List of adaptations of The Hobbit novel by J.R.R. Tolkien
The first authorised adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's 1937 novel The Hobbit was a stage production by St. Margaret's School, Edinburgh in March 1953.[1] Subsequently, The Hobbit has been adapted for a variety of media including stage, screen, radio, board games and video games.
Several of these adaptations have received critical recognition of their own, including a video game that won the Golden Joystick Award, a scenario of a war game that won an Origins Award, and an animated picture nominated for a Hugo Award.
Games and toys
Board, war and role-playing games
The Hobbit has been the subject of several games of various kinds.
- In the 1970s, TSR, Inc. released two editions of a war game based on The Battle of Five Armies, designed by Larry Smith, using cardboard tokens and a map of the area around the Lonely Mountain as the setting. The game was criticized for a lack of clarity in the rules, and praised for evoking the onslaught of the Warg and goblin army.[43]
- Iron Crown Enterprises has produced several games based on The Hobbit:
- Coleman Charlon designed The Lonely Mountain (released in 1985),[44] which features groups of adventurers entering Smaug's Lair to capture his treasure before he awakens.
- Also in 1985, Iron Crown Enterprises released its version of The Battle of Five Armies,[44] developed by Richard H. Britton, Coleman Charlton, and John Crowell, again taking the theme of a war game and using card counters and a paper map.
- The Hobbit Adventure Boardgame [sic] was the last game from Iron Crown-based directly on The Hobbit. They continued to publish the Middle-earth Role Playing Game, a game licensed on both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings properties, combining elements from both works.[45]
- The Hobbit: The Defeat of Smaug, also known as The Hobbit: The Defeat of the Evil Dragon Smaug, was published in 2001 by Fantasy Flight Games. It is a mass market race game in which players move their hobbits toward the Lonely Mountain.[46]
- Middle-earth Strategic Gaming (formerly Middle-earth Play-by-Mail), which has won several Origin Awards, uses the Battle of Five Armies as an introductory scenario to the full game and includes characters and armies from the book.[47]
- In 2005, Games Workshop released a Battle of Five Armies tabletop wargame, designed by Rick Priestley using highly detailed 10-millimetre figures sculpted by Mark Harrison, based on Games Workshop's Warmaster rules and designed to be played in a small space suitable for the home gamer.[48][49] Games Workshop also is expanding its Lord of the Rings: The Strategy Battle Game in the form of The Hobbit: The Strategy Battle Game.
- In 2011, British game publisher Cubicle 7 released The One Ring - Adventures over the Edge of the Wild, a role-playing game set several years after the events of The Hobbit. Supplements so far include Tales from Wilderland and The Loremaster's Screen and Lake-town, with others scheduled for release in 2013.[50]
Toys and collectibles
- Lego has released brick sets and minifigures titled Lego The Hobbit as part of Jackson's Hobbit film series franchise.
- In June 2012, Warner Bros. Consumer Products and Weta Workshop announced they would offer a "range of authentic prop replicas, collectibles and merchandise based on the upcoming films" in October 2012.[51]
Video games
Several computer and video games, both licensed and unlicensed, have been based on the story.
- The Hobbit, an award-winning computer game developed in 1982 by Beam Software and published by Melbourne House with compatibility for most computers available at the time. A copy of the novel was included in each game package to encourage players to engage the text, since ideas for gameplay could be found therein.[52] Likewise, the game does not attempt to re-tell the story, but rather sits alongside it, using the narrative to both structure and motivate gameplay.[53] The game won the Golden Joystick Award for Strategy Game of the Year in 1983[54] and was responsible for popularizing the phrase, "Thorin sits down and starts singing about gold."[55]
- In 2003, Sierra Entertainment published a platform game with action-RPG elements titled The Hobbit for Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation 2, Windows PCs, and Xbox.[56] A version, based on the same character design and story, but using a 2D isometric platform and using 3D characters which were pre-rendered using models from the console version, was also published for the Game Boy Advance.[57]
- In 2014, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment published an action-adventure game titled Lego The Hobbit, based on the Lego theme set which itself is based on the Peter Jackson's film series.