The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: Volume 2: Reader’s Guide PART 1. Christina Scull
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Beagle, Bakshi adapted only The Fellowship of the Ring and part of The Two Towers. He planned a second film to complete the story, as well as one of The Hobbit; but his Lord of the Rings (1978 U.S.; 1979 U.K.), though often praised for its use of rotoscoping, was widely criticized on release as confusing and humourless, and among Tolkien enthusiasts has been derided for errors and inconsistencies. In the wake of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films, some have looked back to Bakshi’s effort in comparison and have found it the more faithful to Tolkien’s book (if still wanting in many respects). It has been issued on videocassette and in digital media. At the time of Bakshi’s Lord of the Rings the Saul Zaentz Company created a subsidiary, Tolkien Enterprises (now Middle-earth Enterprises, www.middleearth.com), to manage merchandising rights associated with the film.
Another motion picture adaptation of The Lord of the Rings was made by Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens, directed by Jackson and released in three parts by New Line Cinema (2001–3) under licence from Tolkien Enterprises. Filmed in live action but with extensive computer-generated characters and effects, it was widely popular with audiences and critics and won prestigious awards. Tolkien enthusiasts, however, have been sharply, sometimes angrily divided over the work, though the lines are sometimes blurred. Some praise it highly, and accept its departures from its source as part of a legitimate interpretation of Tolkien’s book, or as necessary changes to suit a different medium. Others feel that the film is a travesty as an adaptation and seriously flawed even when considered solely as a motion picture. Points frequently argued for the latter include the diminishing or other alteration of characters in the film relative to their portrayal in Tolkien’s book, emphasis on violent action, the over-use of special effects, and the omission of scenes from the book while incidents invented by the screenwriters have been inserted.
Criticism among Tolkien fans became more mixed as release of the three parts progressed, and has been complicated by extended or re-edited versions on digital media. See further, Tolkien on Film: Essays on Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings, ed. Janet Brennan Croft (2004); Translating Tolkien: Text and Film, ed. Thomas Honegger (2004); Kristin Thompson, The Frodo Franchise: The Lord of the Rings and Modern Hollywood (2007); section 10 (vol. 2) of The Ring Goes Ever On: Proceedings of the Tolkien 2005 Conference: 50 Years of The Lord of the Rings, ed. Sarah Wells (2008); and Picturing Tolkien: Essays on Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings Film Trilogy, ed. Janice M. Bogstad and Philip E. Kaveny (2011). Russell W. Dalton concludes in ‘Peter Jackson, Evil, and the Temptations of Film at the Crack of Doom’, in Light beyond All Shadow: Religious Experience in Tolkien’s Work, ed. Paul E. Kerry and Sandra Miesel (2011), that ‘although Tolkien’s climactic ending (at the Black Gate and on Mount Doom) emphasizes Boethian themes of mercy, forgiveness, and providence, the features on the Extended Edition DVD reveal that Jackson’s planned changes served to minimize these themes and instead emphasized Manichaean motifs, with both Aragorn and Frodo killing their enemies, the evil ones, in hand-to-hand battle’ (p. 178). Even in the theatrical version, both Frodo and Gollum fall while struggling, but Frodo manages to hang on to a ledge.
Heavily promoted, Jackson’s Lord of the Rings helped to increase sales of Tolkien’s works to extraordinary levels. Some who had not read the book chose to do so before seeing the first part of the film, so as not to spoil their first reading with images from a cinematic treatment. It is impossible to determine if those who read the book after seeing one or more of the films were able while reading to divorce their mental picture of characters and landscapes, not to say of events which do not appear in Tolkien’s text, from the adaptation; nor can it be known how many new readers became enthusiasts of Tolkien’s book rather than only devotees of the film. Numerous books about Tolkien were published to capitalize on the film’s publicity: many were rushed into print, and some occasionally confused the film with its literary source (as indeed continues to occur from time to time in discussions of the book).
The success of Peter Jackson’s adaptation has inspired fans to create their own films set in the world of The Lord of the Rings, made on very small budgets and primarily or wholly for streaming online. The most notable of these, for their level of cinematic quality, are Born of Hope: The Ring of Barahir (2009), produced and directed by Kate Madison and written chiefly by Paula DiSante (as Alex K. Aldridge); and The Hunt for Gollum (2009), produced, directed, and chiefly written by Chris Bouchard. Both are ‘unofficial prequels’ to The Lord of the Rings, based on material in the Appendices to Tolkien’s work. Because such films are derivative of Tolkien’s writings or of the New Line adaptations, or both, their producers have had to contend with questions as to their status under copyright law, and some ‘fan-produced’ films have not been allowed to proceed due to rights issues. See further, Maria Alberto, ‘“The Effort to Translate”: Fan Film Culture and the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien’, Journal of Tolkien Research 3, no. 3 (2016), article 2.
In 2012–14 New Line Cinema released a second trilogy directed by Peter Jackson: The Hobbit, with the three films subtitled An Unexpected Journey, The Desolation of Smaug, and The Battle of the Five Armies. The screenplays were written by Jackson with Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, and Guillermo del Toro; the latter was also intended to direct, but withdrew due to schedule conflicts. Although Jackson’s Hobbit was financially successful, response to the films was less positive than it had been for Jackson’s Lord of the Rings. A frequent complaint was that Tolkien’s comparatively brief children’s book did not lend itself to a cinematic work as long as that based on The Lord of the Rings (which is at least a very long story). To expand their source material to three films (originally intended as two), the filmmakers included elements from the Appendices to The Lord of the Rings which take place ‘off-stage’ during the events of The Hobbit, such as the assault of the White Council on Dol Guldur, and added events and characters not conceived by Tolkien, such as a female elf, Tauriel. To the contrary, the filmmakers have argued, such changes from the book were needed for purposes of narrative and drama; and it is useful to think of Jackson’s Hobbit less as an adaptation of Tolkien’s original and more as a prequel to Jackson’s Lord of the Rings, which has a similar appearance and tone. For The Hobbit too, extended versions of the films were released on digital media.
TELEVISION ADAPTATIONS
An animated film based on The Hobbit, adapted by Romeo Muller and produced by Arthur Rankin, Jr. and Jules Bass, was first broadcast on American television in 1977. It is largely faithful to the book though the action is compressed, the dialogue minimized, and music introduced. Sketches and finished paintings for the film were used to illustrate an edition of The Hobbit, first published by Harry N. Abrams, New York in the same year.
An animated film by the same writer and producers based on The Return of the King was first shown on American television in 1980. Rankin-Bass maintained that the third part of The Lord of the Rings had fallen into the public domain in the United States, and therefore a film of that part could be undertaken without the consent of the Saul Zaentz Company or the Tolkien Estate. The latter parties disagreed, but an amicable settlement was reached. Lacking the first two parts of The Lord of the Rings to lead into its events, the Rankin-Bass Return of the King resorted to awkward narration and flashbacks to fill the gaps. Although much of Tolkien’s dialogue was used, greater liberties were taken with his story compared with the Rankin-Bass Hobbit: Legolas and Gimli are omitted, Aragorn is not introduced until he arrives at the siege of Minas Tirith, and both Merry and Pippin are present on the field of battle with the Rohirrim.
Both Rankin-Bass Tolkien films were aimed at children, with cartoonish character design and the use of music to explain and advance the plot, notably by American folk singer Glenn Yarborough as ‘The Balladeer’ (in The Hobbit) and ‘The Minstrel’ (in The Return of the King). Older fans have taken issue with the acting (largely with American accents) and, especially in The Return of the King, with dialogue out of keeping with Tolkien’s original (‘Denethor’s gone looney’). The Rankin-Bass films have been made available on commercial media in North America.
An adaptation of The Hobbit in ten parts by Roger Singleton-Turner, with music by Alan Roper, was performed in 1979 on the BBC television series