The Russian animated Hobbit film that was never finished

[Niffiwan]

Hi folks. Does anyone remember me being on this forum 8 years ago?

Anyway... I think some of you may find this interesting:

The Treasure Under the Mountain (EDIT: removed old link which no longer works)



To quote myself from the Youtube description:

This is the prologue to a feature film that was never finished or released, based on Tolkien's "The Hobbit". This video dates from about 1994, and was made by Argus International. Some have speculated that maybe work was stopped because artists in Russia were just finding out about how copyright laws limited what they could make. In the USSR, artists could adapt anything they chose with no regard for copyright, especially in the 1980s when ideological restrictions were relaxed. Then suddenly the 1990s come around, and you're finding that the older ideological artistic restrictions are replaced by newer ones, except that this time you're not allowed to adapt any popular artistic creation within the last 100 years or so (because if it's popular, the upfront fees will be astronomical).

Translation/subtitles were made by myself.

Credits:
http://animator.ru/db/?ver=eng&p=show_film&fid=5606

Full text of song translation:
Goodness and laughter, laughter and joy
Smiles light up the faces of all
and souls, like windows, are thrown wide open.
The sky up above shines clear and blue.
No-one wants to believe that bad dreams may come true,
nor know that some day
that some day the weather will worsen.

But the tempest arrived, as is always the case.
Disaster moves in to take merriment's place,
With fire and armor and no shred of mercy.
The desperate bell tolls too late to assist,
And how will a mere paper dragon resist
a brave paper dragon
against one that's real?

When all is stretched thin by eternity's freeze,
When all is enveloped by blankets of time,
The Earth bit by bit becomes merged with the sky,
And night bit by bit becomes merged with the day.
But somebody here's left a track in the snow
which leads to a faraway
which leads to a faraway hope.