title: Angelababy

text: In 2021, Angelababy invested in an entertainment company, Cool Style, which was set up by Media Asia and Louis Koo's One Cool Group. Cool Style's business scope includes artist management and related businesses aiming to cultivate new forces with abundant resources and platforms.


title: Angelababy

text: In March 2021, Angelababy expressed her support for cotton from Xinjiang, after several companies stopped purchasing the cotton due to concerns about human rights violations.


title: Eva Cassidy

text: Eva Marie Cassidy (February 2, 1963 – November 2, 1996) was an American singer and guitarist known for her interpretations of jazz, folk, and blues music, sung with a powerful, emotive soprano voice. In 1992, she released her first album, "The Other Side", a set of duets with go-go musician Chuck Brown, followed by the 1996 live solo album titled "Live at Blues Alley". Although she had been honored by the Washington Area Music Association, she was virtually unknown outside her native Washington, D.C. at the time of her death from melanoma at the age of 33 in 1996.


title: Eva Cassidy

text: Two years later, Cassidy's music was brought to the attention of British audiences, when her versions of "Fields of Gold" and "Over the Rainbow" were played by Mike Harding and Terry Wogan on BBC Radio 2. Following the overwhelming response, a camcorder recording of "Over the Rainbow", taken at Blues Alley in Washington by her friend Bryan McCulley, was shown on BBC Two's "Top of the Pops 2". Shortly afterwards, the compilation album "Songbird" climbed to the top of the UK Albums Chart, almost three years after its initial release. The chart success in the United Kingdom and Ireland led to increased recognition worldwide. Her posthumously released recordings, including three number-one albums and one number-one single in the UK, have sold more than ten million copies. Her music has also charted within the top 10 in Australia, Germany, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland.


title: Eva Cassidy

text: Born on February 2, 1963, at the Washington Hospital Center in Washington, D.C., Cassidy grew up in Oxon Hill, Maryland, and later Bowie, Maryland. She was the third of four children. Her father, Hugh Cassidy, is a teacher, sculptor, musician, former army medic, and world champion powerlifter of Irish and Scottish descent, while her mother, Barbara ("née" Kratzer), is a German horticulturist from Bad Kreuznach. From an early age, Cassidy displayed interest in art and music. When she was nine, her father began teaching her to play the guitar, and she began to play and sing at family gatherings.


title: Eva Cassidy

text: At age 11, Cassidy began singing and playing guitar in a Washington-area band called Easy Street. This band performed in a variety of styles at weddings, corporate parties, and pubs. Due to her shyness, she struggled with performing in front of strangers. While a student at Bowie High School, she sang with a local band called Stonehenge. During the summer of 1983, Cassidy sang and played guitar six days a week at the theme park Wild World. Her younger brother Dan, a fiddler, was also a member of this working band. She enrolled in art classes at Prince George's Community College but dropped out after finding them unhelpful.


title: Eva Cassidy

text: Throughout the 1980s, Cassidy worked with several other bands, including the techno-pop band Characters Without Names. During this period, she also worked as a propagator at a plant nursery and as a furniture painter. In her free time, she explored other artistic expressions including painting, sculpting, and jewelry design.


title: Eva Cassidy

text: In 1986, Cassidy was asked by Stonehenge guitarist and high school friend, David Lourim, to lend her voice to his music project, Method Actor. This brought her to Black Pond Studios, where she met recording engineer and bassist Chris Biondo. Biondo helped her find work as a session singer and later introduced her to Al Dale, who would become her manager. She sang back-ups for various acts, from go-go rhythm and blues band Experience Unlimited to rapper E-40. Biondo and Cassidy, who were in a romantic relationship for a time, formed the five-piece "Eva Cassidy Band" with Lenny Williams, Keith Grimes, and Raice McLeod in 1990. They began to perform frequently in the Washington area.


title: Eva Cassidy

text: In 1992, Biondo played a tape of Cassidy's voice for Chuck Brown, the "Godfather of go-go". It resulted in the duet album "The Other Side" featuring performances of classic songs such as "Fever", "God Bless the Child," and what would later become Cassidy's signature song, "Over the Rainbow". The album was released and distributed in 1992 by Liaison Records, the label that also released Brown's go-go albums. Brown originally intended to record an additional duet with Cassidy for his next solo album, but this was postponed due to ongoing negotiations between Dale and other labels for a solo deal. Cassidy's unwillingness to narrow her stylistic focus to one genre hindered her chances of securing a deal. After talks broke down, the two decided to record their own duet album. As a duo, they performed at the Columbia Arts Festival and opened for acts like Al Green and The Neville Brothers.


title: Eva Cassidy

text: In 1993, Cassidy was honored by the Washington Area Music Association with a Wammie award for the "Vocalist Jazz/Traditional" category. The next year she was invited to perform at the event and chose to sing "Over the Rainbow." "The Washington Times" review of the event called her performance "a show-stopper." She took home two Wammies that night, again for "Vocalist Jazz/Traditional" and also for "Roots Rock/Traditional R&B". For a brief period that year, Cassidy signed a deal with Blue Note Records to pair up with pop-jazz band Pieces of a Dream to release an album and tour the country. She sang two tracks on a mainly instrumental album. It was a musically unsatisfying experience for her.


title: Eva Cassidy

text: After having a potential contract with Apollo Records collapse when the label went bankrupt, Biondo and Dale decided that she should release her own live album. On January 2–3, 1996, the material for "Live at Blues Alley" was recorded at Blues Alley in Washington, D.C. Due to a technical glitch on the first night of recording, only the second night's recording was usable, with 12 songs released on the resulting album. (The complete set of 31 songs recorded that night was eventually released 20 years later as "Nightbird" in 2015.) Unhappy with the way she sounded due to a cold, she was reluctant to release the album. She eventually relented, on the condition that the studio track "Oh, Had I a Golden Thread," Cassidy's favorite song, would be included in the release, and that they start working on a follow-up studio album. Her apprehension appeared unfounded as local reviewers and the public responded positively. "The Washington Post" commented that "she could sing anything — folk, blues, pop, jazz, R&B, gospel — and make it sound like it was the only music that mattered." The subsequent studio album she worked on was released posthumously as "Eva by Heart" in 1997. In the liner notes of "Eva by Heart", music critic Joel E. Siegel described Cassidy as "one of the greatest voices of her generation."


title: Eva Cassidy

text: In 1993, Cassidy had a malignant mole removed from her back. Three years later, during a promotional event for the "Live at Blues Alley" album in July 1996, Cassidy noticed an ache in her hips, which she attributed to stiffness from painting murals while perched atop a stepladder. The pain persisted and X-rays revealed a fracture. Further tests found that cancer had spread to her bones, causing the fracture, as well as to her lungs. Her doctors estimated she had three to five months to live. Cassidy opted for aggressive treatment, but her health deteriorated rapidly. On September 17, at a benefit concert for her at the Bayou, she made her final public appearance, closing the set with "What a Wonderful World" in front of an audience of family, friends, and fans. Additional chemotherapy was ineffective, and Cassidy died on November 2, 1996, of melanoma, at her family's home in Bowie, Maryland. In accordance with her wishes, her body was cremated and the ashes were scattered on the lake shores of St. Mary's River Watershed Park, a nature reserve near Callaway, Maryland.


title: Eva Cassidy

text: After Cassidy's death, local folk singer Grace Griffith introduced the Blues Alley recording to Bill Straw from her label, Blix Street Records. Straw approached the Cassidy family to put together a new album. In 1998, a compilation of tracks from Cassidy's three released recordings was assembled into the CD "Songbird". This CD lingered in relative obscurity for two years until being given airplay by Terry Wogan on his wide-reaching BBC Radio 2 show "Wake Up to Wogan", following recommendation by his producer Paul Walters. The album sold more than 100,000 copies in the following months. "The New York Times" spoke of her "silken soprano voice with a wide and seemingly effortless range, unerring pitch and a gift for phrasing that at times was heart-stoppingly eloquent."


title: Eva Cassidy

text: Before Christmas of 2000, BBC's "Top of the Pops 2" aired a video of Cassidy performing "Over the Rainbow", which resulted in "Songbird" climbing steadily up the UK charts over the next few weeks. Just as ITV's "Tonight with Trevor McDonald" aired a feature on Cassidy, the album topped the chart. Shot at Blues Alley by a friend with a camcorder the same night the album was recorded, the video became the most requested video ever shown on "Top Of The Pops 2". Alexis Petridis in "The Guardian" wrote, "There's an undeniable emotional appeal in hearing an artist who you know died in obscurity singing a song about hope and a mystical world beyond everyday life".


title: Eva Cassidy

text: Paul McCartney and Eric Clapton were among her new-found fans. Jazz critic Ted Gioia writes, "you might be tempted to write off the 'Cassidy sensation' ... as a response to the sad story of the singer's abbreviated life rather than as a measure of her artistry. But don't be mistaken, Cassidy was a huge talent, whose obscurity during her lifetime was almost as much a tragedy as her early death." "Songbird" has since achieved significant chart success in Europe. It is certified six times platinum in the UK with 1,840,000 copies sold. Although still relatively unknown in the US at that time, the album would eventually be certified gold there as well.


title: Eva Cassidy

text: In May 2001, ABC's "Nightline" in the US broadcast a well-received short documentary about Cassidy, a labor of love from "Nightline" correspondent Dave Marash who was a fan of her music. Over the weekend, all five of Cassidy's albums occupied Amazon.com's best sellers list top spots. The "Nightline" episode has since been rebroadcast three times due to popular demand and producer Leroy Sievers has said that it is "probably the most popular Nightline ever". In December, a nine-minute segment on NPR resulted in a similar sales surge, with five of the top seven spots going to Cassidy. In Britain a rebroadcast of "Tonight with Trevor McDonald" bumped up sales.


title: Eva Cassidy

text: Since "Songbird", several other CDs with original material have been released: "Time After Time" (2000), "Imagine" (2002) and "American Tune" (2003). In 2008, another new album, "Somewhere", was released. Unlike previous albums, which consisted solely of cover songs, this release contains two original songs co-written by Cassidy. An acoustic album, "Simply Eva", was released in January 2011.


title: Eva Cassidy

text: Her cover of "Time After Time" was featured on the 2003 soundtrack CD of the popular superhero television series Smallville.


title: Eva Cassidy

text: Together with word of mouth and internet fan sites, online commerce has played a big role in Cassidy's success. This point was further affirmed when in 2005, Amazon.com released a list of its top 25 best-selling musicians, which placed Cassidy in fifth position, behind the Beatles, U2, Norah Jones and Diana Krall.


title: Eva Cassidy

text: A collection of previously unreleased studio recordings from 1987 to 1991, was released in 2000 as "No Boundaries". This release was not endorsed by the Cassidy family and was released under a different label. An AllMusic review of the album stated that even "a gifted vocalist like Eva Cassidy can only do so much with bad material".


title: Eva Cassidy

text: In 2002, the self-titled 1988 album by the band Method Actor, which featured Cassidy, was re-released by the band's guitarist and producer David Lourim with Cassidy's name displayed prominently on the cover. The Cassidy family and Blix Street Records filed a lawsuit against Lourim, claiming that Cassidy's name was used in a misleading fashion and that Blix Street has exclusive rights to her recordings. Lourim had Cassidy's written permission to release the album, and eventually the cover was changed to look like the original LP album while already released copies were affixed with a sticker indicating that they are not solo Eva Cassidy albums.


title: Eva Cassidy

text: A bootleg recording that has been in circulation is called "Live at Pearl's". It was recorded at Pearl's Restaurant in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1994. Copies of the recording were circulated among friends and family after her death. Some of the songs on the recording are also on "Imagine" and "American Tune". Another recording from the early '90s, featuring Mick Fleetwood on drums and recorded at his restaurant (named Fleetwood's) in Alexandria, Virginia, was in the possession of writer/musician Niki Lee, the former wife of pianist Lenny Williams, 1988–1996. Lee discovered it in her garage and attempted to sell it on eBay in 2008 for 250,000 pounds (around US$491,249 at that time; ~$659,650 in 2022 terms). She asserts that she converted the dollars to pounds incorrectly and was lambasted by Cassidy fans for her mistake. On September 19, 2013, Lee donated Cassidy's lost recording, "Eva Cassidy Live at Fleetwoods", to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The recording will remain in the museum's archives. Two other lost cassettes of Cassidy's recordings are being remastered for entrance.


title: Eva Cassidy

text: To mark the 20th anniversary of the Blues Alley concert, Blix Street Records released "Nightbird", a 32-track double CD album, in November 2015. "Nightbird" comprises the complete Blues Alley concert recordings, including eight previously unreleased songs, from the night of January 3, 1996. The European version of the CD package also includes a DVD including 12 video performances from the Blues Alley concert. "Nightbird" was also released as a four-LP vinyl package worldwide.


title: Eva Cassidy

text: In 2001, "Songbird: Eva Cassidy: Her Story By Those Who Knew Her", a book on the life and work of Cassidy based on interviews with close family and associates, was released in the UK. A US edition published by Gotham Books was released in late 2003 and includes two additional chapters on her influences and success in the US. Her life story has also been adapted into a musical and also a Broadway piece for cancer benefit.


title: Eva Cassidy

text: A number of filmmakers have proposed films based on Cassidy's life, and have worked with her family to greater or lesser degrees, but to date these projects have not progressed past the early development stages. In late 2007, AIR Productions acquired the rights to produce a film based on Cassidy's life, being produced by Amy Redford (daughter of actor/director Robert Redford), Irwin Shapiro and Rick Singer. In an interview a year earlier, Cassidy's parents suggested Kirsten Dunst or Emily Watson as possible actresses who could play their daughter.


title: Natural rubber

text: Rubber, also called India rubber, latex, Amazonian rubber, caucho, or caoutchouc, as initially produced, consists of polymers of the organic compound isoprene, with minor impurities of other organic compounds. Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia are three of the leading rubber producers.


title: Natural rubber

text: Currently, rubber is harvested mainly in the form of the latex from the rubber tree ("Hevea brasiliensis") or others. The latex is a sticky, milky and white colloid drawn off by making incisions in the bark and collecting the fluid in vessels in a process called "tapping". The latex then is refined into the rubber that is ready for commercial processing. In major areas, latex is allowed to coagulate in the collection cup. The coagulated lumps are collected and processed into dry forms for sale.


title: Natural rubber

text: Natural rubber is used extensively in many applications and products, either alone or in combination with other materials. In most of its useful forms, it has a large stretch ratio and high resilience and also is water-proof.


title: Natural rubber

text: Industrial demand for rubber-like materials began to outstrip natural rubber supplies by the end of the 19th century, leading to the synthesis of synthetic rubber in 1909 by chemical means.


title: Natural rubber

text: The major commercial source of natural rubber latex is the Amazonian rubber tree ("Hevea brasiliensis"), a member of the spurge family, "Euphorbiaceae". This species is preferred because it grows well under cultivation. A properly managed tree responds to wounding by producing more latex for several years.


title: Natural rubber

text: Congo rubber, formerly a major source of rubber, came from vines in the genus "Landolphia" ("L. kirkii", "L. heudelotis", and "L. owariensis").


title: Natural rubber

text: Dandelion milk contains latex. The latex exhibits the same quality as the natural rubber from rubber trees. In the wild types of dandelion, latex content is low and varies greatly. In Nazi Germany, research projects tried to use dandelions as a base for rubber production, but failed. In 2013, by inhibiting one key enzyme and using modern cultivation methods and optimization techniques, scientists in the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology (IME) in Germany developed a cultivar of the Russian dandelion ("Taraxacum kok-saghyz") that is suitable for commercial production of natural rubber. In collaboration with Continental Tires, IME began a pilot facility.


title: Natural rubber

text: Many other plants produce forms of latex rich in isoprene polymers, though not all produce usable forms of polymer as easily as the Pará. Some of them require more elaborate processing to produce anything like usable rubber, and most are more difficult to tap. Some produce other desirable materials, for example gutta-percha ("Palaquium gutta") and chicle from "Manilkara" species. Others that have been commercially exploited, or at least showed promise as rubber sources, include the rubber fig ("Ficus elastica"), Panama rubber tree ("Castilla elastica"), various spurges ("Euphorbia" spp.), lettuce ("Lactuca" species), the related "Scorzonera tau-saghyz", various "Taraxacum" species, including common dandelion ("Taraxacum officinale") and Russian dandelion, and, perhaps most importantly for its hypoallergenic properties, guayule ("Parthenium argentatum"). The term gum rubber is sometimes applied to the tree-obtained version of natural rubber in order to distinguish it from the synthetic version.


title: Natural rubber

text: The first use of rubber was by the indigenous cultures of Mesoamerica. The earliest archeological evidence of the use of natural latex from the "Hevea" tree comes from the Olmec culture, in which rubber was first used for making balls for the Mesoamerican ballgame. Rubber was later used by the Maya and Aztec cultures – in addition to making balls, Aztecs used rubber for other purposes, such as making containers and to make textiles waterproof by impregnating them with the latex sap.


title: Natural rubber

text: Charles Marie de La Condamine is credited with introducing samples of rubber to the "Académie Royale des Sciences" of France in 1736. In 1751, he presented a paper by François Fresneau to the Académie (published in 1755) that described many of rubber's properties. This has been referred to as the first scientific paper on rubber. In England, Joseph Priestley, in 1770, observed that a piece of the material was extremely good for rubbing off pencil marks on paper, hence the name "rubber". It slowly made its way around England. In 1764, François Fresnau discovered that turpentine was a rubber solvent. Giovanni Fabbroni is credited with the discovery of naphtha as a rubber solvent in 1779. Charles Goodyear redeveloped vulcanization in 1839, although Mesoamericans had used stabilized rubber for balls and other objects as early as 1600 BC.


title: Natural rubber

text: South America remained the main source of latex rubber used during much of the 19th century. The rubber trade was heavily controlled by business interests but no laws expressly prohibited the export of seeds or plants. In 1876, Henry Wickham smuggled 70,000 Amazonian rubber tree seeds from Brazil and delivered them to Kew Gardens, England. Only 2,400 of these germinated. Seedlings were then sent to India, British Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), Singapore, and British Malaya. Malaya (now Peninsular Malaysia) was later to become the biggest producer of rubber.


title: Natural rubber

text: In the early 1900s, the Congo Free State in Africa was also a significant source of natural rubber latex, mostly gathered by forced labor. King Leopold II's colonial state brutally enforced production quotas. Tactics to enforce the rubber quotas included removing the hands of victims to prove they had been killed. Soldiers often came back from raids with baskets full of chopped-off hands. Villages that resisted were razed to encourage better compliance locally.


title: Natural rubber

text: In India, commercial cultivation was introduced by British planters, although the experimental efforts to grow rubber on a commercial scale were initiated as early as 1873 at the Calcutta Botanical Garden. The first commercial "Hevea" plantations were established at Thattekadu in Kerala in 1902. In later years the plantation expanded to Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India. Today, India is the world's 3rd largest producer and 4th largest consumer of rubber.


title: Natural rubber

text: In Singapore and Malaya, commercial production was heavily promoted by Sir Henry Nicholas Ridley, who served as the first Scientific Director of the Singapore Botanic Gardens from 1888 to 1911. He distributed rubber seeds to many planters and developed the first technique for tapping trees for latex without causing serious harm to the tree. Because of his fervent promotion of this crop, he is popularly remembered by the nickname "Mad Ridley".


title: Natural rubber

text: Before World War II significant uses included door and window profiles, hoses, belts, gaskets, matting, flooring, and dampeners (antivibration mounts) for the automotive industry. The use of rubber in car tires (initially solid rather than pneumatic) in particular consumed a significant amount of rubber. Gloves (medical, household, and industrial) and toy balloons were large consumers of rubber, although the type of rubber used is concentrated latex. Significant tonnage of rubber was used as adhesives in many manufacturing industries and products, although the two most noticeable were the paper and the carpet industries. Rubber was commonly used to make rubber bands and pencil erasers.


title: Natural rubber

text: Rubber produced as a fiber, sometimes called 'elastic', had significant value to the textile industry because of its excellent elongation and recovery properties. For these purposes, manufactured rubber fiber was made as either an extruded round fiber or rectangular fibers cut into strips from extruded film. Because of its low dye acceptance, feel and appearance, the rubber fiber was either covered by yarn of another fiber or directly woven with other yarns into the fabric. Rubber yarns were used in foundation garments. While rubber is still used in textile manufacturing, its low tenacity limits its use in lightweight garments because latex lacks resistance to oxidizing agents and is damaged by aging, sunlight, oil and perspiration. The textile industry turned to neoprene (polymer of chloroprene), a type of synthetic rubber, as well as another more commonly used elastomer fiber, spandex (also known as elastane), because of their superiority to rubber in both strength and durability.


title: Natural rubber

text: Rubber exhibits unique physical and chemical properties. Rubber's stress–strain behavior exhibits the Mullins effect and the Payne effect and is often modeled as hyperelastic. Rubber strain crystallizes. Because there are weakened allylic C-H bonds in each repeat unit, natural rubber is susceptible to vulcanisation as well as being sensitive to ozone cracking. The two main solvents for rubber are turpentine and naphtha (petroleum). Because rubber does not dissolve easily, the material is finely divided by shredding prior to its immersion. An ammonia solution can be used to prevent the coagulation of raw latex. Rubber begins to melt at approximately .


title: Natural rubber

text: On a microscopic scale, relaxed rubber is a disorganized cluster of erratically changing wrinkled chains. In stretched rubber, the chains are almost linear. The restoring force is due to the preponderance of wrinkled conformations over more linear ones. For the quantitative treatment see ideal chain, for more examples see entropic force.


title: Natural rubber

text: Cooling below the glass transition temperature permits local conformational changes but a reordering is practically impossible because of the larger energy barrier for the concerted movement of longer chains. "Frozen" rubber's elasticity is low and strain results from small changes of bond lengths and angles: this caused the "Challenger" disaster, when the American Space Shuttle's flattened o-rings failed to relax to fill a widening gap. The glass transition is fast and reversible: the force resumes on heating.


title: Natural rubber

text: The parallel chains of stretched rubber are susceptible to crystallization. This takes some time because turns of twisted chains have to move out of the way of the growing crystallites. Crystallization has occurred, for example, when, after days, an inflated toy balloon is found withered at a relatively large remaining volume. Where it is touched, it shrinks because the temperature of the hand is enough to melt the crystals.


title: Natural rubber

text: Vulcanization of rubber creates di- and polysulfide bonds between chains, which limits the degrees of freedom and results in chains that tighten more quickly for a given strain, thereby increasing the elastic force constant and making the rubber harder and less extensible.


title: Natural rubber

text: Raw rubber storage depots and rubber processing can produce malodour that is serious enough to become a source of complaints and protest to those living in the vicinity. Microbial impurities originate during the processing of block rubber. These impurities break down during storage or thermal degradation and produce volatile organic compounds. Examination of these compounds using gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) and gas chromatography (GC) indicates that they contain sulfur, ammonia, alkenes, ketones, esters, hydrogen sulfide, nitrogen, and low-molecular-weight fatty acids (C2–C5). When latex concentrate is produced from rubber, sulfuric acid is used for coagulation. This produces malodourous hydrogen sulfide. The industry can mitigate these bad odours with scrubber systems.


title: Natural rubber

text: Rubber is the polymer cis-1,4-polyisoprene – with a molecular weight of 100,000 to 1,000,000 daltons. Typically, a small percentage (up to 5% of dry mass) of other materials, such as proteins, fatty acids, resins, and inorganic materials (salts) are found in natural rubber. Polyisoprene can also be created synthetically, producing what is sometimes referred to as "synthetic natural rubber", but the synthetic and natural routes are distinct. Some natural rubber sources, such as gutta-percha, are composed of trans-1,4-polyisoprene, a structural isomer that has similar properties. Natural rubber is an elastomer and a thermoplastic. Once the rubber is vulcanized, it is a thermoset. Most rubber in everyday use is vulcanized to a point where it shares properties of both; i.e., if it is heated and cooled, it is degraded but not destroyed. The final properties of a rubber item depend not just on the polymer, but also on modifiers and fillers, such as carbon black, factice, whiting and others.


title: Natural rubber

text: Rubber particles are formed in the cytoplasm of specialized latex-producing cells called laticifers within rubber plants. Rubber particles are surrounded by a single phospholipid membrane with hydrophobic tails pointed inward. The membrane allows biosynthetic proteins to be sequestered at the surface of the growing rubber particle, which allows new monomeric units to be added from outside the biomembrane, but within the lacticifer. The rubber particle is an enzymatically active entity that contains three layers of material, the rubber particle, a biomembrane and free monomeric units. The biomembrane is held tightly to the rubber core by the high negative charge along the double bonds of the rubber polymer backbone. Free monomeric units and conjugated proteins make up the outer layer. The rubber precursor is isopentenyl pyrophosphate (an allylic compound), which elongates by Mg-dependent condensation by the action of rubber transferase. The monomer adds to the pyrophosphate end of the growing polymer. The process displaces the terminal high-energy pyrophosphate. The reaction produces a cis polymer. The initiation step is catalyzed by prenyltransferase, which converts three monomers of isopentenyl pyrophosphate into farnesyl pyrophosphate. The farnesyl pyrophosphate can bind to rubber transferase to elongate a new rubber polymer.


title: Natural rubber

text: The required isopentenyl pyrophosphate is obtained from the mevalonate pathway, which derives from acetyl-CoA in the cytosol. In plants, isoprene pyrophosphate can also be obtained from the 1-deox-D-xyulose-5-phosphate/2-C-methyl-D-erythritol-4-phosphate pathway within plasmids. The relative ratio of the farnesyl pyrophosphate initiator unit and isoprenyl pyrophosphate elongation monomer determines the rate of new particle synthesis versus elongation of existing particles. Though rubber is known to be produced by only one enzyme, extracts of latex host numerous small molecular weight proteins with unknown function. The proteins possibly serve as cofactors, as the synthetic rate decreases with complete removal.


title: Natural rubber

text: More than 28 million tons of rubber were produced in 2017, of which approximately 47% was natural. Since the bulk is synthetic, which is derived from petroleum, the price of natural rubber is determined, to a large extent, by the prevailing global price of crude oil. Asia was the main source of natural rubber, accounting for about 94% of output in 2005. The three largest producers, Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia, together account for around 72% of all natural rubber production. Natural rubber is not cultivated widely in its native continent of South America because of the South American leaf blight, and other natural predators, there.


title: Natural rubber

text: Rubber latex is extracted from rubber trees. The economic life period of rubber trees in plantations is around 32 years, up to 7 years of immature phase and about 25 years of productive phase.


title: Natural rubber

text: The soil requirement is well-drained, weathered soil consisting of laterite, lateritic types, sedimentary types, nonlateritic red or alluvial soils.


title: Natural rubber

text: Many high-yielding clones have been developed for commercial planting. These clones yield more than of dry rubber per year, under ideal conditions.


title: Natural rubber

text: In places such as Kerala and Sri Lanka, where coconuts are in abundance, the half shell of coconut was used as the latex collection container. Glazed pottery or aluminium or plastic cups became more common in Kerala-India and other countries. The cups are supported by a wire that encircles the tree. This wire incorporates a spring so it can stretch as the tree grows. The latex is led into the cup by a galvanised "spout" knocked into the bark. Rubber tapping normally takes place early in the morning, when the internal pressure of the tree is highest. A good tapper can tap a tree every 20 seconds on a standard half-spiral system, and a common daily "task" size is between 450 and 650 trees. Trees are usually tapped on alternate or third days, although many variations in timing, length and number of cuts are used. "Tappers would make a slash in the bark with a small hatchet. These slanting cuts allowed latex to flow from ducts located on the exterior or the inner layer of bark (cambium) of the tree. Since the cambium controls the growth of the tree, growth stops if it is cut. Thus, rubber tapping demanded accuracy, so that the incisions would not be too many given the size of the tree, or too deep, which could stunt its growth or kill it."


title: Natural rubber

text: It is usual to tap a pannel at least twice, sometimes three times, during the tree's life. The economic life of the tree depends on how well the tapping is carried out, as the critical factor is bark consumption. A standard in Malaysia for alternate daily tapping is 25 cm (vertical) bark consumption per year. The latex-containing tubes in the bark ascend in a spiral to the right. For this reason, tapping cuts usually ascend to the left to cut more tubes. The trees drip latex for about four hours, stopping as latex coagulates naturally on the tapping cut, thus blocking the latex tubes in the bark. Tappers usually rest and have a meal after finishing their tapping work and then start collecting the liquid "field latex" at about midday.


title: Natural rubber

text: The four types of field coagula are "cuplump", "treelace", "smallholders' lump", and "earth scrap". Each has significantly different properties. Some trees continue to drip after the collection leading to a small amount of "cup lump" that is collected at the next tapping. The latex that coagulates on the cut is also collected as "tree lace". Tree lace and cup lump together account for 10%–20% of the dry rubber produced. Latex that drips onto the ground, "earth scrap", is also collected periodically for processing of low-grade product.


title: Natural rubber

text: Cup lump is the coagulated material found in the collection cup when the tapper next visits the tree to tap it again. It arises from latex clinging to the walls of the cup after the latex was last poured into the bucket, and from late-dripping latex exuded before the latex-carrying vessels of the tree become blocked. It is of higher purity and of greater value than the other three types.


title: Natural rubber

text: 'Cup lumps' can also be used to describe a completely different type of coagulate that has collected in smallholder plantations over a period of 1–2 weeks. After tapping all of the trees, the tapper will return to each tree and stir in some type of acid, which allows the newly harvested latex to mix with the previously coagulated material. The rubber/acid mixture is what gives rubber plantations, markets, and factories a strong odor.


title: Natural rubber

text: Tree lace is the coagulum strip that the tapper peels off the previous cut before making a new cut. It usually has higher copper and manganese contents than cup lump. Both copper and manganese are pro-oxidants and can damage the physical properties of the dry rubber.


title: Natural rubber

text: Smallholders' lump is produced by smallholders, who collect rubber from trees far from the nearest factory. Many Indonesian smallholders, who farm paddies in remote areas, tap dispersed trees on their way to work in the paddy fields and collect the latex (or the coagulated latex) on their way home. As it is often impossible to preserve the latex sufficiently to get it to a factory that processes latex in time for it to be used to make high quality products, and as the latex would anyway have coagulated by the time it reached the factory, the smallholder will coagulate it by any means available, in any container available. Some smallholders use small containers, buckets etc., but often the latex is coagulated in holes in the ground, which are usually lined with plastic sheeting. Acidic materials and fermented fruit juices are used to coagulate the latex — a form of assisted biological coagulation. Little care is taken to exclude twigs, leaves, and even bark from the lumps that are formed, which may also include tree lace.


title: Natural rubber

text: Earth scrap is material that gathers around the base of the tree. It arises from latex overflowing from the cut and running down the bark, from rain flooding a collection cup containing latex, and from spillage from tappers' buckets during collection. It contains soil and other contaminants, and has variable rubber content, depending on the amount of contaminants. Earth scrap is collected by field workers two or three times a year and may be cleaned in a scrap-washer to recover the rubber, or sold to a contractor who cleans it and recovers the rubber. It is of low quality.


title: Natural rubber

text: Latex coagulates in the cups, if kept for long and must be collected before this happens. The collected latex, "field latex", is transferred into coagulation tanks for the preparation of dry rubber or transferred into air-tight containers with sieving for ammoniation. Ammoniation, invented by patent lawyer and vice-president of the United States Rubber Company Ernest Hopkinson around 1920, preserves the latex in a colloidal state for longer periods of time. Latex is generally processed into either latex concentrate for manufacture of dipped goods or coagulated under controlled, clean conditions using formic acid. The coagulated latex can then be processed into the higher-grade, technically specified block rubbers such as SVR 3L or SVR CV or used to produce Ribbed Smoke Sheet grades. Naturally coagulated rubber (cup lump) is used in the manufacture of TSR10 and TSR20 grade rubbers. Processing for these grades is a size reduction and cleaning process to remove contamination and prepare the material for the final stage of drying.


title: Natural rubber

text: Natural rubber is often vulcanized – a process by which the rubber is heated and sulfur, peroxide, or bisphenol are added to improve resistance and elasticity and to prevent it from perishing. Carbon black is often used as an additive to rubber to improve its strength, especially in vehicle tires, which account for about 70% (~9 million tons) of carbon black production.


title: Natural rubber

text: Natural rubber latex is shipped from factories in Southeast Asia, South America, and West and Central Africa to destinations around the world. As the cost of natural rubber has risen significantly and rubber products are dense, the shipping methods offering the lowest cost per unit weight are preferred. Depending on destination, warehouse availability, and transportation conditions, some methods are preferred by certain buyers. In international trade, latex rubber is mostly shipped in 20-foot ocean containers. Inside the container, smaller containers are used to store the latex.


title: Natural rubber

text: Uncured rubber is used for cements; for adhesive, insulating, and friction tapes; and for crepe rubber used in insulating blankets and footwear. Vulcanized rubber has many more applications. Resistance to abrasion makes softer kinds of rubber valuable for the treads of vehicle tires and conveyor belts, and makes hard rubber valuable for pump housings and piping used in the handling of abrasive sludge.


title: Natural rubber

text: The flexibility of rubber is appealing in hoses, tires and rollers for devices ranging from domestic clothes wringers to printing presses; its elasticity makes it suitable for various kinds of shock absorbers and for specialized machinery mountings designed to reduce vibration. Its relative gas impermeability makes it useful in the manufacture of articles such as air hoses, balloons, balls and cushions. The resistance of rubber to water and to the action of most fluid chemicals has led to its use in rainwear, diving gear, and chemical and medicinal tubing and as a lining for storage tanks, processing equipment and railroad tank cars. Because of their electrical resistance, soft rubber goods are used as insulation and for protective gloves, shoes, and blankets; hard rubber is used for articles such as telephone housings and parts for radio sets, meters, and other electrical instruments. The coefficient of friction of rubber, which is high on dry surfaces and low on wet surfaces, leads to its use for power-transmission belting, highly flexible couplings, and for water-lubricated bearings in deep-well pumps. Indian rubber balls or lacrosse balls are made of rubber.


title: Natural rubber

text: Around 25 million tonnes of rubber are produced each year, of which 30 percent is natural. The remainder is synthetic rubber derived from petrochemical sources. The top end of latex production results in latex products such as surgeons' gloves, balloons, and other relatively high-value products. The mid-range which comes from the technically specified natural rubber materials ends up largely in tires but also in conveyor belts, marine products, windshield wipers, and miscellaneous goods. Natural rubber offers good elasticity, while synthetic materials tend to offer better resistance to environmental factors such as oils, temperature, chemicals, and ultraviolet light. "Cured rubber" is rubber that has been compounded and subjected to the vulcanisation process to create cross-links within the rubber matrix.


title: Natural rubber

text: Some people have a serious latex allergy, and exposure to natural latex rubber products such as latex gloves can cause anaphylactic shock. The antigenic proteins found in "Hevea" latex may be deliberately reduced (though not eliminated) through processing.


title: Natural rubber

text: Latex from non-"Hevea" sources, such as guayule, can be used without allergic reaction by persons with an allergy to "Hevea" latex.


title: Natural rubber

text: Some allergic reactions are not to the latex itself, but from residues of chemicals used to accelerate the cross-linking process. Although this may be confused with an allergy to latex, it is distinct from it, typically taking the form of Type IV hypersensitivity in the presence of traces of specific processing chemicals.


title: Natural rubber

text: The bacteria "Streptomyces coelicolor", "Pseudomonas citronellolis", and "Nocardia" spp. are capable of degrading vulcanized natural rubber.


title: Shane Black

text: Shane Black (born December 16, 1961) is an American filmmaker and actor who has written such films as "Lethal Weapon", "The Monster Squad", "The Last Boy Scout", "Last Action Hero", and "The Long Kiss Goodnight". As an actor, Black is best known for his role as Rick Hawkins in "Predator" (1987).


title: Shane Black

text: He made his directorial debut with the film "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" in 2005. Black went on to write and direct "Iron Man 3" (2013), "The Nice Guys" (2016), and "The Predator" (2018).


title: Shane Black

text: Black was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of Paul and Patricia Ann Black. His father was in the printing business, and helped Black get an interest in hardboiled fiction, such as the works of Mickey Spillane and the Matt Helm series.


title: Shane Black

text: After living in the suburbs of Lower Burrell and Mount Lebanon, Pennsylvania, his family moved to Fullerton, California, during his sophomore year of high school. There he attended Sunny Hills High School and later UCLA where he majored in film and theater and graduated in 1983. Black had a long history writing comic strips, short stories, and journalism. During his senior year he decided to make a living from it once his classmate Fred Dekker showed him a science fiction script he did for an assignment. Black's older brother, Terry Black, also wrote short stories and decided to move into screenplays starting with 1988's "Dead Heat", in which Shane has a cameo.


title: Shane Black

text: After graduating, Black worked as a typist for a temp agency, a data entry clerk for the 1984 Summer Olympics and an usher in a Westwood movie theater. Eventually he asked for financial support of his parents during the six-month development of a script, "The Shadow Company", a supernatural thriller set in Vietnam. With Dekker's help, the script landed him an agent and several meetings with mid-level studio executives. This attracted 20th Century Fox executives, who were interested in having Black rewrite scripts. Eventually Black wrote an action film script, "Lethal Weapon", in about six weeks, which landed him a $250,000 deal with Warner Bros. During the rewrites, Black asked producer Joel Silver for a small acting role in another film Silver was preparing at the time, "Predator", a film for which Black also made uncredited contributions to the script. At the same time, Black helped Dekker write "The Monster Squad", which along with "Lethal Weapon" and "Predator" came out in 1987. Since then, Black has acted in five additional films and in two episodes for the TV series "Dark Justice".


title: Shane Black

text: Once Warner Bros. requested a "Lethal Weapon" sequel, Black wrote the first draft of "Lethal Weapon 2" with the help of novelist Warren Murphy. Although it was not used, Black said in later interviews that Warner Bros. did not like his original script for "Lethal Weapon 2", which was also titled "Play Dirty", because of how dark and violent it was and due to his decision to kill off main character Martin Riggs in the ending of the script. Black considers it to be his best work and the best script he has written.


title: Shane Black

text: Feeling burned out and having conflicts with the studio, Black left the project after six months, earning $125,000 (out of a $250,000 payment split with Murphy) for his work. After two sabbatical years, Black decided to take on an old idea of his that emerged during the production of "Lethal Weapon" and turn it into a full screenplay. The result, "The Last Boy Scout", earned him $1.75 million in 1991. Black would also earn $1 million for his rewrite of "Last Action Hero" in 1993. He would set a record by receiving $4 million for writing "The Long Kiss Goodnight" in 1994.


title: Shane Black

text: Black made his directorial debut with 2005's "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang", and later directed (and co-wrote with Drew Pearce) 2013's "Iron Man 3", which ranks as the fifteenth-highest-grossing film of all time worldwide.


title: Shane Black

text: Black next directed and co-wrote "Edge", a pilot for a potential series for Amazon Studios. The film was released on video on demand but not picked up for a series. He followed this with the action comedy "The Nice Guys", starring Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling, and produced by Joel Silver. Warner Bros. handled North American rights to the film, which was released on May 20, 2016.


title: Shane Black

text: Black next directed the fourth non-"Alien"-related film in the "Predator" series, "The Predator", which he co-wrote with Fred Dekker. The film was released on September 14, 2018.


title: Shane Black

text: Black's next projects included an adaptation of "Doc Savage", and "The Destroyer", based on the series of paperback adventure novels that previously inspired the 1985 film "", starring Fred Ward. He was also briefly attached by Warner Bros. in 2011, to direct a live-action American adaptation of the Japanese supernatural-thriller manga series "Death Note", bringing his collaborators Anthony Bagarozzi and Charles Mondry to write the screenplay, replacing Charley and Vlas Parlapanides as the project's previous screenwriters. However, by 2014, he had left the project, due to reported creative differences and other commitments. Director Adam Wingard was eventually hired to helm the project by 2015.


title: Shane Black

text: Black has a recognizable writing style characterized by stories in which two main characters become friends, problematic protagonists who become better human beings at the end of the narrative, and trade witty dialogue, featuring labyrinthine crime plots, often set during Christmas time. The quips he incorporates into his scripts are referred to as "Shane Blackisms", in which jokes about the story situations are included in the scene directions of the script. He also sometimes directs comments at studio executives and script readers. Examples of these include:


title: Shane Black

text: This approach, which Black summed as "more open to the reader" and aimed at "trying to keep people awake", was described by himself as a combination of William Goldman, his mentor in screenwriting, and Walter Hill, who had a "terse and Spartan, punchy prose". Black gave a list of techniques he uses when writing films in an interview with "The Guardian".


title: Shane Black

text: Black explains that Christmas, which has been used as a backdrop in "Lethal Weapon", "Last Action Hero", "The Long Kiss Goodnight", "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang", "Iron Man 3" and "The Nice Guys" (and in his original script for "The Last Boy Scout", although references to the date have been almost entirely eliminated from the film), is a touchstone for him, explaining:


title: Shane Black

text: Christmas represents a little stutter in the march of days, a hush in which we have a chance to assess and retrospect our lives. I tend to think also that it just informs as a backdrop. The first time I noticed it was "Three Days of the Condor", the Sydney Pollack film, where Christmas in the background adds this really odd, chilling counterpoint to the espionage plot. I also think that Christmas is just a thing of beauty, especially as it applies to places like Los Angeles, where it's not so obvious, and you have to dig for it, like little nuggets. One night, on Christmas Eve, I walked past a Mexican lunch wagon serving tacos, and I saw this little string, and on it was a little broken plastic figurine, with a light bulb inside it, of the Virgin Mary. And I thought, that's just a little hidden piece of magic. You know, all around the city are little slices, little icons of Christmas, that are as effective and beautiful in and of themselves as any 40-foot Christmas tree on the lawn of the White House. So that, in a lot of words, is the answer.


title: Shane Black

text: Black hired his friend Steven Wilder Striegel for a minor, un-auditioned role in "The Predator" (as well as, previously, "Iron Man 3" and "The Nice Guys"). Striegel spent six months in prison in 2010, having pleaded guilty to risk of injury to a child and enticing a minor by computer after he had attempted to lure a 14-year-old girl into a sexual relationship via email. Olivia Munn, an actress in "The Predator", insisted on having a scene with Striegel removed after she discovered his history. Black initially defended his decision and his friend, but later rescinded them and released a public apology.


title: Shane Black

text: Black received the Distinguished Screenwriter Award from the Austin Film Festival October 21, 2006. In 2005, he received the Best Original Screenplay award for "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" from the San Diego Film Critics Association.


title: AGM-88 HARM

text: The AGM-88 HARM (High-speed Anti-Radiation Missile) is a tactical, air-to-surface anti-radiation missile designed to home in on electronic transmissions coming from surface-to-air radar systems. It was originally developed by Texas Instruments as a replacement for the AGM-45 Shrike and AGM-78 Standard ARM system. Production was later taken over by Raytheon Corporation when it purchased the defense production business of Texas Instruments.


title: AGM-88 HARM

text: The AGM-88 can detect, attack and destroy a radar antenna or transmitter with minimal aircrew input. The proportional guidance system that homes in on enemy radar emissions has a fixed antenna and seeker head in the missile's nose. A smokeless, solid-propellant, booster-sustainer rocket motor propels the missile at speeds over Mach 2.0. The HARM was a missile program led by the U.S. Navy, and it was first carried by the A-6E, A-7, and F/A-18A/B aircraft, and then it equipped the EA-6B and EA-18G dedicated electronic attack aircraft. RDT&E for use on the F-14 aircraft was begun, but not completed. The U.S. Air Force (USAF) put the HARM onto the F-4G Wild Weasel aircraft, and later on specialized F-16s equipped with the HARM Targeting System (HTS). The missile has three operational modes: Pre-Briefed (PB), Target Of Opportunity (TOO) and Self-Protect (SP). The HTS pod, used by the USAF only, allows F-16s to detect and automatically target radar systems with HARMs instead of relying on the missile's sensors alone.


title: AGM-88 HARM

text: The HARM missile was approved for full production in March 1983, obtained initial operating capability (IOC) on the A-7E Corsair II in late 1983 and then deployed in late 1985 with VA-46 aboard the aircraft carrier USS "America". In 1986, the first successful firing of the HARM from an EA-6B was performed by VAQ-131. It was soon used in combat—in March 1986 against a Libyan S-200 surface to air missiles site in the Gulf of Sidra, and then during Operation Eldorado Canyon in April.


title: AGM-88 HARM

text: HARM was used extensively by the Navy, Marine Corps, and the Air Force in Operation Desert Storm during the Persian Gulf War of 1991.


title: AGM-88 HARM

text: During the Gulf War, the HARM was involved in a friendly fire incident when the pilot of an F-4G Wild Weasel escorting a B-52G bomber mistook the latter's tail gun radar for an Iraqi AAA site — this was after the tail gunner of the B-52 had targeted the F-4G, mistaking it for an Iraqi MiG. The F-4 pilot launched the missile and then saw that the target was the B-52, which was hit. It survived with shrapnel damage to the tail and no casualties. The B-52 (serial number 58-0248) was subsequently renamed "In HARM's Way".


title: AGM-88 HARM

text: "Magnum" is spoken over the radio to announce the launch of an AGM-88. During the Gulf War, if an aircraft was illuminated by enemy radar a bogus "Magnum" call on the radio was often enough to convince the operators to power down. This technique would also be employed in Yugoslavia during air operations in 1999. On 28 April 1999, during this campaign, an early variant of the AGM-88, after being fired in self defense mode by a NATO jet, lost its radio frequency track as the Serbian air defense radar was turned off, hitting a house in the Gorna Banya district of the Bulgarian capital, Sofia, causing damages, but no casualties.


title: AGM-88 HARM

text: During the 1990s and early 2000s and during the initial weeks of the operation Iraqi Freedom, the HARM was used to enforce the Iraqi No-Fly-Zones, degrading the Iraqi air defenses trying to engage US and allied patrolling aircraft.


title: AGM-88 HARM

text: During the opening days of Operation Iraqi Freedom, deconflicting US Army Patriot batteries and allied aircraft routes turned out being more difficult than expected, resulting in three major friendly fire incidents: in one of them, on March 24, 2003, a USAF F-16CJ Fighting Falcon fired an AGM-88 HARM at a Patriot missile battery after the Patriot's radar had locked onto and prepared to fire at the aircraft, causing the pilot to mistake it for an Iraqi surface-to-air missile system because the aircraft was in air combat operations and was on its way to a mission near Baghdad. The HARM damaged the Patriot's radar system with no casualties.


title: AGM-88 HARM

text: Starting in March 2011, during Operation Unified Protector against Libya, US Navy EA-18Gs had their combat debut using HARMs against Libyan air defenses together with USAF F-16CJs and Italian Tornadoes.


title: AGM-88 HARM

text: Starting in March 2011, during Operation Unified Protector, Italian Tornadoes employed AGM-88 HARMs against Libyan air defenses.


title: AGM-88 HARM

text: In mid-2022, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the US supplied AGM-88 HARM missiles to Ukraine. It was only disclosed after Russian forces showed footage of a tail fin from one of these missiles in early August 2022. U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl said in recent aid packages they had included a number of anti-radiation missiles that can be fired by Ukrainian aircraft. As built, Soviet-era aircraft do not have the computer architecture to accept NATO standard weapons. Indeed, none of the former Warsaw Pact countries, even those that have had their Soviet-era aircraft updated, were enabled to fire a HARM before. The interface seemed difficult unless using a "crude modification", such as integrating it with an added e-tablet into the cockpit, building a nearly totally independent subsystem within the carrying aircraft. As suggested by Domenic Nicholis, defense correspondent for the Telegraph in the UK, the HARM missile is possibly operating in one of its three modes that enables it to find its target once flying after being released towards a possible enemy air defense and electronic emission area. Pre mission or during flight, NATO signals intelligence aircraft or different intelligence would be providing the overall electromagnetic emissions battlefield to locate the Russian radars where the Ukrainian jets, armed with HARMs would be directed to fire them. This allows the missile to achieve a very long range attack profile, even if it's possible that the missile does not find a target while flying, going wasted. A second possible use of the HARM is operating it in a mode called “HARM as sensor”. Similar to the described mode before, the missile acts as both sensor and weapon, not requiring a sensor pod. A simple interface would show that the missile has a target and the pilot can launch it. In this way the range is shorter, and the jet could be under threat already, but would maximize the possibility to hit the emitter.


title: AGM-88 HARM

text: In August 2022, a senior U.S. defense official confirmed that the Ukrainians have successfully integrated the AGM-88 HARM missile onto their "MiG aircraft", hinting the MiG-29 was the chosen fighter jet with video evidence of AGM-88 missiles fired by upgraded Ukrainian MiG-29s released by the Ukrainian Air Force a few days later.


title: AGM-88 HARM

text: Ukraine has released footage of a MiG-29 firing an AGM-88 HARM at a target. For a weapon that relies on digital display to fire, the question of how it has been integrated into the MiG-29's analogue displays remains unanswered.


title: AGM-88 HARM

text: On 30 August 2022 the Ukrainian Air Force posted a first-person shooter video on its Twitter account of a Ukrainian pilot named Ivan firing AGM-88 HARM missiles. The "Forbes" correspondent says that "Ukrainian pilots apparently are firing the HARMs blind, using a mode that requires no new hardware in the single-seat, supersonic MiG’s cramped cockpit."


title: AGM-88 HARM

text: Speaking on 19 September, US Air Force General James B. Hecker said the effort to integrate AGM-88 HARM missiles into the Ukrainian Su-27s and MiG-29s took "some months" to achieve. This does not give the Ukrainian air force the same "capabilities that it would on an F-16.” However he said: “Even though you don’t get a kinetic kill … you can get local air superiority for a period of time where you can do what you need to do.”


title: AGM-88 HARM

text: During early September 2022, a Ukrainian Su-27S was spotted with an AGM-88 HARM fitted on the wing pylons. This is the first case of an Su-27 being spotted with an AGM-88 fitted. The missile has been directly fitted to the APU-470 missile launchers, the same launcher used by MiG-29 and Su-27 to fire missiles like the R-27 (air-to-air missile). This suggests that mounting the missile on Soviet aircraft is much easier than experts initially believed. Being as simple as "requiring just an interface for the different wirings and the hanging points of the missile". The earlier footage of a Ukrainian MiG-29 using an AGM-88 indicated that the display recognized the missile as a R-27EP, which is designed to lock onto airborne radars. This suggests that the aircraft are using their own avionics to fire the missile, without the need for additional modifications.


title: AGM-88 HARM

text: In December, Ukrainian Air Force released a video showing a MiG-29 firing two HARM missiles in a volley. While Russia has made the first claim of the war that they have shot down four HARM missiles.


title: AGM-88 HARM

text: A newer upgrade, the "AGM-88E Advanced Antiradiation Guided Missile (AARGM)," features the latest software, enhanced capabilities intended to counter enemy radar shutdown, and passive radar using an additional active millimeter-wave seeker. It was released in November 2010, and it is a joint venture by the US Department of Defense and the Italian Ministry of Defense, produced by Orbital ATK.


title: AGM-88 HARM

text: In November 2005, the Italian Ministry of Defense and the U.S. Department of Defense signed a Memorandum of Agreement on the joint development of the AGM-88E AARGM missile. Italy was providing $20 million of developmental funding as well as several million dollars worth of material, equipment, and related services. The Italian Air Force was expected to buy up to 250 missiles for its Tornado ECR aircraft. A flight test program was set to integrate the AARGM onto Tornado ECR's weapon system.


title: AGM-88 HARM

text: The U.S. Navy demonstrated the AARGM's capability during Initial Operational Test and Evaluation (IOT&E) in spring 2012 with live firing of 12 missiles. Aircrew and maintenance training with live missiles was completed in June.


title: AGM-88 HARM

text: The Navy authorized Full-Rate Production (FRP) of the AARGM in August 2012, with 72 missiles for the Navy and nine for the Italian Air Force to be delivered in 2013. A U.S. Marine Corps F/A-18 Hornet squadron will be the first forward-deployed unit with the AGM-88E.


title: AGM-88 HARM

text: In September 2013, ATK delivered the 100th AARGM to the U.S. Navy. The AGM-88E program is on schedule and on budget, with Full Operational Capability (FOC) planned for September 2014. The AGM-88E was designed to improve the effectiveness of legacy HARM variants against fixed and relocatable radar and communications sites, particularly those that would shut down to throw off anti-radiation missiles, by attaching a new seeker to the existing Mach 2-capable rocket motor and warhead section, adding a passive anti-radiation homing receiver, satellite and inertial navigation system, a millimeter-wave radar for terminal guidance, and the ability to beam up images of the target via a satellite link just seconds before impact.


title: AGM-88 HARM

text: This model of the HARM will be integrated onto the F/A-18C/D/E/F, EA-18G, Tornado ECR aircraft, and later on the F-35 (externally).


title: AGM-88 HARM

text: In September 2015, the AGM-88E successfully hit a mobile ship target in a live-fire test, demonstrating the missile's ability to use antiradiation homing and millimeter-wave radar to detect, identify, locate, and engage moving targets.


title: AGM-88 HARM

text: In December 2019, the German Air Force ordered the AARGM. On August 4, 2020, Northrop Grumman's Alliant Techsystems Operations division, based in Northridge, California, was awarded a $12,190,753 IDIQ contract for AARGM depot sustainment support, guidance section and control section repair, and equipment box test and inspection. On August 31, 2020, the same Northrop Grumman division was allocated roughly $80.9 million to develop new technology for the AARGM. Neither contract was awarded in free, open competition.


title: AGM-88 HARM

text: Although the US Navy/Marine Corps chose the Orbital ATK-produced AGM-88E AARGM, Raytheon developed its own update of the HARM called the AGM-88F HARM Control Section Modification (HCSM), tested in conjunction with and ultimately for the US Air Force. It incorporates similar upgrade features as the AARGM, and although it is not yet listed for export, existing HARM users have shown interest.


title: AGM-88 HARM

text: The Navy's FY 2016 budget included funding for an extended range AARGM-ER that uses the existing guidance system and warhead of the AGM-88E with a solid integrated rocket-ramjet to double the range. In September 2016, Orbital ATK unveiled its extended-range AARGM-ER, which incorporates a redesigned control section and rocket motor for twice the range and internal carriage on the Lockheed Martin F-35A and F-35C Lightning II; internal carriage on the F-35B is not possible due to internal space limitations. The new missile utilizes the AARGM's warhead and guidance systems in a new airframe that replaces the mid-body wings with aerodynamic strakes along the sides with control surfaces relocated to low-drag tail surfaces and a more powerful propulsion system for greater speed and range. It reportedly doubles the range and speed of the AGM-88E which would result in the AGM-88G's range being around 300 km and speed of Mach 4 respectively. The U.S. Navy awarded Orbital ATK a contract for AARGM-ER development in January 2018. The USAF later joined the AARGM-ER program, involved in internal F-35A/F-35C integration work, and selected the AARGM-ER to serve as the basis for their land-attack Stand in Attack Weapon (SiAW). The AARGM-ER received Milestone-C approval in August 2021, and the first low-rate initial production contract was awarded the next month; initial operational capability is planned for 2023. The AARGM-ER completed its first and second flight test at the Point Mugu Sea Range in July 2021 and January 2022, respectively.


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: The Lord of the Rings is a 1978 American animated fantasy film directed by Ralph Bakshi. It is an adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's high fantasy epic novel of the same name, comprising "The Fellowship of the Ring" and some material from both books of "The Two Towers". Set in Middle-earth, the film follows a group of Hobbits, Men, an Elf, a Dwarf and a Wizard who form a fellowship. They embark on a quest to destroy the One Ring made by the Dark Lord Sauron; he has put much of his power into the Ring, and with it would control the whole of Middle-earth, but if it were destroyed, he would perish with it.


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: Bakshi encountered Tolkien's writing early in his career. He had made several attempts to produce "The Lord of the Rings" as an animated film before producer Saul Zaentz and distributor United Artists provided funding. The film is notable for its extensive use of rotoscoping, a technique in which scenes are first shot in live-action, then traced onto animation cels. It uses a hybrid of traditional cel animation and rotoscoped live action footage. The film features the voices of William Squire, John Hurt, Michael Graham Cox, and Anthony Daniels. The screenplay was written by Peter S. Beagle, based on an earlier draft by Chris Conkling.


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: Although Bakshi's "The Lord of the Rings" was a financial success, it received mixed reactions from critics, and hostility from disappointed viewers who felt that it was incomplete; there was no official sequel to cover the remainder of the story. Nonetheless, the film was an influence on Peter Jackson's trilogy in the early 2000s, as detailed in the DVD extras of "".


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: Early in the Second Age of Middle-earth, Elven smiths forge nine Rings of Power for mortal Men, seven for the Dwarf-Lords, and three for the Elf-Kings. Soon after, the Dark Lord Sauron makes the One Ring, and uses it to attempt to conquer Middle-earth. After defeating Sauron, Prince Isildur takes the Ring, but after he is killed by Orcs, the Ring lies at the bottom of the river Anduin for over 2,500 years. Over time, Sauron captures the Nine Rings and transforms their owners into the Ringwraiths. The One Ring is discovered by Déagol, whose kinsman, Sméagol, kills him and takes the Ring for himself. The Ring twists his body and mind, and he becomes the creature Gollum (Peter Woodthorpe) who takes it with him into the Misty Mountains. Hundreds of years later, Bilbo Baggins (Norman Bird) finds the Ring in Gollum's cave and brings it back with him to the Shire.


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: Decades later, during Bilbo's birthday celebration, the Wizard Gandalf (William Squire) tells him to leave the Ring for his nephew Frodo (Christopher Guard). Bilbo reluctantly agrees, and departs for Rivendell. Seventeen years pass, during which Gandalf learns that evil forces have discovered that the Ring is in the possession of a Baggins. Gandalf meets Frodo to explain the Ring's history and the danger it poses, and Frodo leaves his home, taking the Ring with him. He is accompanied by three Hobbits, his cousins, Pippin (Dominic Guard), Merry (Simon Chandler), and his gardener Sam (Michael Scholes). After a narrow escape from the Ringwraiths, the hobbits eventually come to Bree, from which Aragorn (John Hurt) leads them to Rivendell. Frodo is stabbed atop Weathertop mountain by the chief of the Ringwraiths, and becomes sickened as the journey progresses. The Ringwraiths catch up with them shortly after they meet the Elf Legolas (Anthony Daniels); and at a standoff at the ford of Rivendell, the Ringwraiths are swept away by the river.


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: At Rivendell, Frodo is healed by Elrond (André Morell). He meets Gandalf again, after the latter escapes the corrupt wizard Saruman (Fraser Kerr), who plans to ally with Sauron but also wants the Ring for himself. Frodo volunteers to go to Mordor, where the Ring can be destroyed. Thereafter Frodo sets off from Rivendell with eight companions: Gandalf; Aragorn; Boromir (Michael Graham Cox), son of the Steward of Gondor; Legolas; Gimli (David Buck) the Dwarf, along with Pippin, Merry, and Sam.


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: Their attempt to cross the Misty Mountains is foiled by heavy snow, and they are forced into Moria. There, they are attacked by Orcs, and Gandalf falls into an abyss while battling a Balrog. The remaining Fellowship continue through the Elf-haven Lothlórien, where they meet the Elf queen Galadriel (Annette Crosbie). Boromir tries to take the Ring from Frodo, and Frodo decides to continue his quest alone; but Sam insists on accompanying him. Boromir is killed by Orcs while trying to defend Merry and Pippin. Merry and Pippin are captured by the Orcs, who intend to take them to Isengard through the land of Rohan. The captured hobbits escape and flee into Fangorn Forest, where they meet Treebeard (John Westbrook). Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas track Merry and Pippin into the forest, where they are reunited with Gandalf, who was reborn after destroying the Balrog.


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: The five then ride to Rohan's capital, Edoras, where Gandalf persuades King Théoden (Philip Stone) that his people are in danger. Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas then travel to the Helm's Deep. Frodo and Sam discover Gollum stalking them in an attempt to reclaim the Ring, and capture him; but spare his life in return for guidance to Mount Doom. Gollum eventually begins plotting against them, and wonders if the giant spider Shelob might help. At Helm's Deep, Théoden's forces resist the Orcs sent by Saruman, until Gandalf arrives with the absent Riders of Rohan, destroying the Orc army.


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: This primary cast was supported by a large cast of animation doubles, who were not credited on screen; the matter went to guild arbitration.


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: Director Ralph Bakshi was introduced to "The Lord of the Rings" during the mid-1950s while working as an animator for Terrytoons. In 1957, the young animator started trying to convince people that the story could be told in animation.


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: In 1969, the rights were passed to United Artists, where an "elegant" Peter Shaffer script was abandoned. Denis O'Dell was interested in producing a film for The Beatles, and approached directors David Lean (busy with "Ryan's Daughter"), Stanley Kubrick (who deemed it "unfilmable") and Michaelangelo Antonioni. John Boorman was commissioned to write a script in late 1969, but it was deemed too expensive in 1970.


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: Bakshi approached United Artists when he learned (from a 1974 issue of "Variety") that Boorman's script was abandoned. Learning that Boorman intended to produce all three parts of "The Lord of the Rings" as a single film, Bakshi commented, "I thought that was madness, certainly a lack of character on Boorman's part. Why would you want to tamper with anything Tolkien did?" Bakshi began making a "yearly trek" to United Artists. Bakshi had since achieved box office success producing adult-oriented animated films such as "Fritz the Cat" but his recent film, "Coonskin", tanked, and he later clarified that he thought "The Lord of the Rings" could "make some money" so as to save his studio.


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: In 1975, Bakshi convinced United Artists executive Mike Medavoy to produce "The Lord of the Rings" as two or three animated films, and a "Hobbit" prequel. Medavoy offered him Boorman's script, which Bakshi refused, saying that Boorman "didn't understand it" and that his script would have made for a cheap film like "a Roger Corman film". Medavoy accepted Bakshi's proposal to "do the books as close as we can, using Tolkien's exact dialogue and scenes".


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: Although he was later keen to regroup with Boorman for his script (and his surrogate project, "Excalibur"), Bakshi claimed Medavoy didn't want to produce his film at the time, but allowed him to shop it around if he could get another studio to pay for the expenses on Boorman's script. Bakshi attempted unsuccessfully to persuade Peter Bogdanovich to take on the project, but managed to gain the support of the then president of MGM Dan Melnick. Bakshi and Melnick made a deal with Mike Medavoy at United Artists to buy the Boorman script. Bakshi said later that "The Boorman script cost $3 million, so Boorman was happy by the pool, screaming and laughing and drinking, 'cause he got $3 million for his script to be thrown out." Boorman, however, was unhappy with the project going to animation after Tolkien once wrote to him, pleased that he was doing it in live-action. He never saw Bakshi's film, and after it was released, tried to remake his live-action version with Medavoy.


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: Work began on scripts and storyboards. When Melnick was fired from MGM in 1976, Bakshi's studio had spent between $200,000 and $600,000. The new executive Dick Shepherd hadn't read the books and, according to Bakshi, did not want to make the movie; Shepherd obliviously asked whether "The Lord of the Rings" was about a wedding. Bakshi then contacted Saul Zaentz (who had helped finance "Fritz the Cat"), asking him to produce "The Lord of the Rings"; Zaentz agreed.


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: Before production started, Bakshi met with Tolkien's daughter Priscilla to discuss how the film would be made. She showed him the room where her father did his writing and drawing. Bakshi says, "My promise to Tolkien's daughter was to be pure to the book. I wasn't going to say, 'Hey, throw out Gollum and change these two characters.' My job was to say, 'This is what the genius said.'"


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: Bakshi was approached by Mick Jagger, who wanted to play Frodo, but at the time the roles were already cast and recorded. David Carradine also approached Bakshi, offering to play Aragorn, and even suggested that Bakshi do it in live-action; while Bakshi's contract allowed this, he said it couldn't be done and that he'd "always seen it as animation". He said it was impossible to make it in live-action without it being "tacky".


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: Bakshi began developing the script himself. Learning of the project, Chris Conkling got an interview with Bakshi but was initially hired to "do research, to say what the costumes should look like or what the characters would be doing at any given time". Together, they first decided how to break the films down. When they started, they contemplated a three-film structure, but "we didn't know how that middle film would work" without a beginning and an end. Conkling even started writing a treatment for one long, three-and-a-half hour feature of the entire work, but eventually settled on scripts for two 150-minute films, the first of which was titled ""The Lord of the Rings, Part One: The Fellowship"".


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: The second draft of the screenplay, written by Conkling, told the bulk of the story in flashback, from Merry Brandybuck's point of view, so as to lead into the sequel. This version included Tom Bombadil, who rescues the Hobbits from the Barrow Downs, as well as Farmer Maggot, the Old Forest, Glorfindel, Arwen, and several songs. Bakshi felt it was "a much too drastic departure from Tolkien". Conkling began writing a draft that was "more straightforward and true to the source".


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: Still displeased, Bakshi and Zaentz called in fantasy author Peter S. Beagle for a rewrite. Beagle's first draft eliminated the framing device and told the story beginning with Bilbo's Farewell Party, climaxing with the Battle of Helm's Deep, and ending with the cliffhanger of Gollum leading Frodo and Sam to Shelob. The revised draft includes a brief prologue to reveal the history of the Ring. Fans threatened Bakshi that "he'd better get it right" and according to the artist Mike Ploog, Bakshi constantly revised the story to include certain beasts at the behest of such fans.


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: Of the , Bakshi stated that some elements of the story "had to be left out but nothing in the story was really altered". The film greatly condenses Frodo's journey from Bag End to Bree. Stop-overs at Farmer Maggot's house, Frodo's supposed home in Buckland, and the house of the mysterious Tom Bombadil deep in the Old Forest are omitted. Maggot and his family, Bombadil and his wife Goldberry and the encounter with the Barrow-wight are thus all omitted, along with Fatty Bolger, a hobbit who accompanied Frodo at the beginning. According to Bakshi, the character of Tom Bombadil was dropped because "he didn't move the story along."


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: Bakshi said that one of the problems with the production was that the film was an epic, because "epics tend to drag. The biggest challenge was to be true to the book." When asked what he was trying to accomplish with the film, Bakshi stated "The goal was to bring as much quality as possible to the work. I wanted real illustration as opposed to cartoons." Bakshi said that descriptions of the characters were not included because they are seen in the film. He stated that the key thing was not "how a hobbit looks", since everyone has their own idea of such things, but that "the energy of Tolkien survives". In his view what mattered was whether the quality of animation was enough to make the movie work.


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: Bakshi was aware of the work of illustrators like the Brothers Hildebrandt, without accepting that their style had driven his approach; he stated that the film presented a clash of many styles, as in his other films.


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: Publicity for the film announced that Bakshi had created "the first movie painting" by utilizing "an entirely new technique in filmmaking". Much of the film used live-action footage which was then rotoscoped to produce an animated look. This saved production costs and gave the animated characters a more realistic look. In animation historian Jerry Beck's "The Animated Movie Guide", reviewer Marea Boylan writes that "up to that point, animated films had not depicted extensive battle scenes with hundreds of characters. By using the rotoscope, Bakshi could trace highly complex scenes from live-action footage and transform them into animation, thereby taking advantage of the complexity live-action film could capture without incurring the exorbitant costs of producing a live-action film." Bakshi rejected the Disney approach which he thought "cartoony", arguing that his approach, while not traditional for rotoscoping, created a feeling of realism involving up to a thousand characters in a scene.


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: Bakshi went to England to recruit a voice cast from the BBC Drama Repertory Company, including Christopher Guard, William Squire, Michael Scholes, Anthony Daniels, and John Hurt. Daniels remembers that "The whole cast were in the same studio but we all had to leave a two second gap between the lines which made for rather stilted dialogue.""" For the live-action portion of the production, Bakshi and his cast and crew went to Spain, where the rotoscope models acted out their parts in costume in the open or in empty soundstages. Additional photography took place in Death Valley. Bakshi was so terrified of the horses used in the shoot that he directed those scenes from inside the caravan.


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: Bakshi had a difficult working relationship with producer Saul Zaentz. When Saul would bring potential investors to Bakshi's studio, he would always show them the same sequence, of Frodo falling off of his horse at the Ford (which was his stunt double actually falling over).


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: During the middle of a large shoot, union bosses called for a lunch break, and Bakshi secretly shot footage of actors in Orc costumes moving toward the craft service table, and used the footage in the film. Many of the actors who contributed voices to this production also acted out their parts for rotoscoped scenes. The actions of Bilbo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee were performed by Billy Barty, while Sharon Baird served as the performance model for Frodo Baggins. Other performers used on the rotoscoping session included John A. Neris as Gandalf, Walt Robles as Aragorn, Felix Silla as Gollum, Jeri Lea Ray as Galadriel, and Aesop Aquarian as Gimli. Although some cel animation was produced and shot for the film, very little of it appears in the final film. Most of the film's crowd and battle scenes use a different technique, in which live-action footage is solarized (per an interview with the film's cinematographer, Timothy Galfas, in the documentary "Forging Through the Darkness: the Ralph Bakshi Vision for The Lord of the Rings") to produce a more three-dimensional look. In a few shots the two techniques are combined.


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: Bakshi claimed he "didn't start thinking about shooting the film totally in live action until I saw it really start to work so well. I learned lots of things about the process, like rippling. One scene, some figures were standing on a hill and a big gust of wind came up and the shadows moved back and forth on the clothes and it was unbelievable in animation. I don't think I could get the feeling of cold on the screen without showing snow or an icicle on some guy's nose. The characters have weight and they move correctly." After the Spanish film development lab discovered that telephone lines, helicopters, and cars could be seen in the footage Bakshi had shot, they tried to incinerate the footage, telling Bakshi's first assistant director that "if that kind of sloppy cinematography got out, no one from Hollywood would ever come back to Spain to shoot again."


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: Following the live-action shoot, each frame of the live footage was printed out, and placed behind an animation cel. The details of each frame were copied and painted onto the cel. Both the live-action and animated sequences were storyboarded. Of the production, Bakshi is quoted as saying,


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: Although he continued to use rotoscoping in "American Pop", "Hey Good Lookin'", and "Fire and Ice", Bakshi later regretted his use of the technique, stating that he felt that it was a mistake to trace the source footage rather than using it as a guide.


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: By the time Bakshi was done animating, he had only four weeks left to cut the film from a nearly 150-minute rough cut. Restoring a piece of animation where Gandalf fights the Balrog (replaced in the finished film by a photomontage), Eddie Bakshi remarked that little of the film was left on the cutting room floor. Bakshi asked three additional months to edit the film, but was declined. After test-screenings, it was decided to re-cut the end of the picture so that Gollum would resolve leading Frodo and Sam to Shelob before cutting back to Helm's Deep, so as to not end the film on a cliffhanger.


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: Working on the film were Tim Burton, Disney animator Dale Baer, and Mike Ploog, who worked also on other Bakshi animations such as "Wizards".


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: The film score was composed by Leonard Rosenman. Bakshi wanted to include music by Led Zeppelin but producer Saul Zaentz insisted upon an orchestral score because he would not be able to release the band's music on his Fantasy Records label. Rosenman wanted a large score, involving a 100-piece orchestra, 100-piece mixed choir and 100-piece boy choir, but ended up with a smaller ensemble. Bakshi initially called his score "majestic", but later stated that he hated Rosenman's score, which he found to be too cliché.


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: In "Lord of the Rings: Popular Culture in Global Context", Ernest Mathijs writes that Rosenman's score "is a middle ground between his more sonorous but dissonant earlier scores and his more traditional (and less challenging) sounding music [...] In the final analysis, Rosenman's score has little that marks it out as distinctively about Middle Earth, relying on traditions of music (including film music) more than any specific attempt to paint a musical picture of the different lands and peoples of Tolkien's imagination." The film's score was issued as a double-LP soundtrack album in 1978. The album reached number 33 in the Canadian RPM Magazine album charts on February 24, 1979.


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: The film was originally intended to be distributed as "The Lord of the Rings Part I". Initially a trilogy was planned, but this was revised to two planned films because of the limited budget. Arthur Krim resigned from United Artists and was replaced by Andy Albeck. According to Bakshi, when he completed the film, United Artists executives told him that they were planning to release the film without indicating that a sequel would follow, because they felt that audiences would not pay to see half of a film. Bakshi stated that he strongly opposed this, and agreed with the shocked viewers who complained that the film was unfinished. In his view, "Had it said 'Part One,' I think everyone would have respected it."


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: Although UA found that the film, while financially successful, "failed to overwhelm audiences", Bakshi did begin working on a sequel, and even had some B-roll footage shot. "The Film Book of J.R.R. Tolkien's the Lord of the Rings", published by Ballantine Books on October 12, 1978, still referred to the sequel in the book's inside cover jacket. Indeed, in interviews Bakshi talked about doing "a part two film picking up where this leaves off", and even boasted that the second film could "pick up on sequences that we missed in the first book". Zaentz went so far as to try to stop the Rankin-Bass "The Return of the King" TV special (which was already storyboarded before Bakshi's film came out) from airing, so as to not clash with Bakshi's sequel.


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: Bakshi was aware of Rankin/Bass's "The Hobbit" TV special, and angrily commented that ""Lord of the Rings" is not going to have any song for the sake of a record album." During the lawsuit, he commented that "They’re not going to stop us from doing "The Lord of the Rings" and they won’t stop us from doing "The Hobbit." Anyone who saw their version of "The Hobbit" know it has nothing to do with the quality and style of our feature. My life isn’t going to be altered by what Rankin-Bass chooses to do badly.” Years later, he called their film "an awful, rip-off version of "The Hobbit"."


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: Bakshi found the two years spent on "Rings" immensely stressful, and the fan reaction scathing. He took comfort in talking to Priscilla Tolkien, who said she loved it, but got into an argument with Zaentz and refused to do Part Two. Reports vary as to whether the argument had to do with the dropping of the "Part One" subtitle or Bakshi's fee for the sequel.


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: Bakshi said he was "proud to have made part one" and that his work was "there for anyone who would make part two". In interviews leading up to the year 2000, he still toyed with the idea of making the sequel. For his part, Zaentz said he kept in touch with Bakshi, but confided to John Boorman that making the film was the worst experience of his life, which made him protective of the property. Indeed, he commented that the film "wasn't as good as we should have made" and later remarked that an "animated [film] couldn't do it. It was just too complex for animated to handle it, with the emotion that was needed and the size and scope."


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: During development of the live-action films, Bakshi said he was approached by Warner Brothers to make the second part, but refused as he was angry of not being notified about the live-action film. He did use the renewed interest in his film to restore it to DVD, and had the final line redubbed to bolster the film's sense of finality. After the live-action films found success, Bakshi stated that he would never have made the film if he had known what would happen during the production. He is quoted as saying that the reason he made the film was "to save it for Tolkien, because I loved the "Rings" very much".


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: He concluded that the film made him realize that he was not interested in adapting another writer's story.


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: "The Lord of the Rings" was a financial success. Reports of the budget vary from $4 to $8 million, and as high as $12 million, while the film grossed $30.5 million at the United States and Canadian box office. It thus made a profit, having kept its costs low. In the United Kingdom, the film grossed over $3.2 million. Despite this, the reaction from fans was hostile; Jerry Beck writes that they "intensely dislike[d]" the film's "cheap-looking effects and the missing ending", having been misled by the title to expect the film to cover the whole of the book.


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: The film was nominated for a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation. It was nominated for The Saturn Awards for Best Fantasy Film. Leonard Rosenman's score was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Original Motion Picture Score, and Bakshi won a Golden Gryphon award for the film at the Giffoni Film Festival.


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: Critics gave mixed responses to the film, but generally considered it to be a "flawed but inspired interpretation". On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average of . The site's critical consensus reads: "Ralph Bakshi's valiant attempt at rendering Tolkien's magnum opus in rotoscope never lives up to the grandeur of its source material, with a compressed running time that flattens the sweeping story and experimental animation that is more bizarre than magical."


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: Frank Barrow of "The Hollywood Reporter" wrote that the film was "daring and unusual in concept". Joseph Gelmis of "Newsday" wrote that "the film's principal reward is a visual experience unlike anything that other animated features are doing at the moment." Roger Ebert called Bakshi's effort a "mixed blessing" and "an entirely respectable, occasionally impressive job ... [which] still falls far short of the charm and sweep of the original story." Vincent Canby of "The New York Times" called the film "both numbing and impressive".


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: David Denby of "New York" magazine felt that the film would not make sense to viewers who had not previously read the book. Denby wrote that the film was too dark and lacked humour, concluding that "The lurid, meaningless violence of this movie left me exhausted and sickened by the end." Michael Barrier, an animation historian, described "The Lord of The Rings" as one of two films that demonstrated "that Bakshi was utterly lacking in the artistic self-discipline that might have permitted him to outgrow his limitations."


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: Barry Langford, writing in the "J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia", noted the film's deficiencies, including the "glaringly evident" weaknesses in the rotoscoping animation. The quality of rotoscoping from filmed live action is limited by the quality of the acting, which, given the lack of rehearsal and time for retakes, was not high. The prologue was not rotoscoped, but shot as "silhouetted dumb show through red filters", revealing clumsy mime and confused voiceover, announcing that Mordor defeated Elves and Men at the Battle of Dagorlad, which Langford observes would make the rest of the action incomprehensible. The small budget led to underwhelming battle scenes, as in the Mines of Moria where the Fellowship is confronted by what looks like a very small force of Orcs. The rotoscoping varies from strongly drawn to almost absent, leading to a markedly uneven treatment through the film. The characterisation, in Langford's view, similarly leaves much to be desired.


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: The film has been cited as an influence on director Peter Jackson's "The Lord of the Rings" film trilogy, although Jackson said that "our film is stylistically very different and the design is different." Reading about attempts to make the films live-action by Boorman and The Beatles contacting Kubrick and Lean to do the same, Jackson agreed animation was the most sensible choice at the time. Jackson remembers Bakshi's film as a "brave and ambitious attempt". In another interview, Jackson stated that it had "some quaint sequences in Hobbiton, a creepy encounter with the Black Rider on the road, and a few quite good battle scenes" but "about half way through, the storytelling became very disjointed" and it became "confusing" and "incoherent". He and his screenwriter and producer Fran Walsh remarked that Bakshi's Treebeard "looked like a talking carrot". Jackson watched the film for the first time since its premiere in 1997, when Harvey Weinstein screened it to begin the story conferences.


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: Ahead of the films' release, Bakshi said he did not "understand it" but that he does "wish it to be a good movie". He felt bad that he wasn't contacted by Zaentz, who was involved in the project, and erroneously said they were screening his film at New Line while working on the live-action films. Nevertheless, he clarified he wished the filmmakers success. He claims Warner Brothers approached him with a proposal to make part two at the time, but he complained that they didn't involve him in the live-action film, and refused.


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: After the films were released Bakshi said that while, "on the creative side", he does "feel good that Peter Jackson continued," he begrudged Saul Zaentz for not notifying him of the live-action films. He said that, with his own film already made, Jackson could study it: "I'm glad Peter Jackson had a movie to look at—I never did. And certainly there's a lot to learn from watching any movie, both its mistakes and when it works. So he had a little easier time than I did, and a lot better budget."


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: Bakshi had never watched the films, but saw trailers and while he praised the special effects, he said that Jackson "didn't understand" Tolkien and created "special effects garbage" to sell toys, saying his film has "more heart" and that, had he a similar budget, would have made a better film. Bakshi was told the live-action film was derivative of his own, and blamed Jackson for not acknowledging this influence: "Peter Jackson did say that the first film inspired him to go on and do the series, but that happened after I was bitching and moaning to a lot of interviewers that he said at the beginning that he never saw the movie. I thought that was kind of fucked up." Bakshi then said that Jackson mentioned his influence "only once" as "PR bologny". Jackson, who took a fan photograph with Bakshi in 1993, remains puzzled about Bakshi's indignation. In 2015, Bakshi apologized for some of his remarks. Bakshi's animator Mike Ploog praised the live-action film.


title: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

text: In fact, Jackson did acknowledge Bakshi's film as early as 1998, when he told a worried fan that he hoped to outdo Bakshi, as well as mentioning in the behind-the-scenes features that "the black Riders galloping out of Bree was an image I remember very clearly [...] from the Ralph Bakshi film." In the audio commentary to "The Fellowship of the Ring", Jackson says Bakshi's film introduced him to "The Lord of the Rings" and "inspired me to read the book" and in a 2001 interview, said he "enjoyed [the film] and wanted to know more". On the audio commentary for the DVD release of "", Jackson acknowledges one shot, a low angle of a hobbit at Bilbo's birthday party shouting "Proudfeet!", as an intentional homage to Bakshi's film, which Jackson thought was "a brilliant angle".