Manyadaptations ofThe Lord of the Rings, anepic by the English authorJ. R. R. Tolkien, have been made in the media of film, radio, theatre, video games and recorded readings.
Early attempts to adapt Tolkien'sThe Lord of the Rings were made byWalt Disney,William Snyder,Forrest J. Ackerman,Denis O'Dell (who consideredRichard Lester to direct, but approached star directorsDavid Lean,Stanley Kubrick andMichaelangelo Antonioni instead),Peter Shaffer,John Boorman andGeorge Lucas. These attempts resulted in some unproduced concept art and scripts and an animated short ofThe Hobbit.[1]
Three cinema adaptations have been completed. The first wasThe Lord of the Rings by the American animatorRalph Bakshi in 1978, the first part of what was originally intended to be a two-part adaptation of the story.[2] The second,The Return of the King in 1980, was a television special byRankin-Bass.[1] The third wasThe Lord of the Rings film trilogy by the New Zealand directorPeter Jackson in the early 2000s, released in three installments asThe Fellowship of the Ring,The Two Towers, andThe Return of the King.[3]
A Swedish live action television film,Sagan om ringen, inspired by the music albumMusic Inspired by Lord of the Rings byBo Hansson was broadcast in 1971.[4] A Finnish live action television miniseries,Hobitit, was broadcast in 1993 based on the events ofThe Hobbit andThe Lord of the Rings.[5][6] A live-action TV special of The Hobbit was produced in the Soviet Union in 1985, a pilot for an animated Hobbit series in 1991, and a live-actiontelevision play ofThe Fellowship of the Ring,Khraniteli has newly been discovered and uploaded in Russia's Channel 5 YouTube Channel in 2 parts. The adaptation had been aired in Russia once and was thought lost.[7][8][9]
Tolkien's novel has repeatedly been adapted for radio both in the United States and in Europe, from soon after its publication in the 1950s onwards. In 1955 and 1956, theBBC broadcastThe Lord of the Rings, a 12-part radio adaptation of the story.The Fellowship of the Ring was adapted as six 45-minute episodes, thenThe Two Towers andThe Return of the King together were compressed into six 30-minute episodes.[10] Tolkien disparaged this dramatisation, referring to the portrayal of Tom Bombadil as "dreadful" and complaining bitterly about several other aspects.[11] The recordings were lost, but in 2022 the original scripts by the producerTerence Tiller, including a sheet with handwritten suggestions by Tolkien, were rediscovered in the BBC archives.[10]
In 1981, BBC Radio 4 produced a new dramatisation ofThe Lord of the Rings in 26 half-hour stereo instalments. The script byBrian Sibley and Michael Bakewell attempts to be as faithful as possible to the original novel. It was a critical success and Ian Holm, who voiced Frodo Baggins in the radio serial, went on to play Bilbo Baggins in Peter Jackson's movie trilogy.
The New York radio stationWBAI-FM broadcast a reading from the book in 1972, narrated by Baird Seales; since then, they have rebroadcast it annually.[12] A1979 dramatisation was broadcast byNational Public Radio in the United States. The series was produced byThe Mind's Eye. It was produced by Bob Lewis and adapted for radio byBernard Mayes.[13][14] In 1981 the BBC broadcastits version in 26 half-hour instalments. It starredIan Holm as Frodo Baggins,Bill Nighy as Sam Gamgee andMichael Hordern as Gandalf.[15] In 1992 the German radio stationsSüdwestrundfunk andWestdeutscher Rundfunk broadcastDer Herr der Ringe, a 30-episode adaptation directed by Bernd Lau with music by Peter Zwetkoff. It had a cast includingHans Peter Hallwachs,Walter Renneisen, andRufus Beck, and was narrated byErnst Schröder.[16] In 1999-2000 theDanish radio stationDanmarks Radio broadcastEventyret om Ringen, a Danish language retelling byRune T. Kidde. The music was byThe Tolkien Ensemble,Hedningarna,Sorten Muld and Kim Skovbye.[17] In 2001, 2002 and 2003, the three volumes of the novel were adapted into a Slovak radio series, consisting of three annual series of fully cast radio plays, each of six episodes. TheHobbit characterBilbo Baggins served as the narrator. The eighteen episodes were produced and broadcast as a co-production between the public broadcasterSlovak Radio (nowRadio and Television Slovakia) and the private broadcaster Rádio Twist (later known as Rádio Viva).[18][19][20][21]
Severalmusical theatre adaptations, whether serious or parodic, have been made based onThe Lord of the Rings; they have met with varying success. Full-length productions of each ofThe Fellowship of the Ring (2001),The Two Towers (2002), andThe Return of the King (2003) were staged in Cincinnati, Ohio.[22][23]Lifeline Theatre inChicago, Illinois, produced individual plays of each of the three books, withThe Fellowship of the Ring in 1997,The Two Towers in 2000, andThe Return of the King in 2001. Karen Tarjan and Ned Mochal were involved in adapting and directing the plays, with varying roles.[24]In 2006, a large-scale three-and-a-half-hourThe Lord of the Rings musical was produced inToronto. The expensive production lost money and closed six months later. It was edited for a production at theTheatre Royal Drury Lane in London, and ran from May 2007 until July 2008;The Guardian wrote that "at £25m, it was the most costly musical mistake in West End history".[25] A musical parody ofThe Fellowship of the Ring, titledFellowship!, ran in Los Angeles for a stint on two occasions, coming back 3 years after its debut for a number of shows in the middle of 2009.[26]
Numerous computer and video games have been inspired byJ. R. R. Tolkien's works set inMiddle-earth. Titles have been produced by studios such asElectronic Arts,Vivendi Games,Melbourne House, andWarner Bros. Interactive Entertainment.[27][28]
TheLibrary of Congress, which makes versions especially for the blind, recorded an unabridged version ofThe Lord of the Rings in 1967, narrated by Livingston Gilbert, on vinyl media. This version was taken out of circulation at the time of the recording of the 1978 version.[29] It recorded a second unabridged version ofThe Lord of the Rings in 1978, narrated by Norman Barrs, on 4-track tape media. This version was taken out of circulation at the time of the recording of the 1999 version.[30] It recorded a third unabridged version ofThe Lord of the Rings, A trip to Mordor in 1999, narrated by David Palmer, on 4-track tape media. This version is also available on the new digital players provided for Library of Congress patrons.[31]
In 1990, the Australian actorRob Inglis read and performed an unabridged version forRecorded Books in their New York studio.[32] While not strictly a dramatisation, Inglis created voices for all the characters, and along with project producer Claudia Howard, he created music for all the songs, which he performed. The project took six weeks to record, not counting preparation time.[32]
In 2021, the British actorAndy Serkis, who playedGollum inPeter Jackson's films, recorded an unabridged version of all three volumes ofThe Lord of the Rings forHarperCollins and Recorded Books.[33]
Thursday, December 31, 2015 1:30 AM - 3:00 AM Our annual reading of "The Council of Elrond" from The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien, re-broadcast from 1972.
