GamerTab That was an excellent one.

AutCuddly Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

WillSushyMedia This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

O2D I see some reviewers got Frodo of the nine fingers and the ring of doom! stuck in their heads.Well let me tell you, it will never go away.I went many years without seeing this movie and have never forgotten that song.So anyway, the funniest part about the music is how this time they hired a minstrel to write a song about their journeys.What???But sadly, the music is the best part of this movie.After the disappointing Hobbit cartoon you wouldn't think they could do much worse but they could and did.I guess for a thirty-seven year old made for TV cartoon movie, it's really not that bad.I bet if you watched every other TV movie that was made in 1980, this would be the best.But it's 2017 and we have had a half dozen awesome hobbit movies so this is terrible.

ryderstrong69 This was a great adaptation of the book. The songs and poems translated very well into the cartoon. People often like to put these movies up against the Peter Jackson films made decades later and of course movies made in the late 70s and early 80 with budgets under 4 million dollars wont be as good as live action films with budgets in the 100 million dollar range. That said for the time period it was a very good animated film that was enjoyable for kids and adults. The animation was good even by a lot of todays standards. This movie has also inspired a lot of people to go out and read the LOTR books. If you enjoy the books or even the Newer films you should check this movie out.

myopichobbit29 First of all, I'd like to express how much I love The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Tolkien was a genius. Peter Jackson did a great job on the films, I think. But Rankin-Bass, however, did not.SPOILERS The thing that bothered me a lot in this movie was the music. It was annoying, and ends up getting stuck in your head. Right now I'm trying to get rid of the one about Frodo's Nine Fingers. The animation is awful. There were also several elements of the story that bothered me, in animation, and in plot. For example, why did Elrond have a beard? Elves don't have beards. They are clean-shaven, always. Why did Merry and Pippin meet on the Pelenor DURING the battle? Where are Legolas and Gimli? What's with Denethor? The orcs looked much too top-heavy to be able to walk. The Nazgul were terrible. (They were on flying horses.) Denethor was bad, as well, as he just looked like a crazy old man with a back problem. He didn't look strong at all, as he was portrayed in the books and the recent film by Peter Jackson. Gollum looked as if he were pregnant, and sounded like a guy clearing his throat. And Sam's frequent exclamations of, "Oh, my God!" and "Lord, help me!" were not true to the books. (Although Tolkien was a Christian and so am I, the phrases should not have been in the movie.) And the battering ram, Grond? The thing looked as if strangely colored drool was coming out of its mouth rather than fire.This was overall the worst adaptation of anything I have ever seen. It was, truly, painful to watch.No, really, I was writhing in agony. Good thing the library rents out tapes for free.

louiepatti When Rankin and Bass unveiled their version of Tolkien's "The Hobbit" in 1977, it was a charming if abbreviated made-for-television animated film that was fun and even a bit scary. Their voice casting choices were fine, especially Richard Boone, whose cancer-rasped voice brought the dragon Smaug to life, and Theodore as the creepy and loathsome Gollum, who evoked fear and disgust but little pity. In 1978, Ralph Bakshi attempted to bring the first half of "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy to the big screen in his lushly animated epic. Unfortunately, his big-budget film flopped, much to the disappointment of Tolkien's fans, and Bakshi would be unable to make his sequel. In an effort to finish off the unfinished series, Rankin and Bass tried to make their own version to satisfy the audience who wanted to see closure. It was and remains an unmitigated disaster.Why is this cartoon so awful? Well, the answer lies mainly in the word "cartoon". Unlike The Hobbit, which featured beautifully painted scenery that evoked delicate watercolors and ethereal linework, which had so evidently been crafted with loving care and cast with thought to matching characters to actors, The Return of the King had all the earmarks of having been hastily cobbled together. It wasn't so much an animated homage to a great writer's work as a hatchet job. A huge chunk of the events in Tolkien's books were missing between where Bakshi's fairly faithful rendition ended and this abomination began. The drawings were slapped together and were often repetitious and ugly. Voice actors from the first film returned and some of them worked: Orson Bean was fine as Frodo, Theodore was again great as Gollum, Theodore Bikel did a fine job as Aragorn, and Roddy McDowall was wonderful as Samwise Gamgee. The rest were abysmal. Instead of hiring actors to do the characters, cartoon voice actors such as Don Messick (Scooby-Doo) and Casey Kasem (Shaggy) were cast. It was downright painful to hear a Nazgull being done by Scooby Doo through a distortion filter. Many characters integral to Tolkien's story were cast away: Where was Gimli? Faromir? Any of the elves (other than Elrond) such as Legolas or Glorfindel? How about the Army of the Dead or Sauroman? Merry and Pippin didn't develop as characters; Gollum remained merely vile, as if Bakshi's attempts to show this tortured being's strangely noble and pathetic side never happened. The dialog was stilted and sometimes unintentionally hilarious ("As the flag's standard broke the wind. . ."). It was awful beneath description from beginning to end, appearing to be a shameless attempt to cash in on the hopes of frustrated fans who'd wanted the second animated movie made.That, of course, was the entire problem. This cartoon was, despite its trappings and claims, just a cartoon, less charming by far than The Hobbit and far less noble than Bakshi's film. Both of those were honest attempts at creating art, and each succeeded in its limited way until swept aside by Peter Jackson, who finally gave Tolkien's opus the treatment it deserved. The two earlier films merit a place of honor for trying to achieve cinematic beauty. Rankin and Bass's The Return of the King deserves to simply be forgotten.