When thinking of film adaptations of The Lord of the Rings, the trilogy by Peter Jackson probably comes to mind first. There are several versions of another adaptation – one of which we probably will never get to see.
Long before the popular trilogy by Peter Jackson hit theaters in the early 2000s, there was already a well-known adaptation of The Lord of the Rings.
Director Ralph Bakshi released his version as an animated film in 1978. He did not cover the entire story of the three books but only depicted the events from “The Fellowship of the Ring” and about two-thirds from “The Two Towers”. Thus, the film ends after the Battle of Helm’s Deep.
The special thing about this version of The Lord of the Rings: It was not an ordinary animated film. Thanks to a special technique, he produced a second film that has remained secret – and not the only mystery surrounding the franchise.
A simple trick creates realism
What is this secret film? The origin of the secret version lies in the way Ralph Bakshi made his film. He used the so-called rotoscope technique. In this method, a scene is filmed with real actors and the images are then traced, similar to the technique of tracing.
With The Lord of the Rings, Bakshi even took it a step further. In an interview with It Came From, he described the process as follows:
At that time, there was no motion control; there were no computers. [Rotoscoping] was a great method to bring realism into an image. … While working on The Lord of the Rings, I was under enormous time pressure. I developed the technique that instead of tracing the photo, I directly laid the actual photo [with high contrast] over the animated drawing and painted over it.
The result was realistic movements of the characters, especially in their faces. For this reason, the film still appears very detailed in its animation today.
This also means that somewhere the original recordings of the actors are lurking around, almost an unofficial version of The Lord of the Rings. That we see this “naked” version was of course never intended, so it is unlikely that it will be released many years later.
For fans of animated films and The Lord of the Rings, it would still be an exciting extra.
The Lord of the Rings by Ralph Bakshi is much weirder compared to Peter Jackson’s version, but it still impresses with its animations and is a work of art in its own right. Have you seen the film? Please share your thoughts in the comments. How the animated film compares to other works from Middle-earth, you will find out on MeinMMO: All 9 films of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit ranked
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