Techtite's DVD Reviews!

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Also reviewed elsewhere: Lord of the Rings, nominated for Golden Globe as Best Dramatic Picture, 2001! 

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 How about CGI...? Forget "Barbie Nutcracker" and "Max Steel." It's fantasy classics like this which should get the preferential treatment by CGI animation studios. Imagine the Oscar-caliber masterpiece that could result, if Disney/Pixar made a snazzed-up version of this story? With the success of the film in theaters --as well as two sequels already being completed-- there's no better time... 

The Hobbit

Click picture to order DVD!

Or...buy The Hobbit on VHS (which may be better; see review)!

A Techtite Review

The Film:  Grade school teachers are no big fans of cartoons. So, why did my fourth grade teacher, way back when, make seeing a TV airing of The Hobbit a homework project at the time? Because the book was great...and this animated incantation of it is a wonderful adaptation. This is due in large part to directors Jules Bass and Arthur Rankin Jr., who are best known for those "Rudolph" and "Frosty" holiday specials which are classics in their own right.

Fans of the recently-released Lord of the Rings film who never read the book series may want to see this cartoon just as much. Why? Because it prequels the film trilogy, and elaborates on the back story more than the narrated prologue in the film. Not that the narration wasn't fantastic, though some may still be intrigued at the story of the then-young Bilbo Baggins, and his adventures which led him to The One Ring. It's also the story that began the whole book series, meaning it's a great cornerstone to their adaptations as films. It especially shows more of why Gandalf the wizard and Bilbo the hobbit, are good friends even 60 years later. Let's just say the story made for a great book, and the adaptation is quite admirable, especially for an animated film from 1978.

Admittedly, for the purpose of family-oriented entertainment, this is a much more watered down version of the story. It also has its fair share of poor audio editing; a flaw not even the DVD version can resolve. Regardless, this is a faithful-enough adaptation, and although some visions are a bit too faithful for younger viewers --if your child thought Jar-Jar Binks was cute, this might give him nightmares-- it's an otherwise faithful adaptation from the book, and is a work of art in its own right. Its animation style also seems to offer a unique flair, as if copied direct from the illustrations of a fantasy novel.

This is not a film that received a big publicity campaign. It's budget was 3 million, though that's still peanuts compared to the 11 million it took to make the original Star Wars, and the 18 million it took to make The Empire Strikes Back, back at around the same time. It's even less than the attempted Lord of the Rings animated feature in 1978, which cost 10 million. There are also no "celebrity voices" here, where Robin Williams would play a genie or Burt Reynolds and Dom Deluise play talking dogs. This was intended as a fun-for-the-younger-kids adaptation of a fantastic fantasy novel and, in my opinion, it succeeds.

The DVD: Aside from "Tolkien and filmakers highlights," there's little this DVD offers aside from a DVD version of the film. On the other hand, some say that even this is flawed, claiming that the music FX seem to pop in and out on occasion. Personally, I felt this was typical of non-Disney animated films of the 1970s, and saw no problems. However, admittedly, the last time I saw this film was as a ten year old, and maybe my memories of the film are a bit rusty. Should the audio be better than this? Perhaps at least it should've been enhanced for DVD systems, though it still seems no better or worse than the Battle of the Planets DVDs. If you ask me, just having such classic animation preserved on DVD is good enough.

	Final Rating : Large Crater. The films may be better, and the later books, though this 1978 animated feature is a classic in its own right.
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Click DVD box cover to order (available Oct. 23rd)

To buy this film on VHS, click here: The Hobbit (VHS)

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