Jackson the Thief?

[Inziladun]

Sorry, couldn't resist. :D

I don't know if this has ever been discussed with PJ, but his LOTR films (the first two, anyway) seem to have borrowed quite a bit from Ralph Bakshi's 1978 movie covering 1 1/2 of the books. Many cameras angles and scene setups look very similar.

A side-by-side (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t7KSarpfFM) comparison.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

The scene with the Black Riders attacking the hobbits' room in the Prancing Pony was a very obvious one that I noticed the first time I saw Jackson's film! Definitely a quote...

[Morthoron]

Tricksy Jacksonses. We hates it forever!

[Thinlómien]

Thanks for linking the video, actually made me feel very nostalgic about both (series of) films! :D The Bakshi film is ridiculous at times, but some of the visuals are very powerful.

I would ask though, how do you draw the line between plagiarism, deliberate homage/ intertextual reference, and simply something leaving such an impression on your imagination that you (possibly subconsciously) echo it in your own work?

Personally, I don't hold most of the parallels against Jackson&co (especially as some of these were a bit of a reach - there's a limited way of sensible options how to show say Gandalf arriving on a cart to Bag End), but a few are a bit jarringly similar, such as the hiding from the Black Rider under the roots of the tree. The Bakshi version manages to be much creepier, too!

[Boromir88]

Personally, I don't hold most of the parallels against Jackson&co (especially as some of these were a bit of a reach - there's a limited way of sensible options how to show say Gandalf arriving on a cart to Bag End), but a few are a bit jarringly similar, such as the hiding from the Black Rider under the roots of the tree. The Bakshi version manages to be much creepier, too!

I believe there's a special mention in the EE director's commentaries, when Jackson makes specific mention of liking that scene from Bakshi's cartoon.

[Huinesoron]

I believe there's a special mention in the EE director's commentaries, when Jackson makes specific mention of liking that scene from Bakshi's cartoon.

I think I remember similar mentions (though I don't believe I ever listened to the commentaries), with both the tree root scene and the Riders stabbing the beds scene called out as deliberate homages.

I watched the start of the video, and wasn't all that impressed by the 'similarities' between the introductions. There was one shot (the Ring falling underwater, I think) which could have been a homage, and I guess putting it in as an intro at all could count, but other than that the shots were very different.

hS