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[massoluk]

http://kotaku.com/fan-cuts-the-hobbit-into-a-single-4-hour-movie-1680489729

The first thing I thought after watching The Battle of Five Armies was "boy, that's a movie that didn't need to be made". Now, thanks to the power of fans and the internet, we can pretend around half of Peter Jackson's entire Hobbit trilogy never happened.

A guy by the name of tolkieneditor (via Daily Dot) has sat down with a copy of the book, decent versions of all three Hobbit films (the third has leaked already, because it's Oscars season) and a desire to make some deep and heavy cuts to Jackson's ponderous adaptation

As per tolkieneditor's site, some of the biggest cuts (two of which you can see as vids in this post) include:

The investigation of Dol Guldor has been completely excised

The Tauriel-Legolas-Kili love triangle has also been removed.

The Pale Orc subplot is vastly trimmed down.

Several of the Laketown scenes have been cut, such as Bard's imprisonment and the superfluous orc raid.

The prelude with old Bilbo is gone.

Several of the orc skirmishes have been cut.

Several of the action scenes have been tightened up, such as the barrel-ride, the fight between Smaug and the dwarves (no molten gold in this version), and the Battle of the Five Armies.

A lot of filler scenes have been cut as well.

I'm not sure whether to link to the actual site of the guy who made edit, since it contained torrent link, but not that hard to google. Plus, it's linked on Kotaku.

 

[elrechazado]

If they remove:
Tauriel
Legolas
One arm Orc
Radagast
Dumb superfluous lake town crap
Incompetent smaug
786 other horrible things
...
Then maybe it's a C+ movie

 

[Jack Remington]

There was at least 7.5 hours of necessary content though.

 

[Maximo]

Interesting might give it a watch and see the edits, I don't think even edits can save this god awful trilogy.

 

[A_Gorilla]

The removal of Tauriel alone means the films just jumped a whole letter grade for me.

 

[kmax]

I honestly prefer the book.

The films are atrocious, no matter how you cut it.

 

[Chris R]

Can't wait to see what a professional editor does to the films. 3 hours should be the goal I think.

 

[Sub_Level]

Nice.

 

[ANuclearError]

Surprised at the removal of old Bilbo. I suppose he might have wanted it to be "pure" but it didn't seem that bad a framing device to me for the film.

 

[samn]

Meh. They haven't removed enough.

Go for the Dwarfed edition.

 

[Kallor]

That last movie was god awful. Every time Legolas was on screen I felt like I was watching a dollar tree version of LOTR.

 

[Matt_]

Shame they removed Dol Goldur as they were some of my favourite bits

 

[Moppeh]

As much as I hated the Hobbit trilogy, I'm extremely excited to watch this fan edit. It seems like he removed most of what I hated about the films. It won't make them perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but I wouldn't be surprised if a smart edit elevates that trilogy into something that's watchable.

 

[massoluk]

Haven't seen the last movie yet, so I don't know how much can be cut from the last one. But the first two, I could think of a decent chunk, may be 1 hour from each if generous.

 

[Cider X]

How is this possible when the third one hasn't been released on home video yet?

 

[Nairume]

It'll be interesting to see the cuts made when the BoFA EE comes out, since that will presumably restore the parts of the ending that got cut so we could get more Legolas.

How is this possible when the third one hasn't been released on home video yet?

Award season

 

[Vulcano's assistant]

How is this possible when the third one hasn't been released on home video yet?

copies for academy members

 

[A_Gorilla]

How is this possible when the third one hasn't been released on home video yet?

Where have you been the last 15 years?

Good ol' piracy, dude.

 

[Drake]

Thats last movie was god awful. Every time Legolas was on screen I felt like I was watching the dollar tree version of LOTR.

The movie was so "good" I feel asleep during half of it.

 

[bananafactory]

How is this possible when the third one hasn't been released on home video yet?

Quoted in the OP

(the third has leaked already, because it's Oscars season)

 

[Dryk]

No amount of editing can fix the death scenes in Battle of the Five Armies

 

[Jack Remington]

Radagast, most of the White Council scene, Alfrid, and most of the Laketown politics are all that really needed cutting.

I could see the argument for removing the falling bricks platforming scene from the third one. Plus the random lines of shitty dialogue that are interspersed throughout all three films.

There's probably an hour in total that could be cut.

 

[loaf of bread]

I don't understand what was so bad about The Hobbit movies. I liked them.

 

[CS_Dan]

The prelude with old Bilbo is gone

Interesting, that's one of the extra bits I wouldn't mess with too much.

 

[Bobby Roberts]

The first crack at this came QUICK.

We're not gonna get the real solid attempt at this thing until the end of the year.

Some variation on this project is likely to become the most downloaded fan-edit ever.

 

[Xe4]

That was quick. Damn, good on them. It may not "fix" the films, but hopefully it makes them better, and more like the book. Mostly I want anything not in the Hobbit taken out. (Stupid love triangle, dumb barrel scene, etc)

 

[Ishida]

I don't understand what was so bad about The Hobbit movies. I liked them.

They are fantastic.

 

[Werewolf Jones]

I enjoyed some of the Radaghast scenes but I really want to see this now.

 

[badcrumble]

I say wait for the extended edition blu-ray of film 3 to make this happen. The full surround mix should make it easier to separate out voice/audio effect tracks from music tracks, which does a lot to facilitate better cuts/transitions, and there might also be some good material in the extended edition of the third film.

I'm still curious to see how well this would *really* flow as its own film, though. Here's hoping he actually approached it as more than an angry fan and made sure that every Chekhov's Gun that eventually gets fired also appeared in an earlier scene, that everything is properly established, that nothing gets established and then dropped, that no dialogue is weirdly out of place, et cetera. I fully believe that there are many, many scenes that can be wholly excised without causing problems but you still have to be careful with this stuff if you're trying to do an honest high quality replacement.

 

[inky]

4 hours? Still too long.

I'll wait for the Ultimate Cut Edition.

 

[Jack Remington]

I don't understand what was so bad about The Hobbit movies. I liked them.

Lots of gaffers have no sense of wonder.

 

[odiin]

Did they seriously not think to call it The Hobbit: There and Back Again?

 

[DrSlek]

I wonder if it'll be of the same quality as the de-specialized Star Wars edits?

 

[A.D. Skinner]

I'd be very interested in watching an edit once all 3 extended are taken into account.

Keep am eye out once the 3rd is released I guess.

 

[Deadstar]

There's no way Peter Jackson does a 4 hour recut of this in addition to the trilogy set right? I'd love to see an official director's cut that removes all the bloated scenes and insignificant characters.

 

[orochi91]

Shouldn't he have waited for the EE for BOTFA?

Then make a proper cut of all the EE version of the films?

 

[WrenchNinja]

Lots of gaffers have no sense of wonder.

I wonder what the hell happened to Peter Jackson to make such a bad adaptation

 

[freenudemacusers]

i doubt this will be the best out there as it is coming so quickly, but I do believe there is a solid 4 hour movie (basically the length of a LOTR EE) buried in all the excess, and would like to see it done well.

 

[TAJ]

Lots of gaffers have no sense of wonder.

I think that's more PJ's problem. He went unjustifiably grimdark, which couldn't be fixed by any edit. That said, less of a bad thing is good.

 

[MacGurcules]

Aw yeah. I knew this kind of thing would be coming, but I didn't expect it so quickly. I'll be looking into this.

 

[Cyan]

It'd be cool to see a pro take a crack at it, as happened with Star Wars Episode I & II. Dunno if I trust a random fan enough to sit through four hours of sliced up Hobbit.

 

[Ezalc]

Nice, hope this cuts out a bunch of the bullshit.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

I wonder what the hell happened to Peter Jackson to make such a bad adaptation

He did LOTR as a labor of love, he did The Hobbit for the money. I think there was an interview where PJ said he didn't even want to do The Hobbit and then WB offered him a lot of money. And then his original plan was to try and make 2 short movies since he felt the book couldn't fit into 1 long movie. WB decided they would make a trilogy of 3 hour movies instead. And here we are, PJ literally made the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy to LOTR.

 

[SigmasonicX]

The clip in the link shows that it won't exactly be book-accurate either; it cuts out the scene with the eagles saving everyone from the orcs, instead cutting straight to them going to Beorn's house. I suppose it's a fair enough cut if one is going for flow, since then you'd get a big climactic scene without it being anywhere near the climax.

 

[A_Gorilla]

I think that's more PJ's problem. He went unjustifiably grimdark, which couldn't be fixed by any edit. That said, less of a bad thing is good.

The worst part is the tone for The Hobbit would be perfect for an adaptation of The Silmarillion, if and when it ever gets made.

 

[Tatsumaki Senpuukyaku!]

Jackson got the tone so wrong and completely lost focus of the fact that the movie was supposed to be about Bilbo so often that it's hard to imagine any kind of editing could "fix" the movie.

Spoiler

I put "fix" in quotes because by that I mean "make more like the books". The movies were ok on their own

 

[Grinchy]

I'm definitely interested in a good edited version of this trilogy. There is a lot from the first 2 films that I enjoyed quite a bit. I'm not sure if this guy's edit is the one for me or not, but I am interested for sure.

I've never read the book, so I'm no purist. I actually liked the Old Bilbo stuff being crowbarred in.

 

[Syriel]

http://kotaku.com/fan-cuts-the-hobbit-into-a-single-4-hour-movie-1680489729





I'm not sure whether to link to the actual site of the guy who made edit, since it contained torrent link, but not that hard to google. Plus, it's linked on Kotaku.

Not just torrent links. The guy has a direct download on his site (the one that Kotaku links to).

 

[PushTheButtonMax]

Like others have said I would wait until all three extended editions are out before deciding what should and shouldn't be in the edit. And frankly I disagree with some of the edits he's made (cutting out the eagles etc), even though he's on the right track.

 

[freenudemacusers]

It'd be cool to see a pro take a crack at it, as happened with Star Wars Episode I & II. Dunno if I trust a random fan enough to sit through four hours of sliced up Hobbit.

it's nice that jackson was kind enough to tie the movie in a nice bow at the end, so it can quite literally slide right into the fellowship of the ring.