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The Hobbit - The Spence Edit (Released)

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 (Edited)

Hello everyone! I wanted to get back into posting over here after a long hiatus, so I thought I’d start a thread for what I’m working on right now. Like most people that own an editing program, I too am tackling The Hobbit Trilogy.

My aim with this edit is to make a good three hour film, and I’m not necessarily sticking strictly to the book.

Cut List:

- Older Bilbo is cut from the opening of the film, as is the opening prologue. It begins with Gandalf approaching Bilbo.

  • Much of the Dwarves antics at the dinner is gone.
  • Some superfluous dialogue removed when Gandalf is explaining the mission.
  • The “pocket handkerchief” dialogue is removed. Once Bilbo gets on the pony, it goes straight to the traveling montage.
  • Gandalf and Thorin no longer argue over the elves. Gandalf, as he is want to do, leaves the party briefly without explanation.
  • Trims and cuts to the Troll sequence for pacing and to remove childish gags/toilet humor.
  • Thorin is no longer shitty about Bilbo after the Troll encounter.
  • Trims to the troll cave sequence for pacing.
  • Radaghast and his necromancer subplot is entirely removed from the film.
  • The Orcs chasing the party is removed from the story completely. They do not encounter orcs at all until the final battle.
  • Rivendell trimmed for mention of orcs, and for some silliness.
  • Rivendell scenes are cut so that Bilbo is walking around enjoying Rivendell while the Dwarves are eating. Majority of that dinner scene is removed. When Elrond asks Bilbo about not being with his friends, it’s because they are at dinner. I’m very happy with the way Rivendell turned out in this edit.
  • White council and Necromancer subplot is removed, though Galadriel is introduced. Her conversation with Gandalf about Bilbo remains.
  • Stone giants removed.
  • Tumbling into the goblin caves trimmed.
  • Goblin songs removed.
  • Mention of Azog and the orcs chasing the party is removed.
  • No trims to Riddles in the Dark, as it is awesome.
  • Majority of the goblin caves fight is removed, save the very beginning.
  • The Hobbits are not chased by Orcs after they escape the tunnels, nor do they visit Beorn.
  • Many trims to Mirkwood.
  • Removed Bilbo freaking out about losing the ring. It never quite felt right to me in this movie. Too dark.
  • Tauriel is now just another random elf, nothing special about her. Legolas is still there, and is indeed Legolas, but his role has been trimmed to more of a cameo.
  • Because of our lack of Orcs, the barrels scene had to be very heavily trimmed. There is now no more running battle and the party is not pursued.
  • Much of the conversation with Bard is removed.
  • The process of getting into the fish barrels is removed, they just arrive in them already.
  • Alfrid does not stop Bard on his way in. If Alfrid could be removed in any way, believe me, he was. He appears very briefly throughout.
  • Kili still gets injured, which causes him to fall over when stealing the weapons. It’s presented in a way that it looks like he was injured in the rapids while in a barrel.
  • The suspicion of Bard, and most of the Master’s scenes, have been removed.
  • Bard’s family is removed entirely from the film.
  • None of the dwarves stay behind in Lake-Town. There is no celebration for them leaving.
  • Gandalf still goes to Dol Goldur, but it’s not specifically about the Necromancer, as he is Sir-Not-In-This-Film. He learns that there is an army gathering there, then escapes by blinding Azog (who is not mentioned by name ever.)
  • Trims to Bilbo looking for the Arkenstone before Smaug awakens.
  • Mention of “dragon sickness” has been removed.
  • The entire fight with Smaug within the mountain has been removed.
  • To flow into the next film better, Bilbo’s “What have we done?” line has been removed.

Battle of the Five Armies Footage Plans:

  • Bard never gets sent to jail, so he bursts into action immediately.
  • A black arrow is no longer fired by Bard, he shoots Smaug with a real arrow, finding the spot where a black arrow knocked his scale loose.
  • A lot of Thorin’s freaking out will be removed. Just keep enough to establish that he’s obsessed with finding the Arkenstone.
  • We find out later in the story that Bilbo has the Arkenstone than we did before.
  • The people of Lake-Town go straight to Dale after the city is destroyed.
  • Obviously all the white council/rescuing Gandalf stuff will be gone.
  • All of Legolas and Tauriel’s subplots will be cut. I will only keep the scene in the battle where Legolas informs Gandalf about the Orcs marching on Ravenhill.
  • “Dragon Sickness” is no longer a thing. Thorin just becomes a bit of a greedy jerk, then later has a change of heart.
  • HUGE trims to the battle. It goes on way, way too long. This will be very challenging as it will have to all make sense geographically.
  • Alfrid and Bard’s family is removed throughout the battle.
  • Fili and Kili still die. Kili is killed almost immediately as he charges for Azog.
  • Trimmed down the Azog fight. Because he hasn’t been a main antagonist throughout the series, I dont’ think he needs quite as epic and lengthy of a fight. Still cool though.
  • Radaghast and Beorn removed from the Eagles charging in. It now seems a bit random that the Eagles arrive without prompt, but I don’t know that I’m against that. They sort of tend to do that throughout the Middle Earth series.
  • Azog popping up through the ice happens faster. It feels silly how long Thorin spends staring at him.
  • Bilbo sitting next to Gandalf at the end of the battle is removed. I don’t care for that scene for some reason, the bit where Gandalf cleans out his pipe.
  • Shots of the Dwarves surrounding Thorin’s body will be during the scene where Dale plays Thorin’s horn theme.
  • New ending: Once Bilbo reaches Bag End at the finale of the film, we go to Old Bilbo looking at picture of his younger self. I then used some footage from Fellowship to make the last scene Bilbo beginning to write “There and Back Again”. I feel like this flows nicely into the trilogy but is also a fitting cap to the end of this story.

The only major plot hole I’m finding at the moment is that Thorin suddenly gets his elvish sword back in the middle of the battle. Because I cut Legolas, I also cut the explanation of how he got the sword back. I’m not sure if I want to create some complicated pseudo scene just to fix that. If that’s the biggest problem with turning 9 hours of movie into 3 hours, I can deal.

I also recently completed Frank Herbert’s Dune - The Spence Edit, which turns the Sci-Fi Channel miniseries into one cinematic film. As of right now it’s my favorite edit that I’ve ever done, so if you’re interested I encourage you to check it out!

I look forward to being on the boards here more often and checking out what projects are going on at the moment.

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I just came across this thread and though it deserved a comment. You're editing this from the same sensibilities as I have and most of your listed changes are exactly how I've already approached my edit. Most people don't seen to go far enough cutting the fat, but yours is by far the most ambitious edit I've heard about......well except maybe mine ;)

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Nice cutlist. After seeing your posts on Fanedit.org, I didn't realize you were planning to make this a single three-hour film. There's a three-hour version out right now (I think it's called There and Back Again, by David Killstein) that moves way too fast so I'm interested to see how your version flows.

How did you transition between AUJ and DOS? Especially without the warg/orc chase and without Beorn? I don't think the Orcrist plothole will be that big a deal...it's one small issue that arises from solving a larger problem (Legolas).

Personally I think that three hours is not enough time to let the story breathe and give the film a proper cinematic pace. Since you are not worried about staying true to the book however, maybe you've found a way to make it work.

JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit

http://www.maple-films.com/the-hobbit-fanedit

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I've seen the three hour version you are speaking of. Mine is quite different.

My transition between AUJ and DOS is basically just a little rearrangement to make it appear that Gandalf brought the ponies/horses with him for their escape from the goblin tunnels. Then they just head straight to Mirkwood.

I figured out the Orcrist issue, so that's not longer a plot hole. I was totally over thinking it. A very simple edit will make it work seamessly.

It's looking like it might run more like 3 hrs. 15 including the credits. I want it close to 3 hrs. but I don't want to rush it. Pacing is a big focus for me as far as this edit. It's obviously going to have a lot going on plot wise, but so does FOTR and that doesn't feel "rushed"

Thanks for the interest!

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This seems awesome.  All the FanEdits out there seem so focused on book accuracy that they fail to actually produce an engaging film in and of itself.  Is this still a project you're working on?

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Yes,  the thread on fe.org is a lot more active than this one but I'm nearing completion. Should be available early this coming week. 

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Awesome. Could you possibly post the link to that thread, so I could stay updated on this?  that would be super helpful, since I'm not that familiar with the fanedit.org website

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Hi, so I'm sorry to keep bothering you but it says I am unable to view the thread.  Would you mind just posting the link to the edit here once its been uploaded.  I don't mean to be annoying, just very interested in seeing it

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I made an account and logged in, but it says I do not have permission to view the thread

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 (Edited)

Downloaded it 2x, the mp4 file is corrupted. It's not working. Wold be nice, if you could upload it again.

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I’m trying to download your Hobbit edit via jDownloader but I’m getting the message “Bandwidth Exceeded”…help?