Movie Thoughts: The Fellowship of the Ring (1991)

• Released: April 13 1991
• Directed by: Natalya Serebryakova
• Running time: 1 h 5 min
• Rating 1/5

Synopsis

A Hobbit named Frodo must travel to the other end of Middle Earth to destroy a ring of dark power.

My Thoughts

Of all the things I've looked at at Movie Thoughts, this is probably the weirdest and the most obscure. The Fellowship of the Ring, or, Khraniteli as its original title goes, is a 1991 Soviet Union adaptation of the first book in the Lord of the Rings series. It was presumed lost for a long time, until it was recently uploaded (and later translated) to YouTube. So, being the Rings fan that I am, of course I had to check it out.

This movie is just...okay, I don't like using this word, but I guess in a way cringe is a good way to describe it. From the lackluster sets, the rudimentary special effects and use of green screen, the wooden acting and weird dialogue, the unfitting costumes, the narrator that doesn't do much, the blurry lens to the awkward shots of people staring and talking directly into the camera. It's all there.

It's very clear that this thing has the budget of a potato, but that honestly kind of makes it charming in a way. Not good in the slightest, but charming nonetheless. I'm pretty sure they shot all of the outside shots in one day, as the lighting or setting in them never changes. They also had only four horses to spare.

There's other fun things, such as Legolas now being a woman, Elrond having facial hair, Saruman's bizarre acting, the Barrow Wight doing...whatever it was doing, the weirdly inconsistent use of scale, the random lady dancers in Lothlorien, Gimli being a literal gnome (hat included) and having only one line of dialogue, Gandalf just outright vanishing to have his off-screen faceoff with the Balrog, and wonderfully janky puppetry on Gwaihir. 

The music is used very sparsely, and there's also this weird sound techno effect that plays whenever a closeup of the ring is scene. Overall, this was a very bizarre experience that'll probably give you some secondhand emerassment. But it was kind of fun in a way, too.