Since 1937, the world (or at least Great Britain at the time) has fallen in love with the world of Middle Earth and the characters that inhabit it. From the wisest Elf to the smallest Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien is probably most famous for creating the realm and characters of Middle Earth as well as creating a story that took inspiration from biblical tales. But you probably didn’t know that there was an animated adaptation of Tolkien’s work, well there are. The Hobbit was released in 1977 by Rankin/Bass and The Lord of the Rings and The Return of the King came out in 1978 and 1980, one was made by Rankin/Bass and the other was made by Bakshi Film Studios. And if it wasn’t for these films, Peter Jackson probably wouldn’t have made the live action version of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. And like most book to film adaptations, there are differences and similarities, and that’s what I’m going to talk about.
The animated version of The Hobbit starts off with the well-known line from the beginning of the book, “In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit.” The narration goes on with the meeting of Gandalf and the Dwarves of Erebor.
In the live-action version from Jackson, The Hobbit starts out with Bilbo telling the story of how Smaug stole the Dwarves treasure and forced them out of Erebor. He then speaks the famous line, and the story goes on from their. The two films are obviously staying true to the story of the books and enticing viewers with the thrill of adventure, but there are actually a lot more differences than similarities between these two films.
Starting off the animated Hobbit movie is only one movie and runs a little over an hour long while Jackson splits the book into three movies and gives a lot of screen time to the The Battle of the Five Armies while it only took up one chapter of the book. The animated movies not only took lines from the book, but they also include original songs like “Blunt the Knives” and “Misty Mountains”. On the other had, the live action films altered the songs probably to save time.
In the live action films, Thorin hates Bilbo until the end of the first movie while the animated Thorin didn’t start showing Bilbo kindness until he was about to die. In the animated movie there’s no mention of Beorn the Skin-Changer, but in the live-action, he’s a minor character.
When the company enters Mirkwood, the animated movie gave little notice to the Elvenking instead letting a voice over from Bilbo narrate how long they were there and what life was like in the woodland realm. The live-action film put heavy emphasis on Thranduil and even included Legolas from Lord of the Rings although he wasn’t even in the book. His appearance accompanied a forbidden romance between and Elf and a Dwarf, also not in the book or animated film.
In the animated movie Bard of Laketown welcomes them and sends them on their way with a hope that his people will get a share of the treasure. The live-action films has a character called “The Master” to welcome them and whose greed ends up leading to the dwarves going to Erebor with Bard completely against them going for fear of waking up the dragon.
When Bilbo goes in and confronts Smaug, the scenes from both films are very similar, if not almost identical with the only difference coming when the animated Bilbo gave a cup to Thorin as opposed to the live-action Bilbo keeping the Arkenstone to give to Thranduil and Bard. There is, in fact, no mention of the Arkenstone in the animated version. When the Battle of the Five Armies commences, the animated Bilbo chickens out and hides during the battle, and his live-action counterpart actually tries to fight and actually kills some orcs. When the battle ended in the animated movie, six of the original thirteen dwarves had died in battle and Thorin soon joins them. In the live-action film, only Thorin, Fili, and Kili died.
Viewers also have two animated and three live action films of The Lord of The Rings to enjoy. The first animated movie combines The Fellowship of The Ring and The Two Towers and finishes the story the second movie. The differences between the versions are very minor in both plot and character personalities.
In the animated movie Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin leave The Shire their merry old selves, but the live-action mood goes from playful to dark very quickly at the same point in the story. Later on after Frodo is pierced by one of The Nine’s blades and is slowly succumbing to darkness, there is a slight difference with how Frodo gets to Rivendale. In the animated movie, Legolas finds them and gives his horse to Frodo so that he may get to Rivendale, while in the live-action Arwen comes and takes Frodo to Rivendale.
At the animated council in Rivendale, Bilbo attends the meeting and throws a fit about having to potentially take The Ring to Mordor, but in the live-action he’s not there at all. The rest of animated and live-action movies line up well with only flashbacks of Aragorn and Arwen’s relationship in the live-action film as a difference.
Finally, with The Return of The King, the second animated installment of the story and the third live-action movies have similar plots and characters, but there are many differences too. The animated movie mainly follows Sam and Frodo on their way to Mount Doom to destroy The Ring and occasionally switches perspectives back to Gondor and the war going on there. The animated movie starts with all the Hobbits in Rivendale celebrating Bilbo’s 129th birthday and relating how they destroyed the ring. The live-action movie picks up where the last movie left off and finishes out the quest while diving deeper into Aragorn’s personal conflicts with Elrond and Arwen. One huge difference between the animated and live-action is that the animated Legolas and Gimli are not shown or even mentioned.
Above all, though, both movies are beautifully made and hold some truth to the books. If you want to watch Academy-Award-winning filmmaking, then I would recommend the live action films (even The Hobbit trilogy). If you want a more book accurate adaptation, then I would go with the animated films. Fair warning though, the animated films are in the old 80’s animation style, so they can be a little cheesy to watch. Keep in mind everything’s subjective; you may prefer one thing over the other, but I do like watching both, depending on what mood I’m in. If you had the choice though, which do you prefer?
