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Animated

Animated Lord Of The Rings Movie Gets New Blu-Ray Edition Next Week

by admin June 21, 2025

The Lord of the Rings: Animated has received a fresh Blu-ray reprint 15 years after the classic adaptation first arrived on Blu-ray. The Remastered Deluxe Edition displays in 1080p resolution and is accompanied by an interview series with the director about the creation of the film. You can preorder The Lord of the Rings: Animated Remastered Deluxe Edition for $22.49 at Amazon ahead of its June 24 release. Prior to this new printing, the Blu-ray was only available for a reasonable price if you opted for a region-free imported edition. Amazon also has the movie on DVD for only five bucks.

$22.49 | Releases June 24

The Remastered Deluxe Edition of The Lord of the Rings: Animated originally released on Blu-ray in 2010. Though a DVD edition of the remaster is still in print in North America, the Blu-ray edition, which will look significantly better on modern widescreen TVs, has been out of print locally for a number of years. Here are the key technical features found on the Blu-ray edition:

1080p HD resolution
16 x 9 aspect ratio (1.85:1)
Dolby TrueHD English 5.1 Surround Sound
Dolby Digital English 5.1
French 1.0 / Spanish 2.0
Subtitles: English, Spanish, French

The remaster also includes a series of interviews with director Ralph Bakshi titled: Forging Through the Darkness: The Ralph Bakshi Vision for The Lord of the Rings.

The animated adaptation of The Lord of the Rings released in theaters in 1978. It became a massive box office success, pulling in north of $32 million–roughly eight times the production cost. Critical reception was mixed, and many LOTR fans were displeased to learn the 133-minute film only covered The Fellowship of the Ring and a portion of The Two Towers.

Over the years, however, the film has earned a legion of fans, and it is now generally regarded as a cult classic. The film has some incredible sequences and some rather bizarre moments. In some ways, it reminds me of the 1993 live-action Super Mario Bros. movie. Both films take admirable risks that make it hard not to appreciate the ambition. But LOTR is certainly more faithful to the source material, and the writing is much better. The first couple of drafts were written by Chris Conkling, but later drafts were penned by The Last Unicorn author Peter S. Beagle and revised by director Ralph Bakshi.

Bakshi made some interesting choices with regards to the animation. The end result was a mix of cel animation and rotoscoping. Many scenes in the movie were first filmed live and then traced to make it look realistic in motion. For an animated film made in 1978, The Lord of the Rings looks pretty great.

Peter Jackson has stated that the animated adaptation was a huge inspiration for his live-action version of The Lord of the Rings.

The Hobbit and The Return of the King animated musicals

Unfortunately, the animated film didn’t receive a sequel. Animated films of The Hobbit and The Return of the King were produced around the same time, but both of these were made-for-TV musicals. Both musicals are appropriate for young audiences, and they are actually better than you’d probably expect. That said, the musicals weren’t made by the same team, so the animation is quite different and not as effective. Remastered Deluxe Editions of both musicals are available on DVD. The latest printing of The Hobbit Remastered Deluxe Edition launched last year and is $22.49. The Return of the King’s Remastered Deluxe Edition is discounted to $12.40 at Amazon.

More than 40 years passed before the franchise returned to animation with The War of the Rohirrim. Set centuries before Jackson’s films and based on a section in The Lord of the Rings’ appendices, the anime released in theaters last December. It earned mixed reviews and was a box office flop. The story and characters are forgettable, but it’s still worth watching for its stylish and often beautiful animated sequences. The War of the Rohirrim is up for grabs for $13 on Blu-ray and $20 on 4K Blu-ray.

Check out all of the animated movies set in Middle-earth below.

For the live-action adaptations, including the recent 4K Limited Edition Steelbook releases of The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers, check out our roundup of Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit Blu-rays and box sets below. For display-worthy editions of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit that are also very reasonably priced, check out the 2024 hardcover Collector’s Editions and the Tolkien Illustrated Edition Series.

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June 21, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Death Stranding animated movie adaptation announced

by admin June 19, 2025

Writer Aaron Guzikowski (Raised by Wolves, Prisoners) is attached to write the screenplay for the animated take on Death Stranding. Kojima Productions LA announced the project, which is said to be an original story — not a one-to-one adaptation of Sam “Porter” Bridges’ adventure through a desolated America.

“I love the world of Death Stranding, it’s so creatively freeing, so beautifully dark and yet hopeful,” gushed Guzikowski in a statement alongside the news. “I’m so excited and honored that Hideo Kojima, whose work I’ve long admired, has invited me to dwell within his creation, to birth new stories into this fertile, mind-bending universe.”

Line Mileage chief creative officer Daniel Dominguez likewise geeked out on the forthcoming Death Stranding animation, calling the original game “the most cinematic, thought-provoking video game I have ever played.”

“Playing it gave me the same emotional rush, visceral punch, and intellectual pleasure I had the first time I watched Blade Runner, or Ghost in the Shell,” Dominguez said. “Adapting it into a form it so naturally evokes is an honor. And for Aaron Guzikowski to lend his talents, whose authorial mind and creative energy humble me… needless to say, this project is a dream come true.”

The animated Death Stranding feature — just like A24’s live-action movie — does not have an announced release window. But with Death Stranding 2: On the Beach coming soon, Kojima fans will have plenty to tide them over while they wait.

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June 19, 2025 0 comments

Gaming Gear

Animated Death Stranding movie gets its screenwriter

by admin June 19, 2025

Hideo Kojima said in an interview with Vogue Japan earlier this year that an anime based on his game Death Stranding was in the works. Today, Deadline reports that Aaron Guzikowski will write the screenplay for the upcoming animated feature based on the game world. His most recent credit is the sci-fi series Raised By Wolves, but Guzikowski has also worked on movies including Prisoners and Papillon. The animated film will tell “an original story” from the same universe as the already quite cinematic Death Stranding.

Kojima Productions will be involved with this adaptation and Line Mileage is the animation company attached to the project. The executive team at Line Mileage has previous experience making animated series and adaptations. Their bios mention shows such as Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft and Castlevania that have reimagined popular games as animated projects squarely targeting adult viewers.

This film is a separate project from the live-action adaptation that’s being helmed by writer-director Michael Sarnoski with production company A24 (and of course Kojima Productions). And if you can’t wait for either of these movies to wrap to get more Kojima, the release date for Death Stranding 2 is just around the corner.

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June 19, 2025 0 comments

Esports

A Death Stranding animated film is now in active development

by admin June 19, 2025

Kojima Productions and animation studio Line Mileage have announced that they’re collaborating on an upcoming animated film set in the universe of Death Stranding.

Screenwriter Aaron Guzikowski is attached to the project, which is now in active development. Guzikowski is known as the creator of acclaimed HBO Max sci-fi series Raised By Wolves, as well as dark 2013 thriller Prisoners from director Denis Villeneuve.

The film will have an original story, rather than following the events of the 2019 game.

“I love the world of Death Stranding, it’s so creatively freeing, so beautifully dark and yet hopeful,” Guzikowski said in a statement. “I’m so excited and honored that Hideo Kojima, whose work I’ve long admired, has invited me to dwell within his creation, to birth new stories into this fertile, mind-bending universe.”

Line Mileage is a relatively new animation and post-production house, with members of its leadership team having worked on Netflix animated shows like Castlevania, Blood of Zeus, and Tomb Raider.

The animated project is totally separate from A24’s plans to adapt Death Stranding for the big screen, with A Quiet Place: Day One director Michael Sarnoski attached to that film.

Sequel Death Stranding 2: On the Beach launches on June 26, 2025 for PlayStation 5.

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June 19, 2025 0 comments

Game Reviews

Inside How Stephen King’s First Animated Film Was Made

by admin June 17, 2025

Stephen King is at the point in his illustrious 58-year career when there aren’t many firsts left for him. Yet, the legendary author who’s published 65 books and has dozens of films inspired by his imagination machine of a mind has found time for one more first: his first animated feature. Lily became King’s first-ever animated short, and its origins trace back all the way to his high school days.

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In the pop-up-book-styled animated short, a young student named Robert is stuck between a rock and a nightmare as he has to deal with his cruel teacher, Ms. Sidley, and a large tiger named Lily in the bathroom. After his teacher berates him for choosing to urinate outside to avoid the tiger, her inspection of his claims has a devastating consequence for her. There’s no blood or gore—trademark components of many of our favorite Stephen King visual adaptations. There’s just kid-friendly horror in the Kate Siegel-directed short, which is exactly how King intended for it to be when he wrote the script according to Lily’s animator Pete Scalzitti, who spoke with Kotaku after the short’s screening at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

“Last summer Stephen wrote our screenplay, adapting it himself from one of his earliest stories ever, Here There Be Tygers, which he actually wrote when he was in high school,” Scalzitti explains. “Deep cut fans of his short stories will notice he changed some of the plot, as well as the names of the main characters, using instead the names from another of his darkest short stories, Suffer the Little Children. But the plot is all Tygers.”

Here There Be Tygers was released in 1968 when the prolific author was only 20 years old, and Suffer the Little Children was published four years later in 1972, making Lily a sterling example of the timelessness of King’s work. The hand-drawn animation makes Lily feel like it was pulled from a time capsule unblemished, and also makes it reminiscent of children’s picture books. All of this was intentional, even down to the way Siegel’s voice guides you through the horror.

“Kate chose to leave in Stephen’s screen directions and use them as narration, which she discussed with Stephen. This made the film feel like King was reading us a bedtime story, which gave me my solution for how to animate this in 21 days—I treated it like I was creating a pop-up book.”

Lily is part of Dark Corners, a series created by Siegel and Krsy Fox, which features eight animated horror shorts meant to “gently or not so gently introduce children to the world of horror.” While there isn’t any official word on if and when King decides to drop another, don’t put it past the master of horror to dig back into his treasure trove of stories for an animated feast of terror for the eyes.

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June 17, 2025 0 comments