The Steadfast Tin Soldier - Adaptations

Adaptations

Ub Iwerks did a 1934 Cinecolor cartoon The Brave Tin Soldier that features an evil jack in the box.

Paul Grimault (with Jacques Prévert) did a 1947 colour French cartoon Le Petit Soldat that had the title character being a toy acrobat who is called to war and returns crippled but determined to rescue his ballerina.

In 1976, Soyuzmultfilm made an animated adaptation.

Children's author Tor Seidler adapted the book in 1992, with illustrations by Fred Marcellino.

In Disney's film Fantasia 2000, an adaptation of the tale is set to the first movement of the Piano Concerto No. 2 in F Major by Dmitri Shostakovich. The segment differs slightly from Andersen's tale: the ballerina appears to be made of porcelain; the soldier is disappointed to discover the ballerina has two legs, but the ballerina still accepts him; at the end, the Jack-in-the-Box villain is the one that perishes in the fire instead of the soldier and ballerina. Other animated films for children have been produced on the tale, and, in 1975, a science fiction fantasy feature film, The Tin Soldier.

Andersen‘s contemporary August Bournonville choreographed the tale for his ballet A Fairy Tale in Pictures, and George Balanchine choreographed the tale in 1975, allowing the soldier and the ballerina to express their love before the ballerina is blown into the fire. George Bizet set the tale to music in Jeux d'Enfants.

Mike Mignola's graphic novel Baltimore, or The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire fuses the poignancy of "The Steadfast Tin Soldier" with supernatural Dracula myths, set in a post-World War I environment. Kate DiCamillo's The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane (2006) makes use of the tale's themes.

In Stieg Larsson's thriller "The Girl Who Played with Fire", the fiercely independent protagonist Lisbeth Salander compares the journalist Mikael Blomkvist, who had stayed loyal to her despite her repeated blatant rejection of him, with Andersen's steadfast tin soldier (implicitly comparing herself with Andersen's ballerina).