The history of The Lord of the Rings & The Lord of the Rings (1978) [Part 1 of 5]

Em: 00:02:29

Hi everyone, I'm Em and welcome to verbal diorama.

ngs and the Lord of the Rings: 1978

Except I'm definitely going to be coming back for more. Unlike Ralph Bakshi. Welcome to Verbal Diorama.

Whether you are a brand new listener to this podcast, whether you are a regular returning listener, thank you for being here. Thank you for choosing to listen to this podcast.

ngs and the Lord of the Rings: 1978

And yes, I am delving into the complete history and legacy of the Lord of the Rings.

Huge thank you to everyone who listens to this podcast, supports this podcast and has continued to listen and support this podcast over the last six years and almost 300 episodes. It genuinely means so much to have your support, to have had you with me on this journey. A little bit like the journey that Frodo and Sam go on.

the Lord of the rings and the: 1978

The next three episodes are going to be focusing on Peter Jackson's trilogy, and then the final episode will be on last year's anime the Lord of the the War of the Rohirrin.

's the Lord of the Rings from: 1978

So these episodes will contain brief mentions of the Hobbit, especially when we're talking about attempted adaptations of Tolkien's work.

But I'll not really be going into Jackson's three Hobbit movies at all, save for a quick discussion on the issues surrounding the rights to the Hobbit. I'm also not going to be going into the Amazon series the Rings of Power either, save for, again, a quick mention of those rights.

They are completely separate to the film continuity.

And While technically the: 1978

he making of the Ralph Bakshi: 1978

The plan being this episode will be how the Lord of the Rings and Ralph Baksh's adaptation came together, and then to start the story of Peter Jackson's adaptations, moving into next week's episode onto the making of Peter Jackson's the Fellowship of the Ring. But the history of the Lord of the Rings and the attempts to bring it to the big screen is just like the Lord of the Rings itself, not a short story.

So I am going to try and keep it as condensed as possible, because we have a lot to get through, but I want to start with JRR Tolkien.

January: 1892

ruck again when Mabel died in: 1904

Father Francis Morgan, a Catholic priest, became their guardian.

Tolkien's deep Catholic faith, instilled by his mother and reinforced by Father Morgan, would remain a cornerstone of his life and influence his works. Tolkien attended King Edward's School in Birmingham, where he excelled in languages.

He developed a love for Old and Middle English, Welsh, Finnish and Gothic. His fascination with languages led him to create his own invented languages, a hobby that would later form the foundation of his fictional worlds.

In: 1911

He participated in the Battle of the Somme, one of the war's bloodiest conflicts, but was eventually sent home after contracting trench fever. The horror and camaraderie he experienced in the trenches also profoundly influenced his later writings.

During his recovery, Tolkien began developing his mythology, writing what would later become the Cimmerillion.

h professor of anglo Saxon in: 1925

Their family life was centred around his academic career, their shared Catholic faith and Tolkien's writing, much of which he would read aloud to his children. The Hobbit emerged from Tolkien's habit of telling stories to his children.

One day in the early: 1930

The manuscript circled among friends, including fellow author C.S. lewis, who encouraged its publication.

and Unwin, who released it in: 1937

Tolkien worked on it for over a decade, drawing from his vast knowledge of mythology, linguistics and his own well developed fictional world. The novel expanded in scope and complexity, becoming a profound exploration of themes like power, corruption, friendship and sacrifice.

The creation of the novels was deeply influenced by his linguistic interests. Tolkien had been creating fictional languages since his youth. His invented Elvish languages actually preceded the stories.

He created the world of Middle Earth largely as a setting where these languages could exist. He drew heavily from Norse and Germanic mythology, incorporating elements like magical rings, quests and mythical creatures.

The traumatic experiences of trench warfare during the First World War influenced his portrayal of war and the industrialised evil of Mordor.

shed in three volumes between: 1954

olkien retired from Oxford in: 1959

September: 1973

His son Christopher Tolkien later edited and published many of his father's unfinished works, including the Silmarillion, providing a more complete picture of the rich mythology that underpinned Middle Earth.

The Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit are set during the Third Age of Middle Earth, while the first and Second Ages are primarily explored in the Silmarillion and Finnish Tales and the History of Middle Earth, all of which were edited and published posthumously by Christopher Tolkien.

Now, of course, Tolkien's stories haven't just been adapted in film, but also on radio, on stage, in video games, and in recorded readings and listing. All adaptations and everything would make this episode unnecessarily long. So I'll just be focusing on the authorized film adaptations.

There have been plenty of unlicensed adaptations across Europe and the Soviet Union in the 70s and 80s.

lkien published The Hobbit in: 1937

In: 1938

In the: 1950

ated version of the Hobbit in: 1972

the rights for the Hobbit in: 1964

June: 1967

It has since resurfaced and can now be found online.

h an option for The Hobbit in: 1967

and the Lord of the rings in: 1969

Both of their earlier films, A Hard Day's Night and Help, were box office hits, and negotiations for the Beatles third film were initiated by Dennis Odell, the head of Apple Films, once it became evident that the animated Yellow Submarine would not be included in the three picture agreement. When Odell learned that United Artists were in negotiations for the rights to the Lord of the Rings, he suggested the Beatles star in the movie.

Paul McCartney would play Frodo, Ringo Starr would be Sam, George Harrison as Gandalf and John Lennon as Gollum. O'Dell approached Stanley Kubrick to direct, but he declined, believing the books were unfilmable.

JRR Tolkien himself rejected the proposal as he was reportedly not a fan of the band and was protective of his work. United Artists held the film rights at the time, but couldn't secure a director willing to take on the project.

After the Beatles plan fell through, director John Borman spent years developing a single film adaptation. United Artists assigned Bormann and screenwriter Rospo Pallenberg to condense the entire trilogy into one film.

Their script featured significant deviations from the source material, including a sexual encounter between Frodo and Galadriel. The project was ultimately abandoned when United Artists calculated the budget would be prohibitively expensive.

is Arthurian legend film from: 1981

ane's acquiring the rights in: 1972

They thought the Lord of the Rings was an impossible task, but that the Hobbit was manageable. They contacted the Tolkien estate, who declined, but Rankin and Bass pointed out that the books were public domain in the U.S.

the estate, along with Saul Zaentz, who by that point had purchased the film rights, tried to stop the production through a lawsuit, but it instead became authorized through a series of settlement agreements which allowed the special to air in Canada, where the books were not public domain.

get to the Lord of the Rings: 1978

Em: 00:19:37

Young hobbit Frodo is thrown on an amazing adventure where he is appointed the job of destroying the one Ring which was created by the dark Lord Sauron. He's joined on his quest by fellow hobbits, Sam, Nerry and Pippin, Wizard Gandalf, Elf Legolas, dwarf Gimli and Men, Aragorn and Boromir.

But it's not going to be an easy journey for the Fellowship of the Ring on the ultimate quest to rid Middle Earth of all evil. Let's run through the voice cast for this movie.

ollum. The Lord of the Rings,: 1978

Beagle, was directed by Ralph Bakshi and was based on the Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien. So after securing the rights, Saul Zaentz partnered with animator Ralph Bakshi to create an animated adaptation of the Lord of the Rings.

Bakshi was known for adult orientated animated films like Fritz the Cat and had approached Zaentz about adapting the Lord of the Rings after previous attempts had failed.

s, and in: 1957

a box office success, but in: 1975

Medavoy offered Borman's script, which Bakshi refused, stating that Bormann didn't understand Tolkien's works and that these versions should be as faithful to Tolkien's dialogue and scenes as possible.

In: 1977

All Bakshi had to do was persuade the president of NGM, Dan Melnick, to stump up the $3 million that United Artists owed Borman for his script and Bakshi could make whatever he wanted. At the time, United Artists in NGM were on the same lot.

So he went from one office to the other, interrupting a pitch by Peter Bogdanovich, and managed to get Medavoy and Melnick together in a room where it was agreed Melnick would give Medavoy $3 million. Bakshi would make his own Lord of the Rings under MGM and his lawyer Bruce Ramer, the same one the Shark King Jaws is named after, sealed the deal.

The agreement gave Bakshi financing for three movies and $200,000 to start storyboarding. Then Dan Melnick was fired from MGM and replaced by Richard shepherd, so they had to confirm the project was still going ahead.

But shepherd didn't understand the movie quite like Melnick had and thought the Lord of the Rings was about a wedding.

Bakshi wanted the rights to make the movie elsewhere, but had already spent $200,000 and now owed shepherd and without having the funds to pay him back. Bakshi then got on the phone with his friend Saul Zaentz and this is where we get into the part of the story where Zaentz acquired the rights.

He got on a plane that day, made a deal with Bakshi's lawyer to finance all three films and paid MGM back their money, while also having United Artists distribute the film.

Rav Bakshi was passionate about Tolkien's work and advocated for a serious adaptation that would respect the source material rather than turning it into a children's film. He even visited Tolkien's daughter Priscilla and promised her it would be as faithful to her father's work as possible.

action special effects in the: 1970

The second draft was written by Conklin in its entirety, with Mary being the narrator, telling the story in flashback form. Bakshi felt this was too much of a departure from Tolkien's work And so Peter S.

Beagle was hired to do additional script work on the Lord of the Rings Part one. The Part one is important. I'm going to be coming back to that. After multiple revisions by Peter S.

Beagle and Chris Conklin, Bakshi had a finished script and with it the approval of the Tolkien family, and was ready to go.

With the first film in the series, budgeted at $8 million, he was given carte blanche on his adaptation, with his biggest challenge being that it remained true to the book, but that it was condensed enough to narratively fit into two films. And to do that, he went with a surprising artistic choice.

He chose to shoot an entire live action film first as a visual template reference for his unique animation process. A mixed medium of straight animation, rotoscoping and high contrast live action scenes.

In: 1977

For these shoots, actors wearing makeshift costumes performed all the major battle sequences and character movements. Sometimes these costumes were literally just leotards with markings which may help to explain the extraordinarily short tunics.

The footage was shot in 35mm with the intention of being processed later through rotoscoping. Many Spanish extras and stunt performers were employed for the massive battle scenes, particularly for the battle of Helm's Deep.

There was notably little rehearsal and no time for retakes, hence Aragorn tripping. I'm guessing that wasn't in the original script.

The lack of budget also led to scenes that should have been swarming with orcs, such as the Mines of Moria, only having an underwhelming few.

The Spanish shoot was quite extensive, involving large scale battle sequences with dozens of extras, horse riding scenes for the Nazgul and Rahiram, character movement references for many of the main characters, and landscape backgrounds that would later be enhanced through animation. Detailed records of who specifically performed in these Spanish shoots weren't well documented or publicized.

Many of the Spanish performers were essentially body doubles or movement references who were never credited and we still don't really know who they are to this day. Bakshi even filmed while they were on lunch breaks and still used those takes in the movie.

What we do know is the handful of character actors who played the major roles as confirmed by Bakshi or others who worked on the film. We know Bilbo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee's rotoscoping model actor was Billy Barty. John A. Neris was Gandalf. Felix Scylla was Gollum.

Sharon Baird was Frodo. Trey Wilson was Aragorn, although some sources say Walt Robles. Bakshi confirmed it was Wilson. Jerry Lee Ray was Galadriel and Aesop.

Aquarian was likely Gimli. The footage that was shot in Spain was never intended to be seen directly by audiences, though Raj Bakshi has released photos over the years.

Instead, it served as the foundation that animators would trace over adding fantasy elements, creature designs and stylistic flourishes in post production. And it wasn't a case of live action, finish, now animate.

Both productions were going on concurrently, with upwards of 3,000 animators working on rotoscoping the established footage, while at the same time Bakshi was directing the orc action scenes and the Battle of Helm's Deep in Spain. Now, of course, rotoscoping in animation is nothing new.

animation since Snow White in: 1937

He'd used it extensively for Wizards after 20th Century Fox refused his request for a $50,000 budget increase. So he resorted to the rotoscope technique to finish the battle sequences himself.

He wanted to bring another level to animation by having untraditional, hyper realistic rotoscoping with hundreds of people in some scenes.

Bakshi called it a collage of different styles, live action and animation, and used the first year to shoot most of the live action as a visual reference template for its animators to primarily use in the second year. They actually didn't rely solely on rotoscoping either.

The film used pure rotoscoping for most of the human characters like Aragorn, Boromir and the Rohirrin, traditional animation for characters like Gollum and the Hobbits, silhouette animation for the Nazgul specifically, and also hybrid techniques as well. Some scenes combined rotoscoped characters with traditionally animated backgrounds.

But the problem with the elaborate techniques they were using for the animation meant that deadlines were fast approaching, and Bakshi came up with a new technique instead. Instead of tracing the filmed image, he would put the actual photograph in high contrast right on the animated cell and paint it.

After the character animation was complete, backgrounds were created separately. Some were painted traditionally, while others used processed live action footage.

Special effects like fire, water and magical elements were added using optical effects and multiple exposure techniques. And just when you think this story can't get any weirder than the Beatles wanting to be in this movie.

Mick Jagger, the lead singer of the Rolling Stones, was interested in what Bakshi was doing with the adaptation and paid a visit to the studio.

Word quickly spread that Mick Jagger was visiting among the 2 to 3,000 people working at the studio that day, especially among some of the young ladies who were huge fans of the handsome lead singer and notorious ladies man.

There was lots of screaming, crying and fainting that day and Jagger even expressed a wish to do the voice of Frodo, but by that point the audio had already been recorded, so we never got Mick Jagger as Frodo.

Bakshi cast voice actors from English Film and theatre and from the BBC Drama Repertory Company including Christopher Guard, William Squire, Michael Scholes, Anthony Daniels and John Hurt.

The whole voice cast recorded together, but had to leave a two second gap in between dialogue, which sometimes left the dialogue a little bit stunted.

Once the dialogue was recorded with the British actors, Bakshi then returned to Los Angeles to shoot the English speaking model actors like Billy Barty and Felix Siller on all white stages with the audio dialogue playing from loudspeakers and the actors mimicking the voices.

Now, if this doesn't sound like a particularly easy task, it really wasn't to sync already filmed live action rotoscoped animation to already recorded audio. It was a huge task and even two years wasn't enough time.

When Bakshi asked the producers and distributors for three to four more months to polish the animation, he was told no, except a bit more sweary. This is why the animation differs drastically in places, with some looking more polished than others.

It was essentially a first rough dough that he wasn't allowed more time to do better with.

When Bakshi finally delivered the finished movie the week before it was due to be released, he was informed that the Part one in the title had been removed.

United Artists planned to release it without telling viewers there would be a Part two because they felt audiences wouldn't see a movie if there would be some unsatisfaction, that it was the first half.

Only Rath Bakshi strongly opposed this view, thinking fans would respect the materially enough to know one movie couldn't do the story justice and that having a Part two made more sense.

It led to Bakshi and Zaentz having a huge fight over the future of the next movie and ended up with Bakshi walking away from the prospect, leaving viewers of this movie without a fulfilling end to the story.

But such studio meddling in the movie had also led to thinking viewers would be confused between Saruman and Sauron and having Saruman renamed Aruman only to do it in the middle of recording the audio. So both Saruman and Aruman are used in the movie.

Zaentz and Bakshi did keep in touch, but their relationship was forever changed by the movie and Bakshi remained bitter about his experience.

And when Warner Brothers were developing the live action movies with Peter Jackson, Bakshi was annoyed he was never notified by Zaentz, who of course had to license the rights of the intent to make a live action trilogy.

Just a quick sideline, I am going to be doing an obligature Keanu reference this episode and if you don't know what that is, it's where I try and link the movie that I'm featuring with Keanu Reeves for no reason other than he is the best of men.

I do try and do it with mostly every episode that I do and I thought this would be a little bit too difficult so I kind of ummed and odd about doing it. But then I realized that Keanu Reeves co starred with John Hurt, who obviously voiced Aragorn in the movie in Even Cowgirls get the Blues.

And obviously John Hurt was an absolute legend of an actor. His voice is so incredible in this movie.

I mean, we are going to be coming to the live action Aragorn next episode and just how incredible Viggo Mortensen is as Aragorn. But John Hurt is so good and obviously the fact he worked with Keanu is a great way to segue into that part of the episode.

But here's the thing that I find so fascinating about this movie is not only have we talked about the Beatles potentially being in this movie and Mick Jagger potentially being in this movie, there was also a possibility once upon a time for Led Zeppelin to be soundtracking this movie.

Now we've of course gone from the last episode on Flash Gordon with the legendary Queen soundtrack to potentially having Led Zeppelin doing the music for this. Led Zeppelin are known for having references to the Lord of the Rings in their tracks like Ramble On, Misty Mountain Hop and the Battle Forevermore.

So Ralph Bakshi approached the band with the idea to use their music for the soundtrack. And of course the band were enthusiastic.

But the problem was Saul Zainz owned Fantasy Records, but because Led Zeppelin was signed to another label, their label refused to allow Saints to buy the rights to Ned Zeppelin's music. And so we never did get a version of the Lord of the Rings with a Led Zeppelin soundtrack, which is kinda sad.

th November: 1978

They don't exist as to whether the release was widened because only the first week is recorded.

But we know that the movie made money because on its estimated budget of $8 million, the Lord of the Rings grossed $30.5 million in the US and $3.2 million in the UK. So this movie was a profitable movie. But although it was profitable, the film didn't make enough money to automatically warrant a sequel.

The sequel that would obviously finish the story. But also add to that the argument between producer Saul Zanes and Ralph Bakshi, which led to Bakshi abandoning the project completely.

heir version of The Hobbit in: 1980

Return of the King had a May: 1980

eleased the Lord of the Rings: 1978

And this is where this movie differs ever so slightly from the theatrical release because this version ended with the narrator saying, here ends the first part of the history of the War of the Ring.

The DVD version has an alternate end narration which is the forces of darkness were driven forever from the face of Middle Earth by the valiant friends of Frodo.

As their gallant battle ended, so too ends the first great tale of the Lord of the Rings, which I guess is some way to make do for the fact that we never got a sequel to this movie. Now generally, Ralph Bakshi's movie is notable for never actually finishing the story.

And the initial reaction from the fans was not really that positive. Many disliked the animation style and with the lack of a sequel, fan dissatisfaction was high.

Critics at the time were mixed, but appreciated the attempt to try something unique and daring.

Rotten Tomatoes currently has it at 49%, stating Rav Bakshi's valiant attempt at rendering Tolkien's magnum opus into rotoscope never lives up to the grandeur of its source material, with a compressed running time that flattens the sweeping story and experimental animation that is more bizarre than magical.

Roger Ebert called Bakshi's effort a mixed blessing and an entirely respectable, occasionally impressive job, which still falls far short of the charm and sweep of the original story. Vincent Canby at the New York Times called the film both numbing and impressive.

The Lord of the Rings: 1978

Say what you will about this adaptation, for all its flaws and issues, it is brave and ambitious, genuinely menacing in places, and it does whet your appetite for more, which sadly never came. It's also cheesy and silly in places.

I am not sure Treebeard was supposed to look like a parsnip carrot hybrid, but Raz Bakshi deserves the ultimate respect for coming through and bringing such a different take on the story and showing the world the Lord of the Rings could be made despite all the previous failed attempts.

His technique created a distinctive visual style that differentiated his adaptation from both the traditional animation and live action films of the era.

hnology available in the late: 1970

tinue the story he started in: 1978

But while Warner Brothers have continued the story in animated form, it wasn't with Bakshi. Peter Jackson has acknowledged Bakshi's film as an inspiration for his, with several scenes paying homage to Bakshi's.

Jackson said in a: 2001

ghts on the Lord of the Rings: 1978

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Em: 00:43:52

Bye