DVD REVIEW: Lord of the Rings - Remastered Deluxe Edition (Warner)

The Lord of the Rings animated will be available to own on blue-ray on April 6th on. This is the classic Tolkien fantasy tale told through the eyes of animator Ralph Bakshi. The animated tale of Lord of the Rings premiered in the movie theatre in 1978. The animation was cutting edge back in the late 70’s and today it still rivals most animated movies. This version of Lord of the Rings comes with both the blu-ray and DVD disc.




Ralph Bakshi worked on and created many animated tales during the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s. Bakshi was an innovator of animated tales during these eras. He directed such classical films as; Fritz the cat, Cool World, Wizards, and Fire and Ice. This style of animation of using models to help animate scenes in the movies is still used in the art of animation today to help create the CGI in the current films.



This Lord of the Ring premiered 32 years ago on the big screen. During this time Fantasy fans of Tolkien were not disappointed with the big screen premiere. As fans of Tolkien, this was the only version fans would have until Peter Jackson retelling hit the big screen 20 years later. The Bakshi version of Lord of the Rings would be a re- imagination of the epic tale written by Tolkien.



This blue-ray release of the animated Lord of the Rings is fantastic. Watching the Blu-ray in HD was amazing. Each scene is crisp and clean. This movie is 32 years old and on blue-ray it looks as if it was made this year. Compared to the DVD version this is much improvement. The DVD version seems blocky at time, but this is clearly cleaned up on the blu-ray version. If you still own the VHS version I would highly recommend that it is time to upgrade to the Blu-ray version. The different in watching the VHS version verses the Blu-ray version is as obvious as night and day. The dark and shadows scenes are cleaned up and are much easier to watch than on the previous release of the VHS version.



The Lord of the Rings Animated is a classical masterpiece. The bad part is that Baskshi did not complete this trilogy. The animated version leaves more to the imagination than the newer Peter Jackson version. Don’t get me wrong the Jackson telling of this classic epic is amazing, but the Bakshi version is still better. Also check out other films by Ralph Bakshi. When the day is complete, I prefer the books to the movies any day. Look for books by J.R.R. Tolkien in your local bookstore. Tolkien did write more than just Lord of the Rings trilogy.



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Chip Carroll
Staff Reviewer