Totally Trippy Retro Animatic For The Hobbit


(YouTube Link)

Way before Peter Jackson turned the works of Tolkien into an epic series of movies, before Rankin Bass presented us with an awesome animated version of the books, there was another animated version in the works.

And by the looks of this animatic for The Hobbit, which was created by animator Gene Dietch in 1966, it was going to be one tripped out ride. The style reminds me of Mary Blair (Disney's Small World) or Jay Ward (Rocky & Bullwinkle), but what do you think? Would you have enjoyed watching The Hobbit animated if it were produced in this style?

--via ComicsAlliance


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Seriously, this thing sets some kind of record for the number of times I've paused a video and said "wait, WHAT?" It actually makes Ralph Bakshi and Rankin & Bass seem restrained by comparison, and that's damn impressive. Even the Leonard Nimoy Bilbo Baggins song was a better retelling of the tale.
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OK, so I'm going to tell the story of the Hobbit. Only, no dwarves. Or elves. Or wargs, eagles, Battles of Five Armies, or anything else. And change the names of Smaug and Gollum. Also, "troll" and "goblin" sound too weird, so make up some names for those, and turn the trolls into trees instead of stone for no apparent reason. Also don't give Thorin or Gandalf anything to do, really. But add a crossbow made of refuse, a guardsman who literally has no role in the story, and oh yeah, a child-princess who ickily falls in love with and partners up with the middle-aged hobbit protagonist. Also, circular mountain range!

Man, that trumps the "Beatles Lord of the Rings" project as the most ill-advised Tolkien-related project that thankfully never got off the ground, ever.
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@Azog: it should be more clearly noted exactly what an animatic is: An early stage in the animation process where the story board is taken off the board (in this case coloured) and film to give the film makers a sense of the movement.

This step would have been followed by the final animation, should look up "Gene Dietch" on youtube to see examples of how this might have looked finished.

But I agree whole heartedly, I don't know much about the book, but the extremely little I do know of tolkiens world tells me that this is horrible adaptation of his story. saying it's like a "fractured" fairytale, might be true in more ways than one.
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