Lord of the Rings: Bakshi vs Rankin Bass

[svalbard]

Stephen Oliver's work for the BBC radio adaptation is wonderful, as is the adaptation itself -- to my mind, the pictures are much better than either the Bakshi or the Rankin Bass.

Troll

 

[Onyx]

That probably cemented in my mind the idea that LOTR was essentially unfilmable (until Peter Jackson came along).

That's an interesting thought. I guess I would have said that a version with reasonable effects could have been produced with Empire Strikes Back type filmmaking (1980).

 

[Dan Jones]

Troll

Oh not at all trolling. After all, everyone knows that TMS has the best pictures of the cricket

 

[Dan Jones]

That's an interesting thought. I guess I would have said that a version with reasonable effects could have been produced with Empire Strikes Back type filmmaking (1980).

That's possible, but I suppose they would have to cut all the epic battle stuff. Isn't that why George Lucas delayed filming the prequels, so the technology could mature sufficiently to make the battles filmable? I don't think the Pelennor Fields battle or Helms Deep battle (even though we don't see the latter in the text) would have been captured very well using late 70s effects.

But who knows, to argue such a thing is pretty futile seeing as we'll never know. But my child's mind did a better job of capturing Middle Earth than the cartoon films did.

 

[Onyx]

That's possible, but I suppose they would have to cut all the epic battle stuff. Isn't that why George Lucas delayed filming the prequels, so the technology could mature sufficiently to make the battles filmable? I don't think the Pelennor Fields battle or Helms Deep battle (even though we don't see the latter in the text) would have been captured very well using late 70s effects.

But who knows, to argue such a thing is pretty futile seeing as we'll never know. But my child's mind did a better job of capturing Middle Earth than the cartoon films did.

Considering what Lucas got out of his technological maturity.

I think the answer comes down to whether a sufficiently large number of extras could be costumed and coordinated to appear to be large enough armies using film compositing methods. Most of those battles are between men sized soldiers (orcs, men), so I don't know if that would require a different kind of effort than the battle scene in Ran, for instance. Braveheart battles was also made without CGI.

It certainly would effect how various major beasts could have been portrayed - like Ents, trolls or the Balrog, but look at how clear King Kong's (1976) monster effects are.


And yes, it is just idle speculation. I just think it is possible that mature composting techniques along the kind of advanced puppetry seen in early '80s films and a large enough budget could have produced something noteworthy without CGI. The blockbuster era had really just begun at the end of the 1970s, so making a multi-film fantasy might have been tough. But Excalibur almost turned into LOTR, which is what the studio offered Boorman instead of allowing him to make a King Arthur story. A lot of the design for Excalibur was apparently borrowed from LOTR efforts.

I'm sure my admiration for that period of filmmaking is clouding my judgement.

 

[HareBrain]

I'm not a massive fan of the Jackson films, and now you're got me wondering what Kurosawa would have done. (Or Boorman, for that matter.)

 

[Onyx]

I'm not a massive fan of the Jackson films, and now you're got me wondering what Kurosawa would have done. (Or Boorman, for that matter.)

The Boorman would have felt like a high budget version of the Finnish film, I'd bet.

But I'm also just okay with Jackson films. They are somewhat too "straight". Another reason I really like the Rankin Bass version is the emotional intensity. Kurosawa would have made the whole thing more haunting and with greater contrast.

Too many modern films have that smoky darkness thing throughout. Ran's use of color is so evocative.

 

[HareBrain]

They are somewhat too "straight".

I think I know what you mean. Even after watching all ten-or-whatever hours, I have no idea what Jackson's style is or what his input was. It felt like filming by committee based on focus-group input. At least you could never say that about Bashki's version.

 

[Graymalkin]

I think a b & w Cecil B Demille or Sergei Eisenstein version could have been impressive. They managed to conjure up some sizeable hordes.

 

[Dan Jones]

Apparently Eisenstein was a major influence to Jackson when it came to creating the Helm's Deep battle scene. I wonder what Eisenstein would have made of the technology available to today's filmmakers?

 

[HareBrain]

I wonder what Eisenstein would have made of the technology available to today's filmmakers?

As someone used to handling genuine casts of thousands, I hope he'd look at the CGI of an orc army marching over rough ground in lock step (such as in the third Hobbit film) and want no part of such nonsense.

 

[BAYLOR]

I'm not a massive fan of the Jackson films, and now you're got me wondering what Kurosawa would have done. (Or Boorman, for that matter.)

I enjoy the Jackson films warts and all. As for Kurosawa and Boorman , there is no question they are great filmmakers . Its hard to say how successful they would have been doing LOTR.

 

[Jeffbert]

I think I posted about the R-B version; though I could not find it among a listing of my old posts. As I recall, it was very good.