What's with the goblins in these Rankin-Bass Tolkien 'toons anyway? Their mouths are twice the size of the rest of their bodies put together. Trolls: same thing. And the singing! AAAaaarrrggghhh! Enough with the hippie-dippy folksy peace-pipe stuff already! This is definitely the weakest of the animated Tolkien films of the late '70s. The only real good points are the introduction ("For over misty mountains cold, to dungeons deep and caverns old") and Smaug. This looked a lot better when I was in Kindergarten, cutting my teeth on these (the Return of the King made by the same company and Ralph Bakshi's "Lord of the Rings") and my older brother's dungeons and dragons games. Today, it just seems dated, even for it's day. It belongs in the hippie era, plain and simple. Perhaps Peter Jackson will lead a quest to rescue this treasure from the clutches of fish headed goblins and tiresome folk tunes. Rating: 4
Review of The Hobbit
