Best to Worst Middle-Earth Adaptations

[Winter]

I've had The Lord of the Rings on my mind lately after watching War of the Rohirrim film released last year. Seeing the had me go over many of the Middle-Earth films I own and it got me to realize something... This series has a rather low track record of high quality works doesn't it?

I mean I wouldn't say that any of these films are bad but some of them aren't as good as I remember. They have pacing issues, kinda weak acting or some scenes are just a lot more weird.

So, I decided to give a quick summery on my general thoughts on the films of this series I've watched and see how they rank up.

Rankin/Bass' The Hobbit

This was the first anything I had seen of Middle-Earth. I knew about the series my whole life, The Lord of the Rings is my mom's favorite series, but due to my dyslexia I never read it. And I have a soft spot for this film. It was the first time I had ever entered the world of TLOTR and it was memorable, filled with quotable lines, likeable main characters, great villains and iconic scenes.

But looking back at it now, it has issues. The pacing of some scenes are... off with them being both to fast and to slow. The acting is... eh. Everyone often sounds so board and while the dialgoue is faithful to the book because of the weak performances the lines often fall flat for me. And the animation, while not at all bad, is very stiff and characters don't really have any facial expressions which when combined with the overall weak acting makes the characters feel rather lifeless.

Rankin/Bass's Return of the King

Oh boy, this film. Nice enough but good Lord of the Rings is this paced way to fast. It basically tries to tell the entire Lord of the Rings series into a 1 hour and 30 minute movie. The voice acting rangers from weak to over the top (the Witch King sounds like Starscream and makes me laugh my ass off) and filled with exposition and while I like the songs they often clash with the tone of the rest of the movie. And this film also highlights why somethings may work on paper but not in practice. Gollum dancing with joy only to die falling into Mount Doom shows that it was a wise move to change that in the Jackson film. Not bad but this is something I just don't enjoy all that much anymore.

Ralph Bakshi's The Lord of the Rings

I think this film is underrated. It has, IMO, the best Frodo and the best Aragorn, the atmophere is fantastic and the animation has several great moments (I LOVE the scene where the Ring Wraiths arrive and lightning clashes behind them it's such an awesome moment). But it's not without flaws, Sam is terrible, the rest of the cast is just okay, the animation often look bad and there are so many moments that just drag and feel like they're there to pad out the runtime. Better then some think but the flaws are hard to look past.

The Hobbit Trilogy

I like this film but in the same way I like the Star Wars Prequel films. I think their good but undeniably flawed. The films are often padded to try and fill and several hour movie that is about 2 and a half hours each. The humor is often terrible and ground inducing, more then half the cast is insufferable and which hurts that ones that are either good or great and some changes to the source material is either stupid or make no sense. With that said, I do still like this film. I'm in the minority in that I like the fight with Smaug and the Dwarfs in the second film. Benedict Cumberbatch is my favorite Smaug, Marten Freeman is fantastic as Bilbo, I prefer Thorin in this film to his other versions, including the book and I like how they included bit from Silmarillion into these films to help expand it. Again Not perfect but not the worst in the series.

Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings

What can I say about this film that hasn't been said already. It's a classic, well paced, great acting the flaws it has are buried under a mountain of awesome and iconic moments. It still holds up to this day and remains the gold standard for not only other Middle-Earth films and shows but other fantasy series.

The War of the Rohirrim

I really enjoyed this film and it's only gotten better the more I watch it. The pacing is solid, with very little wasted time, the cast is all good and while there's some scenes that make me tilt my head for the most part the film is great and I like it a lot. The filmmakers took a 3 page Appendix from The Lord of the Rings and managed to make it into a full length feature film without making it feel blotted. And considering this was made just to keep the rights to the series it does not feel like anyone was phoning it in, there is real effort put into this film and it shows with the best animation in the series, well paced action, good voice acting from just about everyone and tells a standalone story that doesn't overly depend on knowing the rest of the series to get what's going on. Honestly I think it deserves more love and attention.

There are of course other films, shows and games in this series but I haven't seen or played any of them so I'm not talking about them. I've seen bits of Rings of Power but not enough to judge it though I've not enjoyed the bits I have seen.

So, what's your thoughts on the adaptations you've seen in this series?

[hammerofglass]

I personally think the live-action Hobbit movies are greatly improved by their extended versions. The big swings in tone just work better as a bit when the silly parts go all the way into live-action Looney Tunes, and the regular cut took most of that out. Battle of Five Armies especially is practically a different movie.

[stryke]

I feel like the Hobbit movies are worth dealing with individually as they're such different beasts to me.

The first is pretty much on the same level as the LotR Jackson trilogy as far as I'm concerned. If you're going to split the Hobbit into three films, I honnestly don't think you could do it better than what this film did. The orcs don't look as good as in the trilogy but that's about it.

The second is great, it nails Riddles in the Dark super hard, makes Mirkwood properly creepy, and I do love Bilbo reclaiming his ring, I even like the barrel scene as yes it's incredibly silly but it's a fun roller coaster, so it's all good as far as I'm concern... right up unil the dwarf vs dragon fight which is fuckawful, and I can't believe where they ended it still to this day. I remember being in the cinema with my jaw hanging open as I was just so staggered that was it.

The third has a few moments of quality at best. Even the extended edition doesn't do much to help. The film spends waaaaaaaay too much time on the mayor's assistant's unamusing antics, and no not even his death in the extended version justifies all that time spent in the slightest.

As for Rings of Power I watched s1 and it really was not at all worth the time. It's just plain bad, frequently incredibly stupid, and the moments where they grab random lines and scenes from the Jackson trilogy to cram in there is so blatantly lifted to remind people of when LotR adaptions could be good it's super annoying.

[Scififan]

The Hobbit was good when it was just doing the book. The scene where the Dwarven King is looking over his treasure at the beginning of the movie looked like something out of the Brothers Hildebrant.