The Best and Worst of Middle Earth Animated

For you tropers that remember that Peter Jackson was not the first to adapt The Hobbit or The Lord Of The Rings to the screen,or got piqued enough by Jackson to try these other animated ones,...which were the best and the worst?

I'd say that Rankin-Bass takes both positions,The Hobbit at the top and The Return Of The King at the bottom.

The Hobbit was short,but sweet,the voices were top notch,and it followed the tone and narrative of the book to a T. Unlike the others listed,Peter Jackson's take might indeed vastly fail to this one. A shame Gollum looks and sounds weird and all the battles are skirted away from

The Return Of The King tried to use the exact same tone,except what it's supposed to cover is kinda dark,the camera on and off switches sides to leave the viewer confused,all the Hobbits look terrible. Bilbo decayed terribly from the last movie. Important parts are also left,and without Legolas and Gimli,Aragorn makes no sense. And if it's supposed to be a sequel to Bashi's film,it fails at that. Only the character of Sam is in anyway developed. Great voices,but it's lost in the confusion and Disneyfication

And Bakshi's film takes a very close second,would've been at the top if they had characterized Sam better. Unlike The Hobbit,PJ's two films mostly curb-stomp this one,but unlike RB's Return of the King it actually does have some advantages to it such as.

- Being closer to the tone and narrative of the book

- Frodo,Legolas,and Aragorn are better characters (Legolas snarks instead of being Captain Obvious and C-3PO was a very good voice)

- The battles do not amount to Flynning,they are very gritty,gory and realistic

- These orcs look scary

Had it not had the record for the fastest-paced film,consistent animation,and had Sam,Eowyn, and Treebeard been better characterized it would've been the best. Instead we had to wait for M Night Shyamalan to release The Last Airbender before this one looked slow

I mostly agree with you, except for the suggestion that Jackson did better than Bakshi. I will say no more on that subject.

The Hobbit is undoubtedbly the best of the animated films, that much I agree on.