Even now when I see him I think of that particular Elrond. It also doesn't help that he actually is insightful and a good conselor. Secondly the wood elves, I kind of wonder if that was RB trying to convey the idea that common elves were not as developed as the noldor. Nevertheless to me it looks like they had been messed with by Morgoth on the way to becoming Orcs. Off-topic now, this is definitely not canon and might cause you to think about tying yourself to a railroad track to miss the opportunity, but under what conditions would you consider reviewing the Lord of the Rings Musical?
Is there a way to view it for free? ;)
A dissenting view, as I found the Rankin Bass film almost unbearably cringeworthy when I watched it for the first and only time on November 27, 1977 (the original television broadcast). My background coming to it was:
- Read The Hobbit in 1975;
- Read The Lord of the Rings in 1976;
- Slogged through the recently published The Silmarillion as I had received a 1st Edition for my 8th birthday earlier in the year (I found the content interesting, but not the history text book style).
What I would have wanted to see was something pushing the limits of the imagination, and instead saw something that was too much like a hybrid of Disney and Hanna-Barbera (never a fan of either) that talked down to me as if I were an ignorant child instead of challenging my comprehension.
If someone today were to do Tolkien animation, the style of Fushigi Yûgi would not be a bad starting point (of course replacing the anime/Japanese look with something resembling medieval Europe/Norse legends). Music could draw inspiration from the unworldly (Nulla impresa per uom si tenta invano from Monteverdi's L'Orfeo), the fantastic (Thus The Gloomy World from Purcell's The Faerie Queene), and for loss and mourning John Dowland.
The wood elves look like that just so kids can tell the difference. And I think they kill more of the thirteen because it's a more realistic outcome.
Long hair?? This is almost a buzz cut bruh
It's odd and weird, but the story is even worse