Bakshi's LotR tends to take a lot of heat from the Tolkien net-crowds and I really don't get why. Okay, the film did use rotoscoping to an excessive degree, which tends to cause that irritating jitter. It's when Tolkien-nerds start to complain about little details like "there's only one two-note horn-call in the entire movie" or any in a million insults directed at Gandalf and Saruman's fantastic beards or the horned-helmets of Sauron and Boromir that I start to wonder if these people even bothered to look at the picture as a whole.
I was very pleased with the level of adaption and wasn't too distracted by the opening sequence or even the apparent deviations from the original story. In all I think the opening alone was a lot more informative than that of the first Jackson movie. Also all and any accusations of nonsensical dialog are often cases of people not paying attention to the plot.
Of course we get the regular dropping of Tom Bombadil which is a shame.
The movie is not flawless however. Admitedly the Balrog fight was quite pathetic and I think it would have been more effective had the scene been lit more dramatically. Now, it looks a bit flat. While I was impressed that the half the story could be fit in a two-hour format it is true that at times the film cuts from one event to another quite abruptly (not that I had any problems following the plot, but I can see why some people do).
In all, the movie is quite good, not very clean and I hated how over-joyed the hobbits seemed most of the time, but it is definitely better than most fan-sites would let you think.
I was very pleased with the level of adaption and wasn't too distracted by the opening sequence or even the apparent deviations from the original story. In all I think the opening alone was a lot more informative than that of the first Jackson movie. Also all and any accusations of nonsensical dialog are often cases of people not paying attention to the plot.
Of course we get the regular dropping of Tom Bombadil which is a shame.
The movie is not flawless however. Admitedly the Balrog fight was quite pathetic and I think it would have been more effective had the scene been lit more dramatically. Now, it looks a bit flat. While I was impressed that the half the story could be fit in a two-hour format it is true that at times the film cuts from one event to another quite abruptly (not that I had any problems following the plot, but I can see why some people do).
In all, the movie is quite good, not very clean and I hated how over-joyed the hobbits seemed most of the time, but it is definitely better than most fan-sites would let you think.