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RB: The Return of the King
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The Return of the King is an animated adaptation of the novel by J. R. R. Tolkien which was released by Rankin/Bass as a TV special in 1980. The film was created by the same team which had worked on the 1977 animated version of The Hobbit. Rather than picking up where Ralph Bakshi's animated adaptation of The Lord of the Rings had left off in 1978, Rankin-Bass presented The Return of the King as a sequel to their 1977 adaptation of The Hobbit, gave a brief recap of the events of Frodo and his friends, and adapting a few story events from The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers. The visual style of The Return of the King is largely shared with the 1977 Hobbit, but in the absence of an official sequel to The Lord of the Rings, The Return Of The King has come to be marketed as the final part of the animated Tolkien trilogy (with The Hobbit as part one and Bakshi's Lord Of The Rings as part two) even though the two films do not, however, join up seamlessly as both omit various segments from The Two Towers (notably Shelob's lair). Other omissions in the Rankin-Bass version include the characters of Gimli, Legolas, and Saruman. Aragorn is present but he has very little dialogue or screentime. Sauron's presence as an animated eye was somewhat similar to his appearance in the Peter Jackson films although limited by 1980s animation.
Rankin Bass artwork is dificult to obtain and usually much more expensive due to that fact. I am thrilled to finally add artwork from this feature to my gallery.
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