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 Peter Jackson vs. Rankin/Bass
The producers at Rankin/Bass found themselves in an
opportunistic pickle. On they went to other, tougher choices, alas!
making some pretty poor ones; but also making some right moves along the way.
Analysis by Greg Wright
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THE FELLOWSHIP
OF THE RING
MONTHLY FEATURE: JUNE 2002
Peter Jackson vs. Rankin/Bass
This
page was created on June 14, 2002
This page was last updated on
May 31, 2005
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Peter Jackson vs. Rankin/Bass
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 What was Rankin/Bass thinking?
In 1979, the thinking world was stunned by the free-TV
premier of the Rankin/Bass production of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Return of the King. Of
course, Rankin/Bass had been regularly stunning the sensibilities of folk everywhere
since the fifties, establishing a niche market in stop-motion animated holiday
specials such as The Little Drummer Boy, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Frosty
the Snowman. Just about any Boomer you meet can hum a few bars of one or more
kitsch-tune classics spawned by the musical side of their productions. The studio had
even managed to mount a couple of theatrical releases, and, earlier in the seventies,
had produced the only adaptation of The Hobbit yet "filmed."
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What was particularly stunning about their latest production was that it made
very little attempt to cover for the fact that it began the story of The
Lord of the Rings with the Muster of Rohan, and with Frodo already captured by the
Orcs at Cirith Ungol. Worse, the adaptation tried to get away with this
narrative affront through the device of "The Minstrel of Gondor," warblingly
vocalized by Glen Yarborough. This invented minstrel opens the show with a
rendering (did I mean to say rendition?) of the Lay of "Frodo of the Nine Fingers,"
sung as part of a further-invented birthday party for Bilbo at Rivendell sometime
after the War of the Ring. Considering that the running time of the
Rankin/Bass Return is 97 minutes, better than half of which is consumed by
further Glen-warbling, it is rather shocking that the adaptation had the gall
of inventing this scene at the expense of chopping so many others. On top if it all,
the program got so many stinking things—like their visualization of the
Ringwraiths—flat-out wrong.
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 So why
the attempt?
In 1978, the first installment of Ralph Bakshi's proposed
two-part animated adaptation of The Lord of Rings hit the theaters: hit, and
pretty much dropped to the ground. While warmly received by many Tolkien fans,
the quality of the animation was spotty, and the film won neither the critical
nor popular support needed to warrant financing the second installment. (To some
degree, this turn of events motivated Jackson's insistence that all three
episodes of the current effort be filmed simultaneously.) It quickly became
apparent within the industry that the Bakshi saga would be left incomplete. Into
the void stepped Rankin/Bass.
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So the producers at Rankin/Bass found themselves in an opportunistic pickle. How
could they take advantage of this licensing opportunity from Saul Zaentz, and still
end up with a viable product? After all, Bakshi's version had complicated matters
by adapting one-and-a-half of Tolkien's three volumes, covering half of the material
in The Two Towers. The easy option would be to pick up the Gondor/Rohan narrative
where Bakshi left off, and match up the Frodo/Sam narrative accordingly. And with
this tough decision having been made, on they went to other, tougher choices, alas!
making some pretty poor ones; but also making some right moves along the way.
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The Rankin/Bass Visuals
One of the happier aspects of the Rankin/Bass production is the background
animation. While the character drawings and most of the foreground action
is awkward (galloping horses), goofy (teeny-headed women), and even downright
insulting (say, the wraiths), the land- and cityscapes (such as Gondor itself)
come very close to the style of Tolkien's own watercolors of Middle-earth, and
remain faithful to the details of the author's minutely descriptive prose. In
this regard, the production fares about as well as any, perhaps even surpassing
Peter Jackson's.
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The Rankin/Bass Spirituality
Opinion may be widely divided about the production's choices in this regard,
but one thing must be remembered: The Return of the King, as produced by
Rankin/Bass, was squarely targeted for children's entertainment. Tolkien's
book was written for adult tastes and sensibilities; and while he might have
argued that writing specifically for children is an artistically offensive
endeavor, he was very much clear that the darkness of The Lord of the Rings
would find a difficult audience even an the adult market.
So the Rankin/Bass production first brings the moral dilemmas into crisp, bright
focus, primarily through songs such as "It's So Easy Not to Try," and "Less Can Be
More." Where the good and bad in Tolkien's world can often be murky, the lines
are clearly drawn for Rankin/Bass. The child in the audience will have no
trouble drawing lessons about resisting temptation, seeing a job through to
completion, or being a faithful friend.
More controversially, God is introduced explicitly into the dialog. More than once,
when a particularly disastrous event occurs, Sam calls out, "God help us!" This
is a far cry from Tolkien's ecstatic utterances in Elvish to Elbereth, bringing
the monotheistic underpinning of Tolkien's mythology squarely to the fore. Again,
this is for the children, and perhaps a recommendation for parents concerned about
the spiritual dimensions of Middle-earth in general, and other adaptations in
particular.
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So how do Jackson and Rankin/Bass compare?
Unfortunately, this is an Apples-to-Oranges comparison which Rankin/Bass still
loses. To be perfectly fair, the two can't be compared; but to the extent that
Jackson meets the expectations of his audience, and to the extent that Rankin/Bass
met theirs, Jackson wins hands down. Still, if a parent is seeking a way to
introduce children to Tolkien without exposing them to the relentlessly graphic
evil of The Fellowship of the Ring, or if the children simply must be placated with
something, there are worse choices than The Return of the King. In terms of the
moral and spiritual lessons to be learned from children's entertainment, it's pretty
tough to beat.
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