Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Truly the Greatest Hobbit Adaption


It's not the Jackson epic money-machine. 

And as much as I love the Rankin-Bass 1977 cartoon (I mean I still see elves to this day as sour-faced greyish plant monsters) it's usurped in the number one position by another, lesser-known foreign-made film:  The Fabulous Journey of Mr. Bilbo Baggins the Hobbit, a live-action version produced in the Soviet Union (no less) in 1985.

Thanks to an entirely faithful and accurate translated credits the understated brilliance and sublime performances of this adaption—Glimmer-Glam Gandalf (pictured above), pink-shirted dumpy Bilbo,  Pufnstuf dwarves, song-and-dance goblin dance routines by the Leningrad Ballet, Smaug puppets and more—can now be enjoyed by English-speaking audiences.




8 comments:

  1. "If you act like a bitch, we will slap you like a bitch."

    Yes, truly, it is Tolkien at his finest.

    - Ark

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    1. True that, in fact I believe that it was the original language excised by the publisher in 1937.

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  2. A thing of haunting beauty, truly.

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  3. Apparently, Bilbo and I have similar world views. You'd never catch me in that shirt, though.

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  5. I have always liked the finnish TV-version, it's also in the Youtube with english language subtitles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Koj0V7G46fs

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  6. I may now crawl back to my hole and die, happy to know that I have seen everything.

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  7. The only thing that could make things better would be the inclusion of the Nimoy classic "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins."

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