Peter Jackson may have popularized The Lord of The Rings with his blockbuster trilogy, but he wasn't the first one to put forth a film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's story. That achievement actually goes to the Russians, who produced a made-for-TV version of Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring ten years before Jackson did.
Released in 1991 under the name Khraniteli, the Russian-language film is supposedly the only The Lord of the Rings adaptation made in the Soviet Union. It was initially believed to have been lost to time, but it suddenly resurfaced when 5TV, a Russian television channel, posted both Part 1 and Part 2 of the film on its YouTube channel last week. Since then, it has garnered over 800,000 views, with several fans expressing their delight over its basic sets and hilarious special effects.
Die-hard fans of the Lord of the Rings franchise have been searching for the film for years but never had any luck locating it. Perhaps what makes it so rare is the fact that adaptations of Tolkien's work were incredibly scarce back in the Soviet era. Many people believe that the story was censored by the Russian government since the subject matter involved an uprising of men and allies against an autocratic state.
Others believe that Tolkien's work was simply too difficult to translate into Russian, and therefore many filmmakers were discouraged from trying to adapt it. Considering the fact that Tolkien uses complex language to tell his story, the process of translating his words into Russian would not be a straightforward task. Still, The Lord of the Rings is huge in Russia. In fact, when Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy first came out in the country, several young people watched a dubbed version that included a lot more swear words than the American version.
That is why the resurfacing of Khraniteli is such a big deal for Lord of the Rings fans—aside from the laughs, it gave many Russian viewers some much-needed nostalgia. It also included a couple of plot details that were excluded from Jackson's trilogy that fans seemed to appreciate, including the debut of Tom Bombadil, the forest dweller from the books. According to past reports, Bombadil didn't make it in the American version because his character was just too "long-winded."
Currently, a Lord of the Rings television show is being produced for Amazon Prime. According to sources involved in the production, the show will be set in the Age of Numenor, which is the 3,441 year period before The Fellowship of the Ring.
Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy is now available on HBO Max and Amazon Prime.
Source: The Guardian