The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

On screen and on air the people are represented almost entirely by the few individuals the stories follow. Orson Bean voiced Bilbo in the Rankin/Bass television film of the earlier novel, and took the part of Frodo as well in the same studio's version of the last part of the longer book, where Roddy McDowall played Samwise. Bakshi's film cast Christopher Guard as Frodo, Michael Scholes as Sam, Dominic Guard as Pippin and Simon Chandler as Merry, their movement drawn in part over filmed actors. The BBC dramatisation used Ian Holm as Frodo, Bill Nighy as Sam and John Le Mesurier as Bilbo; Holm returned two decades later as Bilbo for Peter Jackson, whose four travellers were Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan, with Martin Freeman taking the younger Bilbo in the second trilogy. Difference of stature there was managed by forced perspective, doubled sets built to two scales, and stand-ins of smaller build rather than by any effect applied to the actors.

The departures are consistent in one respect: the domestic material at either end of the book is the first thing cut. Bakshi, the radio series and Jackson all pass over the Old Forest, Tom Bombadil and the Barrow-downs, and Jackson additionally compresses the long interval between the birthday party and the departure from Bag End, brings Merry and Pippin into the journey by accident instead of by the deliberate conspiracy of the novel, and drops the return home altogether, so that the four come back to a country that has never been occupied and needs no setting right. The Rankin/Bass treatment of the last part begins with the quest already far advanced and leaves most of the earlier narrative unrepresented. The radio version, longest of the older adaptations, is the only one of them to dramatise the retaking of the Shire.

The older adaptations give the sword much less room. Ralph Bakshi's animated film, which halts after Helm's Deep, compresses the Council of Elrond severely and passes over the smithwork and the naming; Aragorn, voiced by John Hurt, simply appears armed, and the blade is never distinguished from any other weapon in the picture. The Rankin/Bass television film of the last part of the story, in which Theodore Bikel voiced Aragorn, likewise omits the whole Rivendell strand, since it begins long after the Company has dispersed. The BBC Radio dramatisation, being the fullest of the three, is also the closest here: its twenty-six parts retain the broken heirloom as Aragorn's credential and the reforging before the departure from Rivendell, with Robert Stephens as Aragorn. Radio, of course, can carry the device on the blade only by describing it, so the sword exists in that version as a matter of speech and title rather than of appearance, and its weight in the drama rests almost entirely on how other characters react to hearing its name.

Aragorn has appeared in most dramatizations of The Lord of the Rings. In Ralph Bakshi's animated film of 1978 he was voiced by John Hurt, and in the Rankin/Bass animated television film The Return of the King (1980) by Theodore Bikel. The BBC radio serial of 1981 cast Robert Stephens in the role. In Peter Jackson's live-action trilogy (2001–2003) Aragorn was played by Viggo Mortensen, who joined the production at short notice after filming had already begun, replacing the originally cast Stuart Townsend.

The older adaptations move in the opposite direction. Ralph Bakshi's animated film leaves her out altogether: it covers only the first half of the story, and the rescue at the ford is given to Legolas rather than to any member of Elrond's household, so that the character has no occasion to appear at all. The BBC Radio dramatisation, though the fullest of the earlier versions at twenty-six parts, keeps her at the margins for a structural reason — nearly everything the book records of her lies in the appendices rather than in the chapters, and the series works from the narrative proper.

In every adaptation of The Lord of the Rings he is a discovery rather than a character, and no performer is credited for him. Jackson's earlier trilogy keeps him as the tomb in the Chamber of Mazarbul, with Gimli's grief supplying what the book supplies at greater length, and the recovered record reduced to a few read passages; Bakshi's unfinished animated film treats the same burial chamber more briefly within a compressed Moria sequence. The BBC Radio dramatisation, having the room of a twenty-six-part serial, follows the novel most closely here and lets the account of the colony's end be read out at length. He falls outside the Rankin/Bass Return of the King entirely, since that film begins after Moria; in the same studio's Hobbit the thirteen dwarves are so heavily condensed that little beyond Thorin is individuated, and Balin has no distinct role.

The Moria episode has been carried into every screen and radio version that reaches it, and in each the creature is mute, so there is no speaking credit to record. Ralph Bakshi's animated film gave it its first screen appearance, with Gandalf voiced by William Squire; like much of that production the sequence was built over live-action reference footage rather than drawn free. The BBC Radio 4 dramatisation, the longest of the older adaptations at twenty-six parts, has no visual problem to solve and renders the thing entirely in sound against Michael Hordern's Gandalf, keeping both the confrontation at the bridge and the wizard's later account of what followed close to the order the book gives them. Peter Jackson's trilogy realised the demon digitally, again without a credited performer, and made its clearest structural change in the handling of that account: where the novel leaves the pursuit through the mountain and the fight on the peak to be reported in retrospect, the films show the fall and the running battle directly, beginning the second instalment with them.

The older adaptations reach the tower only partially, or not at all. Ralph Bakshi's animated film covers roughly the first half of the story and breaks off after the fighting at Helm's Deep, its planned second part never made, so that Mordor's fortress stays a matter of narration and distant threat and its destruction never arrives on screen. The Rankin/Bass television film of 1980 takes up the closing part of the story independently of Bakshi's unfinished version, condensing it into a television hour built around song and framing narration, with the result that the tower's end registers as a brief consequence of the Ring's unmaking rather than as the long-prepared collapse of the book's ending. The BBC Radio 4 dramatisation, running to twenty-six half-hour parts, has no images to offer and conveys the tower entirely through speech, narration and sound design; its greater length lets it keep episodes the films abridge or cut, including the embassy sent out from the tower to treat with the captains of the West.

Earlier adaptations diverge in opposite directions. Ralph Bakshi's animated film of 1978 passes over the episode entirely, so that Beren goes unmentioned. The BBC radio serial of 1981, by contrast, retains the scene in fuller form: Aragorn, voiced by Robert Stephens, performs the song of Beren and Lúthien in an English text set to newly composed music by Stephen Oliver, preserving the narrative frame in which a company on the road hears a tale of the Elder Days. Across all of these versions Beren remains a figure of reported story rather than a dramatized character, his deeds conveyed at one remove through song or allusion.

Bilbo has been portrayed across the major screen and radio versions of both books. In the Rankin/Bass animated television film of The Hobbit (1977) he was voiced by Orson Bean, who returned to the role in the same studio's The Return of the King (1980); in Ralph Bakshi's animated The Lord of the Rings (1978) he was voiced by Norman Bird. The BBC's 1968 radio serial of The Hobbit cast Paul Daneman as Bilbo, and in the 1981 BBC radio dramatization of The Lord of the Rings the part was taken by John Le Mesurier — alongside Ian Holm as Frodo, the actor who two decades later played the elderly Bilbo in Peter Jackson's film trilogy (2001–2003). In Jackson's three-part film adaptation of The Hobbit (2012–2014) the young Bilbo was played by Martin Freeman, with Holm reappearing in framing scenes as the old hobbit writing his memoir.

Boromir has been voiced or played in three widely circulated adaptations. In Ralph Bakshi's animated film he is voiced by Michael Graham Cox, who took the part again in the BBC Radio 4 dramatisation three years later, so that the same voice stands behind the two older versions. Bakshi's film keeps the essential shape of the character's arc — the Council at Rivendell, the passage of the mountains and the mines, the attempt on Frodo, and his death under orc arrows — but compresses the surrounding material heavily; because the film breaks off after Helm's Deep and never introduces Faramir, everything the book places after the death is simply absent, including the brother who watches the river and the shards of the horn carried back to the city. The radio series, running to twenty-six parts, has room for far more and is generally the closest of the older adaptations to the text, retaining Boromir's argument at the Council, the dream shared between the two brothers, and the sequence at Parth Galen in something near its written order.

Nothing beyond that had been settled through the seasons broadcast to date. The older screen adaptations do not supply the balance. Ralph Bakshi's animated film breaks off after Helm's Deep, and the Rankin/Bass television film of 1980 takes up the closing part of the story without returning to Lothlórien, so that the events in which Celeborn acts on his own account—the crossing of Anduin, the taking of the fortress, the division of the forest afterwards—have never been dramatised for the screen at all.

No other adaptation gives him a part. The dramatisations of The Lord of the Rings are set in the Third Age, long after his death, and none introduces him in flashback: he has no speaking presence in the BBC radio series, in Ralph Bakshi's animated film, or in Peter Jackson's trilogy, and in the last of these the attribution of the western gate of Moria to him and to the Dwarf Narvi, which Gandalf makes in the novel, is not carried over into the film's dialogue.

In the BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of 1981 Denethor is spoken by Peter Vaughan. Being the fullest of the older adaptations, that version keeps the shape of the book's account, including the Steward's use of the seeing-stone and the reasoning that follows from it, so that his fall retains its cause; the constraints of twenty-six half-hour episodes nevertheless reduce him largely to the events of the siege, with little of the earlier reign surviving. He has no place at all in the animated films of the same period: Ralph Bakshi's version of 1978 breaks off after Helm's Deep and never reaches the affairs of Minas Tirith, so the character is not introduced there.

The earliest screen Dwarves are those of the Rankin/Bass television film of 1977, in which Hans Conried voiced Thorin Oakenshield; the compression of the novel into some ninety minutes leaves the remaining twelve of the company with little to distinguish one from another, and the battle before the mountain is reduced to a brief sequence with much of its dynastic background removed. Ralph Bakshi's animated film of the following year introduced Gimli, voiced by David Buck, but because the adaptation halts after Helm's Deep it carries none of the later episodes in which his standing among the Elves is settled, and the Dwarvish history of the appendices is set aside altogether. The BBC Radio dramatisation of 1981 gave the part to Douglas Livingstone and, being the fullest of the older versions, kept more of his exchanges with Legolas and with the Elves of Lórien than either animated film had room for.

Earlier and later adaptations cast the figure differently. In the Rankin/Bass animated television film of The Hobbit (1977) Elrond is voiced by Cyril Ritchard, and in Ralph Bakshi's animated The Lord of the Rings (1978) by André Morell. Jackson's Hobbit trilogy (2012–2014) returns Hugo Weaving to the role and enlarges it beyond the novel: Elrond attends a White Council meeting shown on screen and joins an invented assault on Dol Guldur to free Gandalf.

The Elves reached the screen first in the Rankin/Bass television film of the shorter novel, where Elrond was voiced by Cyril Ritchard and the wood-elves of the forest keep their part in the story, though the compression to roughly ninety minutes leaves them little room. Ralph Bakshi's animated film of the following year gave Legolas to Anthony Daniels, Elrond to André Morell and Galadriel to Annette Crosbie; because the film breaks off after the fighting at Helm's Deep, the elven strand of the narrative is reduced to the council, the passage through the golden wood and the gifts that follow, and Glorfindel's part at the flight to the Ford is transferred to Legolas. The same studio's later television film of the last volume keeps the Elves largely to a framing scene in Rivendell. The most faithful of the older versions is the BBC radio dramatisation in twenty-six parts, with Hugh Dickson as Elrond, David Collings as Legolas and Marian Diamond as Galadriel; its length allows the elven episodes, including the meeting with the wandering company on the road out of the Shire, to be played out at something near their proper weight.

The Ents have fared unevenly in adaptation, largely because their part of the story sits at the seam where most abridgements cut. Ralph Bakshi's animated film reaches only as far as the battle at Helm's Deep, and its treatment of Fangorn is correspondingly brief: Treebeard appears when Merry and Pippin flee into the forest and carries them off, but the Entmoot, the summoning of the scattered Ents and the ruin of Isengard all fall beyond the point where the film breaks off, so that the race is glimpsed rather than given a role. The BBC Radio 4 dramatisation, working at twenty-six half-hour instalments, had room for the full sequence and keeps it close to the book, retaining the slow deliberation of the Entmoot as well as the march on Saruman's stronghold; Treebeard is played there by Stephen Thorne, whose reading leans on the unhurried cadence the text ascribes to Entish speech.

The films also simplify what surrounds him. Prince Imrahil does not appear at all, so it is Éomer who finds his sister among the fallen before Minas Tirith, and the marriage into the house of Dol Amroth that follows in the book has no place in the adaptation. Théoden's dying words are given to Éowyn rather than used to name an heir, and although Éomer is present at Aragorn's crowning, his own accession, his by-name and the long reign that follows are left outside the story the films tell. The BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of 1981, which runs to twenty-six parts and is by some distance the most complete of the earlier adaptations, has room for the sequence the films rearrange, and keeps his disgrace at court and his release in the form the book gives them. Ralph Bakshi's animated film of 1978 breaks off after Helm's Deep and so reaches none of his later career; the intended second part that would have covered it was never made.

The Pelennor scenes follow the book's outline, with the winged steed destroyed and the Lord of the Nazgûl brought down after Meriadoc's stroke from behind, though the older prophecy that underwrites the moment goes unmentioned and the Barrow-blade's particular virtue is not explained. The aftermath is where the adaptation diverges most sharply: Aragorn's healing in the Houses of Healing is compressed almost out of the theatrical cut, Faramir and Éowyn's courtship survives only as a brief passage in the extended edition, and their marriage and settlement in Ithilien are not shown. Earlier screen versions treat her still more summarily. Ralph Bakshi's animated film of 1978, which ends with the battle at Helm's Deep, leaves her out of the Edoras material altogether, so that she has no part in it. The BBC's twenty-six-part radio dramatisation of 1981, being far fuller in scope, retains her withheld ride, the deed on the Pelennor, and the recovery and betrothal that follow it.

The forest reaches the screen for the first time in Ralph Bakshi's animated film, and only just: the two hobbits break away from the Orcs and pass under the trees near the end of the running time, where the eldest Ent appears in a single short sequence. Because the film stops after the fighting at Helm's Deep, everything the wood does in the second half of the book is absent — there is no council among the trees, no march on Isengard, and no shadow of moving trees on the battlefield — so the forest functions purely as a refuge and never as a combatant. The BBC Radio 4 dramatisation, being far longer, keeps the whole sequence: Stephen Thorne plays the wood's oldest inhabitant, the council and its decision are dramatised at length, and the assault on the wizard's ring of stone is carried in narration and sound rather than dropped. Of the older versions it is the one in which the forest retains the structural role the novel gives it.

The fullest of the older versions is the BBC Radio 4 dramatisation broadcast in 1981, adapted by Brian Sibley and Michael Bakewell, in which Faramir is played by Andrew Seear. Its twenty-six half-hour episodes leave room for the Ithilien material at something near its written length, so that the questioning at the refuge, the decision not to take the Ring, and the later scenes of convalescence in Minas Tirith are all retained, including the attachment to Éowyn that shorter adaptations tend to drop. Ralph Bakshi's animated film of 1978 does not reach the character at all: it follows the story only as far as the battle at Helm's Deep and breaks off there, before the hobbits' road through Ithilien, and the second part that would have contained him was never produced.

Frodo has been portrayed in every major dramatization of The Lord of the Rings. In Ralph Bakshi's animated film of 1978, which covers roughly the first half of the story, he was voiced by Christopher Guard; in the Rankin/Bass animated television film The Return of the King (1980) the part was spoken by Orson Bean. The BBC radio serial of 1981 cast Ian Holm as Frodo — the same actor who two decades later played the elderly Bilbo in Peter Jackson's live-action trilogy (2001–2003), in which Frodo was played by Elijah Wood. Wood reprised the role briefly in the prologue framing of Jackson's first Hobbit film (2012).

Galadriel has appeared in most major adaptations of The Lord of the Rings. In Ralph Bakshi's animated film of 1978 she was voiced by Annette Crosbie, and in the BBC radio dramatisation of 1981 by Marian Diamond. The distribution of her gifts to the Fellowship, part of the theatrical narrative in the book, was included only in the extended edition of the first film.

Gandalf has been portrayed across animation, radio, and live-action film. In the Rankin/Bass animated television film of The Hobbit (1977) and its later companion piece The Return of the King (1980), the character was voiced by John Huston; in Ralph Bakshi's animated The Lord of the Rings (1978), which covers roughly the first half of the story, William Squire provided the voice. Michael Hordern played Gandalf in the BBC radio serialisation of The Lord of the Rings (1981). The most widely known portrayal is that of Ian McKellen, who played the wizard in Peter Jackson's live-action film trilogies The Lord of the Rings (2001–2003) and The Hobbit (2012–2014), receiving an Academy Award nomination for the first film.

In Ralph Bakshi's animated film Gimli is voiced by David Buck, who also spoke several other parts in the same production. Because much of the animation was traced from live-action performers, the Dwarf is drawn at a stature closer to that of the Men around him than the text allows, and the difference of height on which several of his scenes depend is largely lost. The film's compression tells against him more than against most of the company: the passage through Lothlórien is abbreviated to the point that the quarrel at the borders and the parting gift disappear, and since the picture breaks off after the fighting at the Hornburg, the whole of his later part — the caverns, the road under the mountains, the settlement in the south — is simply outside its scope. The BBC Radio 4 dramatisation, which had twenty-six half-hour parts to work in and is generally reckoned the closest of the older versions to the book, casts Douglas Livingstone in the role and keeps both the Lórien episode and the Dwarf's share of the campaign in Gondor.

Glorfindel has fared badly in adaptation, chiefly because the one scene in which the published novel gives him work to do is also the scene most often reassigned. Ralph Bakshi's animated film of 1978 cuts him altogether: the ride to the Ford of Bruinen is carried by Aragorn and the hobbits alone, and no Elf-lord comes out from Rivendell to meet them on the road. Since that film breaks off after Helm's Deep and never reaches the council in Elrond's house in the form the book gives it, the character's later contributions disappear with him. The BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of 1981, running to twenty-six half-hour parts, is the exception among the older versions: its greater length allows it to keep the encounter on the East Road and the crossing at the flooded ford substantially as written, with Glorfindel present and named, and it is generally the adaptation cited when the character's fate elsewhere is discussed.

Gollum has appeared in nearly every dramatisation of the books. In the Rankin/Bass animated television film of The Hobbit (1977) he was voiced by Brother Theodore, who returned for the same studio's The Return of the King (1980), where the character was drawn as a distinctly frog-like, greenish creature. In Ralph Bakshi's animated The Lord of the Rings (1978) the voice was supplied by Peter Woodthorpe, who played the part again in the BBC's 1981 radio serial of the novel.

In the older versions the realm is thinner. Ralph Bakshi's animated film breaks off after Helm's Deep, so Gondor exists in it only as Boromir's report at Rivendell, voiced by Michael Graham Cox, who took the same part again in the radio dramatisation three years later. The Rankin/Bass television film takes up the final volume alone and compresses it to about ninety minutes, with William Conrad as Denethor and John Huston as Gandalf; the Paths of the Dead, the fleets and the muster of the fiefs are dropped, and much of the war is carried by narration and song. The twenty-six-part radio serial has room for what the screen versions cut, and Peter Vaughan's Denethor is given the long arguments with Gandalf and with Faramir at length.

Ralph Bakshi's animated film treats the battle quite differently, using it as the point at which the adaptation stops: because the intended continuation was never produced, the reversal at the ravine ends the film outright and acquires a conclusiveness it does not carry in the novel, where it is a middle episode overtaken almost immediately by events at Isengard. The BBC Radio 4 dramatisation, spread across twenty-six half-hour instalments, has room to follow the book's course of the siege closely and keeps the sequence of outer rampart, breached wall, withdrawal to the fortress and morning sortie substantially as written; being a sound medium, it conveys the ravine's scale and the horn-call through voice and effect rather than through any visual account of the place.

The older adaptations treat the fortress more sparingly. Ralph Bakshi's animated film, which breaks off after Helm's Deep, never reaches Isengard's overthrow at all; the Ents do not appear, and Saruman, voiced by Fraser Kerr, is left undefeated when the film ends, the planned continuation that would have covered the ruin of the vale never having been made. The film is also notable for renaming the wizard in part of its dialogue, out of concern that Saruman and Sauron would be confused by listeners. The BBC Radio 4 dramatisation, running to twenty-six parts, is the fullest of the earlier versions and follows the book's handling closely: Isengard's destruction is conveyed through the hobbits' account rather than dramatised as action, and the long verbal contest at the foot of Orthanc, with Peter Howell as Saruman, is kept substantially intact, along with the wizard's survival and his later reappearance in the Shire.

In Peter Jackson's film trilogy Isildur is played by Harry Sinclair and appears chiefly in the prologue of the first film, which compresses the whole of the Last Alliance into a few minutes of narrated exposition. The most consequential change is that the refusal to unmake the Ring is staged rather than reported: Elrond leads Isildur into the fire-chamber of Orodruin and presses him at the brink itself, and Isildur turns away in silence, so that a decision the book presents through later counsel and hindsight becomes a scene played out on the mountain. The films also make Sauron's ruin instantaneous and physical, his armoured form bursting apart in a shockwave the moment the Ring is cut from his hand, where the written account describes a spirit that fled and a body undone. The ambush by the river is reduced to a brief sequence in which Isildur is alone; his sons, his escort and the esquire who carried away the shards of the sword do not appear, and the fragments are simply shown afterwards in Rivendell. Ralph Bakshi's earlier animated film treats the same material as a stylised narrated prologue in a technique distinct from the rest of the picture, and gives Isildur no speaking part, while the BBC radio dramatisation, for all its fullness, keeps him entirely in report.

In the older adaptations Legolas is a subordinate presence, kept close to his function in the narrative and given little beyond it. Ralph Bakshi's animated film of 1978 uses Anthony Daniels for the voice; because that film carries the story only to the battle at the Hornburg and no continuation was made, everything belonging to the later part of his role — the southern road, the coast, the settlement in Ithilien — falls outside it altogether. The BBC Radio 4 dramatisation broadcast in 1981, in twenty-six parts, casts David Collings in the role, and the greater running time allows the part to be carried through to the end of the story with the Sea-longing and the friendship with the Dwarf both retained as spoken material rather than compressed away. Neither production adds a scene for him that the book does not supply.

Ralph Bakshi's animated film reaches the wood but has little room for it. The halt is reduced to a brief episode, Galadriel is voiced by Annette Crosbie, and the long stay that occupies several chapters of the book is passed over in a few minutes of screen time; the departure from the realm leads more or less directly to the river journey, so that the parting gifts and their later uses drop out of a story that in any case breaks off after Helm's Deep. The BBC Radio 4 serial, running to twenty-six parts, has the space the film lacked and uses it: Galadriel is played by Marian Diamond, and the dramatisation keeps both the questioning of the company and the scene at the Mirror, together with the giving of gifts before the boats are launched. Of the older television adaptations neither has any occasion for the realm — the Rankin/Bass Hobbit precedes the events entirely, and the same studio's Return of the King takes up the story after the Fellowship has left the wood behind.

In Ralph Bakshi's animated version of 1978 Merry was voiced by Simon Chandler. Because that film begins the journey without the Old Forest, the Barrow-downs or Tom Bombadil, the conspiracy at Crickhollow and the origin of the hobbit's Westernesse dagger disappear with them, and Merry enters the story simply as one of Frodo's companions on the road east; since the film stops after the fighting at Helm's Deep, his service to Théoden and his part in the great battle before Minas Tirith were never reached. The BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of 1981, in which Richard O'Callaghan took the role, is the fuller treatment: its twenty-six parts keep the character's arc essentially intact, including the return to the Shire and its rising, which most screen versions drop, although the radio series likewise passes over Bombadil and the episodes in the Old Forest.

The city has fared unevenly on screen. Ralph Bakshi's animated film never reaches it: the picture breaks off after the fighting at Helm's Deep and the intended second part was never produced, so Gondor's capital lies entirely outside its compass. The Rankin/Bass television film of 1980 takes up the closing part of the story instead, with John Huston voicing Gandalf and William Conrad voicing Denethor, but its running time of roughly ninety minutes obliges it to compress the siege severely and to summarise events it had not itself dramatised, since it does not continue Bakshi's film. Peter Jackson's trilogy gives the city by far the fullest treatment, making it the principal setting of the third film, with John Noble as Denethor; the earlier two films glimpse it only in passing. As in the older animated films, the city is realised through design and effects work rather than through any single performer associated with it, so the adaptations are compared chiefly by what they keep of the book's material.

Adaptations of The Lord of the Rings necessarily treat the wood as background, since the story itself never enters it. Jackson's earlier trilogy accordingly gives it no scenes, identifying Legolas only by his origin in the Woodland Realm and passing over the account of Gollum's captivity there; Bakshi's animated film likewise condenses the Council of Elrond sharply and drops most of what the chapter reports about events in the east. The BBC Radio dramatisation, having twenty-six half-hour parts at its disposal, has room for a good deal more of that reported material and preserves the forest chiefly as a place spoken of rather than reached, with Legolas voiced by David Collings.

Because Ralph Bakshi's animated film breaks off after Helm's Deep, Mordor never becomes a setting in it at all: the realm is present only as the place the Black Riders come from and as the location of the Ring's making in the film's opening sequence, which is handled in traced silhouette rather than as a depicted country. The Rankin/Bass television film of 1980 takes up the last part of the story and is therefore the earliest screen version to show the crossing of the land, though ninety minutes reduce the passage to a few episodes, and a large part of the interior journey is carried by a marching song given to the orcs — a musical device with no counterpart in the narrative. Neither film has room for the watered south or for the distinction between the ash-plain and the valley behind the inner ridge. The BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of 1981, in twenty-six half-hour parts, has no pictures to supply and builds the country out of narration and the acoustics of tunnels, stairs and enclosed towers; being the most complete of the older adaptations, it keeps more of the stages of the approach and the crossing than the film versions attempt, with Ian Holm as Frodo and Bill Nighy as Sam.

The underground crossing has been carried over into every long-form adaptation that reaches the second book, though the treatments differ sharply in scale. Ralph Bakshi's animated film of 1978 retains the sequence but compresses it heavily: the western doors, the tomb chamber and the fall at the bridge follow one another almost without interval, so that the days of groping through the dark that the novel describes are lost, and Gandalf, voiced by William Squire, absorbs much of the explanation the book distributes among several speakers. The rotoscoped technique used throughout the film is applied to the pursuing Orc-host, which gives the flight through the halls a different texture from the passages around it. The BBC Radio dramatisation of 1981 is the more faithful of the two: working in twenty-six half-hour parts, it gives the passage room to unfold at something close to the pace of the chapters, with Michael Hordern as Gandalf and Ian Holm as Frodo, and it conveys the place entirely through echo, drumbeat and the naming of halls. Its departures are almost all of abridgement rather than invention.

In the screen and radio versions the Red Ring is almost as reticent as it is in the book, with the difference that most of them never disclose it at all. Peter Jackson's trilogy names the Three collectively in its opening narration but gives none of them a name, and although Nenya is worn visibly by Galadriel and Elrond keeps a ring of his own, the film Gandalf — played by Ian McKellen, who returned to the part in the later Hobbit films — is never identified as a Ring-bearer. The scene at the Havens with which the last film closes is built entirely around the departure of the hobbits, so the disclosure that ends the book has no counterpart on screen; a viewer of the films alone would have no reason to suspect that Gandalf carried one of the Three. Ralph Bakshi's animated version cannot reach the question, since it breaks off after Helm's Deep, and the Rankin/Bass television film that takes up the last part of the story does so without reference to the Elven-rings held by those who sail. The BBC Radio 4 dramatisation, the most complete of the older adaptations, follows the narrative to the Grey Havens with Michael Hordern as Gandalf, but the ring's earlier history belongs to the appendices, which none of these versions treat.

Every screen and radio version has had to deal with the Nine early, and the older ones differ chiefly in the means available to them. In Ralph Bakshi's animated film of 1978 the riders were among the figures worked up from live-action footage rather than drawn outright, which gives them a texture distinct from the surrounding animation; because the film breaks off after Helm's Deep, only the pursuit from the Shire to the Ford of Bruinen is covered, and the later history of the Nine is never reached. The BBC Radio dramatisation of 1981, in twenty-six half-hour parts, is the fullest of the older treatments and keeps the shape of the hunt substantially as the book has it, the wraiths being conveyed by voice and sound alone. The Rankin/Bass television film of 1980 begins after the point at which the other two versions leave off and so encounters the Nine only in the last war; its chief episode involving them is the fall of their leader on the Pelennor, retained within a narrative otherwise heavily compressed.

The earliest screen versions keep the nomenclature of the books they adapt: the Rankin/Bass television Hobbit of 1977 calls the creatures beneath the Misty Mountains goblins throughout, and compresses their role heavily, reducing the battle before the Lonely Mountain to a few largely narrated minutes. Bakshi's film of the following year, whose animation was traced in large part from filmed live-action performers, accordingly gives its Orc-hosts the bulk and gait of human actors rather than of drawn design; because the film breaks off after the battle at Helm's Deep, its Orcs are only ever Saruman's and Sauron's field armies, and the garrison quarrels of Mordor lie outside it entirely. The Rankin/Bass Return of the King of 1980 takes up the later part of the story and gives its Orcs a marching song, a musical number with no counterpart in Tolkien's text. The BBC Radio dramatisation of 1981, the most complete of the older adaptations at twenty-six parts, is correspondingly the one that preserves most of the Orc material the animated films had no room for, including the disputes among the captains of the pass.

The BBC Radio 4 dramatisation preserves both strands. It devotes an episode to the Orthanc-stone and retains Gandalf's exposition of the stones' history and of Saruman's entrapment through his own, with Michael Hordern as Gandalf, Peter Howell as Saruman and Robert Stephens as Aragorn; Denethor, played by Peter Vaughan, keeps his use of the Anor-stone and the disclosure of it at his death. Ralph Bakshi's animated film has no occasion for the object at all, since it breaks off after Helm's Deep, before the point in the narrative at which the stone first comes into the story.

In Ralph Bakshi's animated film of 1978 the part was spoken by Dominic Guard, whose brother Christopher voiced Frodo. Because that film covers only the earlier half of the story and stops after the fighting at Helm's Deep, Peregrin's role is confined to the journey out of the Shire, the breaking of the Fellowship and the escape into Fangorn; the seeing-stone, the service in Minas Tirith and the return home lie beyond its ending, and the sequel that would have contained them was never produced. The film also passes over the Old Forest and the Barrow-downs, so the Westernesse blade and the circumstances in which the hobbits obtained their weapons are absent. The BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of 1981, in which John McAndrew took the role, is far more complete: spread over twenty-six half-hour parts, it retains the episode at Orthanc, the oath sworn to the Steward, the march to the Black Gate and the disorders in the Shire, and is generally reckoned the closest of the older versions to the printed text, though it too dispenses with Tom Bombadil.

The valley reached the screen first in the Rankin/Bass television film of 1977, where the halt at Elrond's house survives the general compression of the novel largely because the moon-letters on the dwarves' map are needed for what follows; Elrond was voiced by Cyril Ritchard. Ralph Bakshi's animated film of the following year, with André Morell as Elrond, keeps the valley as a waypoint but reduces the deliberation held there to a short scene, which has the effect of turning a decision reached by many voices into an announcement. The same studio's Return of the King of 1980 makes a different use of the place: rather than an episode it becomes a frame, the film returning throughout to a celebration of Bilbo's birthday in Elrond's house at which the war is recounted in retrospect by a minstrel of Gondor — a device the book does not employ. The BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of 1981, in twenty-six half-hour parts, is the version that preserves most of what is spoken in the valley, since its length allows the council to proceed as an argument rather than a summary; Elrond was played there by Hugh Dickson.

The older adaptations treat the country more thinly. Bakshi's animated film reaches the fortress and stops there, so the realm appears only as a hall and a siege, with the riders among the sequences traced from live-action footage; Théoden is voiced by Philip Stone, and the king's niece is cut from the story altogether, which removes the whole strand of service refused and duty disguised. The Rankin/Bass television film takes up the last part of the war without continuing from Bakshi, and compresses the horsemen's part in it to a brief intervention. The BBC radio dramatisation, in twenty-six half-hour parts, has room the others lack and follows the book's order closely through the Rohan chapters; Jack May speaks Théoden, and the court scenes are carried by dialogue and horns rather than by the visual ceremony the films favour.

The older adaptations treat the Mark very differently in scope. Ralph Bakshi's animated film reaches Helm's Deep and stops there, so the Rohirrim are seen only in their defensive war against Isengard and never ride to Gondor; Théoden is voiced by Philip Stone and Wormtongue by Michael Deacon, while Éowyn has no part in the film at all. The BBC Radio 4 dramatisation, running to twenty-six parts, has room for the fuller shape of the Rohirric material, keeping the muster, the ride south and Éowyn's concealed part in it; Théoden is voiced there by Jack May.

Sam has been a substantial part in every full dramatisation of The Lord of the Rings. In Ralph Bakshi's animated film of 1978 he was voiced by Michael Scholes; since that version breaks off after the battle at Helm's Deep, his story ends on the road east under Gollum's guidance, with the pass of Cirith Ungol never reached. The Rankin/Bass animated television film of the following year, which adapts only the closing volume and frames it as a minstrel's song at Bilbo's birthday feast in Rivendell, gives the part to Roddy McDowall and reduces the rescue at the tower to a brief episode. The BBC radio serial of 1981, the longest and closest of the dramatisations, cast Bill Nighy as Sam and retained material the film versions omit, including the return to an occupied Shire.

Earlier adaptations treated the character unevenly. In Ralph Bakshi's animated film of 1978, Saruman was voiced by Fraser Kerr; concerned that audiences might confuse the names Saruman and Sauron, the production rendered his name inconsistently, with characters at times calling him 'Aruman'. The BBC's 1981 radio dramatization of The Lord of the Rings, by contrast, kept the character close to the text, with Peter Howell in the role, and retained the Shire episode that the later films discarded.

The older adaptations keep him at a distance. Ralph Bakshi's unfinished film confines him to its introductory summary and gives him nothing to speak, and the BBC dramatisation, though the most complete of the early versions and generally close to the book, allows him no speaking presence at all, conveying him wholly through what other characters say of him.

The BBC Radio 4 dramatisation faces a difficulty peculiar to the medium, since a horse carries no dialogue and therefore no cast credit; Shadowfax exists there only in what other characters say of him and in sound, which throws the emphasis onto the Rohirrim's estimation of the animal rather than onto his physical presence. Ralph Bakshi's animated film breaks off after Helm's Deep, so the later journeys that define the horse's part in the story fall outside its scope altogether.

Because the Ring is an object and not a person, adaptations differ chiefly in how much presence they are willing to give it. The BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of 1981, in twenty-six half-hour parts, is the most complete of the older versions and generally the most faithful, and it necessarily conveys the Ring's working through narration and through what the bearers say of it; its one substantial loss to this entity is the excision of the Old Forest, which removes the single episode in which the Ring visibly fails to take hold of anyone. Ralph Bakshi's animated film of 1978 sets out the making and the loss of the Ring in an opening sequence, moving that history in front of the story instead of leaving it to the wizard's explanation partway through; since the film breaks off after Helm's Deep and the intended second part was never made, its Ring is never carried to Mordor at all. The Rankin/Bass television film of 1980 takes up the closing part of the story but was made by another studio and does not continue Bakshi's, so between the two the middle of the Ring's journey is simply absent. In the same studio's Hobbit of 1977 the ring is only the vanishing-device of the earlier novel, with nothing of its later significance attached.

Every adaptation has to decide how much of the rings' history to state before the story can move, and the older ones answer differently. The Rankin/Bass television film of 1977 does not answer at all: adapting the earlier novel, it keeps the ring Bilbo finds as a simple means of going unseen, with no maker behind it and no other rings beside it. Ralph Bakshi's animated film of the following year opens instead with a prologue that lays out the forging, the division among Elves, Dwarves and Men, and the loss of the One before the hobbits are introduced — material the book withholds until the Council. The Rankin/Bass Return of the King of 1980, beginning near the end, reaches the unmaking of the ruling ring without ever having shown its making, and bridges the gap by narration. The BBC Radio dramatisation of 1981 has the room the films lack: across twenty-six half-hour parts it keeps the Council of Elrond as a long scene of testimony, and that is where most of what a listener learns about the rings is placed, much as the book arranges it.

The older adaptations treat the land more briefly. The Rankin/Bass television Hobbit opens at Bag End with Orson Bean voicing Bilbo, but its running time leaves little room for the country beyond the hole itself; the same studio's Return of the King frames its story as a birthday feast at Rivendell rather than in the Shire and passes over the homecoming entirely. Bakshi's film moves through Hobbiton quickly in its opening and, breaking off after Helm's Deep, never reaches the end of the journey at all. The BBC Radio 4 dramatisation, running to twenty-six parts, is alone among these in giving the occupation of the country and its undoing their full weight, and it is generally the version cited as closest to the book; Ian Holm played Frodo in it, two decades before taking the older part on screen.

The role has been recorded twice in the older adaptations. In Ralph Bakshi's animated film Théoden is voiced by Philip Stone, in a much-shortened treatment of the Edoras material: the counsellor's hold is broken and the king rides west, but because the film halts after the battle at the Hornburg his part ends there, with no parley at Isengard, no muster at Dunharrow and no ride to Gondor. Since neither the companion television film of 1980 nor any later production continued Bakshi's, that half-told version was never completed. The BBC Radio 4 dramatisation, in which Jack May takes the part, is by contrast the fullest older rendering of the role, following the king from the arrival of the travellers at the hall through the recovery of his will, the dealings with Saruman after Isengard's fall, and the ride to the Pelennor and his death there; the twenty-six-part length allows the sequence to run in something close to the book's order.

In Peter Jackson's trilogy Thorin was played by Richard Armitage and became one of the largest roles in the three films, portrayed as considerably younger and less grotesque in bearing than the dwarves around him. The most consequential departure is the survival of Azog, who in the book was killed before the gates of Moria a century and a half earlier: here he lives on as a personal pursuer, driving much of the invented action across the first two films. In consequence Thorin's death is transferred from the confusion of the battle, where he was overwhelmed near the bodyguard of Bolg, to a single combat with Azog fought apart from the main engagement, and Fíli and Kíli are killed separately rather than falling over their uncle's body. His growing obsession with the hoard, treated in the novel as a change of temper, is expanded into an extended affliction with a name; and material from the appendices of The Lord of the Rings, including the affairs of Dol Guldur, is woven around him.

The earliest screen appearance of the character is the Elvenking of the Rankin/Bass animated television film, where he was voiced by the film director Otto Preminger in a rare turn as a voice actor. That version keeps him nameless, as the novel does, and the compression of the whole book into roughly ninety minutes leaves him little to do beyond the seizure and imprisonment of the Dwarves and a brief presence in the closing battle; the long-standing grievance between his people and the Dwarves, which the book explains at some length before the trial scene, is passed over. He has no part in the animated Lord of the Rings of the following decade, which in any case breaks off midway through the story, nor in Peter Jackson's live-action trilogy of that book, where his son is a principal figure throughout but the father is only spoken of and never brought on screen.

Bombadil's fate in adaptation has largely been omission. The 1981 BBC Radio 4 dramatisation is the only one of the older versions to keep him: its twenty-six half-hour parts include the Old Forest, the house under the hill and the barrow, and Norman Bird took the speaking part. Because the series retained the episode, it also retained the consequences that follow from it, so that the hobbits leave the downs equipped as they do in the book. Ralph Bakshi's animated film of 1978 cut him entirely, along with the whole detour between Buckland and Bree, and moved the company directly toward the inn under pursuit. Peter Jackson's three live-action films did the same, and the omission was discussed at the time as a deliberate structural choice rather than an oversight. It obliged compensating changes elsewhere: with no barrow-hoard, the hobbits receive their swords from Aragorn on the road instead, and the ancient provenance of the blade that later matters at Minas Tirith goes unmentioned. The extended version of the second film relocates a version of the willow episode into Fangorn, where Merry and Pippin are seized by a hostile tree and freed by Treebeard, so that the rescuing function passes to another character while Bombadil himself is absent.

Treebeard's screen and broadcast history begins with the two adaptations of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Ralph Bakshi's animated film gives him only a brief appearance: the hobbits' flight into Fangorn brings them to him, but because the film breaks off after the battle at Helm's Deep and no second part was ever made, the Entmoot, the march and the breaking of Isengard fall outside its span altogether, and the Ents have no bearing on how it ends. The BBC Radio 4 dramatisation, spread across twenty-six half-hour parts, had room for the opposite approach; Treebeard is voiced there by Stephen Thorne, whose delivery sets the character's unhurried pace against the tighter scenes around it, and the sequence of encounter, moot and assault is kept in its proper order and proportion. Of the older versions it is the radio one that reproduces the Entish material most fully.

The ring has no part in the older screen adaptations and only an implied one in the best known. Ralph Bakshi's animated film breaks off after the fighting at Helm's Deep, so the material in which Vilya would be named lies outside it altogether. In Peter Jackson's trilogy the Elven rings are established at the outset, in the prologue that summarises the distribution of the Rings of Power, but Vilya is never named and Elrond, played by Hugo Weaving, is never identified as a keeper. Of the Three only Galadriel's is made explicit, shown on her hand and spoken of during the Lothlórien sequence, which leaves the other two as an abstraction. The effect on the council scene is substantial: Elrond argues there for the unmaking of the One, as in the book, but the audience is given no means of knowing that he argues against his own keeping, and the quiet arithmetic of that speech is lost.

The older adaptations treat him more sparingly. Ralph Bakshi's animated film includes the attack in the dell beneath Weathertop, but since it breaks off after Helm's Deep it never reaches Minas Morgul or the Pelennor, and the wraiths' captain remains an unexplained pursuer throughout. The Rankin/Bass television film of 1980 takes up the closing part of the story in about ninety minutes and compresses the siege of Gondor heavily, so that the figure who commands it is given little beyond his appearance at the City. The BBC Radio dramatisation of 1981, running to twenty-six half-hour parts, has room for more of the chronicle and is generally reckoned the closest of the older versions to the text; having no images to work with, it conveys him wholly through voice and through the reactions of those near him.