The Soviet Version of The Lord Of The Rings

(From Wikipedia)

A live-action adaptation of The Fellowship of the Ring, Khraniteli ("Keepers" or "Guardians" [of the Ring]) was made on a low budget by Leningrad Television and aired once in the last days of the Soviet Union in 1991. The film was thought lost, but was in 2021 rediscovered and republished on YouTube by Leningrad Television's successor, Channel 5. The film has attracted interest for its inclusion of characters such as Tom Bombadil, Goldberry, and the Barrow-wight, featuring in a detour made by the story's Hobbit protagonists through the Old Forest, and omitted from Peter Jackson's version of The Lord of the Rings as not furthering the plot. The film was made on a low budget, with a score by Andrei "Dyusha" Romanov of the Russian rock band Akvarium. It used the 1982 Russian translation of Tolkien's book by Vladimir Muravyov and Andrey Kistyakovsky.

Part One


Part Two

 

I watched part 1 (and I speak Russian). This is low budget even by Soviet made for TV standards... Not sure why they even bothered when operating on a budget of $100.

 

I saw some clips on Colbert. Pretty funny stuff.

 

So that wasn't a standard budget for Soviet TV in the '90s?
I only skimmed a few bits and pieces, but what I saw was hilariously bad.
The one thing it's got going for it is the fact that as far as I know it's the only adaptation to actually include Tom Bombadil.
The effects they used to make the Hobbits small were so bad.
And why are the Nazgul, who are usually associated with everything being black riding brown horses with bright red tack? I don't think the tack is specially described in the book, but when everything else associated with them is black, it would make sense for their tack to be too.

 

This is a little pedantic of me, but did the Soviet Union even exist for enough years of the 1990s to talk about "Soviet TV in the '90s?" The USSR was dissolved before 1991 even ended!

 

"In Soviet Russia the One Ring wears you!"
(Sorry, couldn't resist)

 

The opening song in Part 1 is actually kind of catchy. I have no idea what the words are, but it sounds nice.

 

Ooops, you're right, I just saw other people referring to it as Soviet and didn't really think about it.

 

The movie is indeed Soviet. It's just that the union didn't last too much longer after it came out.

 

I think perhaps the only negative of the dissolution of the Soviet Union was that they never finished this trilogy.

 

Well, there's a thing that I never knew existed. I can't imagine the Tolkien estate was paid any money for the adaptation rights.

The BBC made a very good radio adaptation in 1981 with Ian Holm as Frodo.

The Lord of the Rings (1981 radio series) - Wikipedia

There have been two other radio adaptations, one by the BBC in the mid 1950s, and one by US National Public Radio in 1979. The first BBC adaptation has been lost but the US one survives. It apparently includes Tom Bombadil, who was omitted from the 1981 BBC adaptation.

I'm going to ignore the attempts at animating the story. While that worked out ok (sort of) for The Hobbit, it wasn't suitable for TLOTR.

 

IDK - I thought to the Ralph Bakshi animated take on "The Lord of the Rings" was okay, and it was too bad he couldn't finish the second film he had planned.

When Rankin Bass tried to finish what Ralph Bakshi had started, yes for me that definitely didn't work. Especially since they went back to referring to the Orcs as Goblins (which is what they were called in "The Hobbit" and in the Rankin Bass animated adaptation of that book.)

I don't know if it was something that the Rankin Bass was contractually obligated to do because of whatever licensing deal they',d struck with the Tolkien estate, or if it was something the production team decided to try and tie it back to their version of "The Hobbit", but yeah that and a lot of other things in their animated continuation of "The Lord of the Rings' didn't sit well with me.

To be fair though, I didn't like Peter Jackson's live-action take on "The Hobbit". Trying to expand the story in that book to encompass three films (and adding in extraneous material from "The Simarillian"), and some of his own suppositions about certain backstory elements didn't work for me at all.

But I digress...

 

Oh, OK.

 

I've never seen the animated Return of the King, but this thread has piqued my curiosity that I might have to check it out.

 

Ah, you meant the animated one is decent. Hard to call the Soviet one anything other than horrible with the below high school level budget.

 

You joke, but you're closer to the mark than you know. There's a Russian Tolkien Expanded Universe -- retellings of The Silmarillion from Morgoth's perspective, retelings of The Lord of the Rings from Mordor's perspective (notably, The Last Ringbearer, which has unofficially been translated into English), massive novels about the First Age, sequels to The Lord of the Rings, etc. All published by reputable Russian publishing houses. And there are some gorgeous illustrated editions of Tolkien's work in Russia, notably a version that has paintings in a Byzantine icon style. All completely unlicensed.

I'd very much doubt it, too.

Rankin-Bass always intended to adapt only The Hobbit and Return of the King. I don't know why they wanted to do it that way. The Bakshi film had nothing to do with their decision to skip ahead.

Bakshi intended to do The Lord of the Rings, Part 2. He hoped that releasing Part 1 would get him the money he needed to do Part 2, but Part 1 wasn't successful and the project died.

I like the Rankin-Bass Return of the King. Yeah, some of it is cringey. Yeah, "Where There's a Whip." But some of it is really effective; I think it does the Eowyn-Witch King fight better, and much as I love John Noble, William Conrad's Denethor and his madness is incredible. (Conrad's line reading on "The West has failed" is chilling.) And I'm sorry, but Glenn Yarbrough as the Minstrel of Gondor is great. It's not a deep film, but where else are you going to get those John Huston soliloquies?

I read The History of The Hobbit a number of years ago, a two volume set that delves into Tolkien's writing of The Hobbit and how it all came together. The books pointed out that 1) The Silmarillion was always a part of The Hobbit, even if Tolkien wasn't entirely sure when and where The Hobbit was set in time and space when he wrote it and 2) Tolkien had an unfulfilled desire later in his life to make The Hobbit more like The Lord of the Rings in tone and style, to the point where he started a whole new version of the book. Peter Jackson, in my view successfully, was able to accomplish what Tolkien could not, a version of The Hobbit that matched the tone and style of his version of The Lord of the Rings. It doesn't work for everyone, and I understand that, but it works for me, and I enjoy it, even if I think that the third film needed a serious rethink.

 

One of the russian sequels was even translated into english. You can find it on ebook now.