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[Timeless]

The idea is simple. Everyone was going to do it. Just because this edit is first doesn't mean others won't follow.

I'm hoping for a lossless edit sourced from the Blu-Rays. My hope would be the whole trilogy in 3.00 hours or less, but without watching the movies I don't know if that's possible. The theoretical maximum for the 3 movies on Blu-Ray would be around 150 GB. Probably less. From there people can make compressed copies. It's even theoretically possible to generate an FFmpeg script that makes the edit on your own computer, as long as you back up each movie yourself and fill it in for the script.

Basing the edit on the book doesn't make sense to me. If it's good filmmaking, keep it; if it gets in the way, cut it. But more power to them. If I were a fan of the book I'd probably feel differently.

 

[Schweinehund]

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

Inevitable comparisons to LOTR, monetization. They're good movies on their own, not great films, and that's enough to be deemed a failure when it comes to movie criticism.

I personally didn't mind Tauriel but I feel as if Legolas has been over the top since LOTR. He basically become a parody of himself by the end of the hobbit. The first film was the best and the second film's smaug scenes were great, third was the worst of the the three (the dragon's greed thing became overbearing + legolas scenes + tons of tropes)

 

[Jigorath]

Because she is a Mary-Sue at its lowest form:

New character with no basis in canon? Check

Has a unique hair color not seen in any other members of her race? Check

Possesses fighting skills equal to or even better than the canon characters? Check.

Has not one but TWO romantic relationships with popular canon characters? Check.

Has BOTH of the romantic relationships fall under the Forbidden/star-crossed cliche? Check.

Is the only one of her race to not display the canon animosity/bigotry towards another race, when by all rights she should? Check.

Has a lot of screen time, but does absolutely NOTHING to advance the plot and could be removed with no change at all to the story? Checkmate.

I'm going to respond piece by piece.

1. True she isn't in The Hobbit. Tolkien did not have any important female characters in the novel so if they had to create their own to diversify the cast a bit.

2. Plenty of the elves seen in DOS have the same hair color as Tauriel. Not really sure what you're talking about here.

3. Pretty much every major character outside the hobbits have godlike fighting abilities in these films. They're action movies.

4. I already agreed the romance was poorly done.

5. See point 4.

6. Huh? She does display animosity towards the dwarves at the beginning. Later on she gets over it as she gets to know Kili. Same as Legolas and Gimli.

7. I don't think Tauriel gets that much screentime. No more than Legolas and he has just as much contribution to the plot.

 

[Branduil]

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

I've seen the dwarfed edit of the first two films and even with the fairly amateur editing it's a massive improvement in tone, pacing, characterization, etc. Removing all of the unnecessary Orc and White Council crap helps a ton, as does removing Tauriel and the more excessive action sequences.

 

[DS-61-5]

So what is the best fan edit? Is there a good fan edit? What is the least worst fan edit?

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=123872690&postcount=318

I feel morally bound to say this in every "woe is us, the Hobbit is terrible" thread, but a terrific edit already exists that I would say elevates the first film from trash to being on par with the LotR films.

For the record, there's an excellent fanedit floating around called "The Arkenstone Edition" (by a fan editor named Kerr) that solves most of the problems with the original An Unexpected Journey as well as incorporates the better scenes from the extended edition. I watched it with four huge fans of LOTR who all hated AUJ, and each of us quite enjoyed the film now. There are another 5-8 minutes we thought could be lost (mostly the Warg scene and Azog at the end), which the editor says he might do in a more radical version later, but we were all impressed.

There are a couple spots with iffy sound-editing [mostly music being too loud in the first 10 minutes] but that's literally the worst one can say of them. See discussion of the Arkenstone edition by faneditor Kerr in the posts before and after in this thread.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost...postcount=1785

Unfortunately, he hasn't done an edit of the others, and I suspect isn't planning to do one until he has his hands on EEs of all, compressing into a single film. I think this is lamentable since I'd like to see his Arkenstone more or less unchanged, and Desolation and BOFA compressed into a single 3:30 film--not a book purist one, but one that, like his Arkenstone, is simply prudent and good filmmaking, leaving in things like the White Council, as Timeless observes.

Basing the edit on the book doesn't make sense to me. If it's good filmmaking, keep it; if it gets in the way, cut it. But more power to them. If I were a fan of the book I'd probably feel differently.

In the meantime, the best fanedit of Desolation is "Into the Fire," by Ranger613. It eliminates Tauriel [some of whose scenes I like, and am willing to tolerate for the gorgeous Howard Shore theme, the best thing in the scores], the barrel shenanigans, dwarves and orc attack at Laketown and the Smaug gold sequence [the remaining Smaug/Bilbo scene is incredible ], leaving a sparse 1:30. So for now, I'd go Arkenstone for AUJ and Into the Fire for DOS.

 

[Sibylus]

I'd be interested in seeing it, but sadly I think no amount of editing can save the third movie's material. It's just so flat.

 

[Tatsumaki Senpuukyaku!]

Wait a few months after the blu ray special edition is out. It's way too early.

I mean what is the best fan edit of a movie in general, not just The Hobbit.

 

[Mighty Chin]

Zero interest in Fan Edits

 

[Jack Remington]

I'd be interested in seeing it, but sadly I think no amount of editing can save the third movie's material. It's just so flat.

Best action scenes in years for my money, with the exception of The Raid series.

 

[Sibylus]

Best action scenes in years for my money, with the exception of The Raid series.

Action I'll give you, but in terms of meaningful character moments there was a serious dearth (not even the fotr bookend did anything for me).

 

[Oersted]

They're action movies.

What is wrong with these adaptions in one sentence.

 

[Valhelm]

Why are people so against Tauriel? If it wasn't for her this would be a completely male dominated cast. Sure the romance is stupid but the character herself is fine.

That's how I feel. She was an original character, but so was every non-background orc or uruk in LotR.

 

[btrboyev]

Even with a screener source..I can't imagine this edit being anything less than jarring with the quality dip of the 3rd film leak.

 

[Elfforkusu]

I bet there are two kickass movies somewhere in that trilogy.

But it'd take some serious skill to make it work.

 

[btrboyev]

If your going to put in work to edit it down at least wait for the EE of the last film.

It's weird to think the 3rd film even needing an extended edition considering the last film was easily the shortest film by a long shot.

 

[Sibylus]

I bet there are two kickass movies somewhere in that trilogy.

But it'd take some serious skill to make it work.

I'd be interested to see if you could cut Azog altogether and still have the movie make any sense whatsoever.

Spoiler

Thorin dying to nothing would be pretty funny.

 

[James Woods]

A quality edit is gonna take a lot longer than a month, brehs. Except the best edit within a year or so.

 

[quesalupa]

Guys I'm having an existential crisis over here. I could've sworn Tauriel was in LoTR and I thought I'd seen Evangeline Lilly in a bunch of stuff. Tauriel was definitely not in LoTR and Lilly hadn't played in crap. This is awkward...

 

[TAJ]

Guys I'm having an existential crisis over here. I could've sworn Tauriel was in LoTR and I thought I'd seen Evangeline Lilly in a bunch of stuff. Tauriel was definitely not in LoTR and Lilly hadn't played in crap. This is awkward...

You're probably thinking of Arwen. Did you see them once or twice a long time ago?

 

[Oersted]

I'd be interested to see if you could cut Azog altogether and still have the movie make any sense whatsoever.

Spoiler

Thorin dying to nothing would be pretty funny.

Spoiler

In the books he died because of his wounds of the battle. Azog never played a role in that, since he died years before.

Guys I'm having an existential crisis over here. I could've sworn Tauriel was in LoTR and I thought I'd seen Evangeline Lilly in a bunch of stuff. Tauriel was definitely not in LoTR and Lilly hadn't played in crap. This is awkward...

Are you confusing her with Liv Tyler?

 

[Zoe]

I just wanted an extended live action version of the Rankin/Bass movie

 

[quesalupa]

You're probably thinking of Arwen. Did you see them once or twice a long time ago?

Yeah, I just googled it and that's who I was thinking of. I saw the movies a looong time ago.

 

[Karsticles]

They are fantastic.

Chrono Cross quality, films, sir.

 

[Kunan]

Dol Guldor was the most interesting thing to happen in the third movie.

 

[Quick]

Just watched a bit of it: the opening scene awkwardly transitions from a wide shot of Bag End to Bilbo's ring-shaped smoke.

Having "60 Years Earlier..." is also awkward. I think it would be better to leave Old Bilbo to bookend the movie.

 

[MegalonJJ]

Am I alone in thinking that irrespective of one's thoughts of the quality of the three films, shouldn't we at least respect the work of cast and crew who made these films and accept them as they are?

 

[Nose Master]

Am I alone in thinking that irrespective of one's thoughts of the quality of the three films, shouldn't we at least respect the work of cast and crew who made these films and accept them as they are?

You feel the same about shitty DJ's blasting their ipad remixes at clubs? Mods that significantly improve video games? If some editing makes for a better product, fuck em.

 

[Skux]

I reckon I could do it in two and a half hours.

They should have a competition to see who can get it the shortest and still have it stay coherent.

 

[rekameohs]

I reckon I could do it in two and a half hours.

They should have a competition to see who can get it the shortest and still have it stay coherent.

Bilbo himself does it the best

 

[Quick]

Am I alone in thinking that irrespective of one's thoughts of the quality of the three films, shouldn't we at least respect the work of cast and crew who made these films and accept them as they are?

Wouldn't you say that Peter Jackson should've respected Tolkien's work and accepted it the way it is?

 

[CloudyTuba]

While I definitely already wanted someone to fanedit these into 2 normal movies or 1 very long one, I didn't necesarily want it to be more faithful to the book. I just wanted a movie without so much bullshit time wasting.

I liked some additions, like gandalf/necromancer and the fight with the nazgul and old Bilbo. It's about keeping the right stuff and cutting out all the stuff that felt more like deleted scenes that accidentally slipped into the movie. Oh, and a couple of those subplots that were there just for the hell of it.

Also there might yet be some gold in the extended edition to mine out for a future edit.

 

[Pops Maellard]

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.

This. The extended editions of the first two Hobbit films benefit the experience greatly, and it could easily be argued that one of the biggest problems these movies had was that they had too much content left on the cutting floor.

 

[Jack Remington]

I like a lot of what I'm reading in the description of the Arkenstone edition of AUJ, but I would keep the stone giants scene. The stone giants are in the book, and that was pretty exciting and visually amazing, IMO.

While I really loved the Goblin Town escape scene, I'm okay with losing most of that. It felt like a super-advanced Indiana Jones-esque action scene with some of the best action choreography in years, but it wasn't 100% necessary.

 

[ThatCrazyGuy]

I look forward to watching this.

 

[Sibylus]

Spoiler

In the books he died because of his wounds of the battle. Azog never played a role in that, since he died years before.

Are you confusing her with Liv Tyler?

Spoiler

Right, but in the context of the movie cutting out the extended duel with Azog leaves the causation of his mortal wounds much more mysterious (or comical).

 

[True Fire]

I watched the entire thing from beginning to end. Overall it was very well done, considering how quickly it came out. There were a few jarring transitions, but overall it was an amazing effort and a solid A- movie.

An Unexpected Journey benefited the most from the edits. One less song in the beginning, two whole orc chase scenes were removed (as well as Radagast), and there was absolutely no White Council, meaning that the story from the book was adapted faithfully.

The Desolation of Smaug was a bit more awkward. Gandalf disappears for no reason like in the books, which doesn't work as well on film. The barrel scene is still really awkward, and could have been cut even more. And Kili's illness is never really explained, and it goes away on its own. However, the Smaug scene doesn't have any of the awkward Dol Guldur investigation intercut with it, making it much more suspenseful. And the end of the movie flowed flawlessly into the next scene. You can tell Peter Jackson ended the movie in the middle of a scene.

The Battle of the Five Armies could not be saved though. It's an hour and a half snoozefest, even with all of the awful subplots cut out. In order for this "Tolkien Edit" to work as a singular film the battle really should pick up right after Smaug dies, but there's at least 45 minutes of characters getting pissed off at each other before the battle even begins.

I really liked how the editor chose to keep most of the Laketown scenes in tact, because the human aspect was the only thing keeping the Hobbit trilogy from being a Dreamworks Animation film. And Bard ended up becoming the real protagonist of the trilogy (I don't think Peter Jackson even realized this).

 

[Statue of Limitation]

I hope they remove any characterisation any of the dwarfs received no matter how minute - got keep it close to the books!

 

[sn00zer]

First movie was the only time I fell asleep in a movie theater...didnt watch the rest

 

[Windam]

I actually liked the part with old Bilbo. It was nice to see Ian Holme and Elijah having small cameos to bridge in to FotR. If only Legolas had been given just three minutes as a "Remember peeps, I'm this guy's son!" and then buggered off... Gah.

 

[TheJoRu]

I actually liked the part with old Bilbo. It was nice to see Ian Holme and Elijah having small cameos to bridge in to FotR.

I agree that old Bilbo was a good addition. But Frodo? He has no part in this story, at all. That's 100% fan service. Bilbo writing his book, reminiscing his old adventure, is a perfect set-up for the relevant story at hand. Frodo has no place in this, he's completely unnecessary. That's when good call-backs turn into indulgent, excessive fan service that they unfortunately continue showcasing throughout all of the three movies.

 

[Jokergrin]

watched this whole thing, it was pretty damn good. i agree with almost all the cuts

will be good to see a final version using good bits from the BOTFA EE

 

[Solidsoul]

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.

People really need to stop posting things that are factually inaccurate.

 

[KingHenrik30]

LOTR is to Ep. IV,V,V

AS

Hobbit is to Ep. I,II,III

Tauriel = Jar Jar Binks

 

[Mario]

LOTR is to Ep. IV,V,V

AS

Hobbit is to Ep. I,II,III

Tauriel = Jar Jar Binks

Legolas = R2D2 ?

 

[Orbis Tabula]

I like the idea, but I think someone should do it after all the EEs are out. I'm convinced (perhaps optimistically) that there is at least some content in the EEs worth saving.

 

[megamerican]

I like the idea, but I think someone should do it after all the EEs are out. I'm convinced (perhaps optimistically) that there is at least some content in the EEs worth saving.

Holy shit are they seriously doing extended versions of the Hobbit movies?!

 

[orochi91]

I like the idea, but I think someone should do it after all the EEs are out. I'm convinced (perhaps optimistically) that there is at least some content in the EEs worth saving.

That what I'm waiting for.

EEs will have some worthy scenes that will hopefully add some much needed character development.

It will be the ultimate cut.

 

[opticalmace]

What's the legality of something like this? I'm guessing "if you own the source material, don't worry about it"?

 

[Turin]

I agree that old Bilbo was a good addition. But Frodo? He has no part in this story, at all. That's 100% fan service. Bilbo writing his book, reminiscing his old adventure, is a perfect set-up for the relevant story at hand. Frodo has no place in this, he's completely unnecessary. That's when good call-backs turn into indulgent, excessive fan service that they unfortunately continue showcasing throughout all of the three movies.

The Frodo scene wasn't even remotely excessive.

Legolas was beyond excessive. Having the Necromancer go full-Sauron(when it should have been more vague and creepy) was excessive.

 

[Five]

What's the legality of something like this? I'm guessing "if you own the source material, don't worry about it"?

I suppose it'd be roughly similar to emulating games, where ostensibly you're supposed to dump the ISOs yourself, but most people are okay with it as long as you legally own a copy. It's still an illegal manner of distributing copyrighted material, though.

That said, I watched it. It was good. There are some unfortunate continuity errors that would be hard to get around like having Smaug still be covered in gold even though the molten gold scene was cut. I happen to be on the side of liking the original movies, though, so I'll probably alternate between fan edits and the full movies in rewatches going forward.