The Hobbit (film trilogy)

This is an adaptation, not a Tolkien novel

This entry describes a film or television production inspired by Tolkien’s work. It is not one of the author’s books, and its events, characters and timeline should not be cited as his text — the sources below record what the production actually is.

Synopsis

These three films — An Unexpected Journey (2012), The Desolation of Smaug (2013) and The Battle of the Five Armies (2014) — are Peter Jackson’s adaptation of Tolkien’s single short novel, expanded to fill a trilogy with material drawn loosely from the appendices and invented wholesale. Important characters such as Tauriel and Alfrid do not appear in Tolkien’s text, and “The Desolation of Smaug” and “The Battle of the Five Armies” are film titles only, not separate books. Watch them as spectacles inspired by the legendarium, and distinguish them sharply from what Tolkien actually wrote.

Setting

A film version of the same Wilderland geography as the novel: the Shire, Rivendell, the Misty Mountains, Mirkwood, Lake-town and Erebor.

Themes

fidelity versus invention
spectacle and scale
the pressure of adapting a single book into three films

Publication note

A cinematic adaptation, released in three parts between 2012 and 2014. The two later film titles must never be catalogued as Tolkien novels; the entire trilogy corresponds to the one 1937 book.

Sources

The Hobbit film trilogy (Peter Jackson) · 2012–14
An adaptation, not a Tolkien novel. Invented characters include Tauriel and Alfrid.