Ooo, I better preorder. I’d want the book anyways, but saving $13 is a nice incentive.

Never knew Bakshi was the artist behind some of the work listed. Wizards left an impression on me since I was twelve. I also remember seeing Cool World, that was an interesting flick.

I didn’t know he did Lord of the Rings. I loved that movie. Well not as much as I did Rankin Bass’ Hobbit or Return of the King but still. Perhaps it had a bad rap because he didn’t stylize the whole movie. As a weird coincidence my dad got in touch with Rankin vacationing somewhere. My dad asked him to put those movies onto VHS. Rankin was surprised my dad had gotten the number to him. 6 months later, which was the typical start up time for VHS, lo and behold Hobbit and Return of the King were made available.

I actually tossed all of his stuff that Netflix has in my queue a few weeks back. I’ve still not seen most of his work.

I would be more impressed with him, if all his “animation” was not rotoscoped. Sorta cheapens it a bit. Still awesome movies, and dazzling design however.

I saw Wizards recently, and was thoroughly bored through-out (though Peace was pretty cool), but overall, I didn’t have too much of a problem with it.

THEN, however, I watched the special features, which featured Bakshi talking about it, and how he just wanted to do a family film with no controversy, and he didn’t want it to be crap like Robin Hood, and I said, “Screw you pal! Robin Hood rocks your socks!” Not to mention, there is very little in Wizards that I can imagine DIDN’T invoke controversy, from the fairy wearing next to nothing, to the butchering of a dead pig imprinted with the Star of David.

…But anyway, that’s just what I think!

Jeffy: It’s a common misconception that rotoscoping was his entire gig, but it was only a slight offshoot for him. The majority of his work didn’t involve rotoscoping at all. I think the only things he did with rotoscoping were LOTR, American Pop, Fire and Ice, and Cool World. Could be more, but that’s all that comes to mind.

wizards is a masterpiece

wizards is absolutely bizarre. i enjoy the heck out of it, but it’s just plain weird. referring to the interview kalen’s talking about, the really hilarious thing is how bakshi thinks the movie is a warmhearted family film! i thought he was joking at first, but then i realized he was serious.

hvnlysoldr, that’s pretty awesome! i used to love the rankin hobbit. not really into the stuff anymore, but still. very cool story.

I remember recently finding out that Bakshi was behind the animated adaptation of Dr. Seuss’s “The Butter Battle Book.” I watched it again on YouTube, saw how thoroughly strange and trippy some of the sequences were, and thought… “Man. If Bakshi had a part in this, that explains a LOT.” Of course, TBBB is pretty fitting for him…

My awesomely nerdy family has both the animated Lord of the Rings sequence (the Bakshi pic and the two Rankin-Bass ones) and the live-action ones on DVD and cherishes them all. We have also had heated discussions over who would win in a fight between all the Jedi and the elves and whether Ringwraiths are freakier than Dementors. Man, my family ROCKS.