The Hobbit (1977)

Holiday-special animation veterans Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass (Rudolph the Red- Nosed Reindeer, etc.) bring their typically serviceable animation, strong voice work and corny folk ballads to The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien's charming prologue to The Lord of the Rings. The resulting film is worthwhile for kids and not too bad for parents.

Character design is a mixed bag: Gandalf looks very much himself, but Bilbo is rather cherubic and the dwarves are uninspired. Worse is Gollum, disappointingly bloated and stiff rather than agile and emaciated, and the dreadfully goblinlike Wood-Elf King. (On the other hand, the Elf-lord Elrond, with his distinguished features and strange crown-halo, is far preferable to animator Ralph Bakshi's dismally graceless version of the same character.)

The best-designed character is the dragon Smaug, whose obscene bulk and wolf-like face are rendered with flair and imagination. The giant spiders, too, are genuinely menacing.

Despite the fearful monsters, violence is suggested rather than explicitly depicted. The folk-tune soundtrack, though corny, at least tries to incorporate some of Tolkien's poetry.

Avoid the DVD release, notorious for omitting sound effects and other audio elements, and stick with VHS.

Content advisory: Much cartoon menace, stylized monsters, etc. Might be too scary for some kids.

The Lord of the Rings (1978)

Animator Ralph Bakshi's ambitious, uneven, incomplete stab at The Lord of the Rings suffers from a number of limitations — most notably that it's only half the story. Originally intended as Part 1 of a two-film adaptation, the cartoon was released and marketed as the whole deal and, despite financial success, Bakshi never got funding for the sequel.

Notwithstanding this and other weaknesses, this Lord of the Rings is in some respects quite impressive and remains worth a look, especially for Tolkien fans — and perhaps younger viewers not quite old enough for Peter Jackson's more intense adaptation.

At its best, Bakshi's visualization of Tolkien's world can be startlingly effective: the genuinely creepy Black Riders; the emaciated, spidery Gollum; Frodo's wraithworld vision at Weathertop. Just as often, though, Bakshi is disappointingly wide of the mark, from unbeautiful elves to an unimpressive Balrog to a risible Treebeard. Then there are things that are just inexplicable, like the fact that the name “Saruman,” presumably to avoid confusion with “Sauron,” was changed to “Aruman” — but only about half the time.

Bakshi's heavy reliance on an animation technique called rotoscoping is at times impressively lifelike but palls with overuse in the disjointed final act. Even so, Tolkien fans will appreciate what Bakshi managed to get right, and Jackson fans especially will note with interest notable parallels between the two interpretations — most obviously in Bakshi's best scene, with the four hobbits on the road hiding in their first encounter with a Black Rider.

Content advisory: Frequent menace and grotesque, scary imagery; realistic animated battlefield violence. Not for younger kids.

The Return of the King (1980)

The Rankin- Bass team, following their own 1977 The Hobbit and Ralph Bakshi's incomplete 1978 Lord of the Rings, returns to finish the job — sort of. The approach here is about the same as The Hobbit, with similarly uninspired Saturday-morning style animation and an even more intrusive, overbearing folk-ballad soundtrack that doesn't even gesture lyrically, as the Hobbit songs did, to Tolkien's poetry. The film hits the most critical plot points but is clearly aimed at the younger set, with little to interest even the most avid adult Tolkien and/or animation buff.

Unfortunately, this style works even less well here than in The Hobbit, which really is a children's story. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings is a much more adult work, but Rankin-Bass essentially makes a kid movie out of it. Even so, for kids too young for the Jackson or even Bakshi versions, the Rankin- Bass cartoons might be just the ticket.

At least the voice work remains mostly solid, with Orson Bean as Frodo, John Huston as Gandalf and Roddy McDowell as Samwise. The landscapes, too, are quite evocatively painted.

Content advisory: Much cartoon menace, stylized monsters, etc. Might be too scary for some kids.