The multi-billion dollar Amazon Prime Video series ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’, which launched in September 2022, was the last cinematic sign of life from Middle-earth that fans of JRR Tolkien’s fantastic worlds received – and of course it was a complete success, even though the bar was extremely high: after all, Peter Jackson’s epic “The Lord of the Rings” is one of the best fantasy films ever. And while the “Hobbit” trilogy didn’t come close to the quality of the “LOTR” films, it certainly had its moments and provides solid fantasy action entertainment.
Now fans are desperately looking forward to the second season of ‘The Rings of Power’, which isn’t expected until late 2024 at the earliest, but perhaps not until 2025. To shorten your waiting time a little, we have presented you with 5 absurd films in this special with “The Hobbit“- or “Lord of the Rings“-Origin that you’ve definitely never heard of – and that you can watch in full and with English subtitles on YouTube!
1. ‘The Hobbit’ (1967)
From 1964 to 1967, producer William L. Snyder owned the rights to Tolkien’s work and planned to produce a feature-length animated film of “The Hobbit” — but the planned deal with 20th Century-Fox fell through. To retain the film rights, he had an animated short film made, which had to be produced as quickly and cheaply as possible.
In fact, it can hardly be called an animated film, as ‘The Hobbit’ from 1967 largely consists of tracking shots over drawn still images. The quickly produced film premiered on June 30, 1967 – the last day before Tolkien’s film rights were to be revoked.
The clever producer paid his ‘viewers’ a penny (!), which they then had to give back to him as an admission fee – so he could get them to confirm in writing that they had paid to see ‘The Hobbit’. that he had produced. -Watch the movie. This twisted tactic secured him the retention of the film rights, which he later returned to Tolkien for nearly $100,000.
The film remained unknown until 2012. It wasn’t until Gene Deitch, the film’s director, posted about the film’s story on his blog and a version of the footage appeared on YouTube that interested Tolkien fans were able to enjoy this early version of “The Hobbit.” Despite its strange production history, the animated short is definitely worth watching for “The Lord of the Rings” fans, as the film’s sometimes very beautiful and colorful individual images bring back memories of a Hobbit children’s book. In terms of content, the film is only loosely based on the Hobbit books – or do you know Princess Mika and the dragon Slag?
You can watch 1967’s “The Hobbit” here: