4/20/2008 - Lord of the Rings - Voiceover

The Lord of the Rings movies were great on so many different levels. I had never read the books or was even familiar with the story at all before the movies came out. And when people used to say that the books just could not be filmed into a movie, I would have probably agreed. However, they could not have foreseen the fortitude of director Peter Jackson and the technical capabilities of today's special effects wizards. Everything and everyone worked so well together that I doubt that we will ever see such an amazing saga brought to the big screen again in our lifetimes. Case in point: Peter Jackson's follow-up to the Lord of the Rings: King Kong. Technical achievements aside, that movie was so long and overwrought that I literally checked my watch every 15 minutes in the theater. What was amazing to me was that it was no longer than the final installment of the Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, and yet that movie just flew by compared to King Kong. It's just a testament as to how well paced and well crafted that movie was and it's definitely my favorite of the trilogy. However, after watching this YouTube video, I will never see one of the ending scenes in the same way again:

1/31/2008 - Lord of the Rings- Peter Jackson and Ralph Bakshi Mashup

There are many movies out there that for whatever reasons did not come out the way the director intended. It's fair to say that a majority of these reasons were because of the producers limiting the budget of the film. When this happens, however, the end result is almost always unsatisfactory. And when film enthusiasts discover that these movies did not meet the directors' original vision, they demand the entire story... and in many cases, they succeed in getting their way with director's cuts or even reconstructions.

The most famous example of this was the silent movie Greed, whose original running time was over 9 hours! Of course the studio made the director cut it down, even hiring another director to cut it down more after the original director would only get it down to 4 hours. Most of the lost footage was lost permanently, however, but a "reconstruction" took place by Turner Classic Movies using still pictures and the original script.

Another more recent example is the sequel to Superman: The Movie, Superman II. Both Superman movies were shot simultaneously by Richard Donner. But when the production began running over-budget, filming stopped on Superman II in favor of Superman: The Movie. Even though it was a hit, the producers fired Richard Donner and hired another director to replace him for shooting the rest of Superman II. Needless to say, it wasn't as good as the first movie. A lot of what Richard Donner shot for II was still available, including the scenes with Marlon Brando. A huge movement was initiated on the internet for getting Warner Bros. to release a "director's cut" of Superman II with Donner's footage. And just a couple of years ago, they did... Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut was vastly superior (in my opinion) to the theatrical version and I'm glad I was one who signed the online petition.

Well, if I had my way again, I'd like to see the full version of Ralph Bakshi's Lord of the Rings. Bakshi attempted to do what many people thought was impossible: condense the entire Lord of the Rings books into one movie. Of course without the fantastic computer animation technology we have today, he would use traditional animation along with what is called rotoscoping: an animation technique in which animators trace over live-action film. Of course, this DID prove to be impossible, as Bakshi could only cover the first two books with the budget and time he had. Peter Jackson, however, was able to get a virtual blank check to make his trilogy and it turned out to be a masterpiece. That's not to say that Bakshi's version was horribly bad... in fact, Jackson even used some elements of it for his movies. Look at how closely they match up with this mashup: