The story of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit is one of the most well-known fantasy adventure stories of the last century. As a precursor to The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit tells the story of Bilbo Baggins, a well-respected hobbit from The Shire who is whisked off on an adventure by the wizard Gandalf. He travels with a company of 13 Dwarves across the lands of Middle-Earth, traversing mountains, forests, rivers, and wastelands until they ultimately come upon the former home of the Dwarves, Erebor, the Lonely Mountain. The mountain has been occupied by the fierce dragon Smaug for quite some time, but with Bilbo’s help the Dwarves intend on reclaiming their ancestral home.
The most famous adaptation of The Hobbit is the trilogy of films based on the novel, which were directed by Peter Jackson. However, there have been several other versions of the 1937 book that have found their way to screens before. In the United States, there was an animated television special released in 1977 that tried its hand at adapting Tolkien’s legendary story. It is one of a few different animated adaptations of Tolkien’s work that would be released throughout the years and, prior to Jackson’s films, it was the most well-known adaptation of The Hobbit.
The film is a co-production between two animation studios. The first is the American animation studio Rankin/Bass, which is famous for its stop-motion Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman films. Rankin/Bass co-founders Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass shared directing duties on this adaptation of The Hobbit. The other animation studio involved was the Japanese studio Topcraft. Before they eventually went bankrupt in 1985, Topcraft produced such films as Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, after which a few of the studio’s animators and producers (Isao Takahata, Toshio Suzuki and Hayao Miyazaki) went on to establish the now-legendary Studio Ghibli. The 1977 adaptation of The Hobbit, of course, was before all that. Amongst so many different versions of Middle-Earth that have existed on screen, ranging from Ralph Bakshi’s The Lord of the Rings to the new Prime Video series The Rings of Power, here is how this animated TV special of The Hobbit holds up.
How it Adapts the Book
Warner Bros. Television Distribution
Written by Romeo Muller, the 1977 TV special of The Hobbit is a fairly straightforward, yet significantly compressed, adaptation of Tolkien’s novel. Most of the significant elements of the book are there. There are the various troll, goblin, and spider-based predicaments the characters find themselves in, as well as the numerous extended musical numbers, Bilbo’s meeting of Gollum in the dark and eventually the waking of Smaug and the Battle of Five Armies that ensues after the dragon’s demise. On paper, this seems to be a fairly faithful adaptation of The Hobbit, with the only major exclusion being the company’s dealings with the man/bear shapeshifter Beorn, who is left out of the film completely.
By including almost all of the key story elements from the book, one would think that this version of The Hobbit could be considered a good adaptation of the novel. However, the real heart of Tolkien’s tale is basically nowhere to be found in this telling. There are a few reasons for that. Chiefly, is that all the characters and settings are reduced to the most simplified versions imaginable. Any sort of nuance to the motivations of characters, their development throughout the adventure and the historied lands they travel through is entirely stripped out of the story. Bilbo is a by-the-numbers reluctant hero; Gandalf is an all-powerful sorcerer who easily gets the company out of nearly all their troubles, and the Dwarves are given basically no characterization at all. An explanation for this utter lack of personality is the length of the adaptation. This animated TV special is just shy of 80 minutes long, so there’s not a lot of time to spare in the telling of this story. Since the decision was made to include most all of the book’s events, the result is that both the characters and the actual happenings of the plot are severely shortchanged.
The various troubles our heroes face on their adventure are resolved just as swiftly as they arise. There’s no real tension or sense of danger to be found in the story because every trouble that is encountered is so easily and simply taken care of. The only portion of the film that stands above the rest as being more aligned with the novel is the Riddles in the Dark sequence with Bilbo and Gollum. Aside from that, this animated Hobbit film flies through the plot at breakneck speeds, making the entire expedition into a totally abridged version of Tolkien’s story. Nearly everything is painted with a broad brush, and the experience it provides isn’t that dissimilar from skimming the SparkNotes of a novel rather than actually reading and enjoying it.
How it Compares to Peter Jackson’s Films
When comparing the Rankin/Bass version of The Hobbit to the trilogy of films Peter Jackson produced from the book, the two adaptations are polar opposites of one another. While this animated telling of the story may be an overly short and hollow iteration of the Hobbit’s tale, Jackson’s films are immensely long and overstuffed. They take completely different approaches to their adaptation. The animated version leans hard into the children’s story side of the novel’s reputation, making it feel like a much more light-hearted and whimsical adventure. Jackson’s films, on the other hand, meld the story with the dark tone of his Lord of the Rings movies in an attempt to make all six films of those films feel like one cohesive story.
While the 1977 adaptation can be breezed through in less than an hour and a half, Jackson’s trilogy is much more of a commitment. When together, the three films clock in at 474 minutes or nearly eight hours long. That’s just the theatrical cuts too. If you were to watch the extended editions, that runtime balloons to 532 minutes or just under nine hours. Considering the difference between less than 90 minutes of story and nearly nine hours, there are pretty significant differences between these two Hobbit adaptations.
While Jackson’s films are certainly much lengthier, they are also the more faithful of the two adaptations. This is because they manage to maintain the heart of the story and the characters, even if it does frequently get drowned in a deluge of supplementary material. The characterization of Bilbo, Gandalf, the Dwarves and the overall spirit of the adventure is retained in the Jackson films, despite how messy and bloated they can be. It makes for a stark comparison between that trilogy and the somewhat bland and abbreviated telling of the story in the ‘77 animated feature.
Is it Worth Watching?
For casual viewers and fans of Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings, however, this version of The Hobbit isn’t going to provide the same exciting or adventurous experience that the live-action films have already. There is nothing in this iteration of The Hobbit that isn’t re-told in a more compelling way through Jackson’s films. Really, the only aspect of the books that is included here but not in Jackson’s movies are the many musical numbers. While one or two are included in the Hobbit trilogy, nearly all the songs from the original novel can be found in this animated adaptation.
As for anyone who hasn’t read the original book nor seen Jackson’s films, this version of The Hobbit should certainly not be their first exposure to the story. Since it lacks so much of the heart, intrigue and enthusiasm of the original work, it doesn’t paint a true picture of Bilbo’s adventure. This is a film that should be reserved pretty much just for people that already know the story in some way, as they can then mentally fill in the many gaps in the film’s plot and characters. For those who are familiar with the story, the 1977 animated Hobbit serves as a vaguely interesting footnote in the real-world history of that adventure. While it may be a minor chapter in Tolkienian history, it’s still another avenue in which to engage with the legendary fantasy writer’s world and characters.
