REACTING to *The Hobbit (1977)* ACTUALLY DECENT?!! (First Time Watching) Animator Reacts
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- čas přidán 27. 06. 2024
- crowelljames.com
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James and Nobu are reacting to The Hobbit 1977 and this movie is actually decent? Enjoy this Rankin Bass production of The Hobbit from 1977 in this animator reacts series.
#firsttimereaction #animatorreacts #thehobbit #firsttimewatching #thehobbit1977 #rankinbass #animatedstories #animation #moviereaction #moviecommentary #movies
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What other animated movies should we watch?
Have you seen Princess Mononoke? And Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind?
The Secret of NIMH (1982)
Several of the Don Bluth 1980’s films like _The Secret of NIMH, An American Tail, The Land Before Time_ and _All Dogs Go to Heaven;_ several of the Disney animated films such as _Bambi, Dumbo, Pinocchio (1940), Fantasia/Fantasia 2000, The Great Mouse Detective, The Black Cauldron, Oliver & Company, Pocahontas, The Rescuers/The Rescuers Down Under, Dinosaur, Home on the Range, Chicken Little, Meet the Robinsons, Bolt, Tangled, Wreck-it Ralph, Frozen, Big Hero 6, Raya and the Last Dragon,_ and _Strange World_ (with Hailey and Stella joining in along with the Pixar films); the remaining Pixar films such as _Finding Nemo/Finding Dory, The Incredibles 1-2, Cars 1-3, Up, Monsters University, The Good Dinosaur, Onward, Soul, Luca, Lightyear,_ and _Elemental;_ other Blue Sky Studios films such as _Robots, Rio 1-2, The Peanuts Movie, Horton Hears a Who, Epic,_ and _Spies in Disguise_ and also _Watership Down, Nimona (2023), Cat’s Don’t Dance, Monster House, Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kracken_ and _The Last Unicorn_
Hazbin Hotel (Pilot) the series has been announced to premiere on Prime Video in January of 2024.
@@EChacon Yes, I recently rewatched the original Disney Pinocchio and was surprised at how beautiful the animation was.
In my heart, THIS is The Hobbit movie to watch. My first introduction to Middle Earth at 5-6 years old. The art style and music are timeless.
When they first announced The Hobbit, I was really hoping it would just be a 2.5 hour version of this, but made live action with Peter Jackson's expertise. They had to pad too much to make it three movies. The book is tiny compared to the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy; it shouldn't be equal.
Yes! I watched this on repeat as a toddler. I loved the music and Gollum lol.
The same my friend! ❤
Same!! Then my dad told there’s a book and I was like, “count me in!” And I’ve loved middle earth ever since
Growing up in the early 70's, I watched this movie constantly. I had the picture books. I had the records that I played on my lil Fisher Price record player. I even remember dreaming in this animated style as a kid. Absolutely amazing stuff from this band of creators.
I'm a 42 year old man, and every time I hear Thorin tell Bilbo "If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world", I cry, no...I weep.
"the stars are far brighter than gems without measure, the moon is far whiter than silver in treasure" -J.R.R.Tolkien (also in the hobbit
26 year old woman, and I cry as well. Every time “The Greatest Adventure” plays too.
And Bilbo climbing to the top of the tree in Mirkwood also makes me tear up, it just reminds me how it feels when I reach the end of a depressive episode and can feel the sun on my face again.
This whole movie just does something to me 😂
me too man,me too. The voice acting in that scene is masterful.
it's something that the current day could take into consideration.
The whole Gollum screaming "THIIIIIIEF!!" scene destroyed me as a kid and still gives me chills as an adult. The voice actor really did amazing work. Especially compared to Bilbo's actor, even if it was purposeful.
The actors name was Brother Theodore and his gollum is haunting
as much as I love Andy Serkis
i’ve never heard anyone do the “We hates it...FOREVER!” like Theodore did.
@@mckenzie.latham91 Exactly this. "Haunting" is a perfect description of his acting and interpretation. As much as Serkis embodied the physical role and character for the films, Theodore's Gollum will always be my Gollum. Genuinely frightening and memorable.
That was definitely top notch voice acting! He sounds truly deranged!!!
@@takkycat Brother Theodore kinda was. Great artist. Poet, comic, actor.
For real: *"Baggins! We hates it! Hates it...Forever!"* Stuck with me ever more.
For me, the main problem with Peter Jackson's version is it's trying to make the story of The Hobbit as epic as TLOTR, while in the book is much more simple. The Hobbit is, basically, a tale for children, and The Lord of the Rings is a high fantasy epic. The animated version reflects its source pretty well, being a basic, fun and enjoyable children film.
To be fair it wasn't completely Jackson's fault. As usual the studio execs got involved and wanted to milk it as much as possible.
@@captin3149 that's correct. That's why I didn't blame Jackson. It's a fact that the producers want to make profits, wherever they respect the director's vision or not.
agreed, Peter Jackson tried too hard with the Hobbit trilogy and there's no better way that i can put it.
This was a TV movie originally. I saw it in 77 when I was 6, blew my mind away as a kid. Ranking Bass adapted The Return of the King a few years later for TV (Rankin Bass didn’t make adaptions of Fellowship or Two Towers). It’s worth a look.
Omg I can’t believe y’all watched this!! The music slaps so hard!
For sure!
If you guys haven't watched "The Secret of Nimh" (from 1982) before you really really should check that out. There is some really cool animation.
"The Secret of Nimh" was my favorite movie when I was a kid.
just an okay movie though
This film and the two other animated fantasy films Rankin-Bass produced with Topcraft (precursor to Studio Ghibli), The Last Unicorn and The Flight of Dragons, are what birthed my love of the genre as a kid. I so appreciate you guys for doing a lot of these more obscure reactions nobody else is doing.
Yeah you can see Spirted Away and other great later animes in some of this art, although more fluid in the later films. Also can tell it's the same people who drew Thundercats.
@adamwarlock1 Rankin Bass produced ThunderCats but Toeii of Japan did 2/3 to 3/4 of the animation(s)! Some Rankin Bass animators made it to Toeii and both studios had this “Garage Shop” mentality but during pre-production they agreed on an art style and stuck with it because they didn’t want to offend Japanese Toeii animators! 🙄😉😎
@adamwarlock1 I mostly have to correct myself, the animations done for ThunderCats was the Japanese studio Pacific Animation Corporation with Masaki Iizuka as production manager but at one point in time he did work for Toeii! 🙄
@@bradleymcavoy3432 Yeah as I recall the full Ghibli story has several groups that split up and then get back together years later so you got the essence of it.
Your forgetting about the return of the king adaption
And to think this movie along with _The Return of the King_ animated special were done by Rankin Bass who are responsible for a lot of the 2D and Stop-Motion Holiday Specials such as _Rudolph, Frosty the Snowman, Santa Claus Comes to Town, Peter Cottontail_ and also _The Last Unicorn_
However, what might surprise you James and also Nobu is that the 2D Holiday Rankin Bass specials from 1974, _The Hobbit, The Return of the King_ and _The Last Unicorn_ were animated by a Japanese animation studio called Topcraft who also helped animated Hayao Miyazaki’s debut film _Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind._ Unfortunately after Topcraft filed for bankruptcy in 1985, Miyazaki, along with Toshio Suzuki and Isao Takahata acquired some of Topcraft’s assets and formed Studio Ghibli while Topcraft's founder, Toru Hara, eventually became Studio Ghibli's first manager. Even a few of the animators who worked on _The Hobbit, The Return of the King, The Last Unicorn_ and _Nausicaä_ also joined Ghibli.
Oo, hey, I don't think they've done The Last Unicorn, have they?
@@blueamaranth9419 Rankin Bass was involved in the production of _The Last Unicorn_ and Topcraft who worked on _The Hobbit_ and _Return of the King_ was involved for the Animation.
But in terms of reaction no they didn’t reacted to this movie yet.
To be honest, Topcraft's style is very recognizable. You can see the influence of the early manga in the artstyle, as well as anime classics like Captain Harlock.
This film came out at a time when you couldn’t sell toys to kids based on any project primarily aimed at kids. You could sell music albums, storybooks, and similar projects, that explains why there are so many songs. Many of the animators attached to this film went on to form Studio Ghibli.
There were toys released for this though, and I wish I had gotten them, back then.
@@shadowdivided there were toys for Ralph Bakshi’s film, I’m not aware of any action figures made for this film but I will look into it.
@shadowdivided sorry no toys except for a record and book tie in
I had the record growing up!
@@user-yh8kt1fq6r exactly.
As much as i love Andy Serkis
nothing has ever come close to the way Bother Theodore does Gollums
“WE HATES IT...FOREVER!”
Also Richard Boone as Smaug is perfect.
I mean, I love Andy’s best
Yeah, I think having this version of Smaug be my introduction to the concept of Dragons(either him, or Malificent's transformation in Sleeping Beauty, but does she really count?) when I was a little kid definitely put a high bar for every subsequent iteration of "dragons" I've seen since.
I know that The Hobbit and Watership Down were the movies I learned how to operate a VCR's rewind function on my own for at least, so that says something about me I'm sure...
Agreed, Theodore's version looked more menacing and the way he says his name feels more creepy
This is one of my favorite animated movies!!! I don't think anyone else reacted to this yet.
The shapeshifter character isn’t in this movie.
There’s been a few reactors that have reacted to this film but those were released 2 years ago and done by lesser known reactors instead of by BillyBinges, TimotheeReacts, Clariss, and ANGELINA.
The most recent reactions of this film were done by Pop Culturally Challenged and Jess of the Shire respectively.
During this time, realism in animation wasn't the norm. Animations was its own form of storytelling. There were many movies of varied length, some extremely stylized, which is also what separated them from the Disney films which tried to achieve a form a realism. Fantastic Planet, Coonskin, The Last Unicorn, Wizards, and imported anime showed different types of animation and forms of telling the story. Also remember, this was a Rankin-Bass production aimed mostly at kids so had to move rather quickly along. It does manage to capture some of the children's story that Tolkien seemed to want for the story he wrote.
In case you're tempted to watch it - The animated Lord of the Rings (1978) is not good but is kind of an interesting novelty in animation style.
I think it is very good!
@@allisterfiend_2112 fair enough
@@allisterfiend_2112I believe it's good too and very underrated
@@allisterfiend_2112 Where there's a whip......
This was MY "The Hobbit". I saw this when it came out, before I read the books. The goblins and spiders spinning off into darkness were quite scary enough (not to mention Gollum), thank you, without seeing animated gore as a child. I loved the characters and learned a good lesson. There's nothing more you could ask from a childrens show. It introduced me to the works of the Professor as well as the fantasy genre in general and I'll be forever thankful for them.
Wow, nice, your watching the 70's animated version! I saw this in the theater when I was about 9 or 10. Some other great animated films from the 70's is 'Watership Down' and 'Rikki Tikki Tavi', which will seem violet by todays standards but were standard for watching in my generation.
Rikki Tikki Tavi man that is a great animated film.
@@shampoovtaI agree, it’s always fun to watch.
Oh, Rikki Tikki Tavi was wonderful! Thank you for that reminder.
I always loved how the background had a textured watercolor like quality, very beautiful. Lol as a kid i always thought the singer of the songs was very folk like with high vebrato, now i find it charming.
My sister-in-law knew nothing about any of Tolkien's works so we showed her this before showing her the Peter Jackson LOTR. It was the best way to show her the background story before introducing her to one of the greatest movie trilogies ever made.
It really sucks that they lost the original sound effects for this movie. It's still good, but I enjoyed it more with it's full sounds effects back in the day when it first came out.
If they wanted to bother I’m sure they could make a passable attempt at fixing that.
@@vivalapsychOh, for sure. I guess they just don't want to bother.
I would highly recommend you guys react to 'The Last Unicorn' from 1982. That movie was one of many in my childhood and another good Rankin-Bass piece. I think you'd enjoy it, especially since we all love anime and this one has that anime look to it. It's definitely one of the lesser known and underrated films, but beautiful throughout
X2 !!!
last unicorn is their masterpiece
@@oaf-77 For sure. I'll always love 1980s Thundercats (and 2011's Thundercats as well) and the Rankin-Bass Christmas specials, but 'The Last Unicorn' just hits different. It's so good. A masterpiece no one should miss out on.
I've only known one person to not like it and that was my ex-boyfriend. How anyone can dislike the film or find it boring or whatever is beyond me
🙋♀Agree-I've never seen an actual reaction to The Last Unicorn
@@ChildofChrist1983 he sounds like someone with absolutely no taste. Deserves to be an ex
PLEASE do The Last Unicorn. It was animated by the same studio as this one, and also features Christopher Lee (Saruman from Peter Jackson's Lord Of The Rings) as one of the voice actors. It's a retro classic imo.
Last unicorn is their best movie.
I agree that they should do The Last Unicorn and The Flight of Dragons.
@@mobstercassidy9400 good luck finding flight of dragons
The Rankin/Bass adaptation of The Hobbit is AWESOME. I find so many things to love about it: The mission statement by the producers to not poison the film with their own interpretation of Tolkien’s text. The decision to base the characters and overall aesthetic on the illustrations of Arthur Rackham, whom Tolkien liked and thought would be a suitable illustrator for his world. The whimsical tone. The moral subtext. And those moments that manage to capture the more lyrical portions of the book, such as Bilbo’s view from the top of the tree in Mirkwood or the rapprochement between Bilbo and Thorin during their final encounter, which I found quite moving and poignant. Yes, Thranduil is green and sounds like Arnold Schwarzenegger. But that was done primarily to distinguish him and the Mirkwood elves from Elrond and the Rivendell elves. Overall, the film is still light years closer to Tolkien’s story than Peter Jackson’s abortions are. What many critics of the animated film fail to understand is that The Hobbit is a children’s book. It is a fairy tale. It is whimsical, light-hearted, and fast-paced. While it has some serious and epic elements, particularly at the end, these are exceptions to the general tone of the book, and they manage to work organically. The climax of the story, in which little Bilbo becomes swept up in the great events of the world, was part of what made the little book so special. I’m thankful that Rankin and Bass obviously appreciated how special it is as well.
I wouldn't focus on Peter Jackson with the Hobbit - he wanted it to be two films, but the production company demanded a trilogy. It wasn't his idea to fill it out with things that weren't in the text at all. If you really want to properly enjoy his vision, you should look up the Tolkien Cut. It distills it down to only the things in the text, and it's a lovely adaptation.
@@HeathsHarleyQuinn - Jackson proved that he has no respect for Tolkien with his horrible adaptation of The Lord of the Rings. What he did to The Hobbit was entirely on him.
I was introduced to the world of Middle Earth and J.R.R. Tolkein thanks to this beautiful animated work (and the later animated sequel, The Return of The King). Wonderful drawing style (the awesome Rankin/Bass who later did ThunderCats and Silverhawks, and certainly numerous holiday stop-motion animated specials like Rudolph and Frosty), music and fantastic voice actors - among them legendary John Huston as Gandalf, Hans Conried as Thorin; and I especially loved SMAUG, voiced magnificently by actor Richard Boone. For me, his Smaug was the benchmark to judge Peter Jackson's take on The Hobbit. If they didn't get Smaug right, it would be a waste of time for me. But, Benedict Cumberbatch did Boone's Smaug proud. Glad you reacted to this classic from my childhood! :)
NOTE: James mentioned the sound was odd at times... The movie soundscape was altered after it was released on DVD; The sound effects of Smaug's fire blasts were removed. Why? Royalty / ownership reasons, perhaps? Not the first time I noticed this happening. JAWS also had it's sound effects altered. They made it sound more "realistic;" in my opinion, they killed the DRAMA of the film by altering the sound effects (best example is when the shark pulls the Orca)! Same thing here Rankin/Bass' Hobbit.
*There is a 1978 **_Lord of the Rings_** made in ROTOSCOPE in England that is very wild to watch..... saw it when I was a freshman in college*
Just a note, the unusual animations when things get hit with swords is a sidestep to showing violence in a children's show. So they animated around it.
Ohhhh ok
Not only are you right about this being animated in Japan. It was animated by Topcraft, which later split into two studios. One studio was Pacific Animation which did the original ThunderCats among other things. The other one? Studio Ghibli.
Some of the people who worked for Topcraft also went on to form Studio Gainax, creators of Neon Genesis Evangelion, FLCL and Gurren Lagann.
While watching this, I kept thinking it gave me Thundercats vibes, especially with Smaug's design and animation! That makes so much sense, thank you for sharing :)
Here's a little known fun fact, the Japanese animators who helped make this also made Thundercats 1984. Even the music at the beginning is very reminiscent of the show. Anyway, since you guys said that yall are doing a reading for yall's book club, well let me be the one to tell you that you guys are in for a major spiritual journey. I have read and listened to most of Tolkien's books and listened to The Silmarillion 3 times. I've even listened to the radio dramas for The Hobbit and Lord of the rings. His books have helped me through some tough times since the end of 2021 up until now.
A great companion piece to this movie would be The Last Unicorn.
Can't wait for "Where there's a whip, there's a way!" That song is a banger!!
The spider deaths are strange because this version is missing certain sound effects, not to say it isn’t strange with the effects intact! As far as I can tell these effects were probably added last and were missing on whatever print they used to master the DVD and streaming versions but previously existed on the broadcast and VHS versions.
For my generation (GenX), John Huston will always be the voice of Gandalf.
Rankin/Bass was a Canadian company whose animation was always produced by studios in Japan, even the Rudolph puppetoon stuff. That was the unique hook about Rankin/Bass as a company, their international approach to design and production. So yes, this was very much 70s "anime."
A few years later, R/B produced The Last Unicorn, and then Thundercats.
Rankin/Bass was an American production company. But I agree with you about John Huston 😊
John Huston has such a rich storytelling voice as Gandalf! Absolutely perfect casting. For any audio books for Tolkien, John Huston should have been the one to narrate.
Not only is Rankin/Bass the same animation company for Rudolph, but they used a lot of the same actors for the voices as those animations. Gandalf is voiced by the same person that did the Winter Warlock voice in "Santa Claus is coming to town"
That is the great director - and sometimes actor - John Huston.
This is what got me into Tolkien, back in the day. Yeah, some of the vocal actor choices were sort of baffling, but it's more than made up for with John Huston as Gandalf and Richard Boone as Smaug. Genius. After I saw this I bought the book and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, read them all, then started over and read them again. And I've read them all again many times since. So glad to see this getting attention now.
Gandalf and Smaug are peak talent.
This was a film for TV when it was made. You couldn’t show blood. Instead it shows creatures being pulled into the void of death.
As a kid, honestly, a lot of the Ranking Bass animation, not the stop motion, but movies like The Hobbit and The Last Unicorn were the closest thing to horror for me. The Goblins intro in the cave terrified me and the fact that they showed characters dying wrecked me.
Love this movie so much. I'm glad it's getting some respect here.
If you guys liked this art style you should really check out The Last Unicorn. It's is a fantastic animated fantasy and the art is just spectacular. It is also niche and a bit unusual.
The Red Bull was nightmare fuel for so many little kids of that generation.
You are not wrong. I was definitely one of them.@@GeneElder.R27
This is the version of The Hobbit I grew up with and is what I see in my head and heart when I read it. I love the designs so much! One thing I miss from my original home-taped VHS copy is the sound effects. I can't remember what exactly happened, but they've been lost. So the visuals are remastered and the music is loud, but really interesting sound effects are gone. But anyway, I'm glad you guys enjoyed it
i am so genuinely happy u guys watched this. i grew up on this. my dad was shown it growing up when it was a tv special and he had the vhs and played it for me all the time when i was little and i always watched it growing up until i could actually read the book. me and him still watch it together and genuinely enjoy it. So many of the unique designs used here are the default look I have of fantasy creatures because of this, like the trolls, goblins and even Gollum
The voice actor for Gollum was a very strange comedian who went by the name of Brother Theodore. He may have been about as insane as Gollum himself.
Two Bilbos died in the same year. Orson Bean and Ian Holm.
I think you're right that they specifically avoided making the violence too graphic - or even the slightest bit graphic at all. The most gory scene was the arrow going into Smaug's chest.
The soundtrack and music score for this movie is amazing
I loved Rankin Bass whe I was a kid!
Rankin Bass did The Last Unicorn and Flight of Dragons, which I highly recommend!
What makes this even more impressive is that it was a TV movie, as is The Return of the King from the same production company.
The theatrical Lord of the Rings animated movie only covered through Helms Deep, and didn't do well enough for them to be able to make the intended sequel. So R/B decided to complete the story. I was a kid when these came out, and used to watch them avidly every time they were shown on TV, when a "television special" really was special. (Keep in mind we only had 3-5 channels, not counting Univision, so when a special was on, something else got bumped.)
As a fan of fantasy books - the first "real" books I read were the Narnia series - and eventually an avid gamer, these movies were truly special to me.
1:51 - So, a brief history. The Hobbit was the first story set in Middle Earth. Tolkien wrote it as a bed time story for his daughter and then expanded it into the Lord of the Rings we know. The movie was made by Rankin-Bass productions, who was famous for claymation Christmas specials. They managed to get it cut down to a manageable length by cutting out large scenes that weren't strictly necessary and trimming others into much smaller scenes. A notable absence from the books is Beorn the skin-changer. The Battle of Five Armies is also greatly truncated.
3:11 - The art style of the movie is heavily influenced by Tolkien's own art of Middle Earth, particularly that which was used for the 1973 paperback covers of the LotR series.
3:52- Personally, I like 'Adventure Capitalist.'
6:30 - JRR Tolkien died 4 years before this movie was released. His son, Christopher, has generally hand an unfavorable view of ALL the LotR movie attempts.
9:25 - This is one of the more notable places where a scene is truncated. In the book, Gandalf uses ventriloquism to make the trolls argue the night away until dawn comes and turns the trolls to stone, but in this version it comes off seeming like Gandalf just MADE it dawn.
10:49 - In the book, Gandalf revealed the map and key at the 'tea party,' and told of how Thorin's father had attempted to use it, but was captured by Sauron. Gandalf found the dying dwarf and was entrusted to return the map to Thorin.
21:16 - So after 25 years of having THIS in my head, you can understand how underwhelmed I was with Andy Serkis' reading.
27:42 - Another victim of the shortening of the story, this movie doesn't mention how the party was led off the trail by following the sounds of the Mirkwood elves having revels. The dwarves stumbled upon several of these before the elves came back for them. I also just want to comment briefly on the odd choice to make the Mirkwood elves so different from the design of the Rivendell elves.
33:22 - You wanna see some detail? This is the Games Workshop miniature for Smaug: www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Smaug?_requestid=23067677
34:14 - For all his boasting, Smaug is actually the WEAKEST of the 5 dragons still alive at this point in the history of Middle Earth.
35:16 - In the book, what parts of Smaug's underbelly that were NOT protected by his iron-hard scales were crusted over with the remains of hundreds of years sleeping on that pile of gold coins and gems. There was just that ONE spot left bare. And I love the way the camera switches to the thrush when Biblo says 'a snail out of it's shell.'
Aside from this and the Christmas specials, Rankin-Bass' biggest contribution to animation was probably Thundercats (and it's sister series Silverhawks). They did do several other animated fantasy movies, though. I highly recommend the movie Flight of Dragons if you want to see more animation like this.
Dude, this Gollum was so scary to me as a kid. (My dad had a copy of this that he recorded on a VHS.) I was maybe 3 or 4 when I saw this and believed, because i saw him, he must be real. And that Gollum only lived in the dark. I actually needed a night light because of this Gollum until i was about 6.
Smaug has such an interesting design to me. Something between a dragon, a wolf, and a cat. Something truly chimeric.
That being said, i really like this adaptation of the Hobbit. While it cut some things out, it didn't add fluff. It felt purposed in what it wanted to do.
While I didn't see this version of "The Hobbit" until several years later, the artwork from it was heavily involved in my introduction to the novel, and to Tolkien, when I was 6 years old. The copy of "The Hobbit" that my local library had was a special edition that had the text of the original novel combined with hundreds of stills from the animated movie, so my mental pictures of the characters were heavily based on it. Many years later, a dear friend of mine who is also a lifelong Tolkien enthusiast managed to track down a copy of that edition and gave it to me as a Christmas gift.
Something both film versions (this one more expressly so) end up getting wrong is what the "five armies" actually are; in the book, aside from the humans, dwarves and elves, the goblins and wargs are counted as two separate armies. The eagles were actually a sixth army.
Saw this film in 1977 as a TV special, when i was 5. Gollum was creepy and somewhat pathetically drawn to his 'birthday present.' Smaug the dragon was awesomely powertul. Loved this film, my introduction to the Hobbitt before I was able to read it. The voice acting is top notch, and this film has stayed among some of my favorites since i was a young. Good reaction, guys.
The magic this movie held to me as a child was something else. Seeing it on a dim, dusty movie player screen in a dark room was an experience like no other. I wish I could recreate that magic. Apparently it was the same way when my father saw it as a child in the theater.
Tolkien died in 1973 before any movie adaptions had been made. In the 1960's he was sent a proposed script for a LotR animated movie which he criticized in detail and came up with a policy of "art or cash". In 1969 he took the cash, selling the rights for $250,000 and 7.5% of the gross. Which is a lot of money but much less than they are worth today. Tolkien was a perfectionist and often hyper-critical of his own work and adaptions thereof. Lots of changes in the Peter Jackson films (and any other adaptions) would have annoyed him greatly even if he could have recognized their necessity in adapting the work to a different medium.
The 1977 Hobbit has a special place in my heart, because it's the only Tolkien film adaption I saw as a child before I become a Tolkien mega-nerd, but I think that it does a better job capturing the feeling and themes of the book better than any other movie adaption.
Another big difference is the death toll of the original 13 dwarves. In this film, seven are killed and only six survive, but in the original book and in the Peter Jackson trilogy, the only dwarves who die are Thorin, Fili and Kili.
I think the change was made because we were only a few years post-Vietnam, and the real cost of war was very much still on people's minds, and to treat war too lightly could border on disrespectful.
Rankin/Bass also did The Last Unicorn, which y’all need in your brains. ❤
This version seems to be missing some necessary sound effects from the original . These sounds would add more to the action scenes. Wish they would put them back,in a remaster of this.
Absolutely love Rankin Bass. It has such a style I can always recognize.
A guy named Gary J. Kings made a bandit cut of this movie with "Dopesmoker" by Sleep as the only sound. It has to be seen to be believed; his editing is perfect. Highly (lol) recommended.
Glen Yarbrough also did the music for the Ralph Bakshi Lord of the Rings movies. He was a great tenor, who was part of the folk band The Limeliters.
I looooooooove this from my childhood. I know all the songs. But my absolute childhood favorite is forever committed to the Ralph Bakshi's LOTR. And weirdly enough covers up to the two tower and then the Rankin - Bass picks up in Return of the King. ( There's a looooong story about that I won't get into but very interesting behind the scenes story there.)
Sting, Glamdring (Gandalf's sword), and Orcrist (Thorin's sword) are all supposed to glow in the presence of Orcs and Goblins. It was a feature that the Elves of Gondolin included in most of their blades.
When I was as in 5th grade (1979) my reading teacher said she had a special surprise. She rolled in the big tv/vhs cart & played this for us. It took two class days. I’d never heard of the book but this movie stayed with me all these years. It was magical.
This was my first exposure to Tolkien. We watched these on TV every time one came out along with The Lion, The Witch & the Wardrobe cartoons. My parents used to regularly copy Gollum's "Precious" whenever they saw someone being vain....which was kinda annoying. But I loved these regardless.
Love this one
Oh I love this cartoon. If you didn't know, the official version they made into DVD had some sounds they had lost over the years missing - clinking plates, and a few other things. There's a fan edit floating around that pulled the missing pieces from the VHS somehow, so it's the full thing again. I both loved and was terrified of this as a kid - the spiders XD I'd beg mom to let me watch it, and she'd have to hide me from the spiders XD
I'm not gonna lie - the new Goblin designs in PJ version didn't impress as much as these, but my stupid heart was happy they included "down down to gobliin town". And I keep forgetting I'm over 10 years younger than this cartoon. XD
This was my introduction to Middle Earth. Long before I had any notion of books, in those faraway days of the late 80's, before the Jackson films were so much as a spark of an idea. This is where I learned what a Hobbit was, and these designs stuck with me. To this day, this is what Middle Earth looks like to me.
My favorite line outta this whole cartoon "what the blazes" 😂😂😂
The actor who voices Gollum in this film is a man by the name of Brother Theodore. He created one of the most iconic portrayals of Gollum of all time, and he as also been a major source of inspiration for a LOT of voice actors today, including the likes of Crispin Freeman!
I recommend anyone reading this do a quick search for Brother Theodore. His appearances on Letterman were legendary!
You are right that this is a TV movie. I saw it when it came out. I was 7 years old. My dad had already read me the book. We were at my grandparents house in Michigan. It came on TV on a Sunday night and we actually skipped church! to watch it. I loved it, but had a hard time falling asleep. I can remember lying in bed at Grandma and Grandpa's seeing those goblins and Smaug. Dad had to come in at some point an reassure me that I could sleep and all would be fine. As I grew up and read The Hobbit many many more times, I found things in the movie that I really disagreed with or didn't like. However, after seeing the Jackson Hobbit movies, I have to say that I prefer this one. While it skips things from the book, and the drawing of Gollum, the Goblins, and the Wood Elves do not match JRRT's descriptions, it does not add anything at all to the original text. Jackson's adds way too much, and the second movie deviates from Bilbo so much one wonders why the movie is called "the Hobbit." More memories, in case you wish to read more: My sister and I found this record czcams.com/video/M6Ed7vTV6bo/video.html at our local library and played it so much we had it memorized. We then acted the whole thing out for our parents (with our little brother for bit parts). Jennifer and I alternated roles and told our parents things like "now I am Gandalf" so that they could follow along better. For a long time the Smaug in this movie was the Smaug in my head for the story. Both of you need to reread the book, you'll love it.Wishes: I wish that Jackson had actually made the dwarves wear the right color clothes as mentioned in the books, They had different color hoods (as seen in this movie). I also wish that he had retained Thorin's silver beard and hair instead of making him look as young as he did. Keep going guys, I love what you do here. If you are ever in South Dakota, drop by.
Apart from the book and the Peter Jackson movies, this animated movie and the 2003 Hobbit video game were my childhood
I also had the Ralph Bakshi animated Lord of the Rings Movie which I occasionally watched but it’s not great but if you watch it you’ll see how much of an influence it had of the Peter Jackson movies
NO WAY! this is my childhood, partly because it was my dad's childhood. Also they referenced this in Smiling Friends
You mentioned the sound effects at one point. Those of us who grew up with the original version know that this film was *packed* with a ton of sound effects that, for some reason, were cut from the film later on. And they really added a lot to the film. I'll never understand why they were removed.
LOVE this movie. Wife and I watch it all the time. It's the background movie that plays when we clean and stuff.
Fun Fact: Thorin is voiced by Hans Conried, the same guy who voiced Captain Hook in Disney's Peter Pan (1953)
As a commenter put it in something I read a while back, it’s important to remember that aside from the little tease at the end, this is based on the *original*, pre-LOTR version of The Hobbit. The Ring was just a magic ring, Gollum was just a creepy guy living in a cave, and the Necromancer was just a scary evil wizard.
As much as I like Cumberbatch, Richard Boone will always be Smaug to me.
From the studio that later, gave us the Thundercats!
"I was hoping for some more action."
"ACTION WAS CALLED FOR"
27:54 In the book, before getting caught by the spiders, the Dwarves attempted to crash an Elvish feast in the clearing, and the Wood Elves fled. It's apparent that this was actually recorded for the film as well, but then cut out, because it wouldn't make sense for Elves to "return" if we hadn't seen them previously.
The Rankin/Bass Hobbit and Return of the King were made as television specials and were both animated by the Japanese studio Topcraft. Topcraft was also the animation studio for Rankin/Bass' adaptation of The Last Unicorn (which was released theatrically) and Hayao Miyazaki's Nausicaa of the Valley of the Winds, and was therefore the precursor to Studio Ghibli.
The designs for the Wood-elves are pretty funky, especially when you know that the Elf-king is Thranduil, the father of Legolas (who Tolkien did not invent until the writing of LotR). You can tell that there was a scene in the teleplay that is missing from the film where the company first enters the Wood-elves' clearing, interrupting an outdoor feast. The short runtime also necessitated cutting out other episodes from the book, notably the company's encounter with, and assistance from, Beorn and the entire subplot involving the Arkenstone.
I appreciate that you guys try to view things through the lens of the era when it was released. There are quite a few reactors that do not. At the same time, we older folk need to also appreciate that younger people's views will be colored by their own era. I think one of the things that is difficult to impress upon younger viewers is just how hard it was to watch certain things and how special that made them on top of whatever quality the film itself had. I remember getting the TV Guide every week or the Sunday paper and literally looking over what would be playing that week so that I wouldn't miss anything. I watched the Hobbit at some point in my childhood, loved it, and it became on of those things I was always on the lookout for so that I could see it again, though it might be months or even a year or two before that would happen. I wouldn't trade the easy access that I have to media today, but I do kind of miss that feeling of excitement when I saw a listing for a movie that I'd been hoping to watch for the first time or a favorite that I wanted to watch again. When we got our first VCR, it was a godsend. Anyway, thanks for the reaction. I enjoy respectful, yet honest, looks at these classics.
I grew up watching this, it got me into Tolkien
This was my introduction to Tolkien at the age of 11. I checked the book out the day after I saw this and after read The Lord of The Rings. 46 years. I still love it all. The Hobbit was a children’s book written for his children. and this version captures its vibe much better than the movie trilogy, thus the spinny thing when someone is killed. Tolkien passed in 1974. Yes, this was a TV special.
In the book, the Ring didn’t make Bilbo completely invisible. In light, he could be seen as a shadow. The Elf king is Legolas’ dad. The elves are kinda sketchy in this cartoon.
24:35 Exactly. He’s the luck number, as Gandalf just reminded him.
When I picture fantasy like The Hobbit or D&D, THIS is how it looks. I grew up on this movie and consider it the only true adaptation of the book. Rankin/Bass also did The Last Unicorn.
There are fan edits of PJ's Hobbit trilogy that cut out all the crap and make it very close to the books... I'm pleased with those as well as this animated version... (which I also grew up on and started my Tolkien obsession)
Notice how Bilbo has a little Demon Slayer in his facial expressions. Especially the eyes. 15 Birds is a great song. Always liked this movie.
Many of the Hobbit's dwarf names plus Gandalf were borrowed by Tolkien from a list of the ancient dwarves in an old Norse poem, the Elder Edda, from the Viking era.
Like a lot of other people have said, this aired on TV when I was 10, and it was my introduction to Tolkien. I was completely mesmerized by it, and obsessed with Gollum. Years later I discovered the voice of Gollum, "Brother" Theodore, was a comedian and performance artist in New York, and I went to see him several times in Greenwich Village. You can see his many appearances on the David Letterman show on youtube, doing his dark, bizarre, hilarious act.
I remember as a kid in the 2000s my mom had this on VHS and I was hooked. I love this movie and the LOTR trilogy.
"The Last Unicorn" is also a Rankin Bass production. You can see some similarity in style.
You guys are right- this movie has a really good atmosphere to it. For some reason, it always feels like I'm listening to a campfire story.
this use to be on TV every year....
Fun fact: looking at the picture of the actor that did gandolf in the animated movie here, he looks very similar to ian mckellen
I LOVE this version of Gollum! I absolutely respect Andy Serkis's performance and his take on the character, but this one freaked me out as a kid and will likely live rent free somewhere deep in my nightmares till the day I die. This movie is also why I laughed to myself in the theater the first time I heard Ian McKellen's Gandalf say "I assume you are referring to the incident with the dragon. I was barely involved. All I did was give your uncle a little nudge out the door."
The voice cast for this movie is so good
At least when I read the Hobbit John Huston’s voice is what I hear when I read Gandalf’s dialogue
I think it probably switches to Ian McKellen’s voice when I read the Lord of the Rings just because I’ve watched those movies so much
For Bilbo I think I hear either Orson Bean’s voice (from this movie) or Bilbo’s voice from the 2003 game that I used to play which was such a good game
Gandalf was voiced by director, screenwriter, and actor John Huston, father of actress, Angelica Huston.
I really appreciate that you're as equally grossed out and terrified by Gollum as I am. I loved the hobbit and this movie as a child but Brother Theodore's voice work fucking gave me so many nightmares. Idk if youve watched the Last Unicorn yet but he also has some voice work in that too and it was animated by the same group as this one, who as people have mentioned went on to form studio ghibli
"The Wood-elves had returned? What does that mean?"
It means they cut a scene from the book to explain it.
This is probably the best of the animated adaptations and the most easy to follow for someone unfamiliar with the book. Still, if James is reading The Fellowship of the Ring, I am curious what he'll think of the 1978 one.
Also, Tolkien passed away in 1973, so he missed this film by four years. I doubt he would like half of it, especially the "Riddles in the Dark" chapter, but judging from what I have read, I would guess he would probably prefer it to Peter Jackson's films since the Rankin-Bass movies at very least didn't add much, and Tolkien was a very particular person toward the end of his life.
When he freed the dwarves from the spiders, Bilbo told them to meet him in the wood-elves' clearing in the forest. The assumption was that the elves hadn't been there in a while, but it was still a place of safety. Unfortunately, the elves had returned.
@@kelaarin Yes, that, but they cut the fact that there were Wood-elves there before from the movie.
THIS the The Hobbit for me. The landscape is beautiful. The watercolour skies and backrounds. Best Gandalf. Gollum is creepier. Great music. Very moody. Whole different vibe.
This was my introduction to Tolkien back when it came out. This was indeed made for television. Ralph Bakshi's Lord of the Rings was for the theater.
The Return of the King (animated) was Rankin/Bass again for TV.
Great react! 📺 💓 🍿
and watching all 3 gets you adaptations of 6/7 of the basic Tolkien story.
The dollar to yen ration was great for America so they outsourced the animation to Japan because it was more cost effective than animating it in the USA. (Rudolf was also animated in Japan).
The animation studio that it was sent to became studio Ghibli
The voice actors of this are for the most part well known actors to us older generation
It's difficult to distinguish but one of the soloists during the two goblin songs is Thurl Ravenscroft. In addition to having one of the best names ever, he also sang the 1960s version of "You're A Mean One, Mr. Grinch!" and is the original Tony the Tiger from Frosted Flakes commercials.