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Lord Of The Rings New Book edit (Released)

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 (Edited)

I am planning a new book edit and I am planning to base it on Kerr’s edit but with differences.
The title wont be the same as this thread’s title I have yet to come up with a name for it!

The main changes I plan to make are shifting the reforging of Narsil to its rightful place in the story just before the fellowship leave Rivendell Yes this creates an issue as Aragorn is obviously seen with the other sward from Rivendell to Dunharrow, but we will have to assume that he has put it away and is just using the other sward until then, sorry its the only thing I can do. Maybe one day someone can digitally replace Aragorn’s sward from Rivendell to Dunharrow with Narsil?
Next is changing where Aragorn looks into the Palantír to Dunharrow also, as this is of course closer to the book and follows what the ‘Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Feanor Edition’ does (I will actually be asking permission to use the shots from that edits scene for my edit as I want it as is and cant recreate it any other way myself).
I will be making some other changes too but I will post them later in the editing stages.

The edit wont end up being fully ready for a few months, as I need some new editing software for a final version, but I will be making a rough cut in the mean time and will make that available when its ready. The final cut will eventually be fully HD, but the rough cut will be SD only.

Im making this more for myself as Kerr’s edits were very good but lacking in a few things that I wanted to see, this may mean its not strictly a book edit in some places, but holding as true to the original story as possible with maybe some extra film bits that Kerr never included that also may not have been in the book, these will be minor though.
I also wanted a sort of book cut that is in full HD which I hope by the time Im done eventually it will be.

I am toying with an idea regarding the rings verse at the beginning. I don’t want to just copy Kerr’s edit on this even if a lot of my edit will be almost the same set of cuts ect.
My plan is to use bits of Cate Blanchet talking about the rings from the prologue with pictures from it. I want to edit it so it sounds like she is saying the verse, of course there is some bits she doesn’t say and the lines won’t read quite the same, eg instead of “Three rings for elven kings under the sky” she says “three were given to the elves, imortal, wisest and fairest of all people”. Now she says the world rings earlier in the prologue, so I’m thinking she could say “Three rings to the elves, imortal, wisest and fairest of all people” over the scene ofor the elves getting their rings.
Similar will be done with the dwaves and the nine kings of men. It will be trickier doing the line about the one for the dark lord ect, but I’m thinking the line that is actually written on the ring I could take from Gandalf talking to Frodo in Bag End. Not sure about the last line yet I will have to think of something later, unless anyone else has any ideas?

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I have been very busy editing bits and pieces of the Fellowship today. I have taken a very slight detour on my original idea but it will result in the same thing. Instead of 6 separate parts as separate edits entirely, Im doing 3 films with intervals half way. This means I will have a Fellowship as a complete edit albeit a rough cut available within the next week hopefully.
Part of my reason for this is that my part one is going to be so similar to Kerr’s edit, I didnt think it fair to put it out like that. My part two is similar too but has so many added Rivendell scenes that it will certainly seem different overall.
I will still be cutting Saruman from after the point they leave Rivendell though just like in Kerr’s edit although there is going to be one or two changes that I have planned. I plan to add the EE edition of the fellowship entering Lothlorien where Kerr cut it from his.

I am going to put out a test clip of the Narsil reforging bit to see what people think. I wasnt able to have Aragorn carrying the shards up until Rivendell, so they will stay on the plinth until Arwen goes to collect them (well I assume she does, as she goes to them, but we dont see her actually pick them up).

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Here is the test video for reforging Narsil and Aragorn receiving it, I have tried to hide the fact that Aragorn and Elrond are in the tent but it was hard to hide it completely. I would like people’s opinions, should I keep it like this? should I cut bits? does it work at all? do I need to rearrange anything? Im open to suggestions about it, although I want it to be in my cut in some form, so Im not going to scrap the idea entirely.

https://vimeo.com/150598667

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OK I have redone the test video, I believe there is some frames that shouldnt be there but they will go in the final cut. It seems to play through OK though and there isnt any audio sinc issus this time. I have left in both the previous scene and the next to show the placing so when you watch you might find you want to skip some of that so that you can get to the bit about reforging, which I have included the bit with Aragorn at his mother’s grave in that, albeit a shortened version.
I have done the best I can with the scene where the actual reforging takes place, but it cuts off kind of odd, but then you go straight to Elrond getting the sward out for Aragorn anyway which is accompanied by a burst of music very quickly anyway. So Im hoping that by the time people get to that they forget the oddities of the audio from the reforging, if its an issue I could see if I could find the same bit off the soundtrack CD (which I have) to create a smother finish. I hope I dont have to go down that route as it would be extra workload working with the audio like that.

The bit by the grave starts at 1 minuet 50 seconds if you want to skip though.

Here is the new video: https://vimeo.com/150613688

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I think I might have a name for my edit, The Narsil Reforged Book Edition.
So the full release name of each would be:
The Lord of the Rings, Fellowship of the Ring, The Narsil Reforged Book Edition,
The Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers, The Narsil Reforged Book Edition,
The Lord of the Rings, Return of the King, The Narsil Reforged Book Edition.

I know that Narsil obviously gets reforged in the original film and in my version you don’t really see it after the Fellowship until Aragorn shows it in the Palantir, but that’s the biggest thing I think my edit has tried to fix. So I think it will work.