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The Return of the King (1980 film)

 

 
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The Return of the King (1980 film)
 
 
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The Return of the King is an animated
Animation

Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. It is an optical illusion of Motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in a number of ways....
 adaptation of the novel
The Return of the King

The Return of the King is the third and final volume of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, following The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers....
 by J. R. R. Tolkien
J. R. R. Tolkien

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, Order of the British Empire was an English people English literature, poetry, Philology, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion....
 which was released by Rankin/Bass
Rankin/Bass

Rankin/Bass Productions, Inc. , also known as Rankin/Bass Animated Entertainment, was an United States stop-motion production company, known for its seasonal television specials....
 as a TV special in 1980
1980 in film

The year 1980 in film involved some significant events....
. It has since been released on VHS
VHS

The Video Home System, better known by its abbreviation VHS, is a recording and playing standard developed by JVC and launched in Europe and Asia in September 1976, and the United States in June 1977....
 and DVD
DVD

DVD, also known as "Digital Versatile Disc" or "Digital Video Disc,"is a popular optical disc data storage device media format. Its main uses are video and data storage....
.

The film was created by the same team which had worked on the 1977
1977 in film

The year 1977 in film involved some significant events....
 animated version of The Hobbit. It was not intended to be a sequel to Ralph Bakshi
Ralph Bakshi

Ralph Bakshi is an American director of animation and live-action films. As the American animation industry fell into decline during the 1960s and 1970s, Bakshi tried to establish an alternative to mainstream animation through independent animation and adult animation-oriented productions....
's Lord Of The Rings but in the absence of an official sequel to that work The Return Of The King has come to be marketed as the final part of an animated Tolkien trilogy (with The Hobbit as part one and Bakshi's Lord Of The Rings as part two).






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The Return of the King is an animated
Animation

Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. It is an optical illusion of Motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in a number of ways....
 adaptation of the novel
The Return of the King

The Return of the King is the third and final volume of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, following The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers....
 by J. R. R. Tolkien
J. R. R. Tolkien

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, Order of the British Empire was an English people English literature, poetry, Philology, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion....
 which was released by Rankin/Bass
Rankin/Bass

Rankin/Bass Productions, Inc. , also known as Rankin/Bass Animated Entertainment, was an United States stop-motion production company, known for its seasonal television specials....
 as a TV special in 1980
1980 in film

The year 1980 in film involved some significant events....
. It has since been released on VHS
VHS

The Video Home System, better known by its abbreviation VHS, is a recording and playing standard developed by JVC and launched in Europe and Asia in September 1976, and the United States in June 1977....
 and DVD
DVD

DVD, also known as "Digital Versatile Disc" or "Digital Video Disc,"is a popular optical disc data storage device media format. Its main uses are video and data storage....
.

The film was created by the same team which had worked on the 1977
1977 in film

The year 1977 in film involved some significant events....
 animated version of The Hobbit. It was not intended to be a sequel to Ralph Bakshi
Ralph Bakshi

Ralph Bakshi is an American director of animation and live-action films. As the American animation industry fell into decline during the 1960s and 1970s, Bakshi tried to establish an alternative to mainstream animation through independent animation and adult animation-oriented productions....
's Lord Of The Rings but in the absence of an official sequel to that work The Return Of The King has come to be marketed as the final part of an animated Tolkien trilogy (with The Hobbit as part one and Bakshi's Lord Of The Rings as part two). The two films do not, however, join up seamlessly as both omit various segments from The Two Towers
The Two Towers

The Two Towers is the second volume of J. R. R. Tolkien's high fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings. It is preceded by The Fellowship of the Ring and followed by The Return of the King ....
 (notably Shelob
Shelob

Shelob is a fictional character from J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium. She appears at the end of the fourth book, second volume, of The Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers....
's lair).

Orson Bean
Orson Bean

Orson Bean is an United States film, television, and Broadway theatre actor. He appeared frequently on televised game shows in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, but is perhaps best known as a long-time panelist on the television game show To Tell the Truth....
 returned as the voice of the older Bilbo Baggins
Bilbo Baggins

Bilbo Baggins is the protagonist of The Hobbit and also makes a few appearances in The Lord of the Rings, two of the most well-known of J....
, as well as that of the story's hero, Frodo Baggins
Frodo Baggins

Frodo Baggins is a fictional character in Tolkien's legendarium.He is a principal protagonist of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. He is also mentioned in The Silmarillion....
. John Huston
John Huston

John Marcellus Huston was an United States film director and actor. He was known for directing the films, The Maltese Falcon , The Asphalt Jungle , The Treasure of the Sierra Madre , Key Largo , The African Queen , The Misfits , and The Man Who Would Be King ....
 was back as well, as the wizard Gandalf
Gandalf

Gandalf is a fictional character with major roles in J. R. R. Tolkien's novels The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. In these stories, Gandalf appears as a Magician , member and later the head of the order known as the Wizard , as well as leader of the Fellowship of the Ring and the army of the West....
, and co-starring with them were: William Conrad
William Conrad

William Conrad was an American film director and television director and an actor and narrator in radio, film, and television known for his baritone voice, as well as his sizable girth....
 as Denethor
Denethor

This article is about the Steward of Gondor in the time of the War of the Ring. For the king of the Laiquendi, see Denethor . For the first Steward of Gondor of this name, see Denethor I....
, Roddy McDowall
Roddy McDowall

Roderick Andrew Anthony Jude "Roddy" McDowall was an English-born actor and photographer....
 as Samwise Gamgee
Samwise Gamgee

Samwise Gamgee, later known as Samwise Gardener and commonly known as Sam, is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium....
, Theodore Bikel
Theodore Bikel

Theodore Meir Bikel is an Academy Award- and Tony Award-nominated character actor, folk singer and musician. He made his film debut in The African Queen and was nominated for an Academy award for his role as the Southern Sheriff in The Defiant Ones ....
 as Aragorn
Aragorn

Aragorn II is a fictional character from J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium. He is also known as Strider. He is first introduced in The Fellowship of the Ring, and becomes a central character in the story of The Lord of the Rings....
 the King himself, and reprising his darkly spoken role of Gollum
Gollum

Gollum is a fictional character from J. R. R. Tolkien's Tolkien's legendarium. He was first introduced in the author's fantasy novel The Hobbit, and later became an important supporting character in its sequel, The Lord of the Rings....
 was the grumpily dangerous Brother Theodore
Brother Theodore

Brother Theodore was a Germany-United States monologue and comedian known for rambling, stream-of-consciousness dialogues which he called "stand up tragedy."...
. Rankin/Bass stalwart Paul Frees
Paul Frees

Paul Frees was an United States voice actor and character actor....
 replaced Cyril Ritchard as the voice of Elrond
Elrond

Elrond Half-elven is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium. He is introduced in The Hobbit, and plays a supporting role in The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion....
; Casey Kasem
Casey Kasem

Kemal Amin "Casey" Kasem, is an United States radio personality and voice actor. Mr. Kasem is a graduate of Northwestern High School in Michigan and the Wayne State University....
, best known for his role as Shaggy
Shaggy Rogers

Norville "Shaggy" Rogers is a fictional character in the American animated television series Scooby-Doo, about the adventures of four crime-solving teenagers and Shaggy's pet Great Dane, Scooby-Doo ....
 in Hanna-Barbera
Hanna-Barbera

Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc. , was an American List of animation studios that dominated North American television animation during the second half of the 20th century....
's Scooby-Doo
Scooby-Doo

Scooby-Doo is a long-running Television in the United States animated television series produced for Saturday morning cartoon in several different versions from 1969 to the present....
, was Merry
Meriadoc Brandybuck

Meriadoc Brandybuck, usually referred to as Merry, is a fictional character from J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth, featured throughout his most famous work, The Lord of the Rings....
 with Sonny Melendrez
Sonny Melendrez

Sonny Melendrez is an American actor, radio-TV personality, and inspirational speaker based in San Antonio, Texas, USA, and is the host of SonnyRadio.com....
 as Pippin
Peregrin Took

Peregrin Took , better known to his friends as Pippin, or even Pip, is a fictional character from J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy world of Middle-earth, a Hobbit, and one of Frodo Baggins's youngest but dearest friends....
; Nellie Bellflower
Nellie Bellflower

Nellie Bellflower is an American actress and voice artist. She is best remembered for providing the voice of Princess Ariel in the Ruby-Spears animated television series Thundarr the Barbarian....
 as Éowyn
Éowyn

?owyn is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, who appears in his most famous work, The Lord of the Rings. She is a noblewoman of Rohan who describes herself as a "shieldmaiden"....
; and Glenn Yarbrough
Glenn Yarbrough

Glenn Yarbrough is an United States folk music singer. He was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Wisconsin and attended St. John's College, U.S. in Annapolis, Maryland, Maryland....
 returned as principal vocalist, billed here as simply "the Minstrel of Gondor".

Rather than picking up where Ralph Bakshi
Ralph Bakshi

Ralph Bakshi is an American director of animation and live-action films. As the American animation industry fell into decline during the 1960s and 1970s, Bakshi tried to establish an alternative to mainstream animation through independent animation and adult animation-oriented productions....
's animated adaptation of The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings is a 1978 in film animation fantasy film directed by Ralph Bakshi. It is an adaptation of the first half of J....
 had left off in 1978
1978 in film

The year 1978 in film involved some significant events....
, Rankin-Bass present The Return of the King as a sequel to their 1977 adaptation of The Hobbit — giving the audience an ultra-brief recap of the events ("Frodo and his friends had many exciting adventures before arriving in Mordor."), and adapting a few story events from The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers, while leaving out some major details. The visual style of The Return of the King is largely shared with the 1977 Hobbit, including, for example, the depiction of battle as a swarm of black dots milling around and quickly covered by huge clouds of dust.

The animated Return of the King is available on DVD
DVD

DVD, also known as "Digital Versatile Disc" or "Digital Video Disc,"is a popular optical disc data storage device media format. Its main uses are video and data storage....
 from Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.

Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. is one of the world's largest film producer of film and television.It is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank, California and New York City....
, both individually and as a "boxed trilogy" with the Rankin/Bass Hobbit and Bakshi's The Lord of the Rings.

External links

  • Also features links to galleries of screen captures from other Tolkien animated films.