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(New HD Version in the works) Sharkey's "Lord of the Rings" Purist Editions (Released)

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 (Edited)

These have been totally reworked and made from scratch. Kerr and Phil, from the first book cuts, have helped greatly. A much better attempt at a purist edit that can be a true successor to the infamous TTT Purist Edit.
 

Rather than post the full blurbs, here are the concise links:
 

http://fanedit.org/8259/

http://fanedit.org/8323/

 

Aside from small trims and edits, larger-scale things have been removed, such as:

Sauron is not merely a giant eye floating above Barad-dur.

Arwen is not sailing across the sea to Valinor.

Aragorn does not doubt his identity and destiny.

Saruman is not Sauron’s direct subservient.

Boromir is corrupted rather than an being an undercover agent.

Theoden is not a coward and does not hold a groundless grudge against Gondor.

Faramir does not drag the hobbits to Osgiliath, so Frodo does not attempt to give the ring to a Nazgul.

No elves at the Hornburg.

The Ents do not refuse to attack Isengard.

The good guys already know Sauron moves against Minas Tirith.

Arwen is not dying.

Denethor lights the beacons of his own accord, prior to Gandalf and Pippin’s arrival.

De-emphasized ‘Sauron the Searchlight’ as much as possible.

Frodo does not send Sam home.

My stance on revising fan edits.

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Sweet!  I'm a huge Tolkien fan, and would love to see a cut of the films that is more faithful to the books. All your changes sound great. I have some sugggestions that you may want to consider:

- Remove the subplot of Saruman spawning Uruk-Hai, which wasn't present in the book. At the very least cut Gandalf saying that Saruman is mixing orcs with "goblin-men", a statement which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

- In TTT, when Wormtongue is describing the Ring of Barahir, his delivery of the line is... weird. Sounds like he's saying "Two serpents: One devouring, the other crowned with golden flowers." Something should be done to fix it.

 

Also, some suggestions for RotK, when you get to that:

- Remove the mystery of where Sauron will attack. He has already attacked Osgiliath, so it should be obvious that he means to attack Minas Tirith.

- The end of Aragorn challenging Sauron with the Palantir should be cut. I think it would be more effective to end it with "Behold the sword of Elendil!", as was done in the trailers.

- Recolor the army of the dead, as they are described as grey in the books.

- Cut as much as possible of "Sauron the Lighthouse".

 

Looking forward to seeing these! Any idea of when the first discs will be released?

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Thank you for the comment and suggestions!

Initially I had cut out the scenes of Saruman's breeding stuff. But even this way there are still many references elsewhere to Saruman's "bred" army. And it isn't wholly contradictory to the book either. 

I will go back and see if I can easily remove that line by Gandalf that you mentioned, because you are right. 

And the scene containing the line by Grima that you mentioned is cut from my version. We don't see Saruman and Grima in any scenes together until after the Ents ravish Isengard. My reason for doing this is that it solves several little problems. Such scenes are where the Warg riders are sent out, Saruman scoffing at Aragorn (Does he even know about Aragorn in the books? I can't remember.), and it's not in the books anyway. 

Also in my versions Saruman is his own independent player in the game, not a "puppet" of Sauron.

 

About your suggestion for ROTK that we remove the mystery of what Sauron will do, this would raise some trouble. In the movie, they want information of Saruon's plans from Saruman but don't get them because he is killed. So then Pippin accidentally gets some from the Palantir. And that is why they go to Minas Tirith, to get the heads up on Sauron's plan.

The only way I can think to bring this in better line with the book is to remove Gandalf saying that they got a glimpse of the enemy's plan, and maybe get rid of the "information" aspect from Saruman's final scene.

It seems like this part of the movie version is so tightly knit, there may not be anything I can do about it.

And as far as Aragorn challenging Sauron with the Palantir, I like it. But I will remove the part with Arwen. So yeah, I agree. However, seeing a physical Sauron in the Palantir is a good thing because it shows that he is not just an eye. In the movies, this is supposed to show that he can "now" take physical form, but for my version it could just be showing him in a physical form because mine never says that he isn't physical.

And I will remove anything else possible in order to lessen the portrayal of Sauron as an eye.

And recoloring the dead isn't something I can do, so they'll have to remain Pirates of the Carribean-ish.

My stance on revising fan edits.

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Hal 9000 said:

About your suggestion for ROTK that we remove the mystery of what Sauron will do, this would raise some trouble. In the movie, they want information of Saruon's plans from Saruman but don't get them because he is killed. So then Pippin accidentally gets some from the Palantir. And that is why they go to Minas Tirith, to get the heads up on Sauron's plan.

The only way I can think to bring this in better line with the book is to remove Gandalf saying that they got a glimpse of the enemy's plan, and maybe get rid of the "information" aspect from Saruman's final scene.

 

I took a look at these scenes, and think it could be doable. The Saruman scene will be difficult to edit, but the scenes at Edoras can be made to work. After Pippin has looked in the Palantir, Gandalf asks him what he saw. You could cut from this to "I saw... I saw him!". Later, in the Golden Hall, you could cut from "...he told Sauron nothing of Frodo and the Ring" to "His defeat at Helm's Deep showed our enemy one thing etc." This would also make Gandalf a stronger character, since he already knows Sauron's next move and how to respond to it.

Some more suggestions: Use the theatrical versions of the Council of Elrond and the fellowship entering Lorien. I thought Gandalf reciting the ring verse in Black Speech in the EE was weird and out of character. It was in the book, sure, but not like that. As for the entrance to Lorien, the costumes of Gimli and Legolas are different from the ones they wear in the rest of the movie in the EE version of the scene. Also, some of the shots were reused when Frodo looks in the Mirror of Galadriel. Oh, and in RotK, I suggest using the theatrical version of the Paths of the Dead. The EE added too much slapstick to the sequence.

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I've never actually seen the theatrical versions, to be honest. I became a fan just a year or so ago. 

What are the differences between the two versions when they enter Lorien?

I'd rather, if it's easy to do, edit the EE down in those scenes than acquire a copy of the theatrical versions.

And I like your ideas for Gandalf in ROTK. When I get there, I will remember that.

My stance on revising fan edits.

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Hal 9000 said:

I've never actually seen the theatrical versions, to be honest. I became a fan just a year or so ago. 

What are the differences between the two versions when they enter Lorien?

The theatrical continues the scene after Haldir saying "The dwarf breathes so loud we could have shot him in the dark". Aragorn greet Haldir in elvish, and Gimli says that the woods are perilous, and they should go back, to which Haldir replies "You have entered the realm of the Lady of the Wood. You cannot go back. Come; she is waiting." Cut to the fellowship ascending the stair of Caras Galadhon.

The EE version is better in many ways, but they should have reshot it with the updated costumes. As it stands, it really sticks out as a scene that was never meant to be in the movie.

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 (Edited)

Hmm. I think you're right. If I can find a copy of the theatrical version, maybe I could rent it, then I will do this.

However, I will leave the council scene as it is in the EE. I consider it important to hear of Boromir's dream, especially because I removed the flashback in TTT EE which shows Denethor knowing about the ring. My version is like the book: Boromir comes to Rivendell because of a dream he has, and does not know that the ring has been found.

By the way, in my version Gandalf now says Saruman is breeding orcs with men. I removed the "goblin" prefix.

My stance on revising fan edits.

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Hal 9000 said:

By the way, in my version Gandalf now says Saruman is breeding orcs with men. I removed the "goblin" prefix.

Great! That line has bothered me to no end... I just don't understand how PJ can have misread Tolkien's books, as I can only assume that the line was taken from TTT, where Tolkien writes about the "half-orcs and goblin-men" that attack Helm's Deep.

As for the Council of Elrond, I had forgotten that Boromir's dream wasn't in the theatrical. It should stay, of course, and I guess it would be impossible to remove just Gandalf's Black Speech. Oh, well.

A suggestion for TTT: When Legolas and Gimli compare kills, you should cut Legolas shooting the dead orc that Gimli is sitting on because it was "twitching".

 

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I 100% agree with using the theatrical Paths of the Dead sequence.  The EE totally ruined any suspense there, plus it made the cool moment of the Dead attacking the ships into something redundant and boring.

And I'd suggest cutting the EE addition of Frodo and Sam wearing orc armor in Mordor - I always thought that bit was just stupid and didn't fit with the movie at all.

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Is there anyone with a copy of the theatrical versions in NTSC that would be willing to help me by sending me just the footage from the scenes I need?  Email, for just the bit of footage needed, works fine for me.

My stance on revising fan edits.

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This sounds like an awesome project!  I'm a huge fan of the books--the movies, not so much.  When they get things right, they're spot on, but when they're wrong, they're way the hell off, not to mention plain awful.  My biggest gripe is with Gollum: he is completely mischaracterized in my opinion.  The movie oversimplifies him into "good Smeagol, bad Gollum", which while not contradicting the books directly, really misses the point.  Gollum does not really have a split personality; he merely argues with his conflicting feelings about how best to get the Ring.  In a way it's as if the "two sides" are Gollum and the Ring arguing, the Ring being his temptation to slip back into his old ways, which of course he ultimately succumbs to.  There is no "evil persona" that is separate from the rest of him--I really hate the way the movies portrayed that.  It reminds me a lot of similar scenes in Spiderman, and that's not a good thing to have to compare it to.  I don't know how much can actually be done about it, but if there's any way to reduce the parts where he argues with mirrored evil versions of himself it would probably go a long way towards rectifying this grievance.

Another thing to consider is to try to eliminate Saruman's reference to "the union of the Two Towers" near the beginning.  Not only does this go along with what you were saying about making Saruman be out for himself, but I dislike the way it misrepresents the title of the story: what the two towers actually are.  In the book the two towers are Isengard and Cirith Ungol, the place where Frodo is captured and imprisoned before Sam rescues him.  Since this is shown in the 3rd movie, where it lines up chronologically, while in the books it is at the end of the 2nd, the change I suppose makes some sort of sense, since Cirith Ungol isn't actually seen in the 2nd movie, but I still don't like it.  It just . . . sounds dumb.  That isn't Christopher Lee's fault, he's brilliant as always, but it just isn't a good line.

My other big gripe about the movies is the way Frodo is made into an ineffective weakling, cowering and wimpering away from the Nazgul and from Gollum instead of bravely facing them, even when gravely injured.  Unfortunately, I'm at a loss of how to make that any better.  It happens so many times--Weathertop, the Ford, Mount Doom, to name a few--that it's probably unfixable.  Alas . . .

At any rate, I'm quite interested in this project.  Keep at it!

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Sweet! I'm looking forward to watching this. It's great that you haven't compressed the DVD files, as I would prefer to watch these in maximum quality. I think I'll post a detailed review once I've finished downloading and watching, which will probably take a while. Anyway, congratulations on finishing FotR, and good luck on the next ones!

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thank you for sharing, Hal9000.

Nothing about fanediting is easy.

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I'm surprised that no one has commented on these yet.  I watched FOTR tonight and I thought the cuts were seamlessly.  Only one cut that wasn't as smooth, but it might be from the extended edition and not from the fan edit.

I'll soon watch TTT.  I noticed that ROTK is now available as well.

Good job on the work.  I liked Peter Jackson's FOTR, but didn't like TTT and ROTK as much as they were cheesier and more action orientated.

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Yea these are great!  Just finished watching your Fellowship...  The edits are very well done!  Can you tell more about the 'revamped' book cuts you mention??? Also... does anyone know of a place where Lord Phillock's book cuts are still available?  Thanks!  

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Lacerated said:

I'm surprised that no one has commented on these yet.  I watched FOTR tonight and I thought the cuts were seamlessly.  Only one cut that wasn't as smooth, but it might be from the extended edition and not from the fan edit.

I'll soon watch TTT.  I noticed that ROTK is now available as well.

Good job on the work.  I liked Peter Jackson's FOTR, but didn't like TTT and ROTK as much as they were cheesier and more action orientated.

 

 

I'd like to watch these, but I'm afraid the download is rather large from BT - especially when I have download limits. An XVID on RS would be appreciated......

Fanedits Completed:

Godzilla : Zilla

Accountability : No Country For Tommy Lee Jones  

A Fistful of Fingers - Preservation  

Samantha Darko

Independence Day Redeclared

 

Thinking about:

Emmerich's Stargate


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voodoomailman said:

Yea these are great!  Just finished watching your Fellowship...  The edits are very well done!  Can you tell more about the 'revamped' book cuts you mention??? Also... does anyone know of a place where Lord Phillock's book cuts are still available?  Thanks!  

 

Lord Phillock's cuts are no longer available - in part as he wasn't happy with the way they turned out - now I believe that he is supervising/overseeing some new book cuts - not sure who's doing that though....

Fanedits Completed:

Godzilla : Zilla

Accountability : No Country For Tommy Lee Jones  

A Fistful of Fingers - Preservation  

Samantha Darko

Independence Day Redeclared

 

Thinking about:

Emmerich's Stargate


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I finished the 3rd movie last weekend.  I think the film is much more improved and will be watching this set over my originals.  Very nice!

I didn't mention it earlier, but for some reason many of the Rohan extras in The Two Towers bugged me.  I think it's bz their acting is poor.   My reaction was similar to when Arnold Schwarznegger grieved for his dead girl in beginning of the End of Days -- I had no emotion emotion attachment to his lost daughter from his acting and lack of the girl's character development.

Are you planning on filtering the Book Cuts for TT and ROTK like what Lord Phillock did to better match how FOTR looked?

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Do you mean color enhancement? No, I'm just using Womble for editing. So it's just trimming and re-cutting unconditioned footage. 

We just need a few more things and then the book cuts can come out.

My stance on revising fan edits.

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Version 2.0 of these fan edits are now available on ThePirateBay and other common torrent sites, in DVD and MP4 editions.

I think these are much better, and have been created from scratch all over again. Kerr has been helping me, and so has the Phil behind the first "book cuts." Both have given great ideas and have collaborated with me to produce these edits. 

They will also be up on rapidshare (compliant with jDownloader) and on fanedit.org soon!

 

Enjoy, Tolkien nerds! 

My stance on revising fan edits.