The Goblin Edit

Just came across mention of something called the Goblin Edit in Russia. It seems there is a fellow doing pirate movie edits there with an interesting twist. His name is Dmitri Puchkov (nicknamed “the Goblin”) and he started out by taking Hollywood films, and dubbing them into colloquial Russian, because their subtitle translations were usually very poor. But now he has taken it to a whole other level. He has started re-writing and re-editing these American movies so that they become commentaries on Russian society. The most popular “Goblin Edits” right now are for the Lord of the Rings movies.

    Puchkov has completely changed the script, turning the ‘good’ characters, like Frodo, into bumbling Russian cops, and the ‘bad’ Orcs into Russian gangsters.

    The new, irreverent version of The Lord of the Rings is set in Russia. Frodo Baggins is renamed Frodo Sumkin (a derivative from the Russian word sumka, or bag). The Ranger, Aragorn, is called Agronom (Russian for farm worker). Legolas is renamed Logovaz, after a Russian car company famed for its Ladas. Boromir becomes Baralgin, after a Russian type of paracetemol.

    Gandalf spends much of the film trying to impress others with his in-depth knowledge of Karl Marx, and Frodo is cursed with the filthy tongue of a Russian criminal.

It sounds totally awesome. I wish I spoke Russian so I could watch them. Although, really, there’s no reason (besides it being illegal, I mean) Americans couldn’t adapt this same technique. It would be almost like watching Mystery Science Theatre 3000, or Beavis & Butthead, except instead of witty commentary, you would go into popular movies, re-edit them and overdub them to become entirely new creations. Of course, media companies & intellectual property lawyers would have a fit over this, but it would be completely damn awesome if it was well done.

Wait, isn’t there some tv show where they do that with kung fu movies? I forget what it’s called. Anybody know any other similar examples of this happening in America?


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This entry was written by Tim Boucher, posted on October 31, 2004 at 4:53 pm.

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