The Hobbit (1977 film)

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.

In the Rankin/Bass animated television film of 1977, Bard is a minor figure voiced by John Stephenson, appearing only in the sequence at the lake and in the brief treatment of the battle that follows. The compression of the novel into roughly ninety minutes removes nearly all of the material that gives him weight in the book: his warnings about the light in the north, the organised defence of the town, and the long negotiation with Thorin under the Mountain are cut or reduced to a few lines of narration, and the Master of Esgaroth is dropped from the story altogether, so that the political quarrel over the treasure and the Master's later theft have no place in the film. What survives is the essential action — the thrush's word about the bare patch, the black arrow, the dragon's fall — together with Bard's part in the alliance at the Mountain, and he is left as an archer who kills Smaug rather than as a claimant and founder.

His part in the battle before the Lonely Mountain is likewise rearranged. In the third film he is carried to the field by the Eagles in company with Radagast, rather than arriving alone, on foot and unlooked-for after the fighting has turned; the killing of Bolg is given to another character, and the rescue of the wounded Thorin from the press is not shown at all. Nothing corresponding to the return journey follows, so the winter spent in his hall and his escort of the travellers back to the mountain road have no place in the trilogy, and he does not appear again after the battle. The earlier animated television version of the novel, made for American broadcast, cuts him out of the story altogether, taking the company from their rescue in the mountains to the edge of Mirkwood without a halt; the adaptations drawn from The Lord of the Rings have no occasion for him, since in that book he is only named in report.

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.

Elsewhere he is absent, and largely for structural reasons. The Rankin/Bass television Hobbit compresses the novel into a single short film and passes over the Battle of Five Armies without introducing him as a named figure at all. In The Lord of the Rings he never appears in person even in Tolkien's text — he is only reported, first by Glóin at Rivendell and afterwards in the appendices — so the adaptations of that book have no scene to dramatise. Jackson's film trilogy goes further and omits the northern theatre of the war entirely, with the result that neither the siege of Erebor nor the deaths before the Gate reach the audience.

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 Rankin/Bass television film of 1977 keeps the mountain as the goal of the journey but gives it little screen time, since the whole novel is compressed into roughly ninety minutes. The company's long wait on the western ledge is reduced to a few moments, the moon-letters and the thrush at the keyhole are retained, and Bilbo's two descents to the hoard survive in shortened form, with Smaug voiced by Richard Boone and Thorin by Hans Conried. What follows the dragon's death — the walling-up of the Gate, the negotiations over the treasure and the battle in the valley — is telescoped into a brief closing stretch, so that the siege that occupies several chapters of the book barely registers. Peter Jackson's three-film version of 2012 to 2014 does the opposite, expanding the mountain into the trilogy's central location. Its prologue shows the sack of the kingdom and has the Elven-king turn away from the burning valley, supplying a single dramatic cause for an estrangement that the book explains as an older quarrel over payment for work done. Smaug, voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch, is confronted at length inside the halls by the whole company in a pursuit through the forges that ends in an attempt to drown him in molten gold; no such episode exists in the novel, where the dwarves stay outside and the dragon leaves of his own accord. The dragon's assault on the lake-town is moved to the opening of the third film, and the orc-host that besieges the mountain is led by Azog, who in the book had been killed generations earlier and whose place before the Gate belongs to his son. Dáin of the Iron Hills, played by Billy Connolly, arrives as in the book but into a much enlarged battle.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The forest's fullest screen treatments belong to the two adaptations of The Hobbit. The Rankin/Bass television film, compressing the novel into roughly an hour and a half, keeps the wood as a set-piece but reduces the crossing to its essentials, so that the company's straying from the path leads more or less directly to the spiders and to capture by the Elvenking's folk; the Elvenking himself was voiced by Otto Preminger, and the subsequent escape from his halls is retained in shortened form. Peter Jackson's trilogy moves in the opposite direction, expanding the forest across two of its three films and drawing on material the novel leaves off-page. Thranduil, played by Lee Pace, is given a far larger part than the book's brief and mostly nameless Elvenking, and two figures absent from the novel are placed in his realm: Legolas, played by Orlando Bloom and carried over from the earlier trilogy, and Tauriel, played by Evangeline Lilly, a captain of the Woodland guard invented for the films. The most substantial departure concerns the forest's southern reaches, since Dol Guldur, which the novel keeps entirely in report, is shown directly: Gandalf investigates and is imprisoned there, Radagast is written into the same events, and the White Council's assault on the stronghold is staged onscreen rather than merely mentioned afterward.

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 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 Rankin/Bass television film of 1977 was the first screen version to give the dragon a voice, and it belonged to Richard Boone, who read the part with a slow, dry menace rather than the purring courtesy of the printed exchange. Because the whole novel is compressed into a single broadcast hour and a quarter, Smaug's long dominion over the mountain is disposed of in a brief prologue, and the intervals that separate Bilbo's descents into the lower hall largely disappear, so that the theft of the cup, the second conversation and the discovery of the bare patch follow one another almost without pause. The film also has little room to prepare the man who kills him: Bard is introduced only shortly before he draws, which leaves the arrow looking like a stroke of fortune rather than the last act of a displaced inheritance. The thrush is kept, and with it the chain by which the knowledge reaches the bowman.

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.

Thorin has been realised on screen twice, in each case as the central Dwarf of an adaptation of The Hobbit. In the Rankin/Bass animated television film of 1977 he was voiced by the American actor Hans Conried, and drawn as an elderly, heavily bearded figure sharply distinguished from his companions, most of whom are given little to do and few lines. The compression of the novel into roughly ninety minutes bears hard on his part: the dynastic history behind the journey — the flight from Erebor, the war with the Orcs, the years of exile — survives only as brief narration, and several episodes in which he figures, including the stay with Beorn, are dropped altogether. What the film does retain is the shape of his ending, the quarrel over the treasure, the refusal to treat with the men of the lake, and the reconciliation with Bilbo, though the Battle of Five Armies itself is dispatched at speed.

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.