In the final days of the Soviet Union, a full-length version of The Fellowship of the Ring was aired on Soviet TV. It was thought lost forever, but now it’s available at YouTube. The Guardian tells us more:

The 1991 made-for-TV film, Khraniteli, based on Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring, is the only adaptation of his Lord of the Rings trilogy believed to have been made in the Soviet Union.

Aired 10 years before the release of the first instalment of Peter Jackson’s movie trilogy, the low-budget film appears ripped from another age: the costumes and sets are rudimentary, the special effects are ludicrous, and many of the scenes look more like a theatre production than a feature-length film.

Here’s part two.

There are no subtitles, but you can auto-generate English subtitles which are incomplete and may or may not be anywhere near accurate. Start by clicking the CC button under the media player. Then, select the “gear” icon and select Subtitles -> Auto-translate -> English. There are too many ads, but most are skippable.

[via Metafilter]

Tags: Fellowship of the Ring, lord of the rings, lotr, Soviet Union