The Hobbit is just dreadful -- the cutesy hobbits alone made me want to vomit. And then the songs started. Good lord, why does every damn animated movie have to have songs in it? I tried muting the movie, then fast-forwarding it, but nothing made me feel better until I turned it off. (I even tried to watch just the part with Gollum, for nostalgic reasons, but it was so grating I couldn't get through it.) It's done by Rankin-Bass, incidentally, the folks who did all those Christmas specials.
The Lord of the Rings is much better animation, done by Ralph Bakshi. He uses some interesting techniques throughout, but the story seems superficial after seeing the longer, live-action version. I got impatient with this one, too, but it took longer (maybe because there were no songs). I might have even been able to watch the whole thing if I hadn't already seen Peter Jackson's film.
The Return of the King is also the return of Rankin-Bass. I'd gotten it from the library before realizing that, but I never even put it in my DVD player. The Hobbit was wretched enough.
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