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The Hobbit: The Third Age (a LotR film continuity miniseries) — Page 2

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Here’s another major change, the last one of my own changes on top of the edit I’m using for a source.

In the original, the scene where they arrive at Mirkwood has two topics. Firstly is that Mirkwood is bad, and that Gandalf should go off and do some investigating. And secondly is that Bilbo almost tells Gandalf that he has the ring, and then in a major failiure of character that foreshadows his fall to the ring, and the ring’s power, he decides not to.

Since my episode 3, ‘Riddles in the Dark’, features Bilbo’s discovery and first usage of the ring, I wanted to end on the moment where he decides to keep it a secret. But since my episode 4, ‘The Return of the Shadow’, features the Mirkwood exploration (which is quite long), I felt that the exposition about Mirkwood belonged with the episode in which they explore it.

Therefore, I decided to chop it into two scenes - one where they arrive and Bilbo fails to tell Gandalf about the ring, and one where Gandalf explores it then decides to leave the dwarves to explore it alone.

So, originally, it played out like this:

  • The party arrive outside Mirkwood
  • Bilbo fiddles with the ring as the ring whispers
  • Gandalf peeks in a little, and identifies their path
  • Bilbo says the forest feels cursed, Gandalf says they have no other option
  • Galadriel warns Gandalf that something’s afoot
  • Bilbo gets a little ‘ring shock’ as Gandalf explores
  • Gandalf announces he’s leaving
  • Gandalf notices something’s up with Bilbo, who fails to tell him about the ring
  • Gandalf warns the party about Mirkwood and leaves
  • The party enter Mirkwood

Now, episode three ends like this:

  • Bilbo discovers the ring
  • Various other things happen
  • The party arrive outside Mirkwood
  • Bilbo fiddles with the ring as the ring whispers
  • Gandalf notices something’s up with Bilbo, who fails to tell him about the ring
     - I extended this scene a little, especially the last shots, also adding a zoom and a more ominous audio track, to let this moment have a little longer to land.
    (I think this works nicely, because the first thing that happens to Bilbo upon arriving at the location where Sauron is, is that he starts to feel the pull of the ring. It wants to be found. This scene also makes Gandalf seem more shrewd - he notices something is up with Bilbo immediately.)

https://vimeo.com/441827596

And episode four begins like this:

  • Thorin/Gandalf flashback (unrelated to what I’m telling you about here, it’s just what happens in this episode)
  • [Implicitly here, time may have passed while they searched for the path]
  • Gandalf peeks in a little, and identifies their path
  • Bilbo says the forest feels cursed [now implicitly having been near to it for a while, or having felt the pull of the ring], Gandalf says they have no other option
  • Galadriel warns Gandalf that something’s afoot
  • Bilbo gets a little ‘ring shock’ as Gandalf explores [reminding the audience of the events of the last episode]
  • Gandalf announces he’s leaving
  • Gandalf warns the party about Mirkwood and leaves
  • The party enter Mirkwood

https://vimeo.com/441828979

These are definitely the trickiest cuts I’ve had to do. Luckily, the score during these scenes is very jerky and mysterious, with lots of cuts to the forest as if it’s spying on them, so I think I’ve managed to make these cuts as clean as possible while maintaining coherency.

The Clone Wars: Refocused | Andor: Movie Omnibus

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I’ve just checked all of the edits in the final render, and have spotted one ~5m scene in episode two, the arrival at Rivendell, which hasn’t come out right. The rest of the cuts and the quality seems to have worked great, but I’ll need to revisit that second episode, which’ll take a couple of days.

The Clone Wars: Refocused | Andor: Movie Omnibus

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Congratulations! I want to watch 😃

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This sounds very cool. Also recommend posting on ifdb to get more traction.

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I’ve been waiting for this to get approved by the guys over at IFDB since this project was finished six months ago. I’ve been told it’s ‘in the queue’, but since every editor and their mum has made a Hobbit edit, it seems like there’s no appetite amongst the approvers to take my edit off the pile and review it, which is unfortunate. I respect that they’re doing this as a hobby for free as a service to the community, so they have the right to pick and choose, it’s just frustrating personally to not be able to share work I’m proud of.

The Clone Wars: Refocused | Andor: Movie Omnibus

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That does sound frustrating. Especially since it seems like a new Hobbit fanedit is uploaded every week on there. Not sure why yours would take some time. Maybe it might get another look if you resubmit it under the “The Third Age” title once you package it with a LOTR edits as a two season Middle Earth show.

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I’m not going to touch LOTR until I get feedback from viewers of the Hobbit that they think it’s worthwhile. I’m not in a rush on that one. It’s such an undertaking, but I’d want to know there was an appetite for it. Right now I’m focused full time on my Clone Wars edit.

The Clone Wars: Refocused | Andor: Movie Omnibus

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I’d love to look at your Hobbit edits. Doing a Middle Earth marathon with friends in January and I’ll use this for the Hobbit section

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I really enjoyed these. The trims to the Original Two Film Structure edit were creative. My only problem was that many of the episode endings felt very abrupt. I know this would be difficult, since they weren’t meant as episode endings. Maybe a slower fade to black would make it work. Right now, it feels like I’m pausing the movie rather than watching a complete TV episode. The placement of the Desolation of Smaug intro also seems a bit off in this edit.

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EddieDean said:

Thanks for your feedback! I will look at those ending transitions!

What did you mean about the placement of the Smaug intro? What do you think it needs in order to work?

In the original film, it felt like the Smaug intro was a good way to reacquaint viewers about the main conflict after the break between films. It also serves as a good segway into the rest of the movie. The Original Two Film Structure also used this intro the same way. It’s almost like a filmed intermission. In a TV edit, it feels a bit superfluous imo. We’re in a immediate conflict at the end of one episode and suddenly there’s a random introduction where there doesn’t need to be one. I think it’ll be challenging to place this appropriately in a TV edit. Maybe the start of the last episode could be another place? We have a short pre-credits sequence showing how this journey started before transitioning to how it ended. I don’t know. These are just my thoughts. Maybe other folks won’t have any problems with the flashback. It’s a small thing anyway.

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Ohhh, I see! That scene, where it flashes back to Gandalf recruiting Thorin, does two things. (1) It recaps the mission, but importantly, (2) It gives us more context on Thrain. In the original Desolation of Smaug, it makes sense because it serves both of those purposes. But actually in AdamDens’ 2FS (which I love, obviously!) it kind of doesn’t work for the second purpose, because Thrain has already been discovered at the end of the first half. So when making this a TV series, I reasoned that if the show had been made this way, the flashback would mainly be used to reintroduce the viewers to Thrain, in the episode where Thrain is rediscovered.

The Clone Wars: Refocused | Andor: Movie Omnibus

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Hi Eddie! I was wondering if it was possible to get a link for this series? I’d love to check it out. I work often and have little time to watch movies lately, but my kid brother has been asking to re-watch the LOTR/Hobbit movies with me, so I looked into a TV show format if it was possible. I’ll definitely give you feedback. I’m a film fanatic and I made an account just to ask for an update.

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This looks awesome. I would personally like to have a link to this