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The Hobbit (M4 Book Edit) (Released) — Page 5

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I’d love a link as well if it’s still available, PM’d.

“Star Wars has, and will always be a restaurant.”

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PM’d. A link would be appreciated as well, thank you!

Drink up me hearties, yo ho!

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I would also love a link to the fan edit if it is possible

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Any way to PM a link? Very interested. Thanks for the hard work!

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As an editor-type-person who worked on this… (really!)

I would love to see your choices. Assistant editors and other minor characters in the production process often feel like we’d like to gainsay the director/producer choices. Sometimes a movie gets out of the edit and we all want to forget we worked on it.

Link please, if such a thing exists.

And good for you for doing this! If I wasn’t so scarred by my time in the industry, I’d totally be putting in time to do this kind of work too.

Thank you.

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Neat! I think we all can tell Jackson had a pretty big part in the editing phase, and some may enjoy that but others, would’ve preferred something a little more toned down. Regardless, we are all very grateful for every party involved in production, it’s only thanks to them that we have so much amazing footage to work with.

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This sounds excellent. I’d love to see it. PM sent.

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 (Edited)

This is by far my favorite Hobbit edit. Your work smoothing away the stuff that you cut is nothing short of amazing - Tauriel and Legolas, Fili’s injury, Azog and Bolg, the more overtly sinister aspects of the ring, etc. I love it.

In that light, know that the following observations are meant as constructive nitpicks. I truly appreciate the edit as is.

The opening has a lot of short sequences. Most make sense, but I’m not sold on the one with Frodo outside by the gate. I think the opening as a whole might flow better without it.

60 years earlier font? - same as subtitles. This is the only setting label in the film. Is it even necessary?

You use a combination of white and grey dialog subtitles. I understand that it’s done intentionally, but what does LOTR use? I recommend matching as much as possible.

I think in cutting the White Council, you lost the reason for the company leaving ahead of Gandalf. They later mention him planning to meet up with them, but it’s curious that there’s no earlier explanation.

The transition from the first to second movie is still awkward. That’s a lot of distance for the orcs to cover so quickly. Maybe reduce the implied distance of the eagle flight. Maybe also reduce/remove the feeling of resolution atop the aerie so that the tension translates more easily into the next sequence.

I like the intermission but it seems awkwardly located, only placed where it is in order to cover the scene transition from the first movie to the second. A more logical point would be after the barrels, when mentioning the barge, as many other editors have broken it.

It’s twilight when the company is deciding to go to Beorn’s house, then suddenly bright day when they are running to and inside Beorn’s house, then night again? Can the lighting be adjusted to make it more cohesive?

The wandering in Mirkwood drags a bit. It’s thematic but is not pleasant to watch for so long.

Without the flashbacks with the elves and Thror, the jewels, and turning away during the dragon attack, Thorin’s hatred of Thranduil seems a bit unreasonable. I agree that it’s fun to get the backstory alongside Bilbo, but I do think that there may be good moments in the first half of the movie for contextual flashbacks, like the one you include when talking about Gurion in Laketown.

Getting out of the river seems a bit abrupt, but that may be unavoidable if you want to skip all mention of battle/injury.

It’s unclear how Bard, Bilbo, and Gandalf got back to Dale ahead of the orcs.

It’s not clear why Bilbo ran off to ravenhill.

Thorin and company get to ravenhill almost instantaneously. Maybe a fighting montage would help the transition.

What is the purpose of the bats flying down over the armies? The shot cuts away, and it draws attention to the gap of time between them flying past Bilbo and them arriving at the battlefield itself. I suspect it’s enough to see the bats arrive with Bilbo, then see them intermittently fighting eagles etc during the rest of the battle.

Did you show the part where the axe gets out of Bifur’s head? You do show him without it at Bilbo’s departure.

Credits music - consider the closing song from Five Armies, since Misty Mountains appears in the film already and it’s a nice closing that seems a personal touch for Bilbo and for the entire production team. I do like the full Misty Mountains version you use though. Consider also using the cast and concept sketches during the closing credits. That would tie Hobbit in more aesthetically as a companion unit to LOTR as a whole, not just a prequel chapter. You already support this understanding by including the main “The Hobbit” title screen and no follow-up white chapter title.

Have you considered making companion HD edits for each of the LOTR films? You could add musical intermissions, make slight edits, fix the appearance of Gollum in Fellowship, and maybe even incorporate select flashback footage from cut Hobbit content.

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Hey, thank you! I’ve actually finished the edit but I’ll still reply to your points. I appreciate all the feedback and thought you’ve given it but I’ve worked on this for over 2 years, meaning every decision I have made has been considered back/forth for quite a bit of time:

  • The opening suffers from a lack of footage to work with, I can’t do anything about it. If I remove the Frodo cameo, then a lot of the narration needs to go.

  • The 60 years earlier text is from the original movie, I think it works well and is also a nice nod if you’re a fan of LOTR, to know how much earlier this is from Fellowship

  • The color of subtitles is like that because of the original subtitles (Legolas/Azog), I would have to manually change the colors of every subtitles to do what you’re asking, so instead of having mismatching Azog subtitles, when I added new subtitles for him, I just stuck to what the color format already was.

  • White Council has to go in being a book edit, but I get why it can be confusing

  • It’s easy to offer suggestions for things to change (part 1 to part 2 transition), but in reality when you actually look at the available footage it’s ridiculously hard to make a transition in this part. I would argue other similar fan edits to mine have even more of a sudden transition here, I don’t really know what you’re suggesting, how is it possible to change the implied distance of the eagle flight?

  • Again I have to completely disagree, you say it’s more logical to place the intermission after the barrels, but how is that logical? In my edit, the end of the barrel scene is about 60% of the way into the movie, not 50-50. Doing what other fan edits do just because doesn’t seem logical, the way it’s placed here is precisely to cover up the transition from part 1 to part 2, otherwise my project would have a janky and jarring transition from eagles to beorn, you need that pause there IMO. If I was going to remove the intermission from the end of part 1, then I’d just remove it all together, there’s no point in having an intermission anymore.

  • No, the lighting cannot be adjusted in this transition to Beorn’s. This is exactly how the time flows in the original movie, but I’ve cut like like 2 shots of daytime and then shots of azog’s pack in the forest, so it’s a tad bit quicker but just by a few seconds. I think going from night -> cut to morning -> then company finds a place to rest -> cut to night seems pretty cohesive, which like I said was how Jackson had it in the originals.

  • The wandering in Mirkwood is perfectly intended, this is a book cut in which they were supposed to have spent weeks there, it’s supposed to be unpleasant. Rushing through Mirkwood seems like a cop out

  • IMO, which you are welcome to disagree with, it’s actually more interesting to have Thranduil/Thorin’s backstory be mysterious, having a flashback that so blatantly shows them turning their back seems cheap, and also goes against the goals of my project. The flashbacks have many reasons for being cut, but the resulting Elf vs Dwarf conflict still works perfectly fine, introduced as early as the Trollshaws “The Elves looked on and did nothing”, then Beorn mentions to be cautious of the Woodland Elves, then Thorin and Thranduil have their talk, all makes sense to me.

  • “It’s unclear how Bard, Bilbo, and Gandalf got back to Dale ahead of the orcs.” Blame Peter Jackson, Dale is a big city I guess.

  • “It’s not clear why Bilbo ran off to ravenhill.” Seemed pretty clear he was trying to get as far away as possible from the battle, after the shots of him being surrounded by death, but yeah I can understand if you’re in the camp of not wanting Bilbo to run away. Again it’s a book cut, and this decision is something his Tolkien character did, which thematically fits with the themes of the hero not being a battle hardened warrior.

  • “Thorin and company get to ravenhill almost instantaneously. Maybe a fighting montage would help the transition.” There’s no fighting footage left for this spot unfortunately, it’s either cut to Ravenhill or have an (imo) annoying Dwarf-riding-goat sequence

  • “What is the purpose of the bats flying down over the armies? The shot cuts away, and it draws attention to the gap of time between them flying past Bilbo and them arriving at the battlefield itself.” Who said there was only one pack of bats?

  • “Did you show the part where the axe gets out of Bifur’s head? You do show him without it at Bilbo’s departure.” If you’re asking this, I’m confused if you watched the full edit? Yes, I obviously cut that silly scene, but this is a ridiculous nit pick, sorry. That’s exactly how it was in the theatrical version and no one thought it was weird, and on top of that it’s perfectly plausible that he lost his axe in the (probably) hours of battling we didn’t see him partake in, as we were focused on Thorin. I think it’s a great detail for audiences to pick up on, without needing an explanation.

-“Consider also using the cast and concept sketches during the closing credits” The cast sketches were in the movie by default, and so I would’ve assumed their absence would indicate I cut them intentionally, but yes I did. There were too many out of place things, from Alfrid to Tauriel to Dol Guldur concept art, and I don’t have any concept art from AUJ/DOS characters like the Goblin King, so I decided to just remove them. If anyone is an artist feel free to fix the credits and send it my way, but until then I’d rather stick with what looks more official even if it’s not as cool.

I’ve considered doing something for LOTR but it’s a huge project, I’m really happy with this one so I think for now that’s it for Middle Earth fan edits. Thanks again for watching the edit and I completely understand you were just giving your opinions and not trying to be negative, but those are all my reasonings for why I pretty much disagree with your points.

One thing I will say though, is that of course some of the things you mention could’ve been improved if I had access to more footage, but I don’t. The transition from part 1 to part 2,the intro, etc. of course I recognize these are not 100% perfect, but they are still seamless (in terms of audio) and get the job done, so that’s all I needed, otherwise I’d just have to resort to keeping a bunch of stuff from the originals.

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@sidshady12: Do you know the Ironfoot-Edit?
Two-part film, with the best transistion from Part 1 to 2 of all hobbit-fancuts imo!

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Thanks for taking the time to respond and explain each of your choices. It’s an excellent edit.

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 (Edited)

Yeah i’ve seen the ironfoot edition transition. I thought it was neat and pretty similar to what Maple edit also did, but the color correction to make it make a bit more smooth was cool. I’m just not a fan of the narration and jumping right into Beorn’s house, I like the natural progression from Gandalf talking about him to then being chased into the house. That way the only “non seamless” part is the fact we time jump from Carrock down to the forest- which was how it was when watching AUJ and DOS anyways.

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sidshady12 said:

Yeah i’ve seen the ironfoot edition transition. I thought it was neat and pretty similar to what Maple edit also did, but the color correction to make it make a bit more smooth was cool. I’m just not a fan of the narration and jumping right into Beorn’s house, I like the natural progression from Gandalf talking about him to then being chased into the house. That way the only “non seamless” part is the fact we time jump from Carrock down to the forest- which was how it was when watching AUJ and DOS anyways.

And I don’t like the chasing.
The whole trilogy is so full of hunts, but this one is really so unnecessary.
Don’t think of it as a sudden jump into Beorn’s house, think of it as an intermission.
In Lord of the Rings there are these “jump intermissions” too, but strangely no one minded!
I don’t understand.

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 (Edited)

BandobrasTuk said:

And I don’t like the chasing.
The whole trilogy is so full of hunts, but this one is really so unnecessary.
Don’t think of it as a sudden jump into Beorn’s house, think of it as an intermission.
In Lord of the Rings there are these “jump intermissions” too, but strangely no one minded!
I don’t understand.

Well sure, you’re totally allowed to like whatever you like. I cut it my own way because of what I think works best for the story/technical flow and for my own personal enjoyment (with regards to my editing goals). I like the Carrock scene, the forest scene introducing Beorn, and the scene right when they enter Beorn’s house (as opposed to narration). I think they are all interesting, which unfortunately have to go if you do a direct cut to Beorn’s house.

There’s also far less tension when you immediately jump into his house, as compared to showing that the Orcs are catching up and that the company has to make a tough decision. Otherwise, why not just skip Beorn’s house if he’s such a huge threat, we just escaped the Orcs right? That’s why the filmmakers have the chase and show the Orcs catching up, it serves a purpose in terms of building more tension and drama. Lucky for you, knowing that you dislike a lot of chases, if you watched my edit you’ll at least see I already removed 3, Radagast/Wargs after Trolls, Orcs chasing in river scene, and Smaug-Dwarf chase.

Anyways, can’t seem to remember any jumps in LOTR that seemed as large as the one in question, I just think the one thing it’s missing is a way of showing them get off the Eagles, which is of course impossible with the footage we have. So ignoring that, I still think the Ironfoot transition leaves a lot to be desired in terms of audio and color, it goes from a blue night to a greenish tinted night, and the epic Eagle music continues playing when we’re essentially looking at b-roll of Beorn as Gandalf describes him, which feels out of place.

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Is it still possible to get a link to this? I’m really interested in seeing your edit.

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If you could be so kind as to PM a link, I’d appreciate it. This seems like a great version. Thank-you!

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I would like to see it. Thank-you!

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I too would love to see this edit! The GDrive links from the .info site are all showing offline unfortunately.

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Any way to PM a link? Very interested. Thanks you are great.