OUT NOW!LOOK HERE

The deluxe edition of the film, originally released in 1978 and adapting the first half of J.R.R. Tolkein’s epic novel,features a new, 30-minute interview with Bakshi about the making of the film. The combo pack release includes a digital copy of the movie.                         * Animation Magazine

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Ahh…and here I am – still with the password to the Bakshi world.  And I sit and copy and paste and upload and send.

All the while thinking :

Fantastic!  This Lord of the Rings release is truly giving all those Bakshi haters a REASON to e-mail me and post on their blogs how awful this film is and Bakshi should lie down and surrender to the passing charges that – nooooo – his vision is corrupt and wrong and why was this even attempted in the first case.  Because what all of THESE brilliant, perfect nay-sayers have done is SO much better – Oh wait – I’m talking about all of those animated LOR films that were done with limited budget and even more limited resources.   So much MORE brilliant.  So blessed is the world to have these people in it – to point out that – IN FACT – WOWOW – Bakshi’s vision is not their own and therefore – SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN CREATED.

Oh how I laugh at these comments.  I would love to travel with them.  See the world through their eyes and know that – ahh- they are so clear on Everything. And Thank You for sharing.  And wish …oh how I wish I could show them the Rings I know.

The artists delving into the realms of other worlds and painstakingly drawing, inking, painting, living every stroke.

The backgrounds, when looked at both in the film, on the canvas, board or acetate, transforms magically into it’s own living, breathing landscape.  The attention the light, the colors the wind the DETAIL is unparalleled in any animation film I have ever seen.  Even for the 70′s.  The people that created these worlds did so with a passion that stands up magnificently to a craft that is so quickly dying from our present world.  The camera man , the actors…ahh…the…hush now…dare I say it?… the rotoscoping that has so paralyzed the nay-sayers into quivering bottled up caricatures of themselves as they blast the words “rotoscoping ” from their keyboards as if blasphemy has occurred in the holiest of dens!  The artists and creators filming, acting, recording…those performances, the energy penetrating the script stands proudly, strongly, profoundly equal to the artists creating with their pencils, their inking and their painting.  What an honor to watch a mostly seamless integration of all mediums.  Let alone, one coming from the mind of one man.  The way that man read one of the greatest Novels of all time, AND had the balls ( “oh yea – wait – same guy that brought us Coonskin and Heavy Traffic…oh…ok…that makes sense?!?”) to attempt to interpret what was going on in his MIND as he READ the story, and then attempt to transport it from his brain to the screen via THOUSANDS of people who had to work on it to make it happen?  Old – school – like.  You know…pen & paper and drawings and words.

Have you seen that ROTO?- EXTRAORDINARY!!!!!!!  It is an art form that will never die.

OK – So there I went ranting in defense of all the ugly talk.

And to those who enjoyed the film;  take a moment and honor the blood, sweat, tears & fingernails that went into the creation.

The people who worked ’round the clock literally drawing, painting, shooting, acting, sewing.

Celebrate.

Enjoy.

And watch again.

And oh yea…I love Biting Bailey Boy

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