sidshady12

PMed all. Thanks for the support

Still happy with the cut, no plans for further tweaks

DMed all.

And thanks! Glad you enjoy the update. Please send me the new Italian subs on discord or email (see my website), and I’d be happy to put them in the Mega folder and bundled in the MKV. Will probably reupload mkv in a couple months so I can give time for anyone else to tweak foreign subtitles if they notice any issues.

Also, Gandalf is saying a spell in Elvish at the beginning, but keeping in line with the other subtitles you don’t have to transcribe in-universe languages unless they have been translated on screen (like Azog dialogue), even english speakers don’t know what he’s saying. The only exception is for closed captions which will have something like (SPEAKING ELVISH)

This edit has been updated. We’re now on…revision 20-or something, latest release is June 2024. Feel free to PM or leave a comment if you would like a link (still same as before)

The story with this update is I re-watched all source footage in the films and all the Appendices footage to give it one last go to see if I had missed anything or if I could improve anything, some scenes in my edit were constructed all the way back in 2020. Not that my previous releases were bad, but I think one last go through everything was deserved and now I can rest easy again knowing that I left no stone unturned. While my changelist is very lengthy, ultimately the new tweaks are extremely minor and the runtime is still the same in the end, and I didn’t end up overhauling anything except for the Last Light scene.

If there is some major breakthrough discovery or vfx creation that could be shared with my project, I will of course consider coming back for another revision, but likely this will not happen.

Full Changelist

• Replaced MGM lion sound effect with a higher quality version from the official Hobbit Blu-rays and tweaked color grading on logo to be more goldish
• Very slightly tweaked color grading on shots of Bilbo early in the morning to make it seem closer to sunrise
• Very slightly tweaked saturation of part 1 to be an additional percent lower after the company leaves Bag End
• Very slightly tweaked color grading for entire edit to further reduce green levels in most area by about 1 percent
• Very slightly tweaked color grading in BOTFA section by reducing excessive highlights which contributed to the bright/bloom look
• Seamlessly cut 2 Troll lines of dialogue, one of which was about boogers, just more silly stuff not needed–we have plenty of jokes still and all of the dialogue that references the book
• Added subtitle translation for the meaning of “Mithrandir” (“Grey Pilgrim”) when Gandalf enters Rivendell, the first chronological time we hear it
• Inserted VFX shot of the Wargs showing up to hunt the company after the Goblin caves with Azog digitally removed (originally by /u/thechaptereditor), this helps the flow from relaxing outside to being attacked and also the flow from day to
  night.
• Slightly retimed Thorin’s 2nd line of added dialogue about an Orc pack and slightly tweaked frames to make a longer pause when they ask how Bilbo got past the goblins, in the book Bilbo purposefully noted that he was going to withhold the news about finding a ring for now so I wanted to pay homage to a little moment where we see him think that
• Inserted a closeup shot of Bilbo on his Eagle. Digitally adjusted background to remove tree and flipped shot to fit the angle/progression of surrounding shots. This is to give us one close up of Bilbo on an Eagle because he’s supposed to be the character POV we are following.
• Adjusted Eagle montage music transition outro to flow more smoothly by adding some reverb
• Used AI to clean up center channel of Beorn turning back into man form
• 1 trim, removed a couple shots before entering Mirkwood to reduce the focus of the Orcs to be a bit closer to the book, now Dwalin’s line is just background dialogue and we don’t outright say it’s “luck” that saved them (it was Beorn)
• 1 trim, cut a few seconds of Mirkwood company confused and dazed. Also, moved the theatrical cut “we’ve lost the path” audio to a few seconds later for smoother placement, plus with better reverb/panning effects
• Swapped shot of Filí’s “having lots of blades joke” when the Elves are searching him with one that fits better
• 2 trims, saved a couple seconds during the Girion flashback, also helping to hide shots that revealed Smaug too much
• 1 trim, removed a couple shots of Bard pondering over the “prophecy,” this dragged on a bit too long given that it’s repeated information
• 2 trims, less pause when Alfrid is questioning the Dwarves
• Added a closeup of Bilbo as the Dwarves depart from Lake-town in the boat, again to remind us we are in Bilbo’s POV
• Inserted extra shots of bored Dwarves imprisoned in Woodland Realm, including an unused shot from the Appendices (Part 9)
• Inserted quick “I am sorry I’ve doubted you” from Thorin to Bilbo when escaping, paying homage to how in the book this is the point where Thorin started to think highly of him. Now Thorin does 3 nice things to Bilbo in Woodland Realm, and the later “Bilbo vouching” scene now feels very earned
• Redid Last Light secret door sequence to better show that the Dwarves didn’t fully disappear (we have close ups of Thorin both standing/reacting to the thrush) and that Bilbo was the one to discover the riddle, this is also cool because we get the symbolic shot of Thorin standing in front of his Grandfather’s statue
• Readded Smaug scene dialogue about “you are being used,” paying homage to Smaug’s deception in the book and helping show why Bilbo might want to withhold the Arkenstone, but it’s never outright specified it’s still up to our interpetation
• Added back Smaug line referencing: “A fourteenth share, I suppose, or something like it…?”
• Added back Smaug line referencing: “No blade can pierce me.”
• Added back Bilbo line referencing: “Truly there can nowhere be found the equal of Lord Smaug…”
• Added back Extended Edition sequence of Bard nearly getting killed by Smaug
• For book accuracy, we see the Master trying to leave on a boat while Bard stays fighting. Digitally removed Alfrid from background. This also clears up how the Master dies when we see his boat crushed by Smaug
• A few more/longer miscellaneous shots of Smaug/Bard/civilian chaos, including an extra couple seconds of Bard looking at the burning town with emotional music to give more weight
• A couple more shots of Bard fighting Smaug, including one other arrow shot that was previously cut (now all are used)
• 1 trim, removed one redundant closeup of Lakemen crying on the beach in the aftermath of Smaug
• 1 trim, less of Bilbo walking around pondering at the front gate, all we need to know is that he is conflicted/struggling inside, the reason we used to focus so much was because this was a segue into flashbacks, which we don’t have here, so the scene is much simpler
• 1 trim, a few seconds less of Bard & men walking into Dale. Also, swapped out unnecessary close up of Alfrid walking with instead a shot of generic townsfolk
• 1 trim, Thorin building stone wall and mocking Lakemen. Cut his last two lines which allows his initial point to feel more valid and empathic, he’s still being stubborn, but not “crazy”
• 1 trim, removed closeup of Gandalf riding horse–fixes continuity as his face wasn’t bloodied in the shot but next time we see him he looks wounded. Also, by teasing him and not showing his face, it makes the audience build more suspense/anticipation for his return
• 1 trim, redundant dialogue of Thranduil/Bard talking about reasoning with the Dwarves. These two lines were quite “in your face” and didn’t give us anything new as they didn’t build on any characterization that we didn’t already know
• 1 trim, Bofur still visually shows he knows Bilbo is not telling the truth, but he no longer rolls his eyes
• 2 trims, less delay when Thorin questions why he should buy back the Arkenstone
• 1 trim, removed just a couple seconds of Gandalf cleaning his pipe, it went on for way too long, don’t worry we still have plenty of silence and emotion in this scene it really was just a couple seconds I cut that you won’t even notice
• Added more rumbling footstep sound effects as Azog arrives to help mask the rocks crunching (which are still played off as 'the Orcs charging out of the tunnel sound)
• Swapped a shot of Bofur reacting to the Orcs with Bilbo reacting, as again, to remind us about Bilbo’s POV as much as we can
• Removed 1 of the 2 close ups of Thranduil killing Orcs on his mount, it was redundant and because we’re making the overall battle shorter, the individual closeups of action can also be shorter
• Added a few more seconds of Thranduil and Dain slashing Orcs before sad montage
• Added a better introduction to the sad montage with a few more shots of Dale being overrun
• 3 trims, Dwalin/Thorin throneroom shot at start, long pause, and removed the part in brackets “we must move {THE GOLD} further underground to safety.” Obviously there is no way a few Dwarves could move the gold further underground, so when we frame it as Thorin wanting to just hide, it both 1) makes him less crazy 2) refocuses his change of heart from mostly letting go of treasure, to now letting go of treasure AND cowardice–so we include more real human characteristics that trace back to Thorin’s own actions: cowardice, something he never used to have, not just an obsession with gold which is more surface level. Obviously his obsession with the treasure is still present, but it was overdone with dragon sickness and this is one very minor change that I think makes a big difference.
• Added a cut Dwalin line taken from the BOTFA trailer, “Bilbo was right,” referencing our little Hobbit is always nice, it also reminds us that the Dwarves are still thinking about him/his impact, and finally it highlights that Bilbo’s actions are part of the reason that Thorin returned and ultimately changed the course of the battle (once again, the trend of small actions by everyday folk that cause significant impact)
• Redid Misty Mountains montage to remove the 2 random shots of fighting and smooth out Gandalf’s intercuts, this helps us stay focused on our mission and feels more natural
• Removed cartoon sound effect when Bombur falls on an Orc
• Added back 1 shot of Thorin looking concerned before Filí is captured which helps it feel less sudden
• Added back 1 shot of Filí after he is killed to extend the moment as long as possible
• Redid intercutting of Thorin & Kíli fighting Orcs to use soundtrack and transitions closer to the Shore’s actual OST
• Added back 1 shot of Kíli fighting Orcs to help balance with how much we see Thorin fighting
• Redid Thorin getting knocked onto the ice so you can’t tell his sword was originally broken, added sound effects implying he killed the Orc, and removed Azog’s dialogue (we didn’t need the classic villain telling his minions to “go in for the kill” which we know won’t work + Thorin isn’t ambushed here)
• Added back 1 shot of Thorin on his knee at his lowest point after Kíli dies, but digitally removed Orcrist from the shot to help hide the weapon change as much as possible
• Added a second brief “sad montage” right after Orc reinforcements arrive to remind us that the other heroes are still fighting (it’s not all just about Thorin, now we are now losing again, war is not glorious, also helps us come to a low point before the Eagles show up like the book)
• Removed the duel on ice, instead we skip to the Eagles showing up after our sad montage and then intercut a brief rescored fight between Thorin/Azog during the Eagles/Beorn montage (saves runtime, less focus on weapon continuity errors, battle doesn’t drag on, less ‘video game boss’ like)
• Redid Thorin’s knockdown with a close up of ice as we hear Thorin get knocked down in the background and a cut to a wide shot of him on his back where I digitally removed most of the flying ice shards (before then returning to the close up of him on the ground)
• A few small trims during the final moments of Azog/Thorin duel to move through it quicker by just a few seconds
• Used AI to cleanup on of Bilbo’s rescored lines during goodbye to Gandalf scene
• (Special Features) Removed PJ cameo in Bree, it was too similar to LOTR and we already got a cameo in the Erebor flashback that comes right before
• (Special Features) Added back dialogue in the Bree scene about the last Dwarvish ring, as this is referenced in the Quest for Erebor text and serves as a nice segue into the White Council scene, where Gandalf mentions it
• (Special Features) Removed extra dialogue in Bree about Thráin “still living” so it is left as more of a subtle point rather than something really important (because we never pay it off in my version, here we assume Gandalf already found Thráin dead in Dol Guldur like the book)
• (Special Features) Removed mention in the White Council of the bearer of the last Dwarvish ring vanishing, as in this version we assume Gandalf already had found Thráin and he just learned in Bree that Thráin would have had it (but clearly didn’t when Gandalf found him)
• (Special Features) Added back dialogue about the Ring of Power into the Dol Guldur post-credit scene to help tie in The Hobbit with LOTR
• (Special Features) Redid trailer entirely to be mostly realistic to what a real single-film trailer could have been like, without spoilers

I think the LOTR 4k version is still okay. I watched it, the audio is great, HDR is great, some of the color grading is better (no green tint in FOTR), and some of the shots do actually look more detailed especially shots where you can see miniatures in the background, you can notice things you never noticed on 1080p. However, I agree that the DNR (less film grain) completely sucks. I love film grain, and the waxy look in many of the shots is unfortunate. I think a color corrected LOTR Blu-ray fan edit would probably be the best way to watch LOTR for me.

As for Hobbit, it never had film grain so it’s not going to have much or any DNR I bet, but I never watched it so maybe you are right it does have problems.

For me, the reasons I don’t want to use the 4k Hobbit as a source are because: have to redo the color grading, I need to upgrade software/hardware/purchase the discs & a new disc drive, and even when I finish most people will still not even want the 4k version because it’s too big of a file. I have done some additional color tweaking in BOTFA in my edit’s next update to help reduce the excessive glowing highlights, so whatever improvements the 4k version made to the look of the films I think my edit at least isn’t left in the dust because I have tried to improve the look as much as possible.

The update isn’t ready yet, I guess I didn’t specify that so my bad. I had implied I was still finishing it up when asking for any final suggestions (which offer is still open!), but I should have it ready within the next month or two

Hey all,

I have been working on some revisions after reviewing all available source footage (something I hadn’t really done in years). I’ll spare the details (which you can find on my corresponding fanedit.org thread or on fanedits reddit), here are the main ideas:

• Added 2 deleted shots of Dwarves in cells (from Appendices) into Woodland Realm
• Laketown sequence extended by 1 minute, many felt it was too quick. Now it’s as long as possible, given available footage. Added a few more shots/5 lines of dialogue back into Smaug-Bilbo sequence.
• Improved “Last Light” scene to feel much more smooth.
• Redone Ravenhill sequence to relate back to the flow of the battle in the book a bit more, while still being just as cinematically satisfying and enjoyable, hopefully also feeling like it “drags on” a bit less
• Various tidying up here and there, full changelog will come

If anyone else has suggestions, now is the time. After comparing my edit to the source footage again, I really feel confident that every possible shot has been contemplated. Don’t want anything left on the table, hopefully am able to deliver the most book-accurate extended edition style adaptation of The Hobbit possible with the footage we have.

Pmed all.

Also, as of this past month:

• Edit has been updated (Digital & new ISOs both up)
• A few minor tweaks in the 2nd half, essentially reducing unnecessary final battle action/smoothing out Bilbo’s retreat & Ravenhill, and now putting back in some character moments. Runtime is unchanged. Full changelist is in the drive.
• ISO has 2 new special features, one with Dol Guldur and a new Thorin deleted scene.

Thank you!

Also Pmed everyone

Pmed all.

Also for anyone new, feel free to message me first - just go to my profile and click start private topic. (don’t want my thread to clutter the forum with only link requests)

PMed all

abnog said:

Thank you, thank you very much! This is an amazing job, and the one who got me to want to watch again the movie(s). You did a very professional editing job indeed. 😃

I have one question. How hard would it be for me (or anyone) to edit the audio tracks of other languages to match your edit? Could you give any indications on where to make the cuts? Or is it too hard for someone not involved in your work to tackle?

I would love to have this edit with the spanish dub. I have no problem whatsoever with english, but I would like to show your cut to my child when he becomes old enough.

Glad you enjoyed! Unfortunately, it would probably be too hard for you to recreate the audio just because of how much editing there is; new music, new sound effects, and a lot of re-arranging has been done. There are Spanish subtitles included, but I understand the audio dub could be more enjoyable.

Pmed all, cheers guys.

All this middle earth hype with the new Amazon show & people asking for links is makin me wanna go back to editing The Hobbit…Maybe later this year I’ll take another look at the project, see if any new ideas come to mind after sitting on a finished release for almost a year.

Thanks guys for the interest/kind words. Really appreciate it 😃 PMed all

Msged all 😃

Sure thing, PMed all

Thanks! If I were to do that I’d want to make my own digital VFX for the shot, maybe it’s something that could be thrown in quickly and unannounced when I get back into fan editing, but for now I’m fine without it. So far the special features are only on the ISOs but I might slowly upload some of them to my youtube channel M4 Studios, which actually does have the behind the scenes special feature uploaded already.

PMed all. Also, thanks for watching the behind the scenes! You might be interested in some of the special features on the disc version

PMed all. Anyways:

DrVibble said:

1. How can I export without or with minimum compression/pixelation in dark areas of the image? My current efforts have seen heavy pixellation. My process is encoding the Blu-Ray Rip in Handbrake at max quality, then exporting as .mp4 or .mov. I’d love to have maximum visual quality, is it an mkv thing? I’m on the free version of DaVinci Resolve so I may be limited there

Compression is dependent on the bitrate, so if you set it higher, then there will be less, but your filesize will be larger. I recommend downloading this free open source program MediaInfo https://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo and if you throw any video (including my edits) onto it it’ll read you all of the metadata. You can look for the bitrates and get an idea of what other fan edits/movies are which could help you. For me, you will see I went with 11mbps VBR for the MKV, and 30mbps CBR for the Blu-ray ISO version.

So the quality doesn’t have anything to do with the MKV, both the above versions I mentioned are h264 videos that have been encoded at different bitrates, and then they have been output in different containers (the first in an MKV, the latter bundled in ISOs)

2. How can I export DTS audio? Currently I’m just exporting AAC, which has so far been fine, but again, max quality would be really nice

You need to have the DTS encoder, you export your audio as 6 separate WAV files (5.1) and then load all 6 into the program. For the MKV, I used normal DTS, and for the Blu-ray I used DTS-HD Master Audio (lossless).

Unfortunately, the normal DTS encoder is discontinued and you can only buy the latest (extremely expensive) DTS X encoder. You’ll have to find an ‘alternate’ method of acquiring the DTS-HD Master Audio Suite program.

PMed all

Cheers mate, I really appreciate it. I’m so invested in this adaptation and working with what we have, but I wonder how many years (decades likely) it’ll be till we get to enjoy another one by a new director. Fan edits (and the '77 cartoon) will have to do till then in my opinion

Thanks man I really appreciate it, glad you liked the edit. I agree, there’s still so many small things I wish we could do differently but just gotta work with what we got

Thanks for watching mate! I am very glad you enjoyed.

Dazman said:
-The cut from Thorin saying they are gonna kill Azog to them being in the town ruins was little quick. Is seems they got there in an instant. Maybe could have used some shots of starting to ride towards the town. Their fight was cut great however, being more dynamic now and not bloated.

And yeah it seems like your critiques center around a few moments feeling a bit quick and I can agree with that analysis. In all these cases of heavily restructured scenes (such as the Thranduil post battle scene where it might feel quick even if there’s nothing “technically” wrong with the transitions/audio), it’s definitely because of a lack of footage. I’ve tried the best with what I have to work with and would never purposefully exclude or shorten shots to quicken pacing.

With Ravenhill, so much stuff had to go IMO (Tauriel, Bolg, Legolas, riding goats, etc.) so it’s really just a subjective choice, do you keep some of that and maintain slower pacing, or do you remove it to be like the book but then deal with a bit faster pacing. I’d go with the latter, definitely pros and cons to both sides though.

Also, PMed D-A113

DMed all

Mini update: While the edit is finished, I still had some fun making a website for the fan edit if you’d like a flashier way of reading about it https://m4-studios.github.io/hobbitbookedit/ credit to Caleb Gamman as I used some html from him.

PMed

PMed

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.