sidshady12

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.

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.

This project has now officially been approved on IFDb https://ifdb.fanedit.org/m4s-the-hobbit-book-edit/

Feel free to leave a review there. Thank you all for the support in getting to here.

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.

PM’d

PM’ed you both!

Vidmaster said:

This is the bigger problem. But thanks anyway, that download is much appreciated (arrows removed and GREY stone dust around the dragon). I take all you got there…

Keep in mind that the VFX downloads don’t have any grain or color changes 😉 so those files will be identical to original movie visuals and you can apply your own color grading on top of them. It’s only if you tried to take stuff directly from my MKV

Vidmaster said:

I absolutely envy you. I have been working on my Hobbit Edit for over two years now and constantly bang my head against shitty shots that are still somehow essential to the overall story. You simply have access to resources I can only dream of, like replacing a son with a piece of wood 😉

Honestly, I should start stealing shots and ideas from you…

It can be very frustrating work my man - I know what you mean. I spent just a little over 2 years on mine. All the footage I use is sourced from both theatrical & extended editions of the films. If you want to borrow footage that’s fine, but just remember to give credit and I also have a subtle 35mm film grain/my own color correction (for best quality to edit, download the Blu-ray ISO version).

Or, you might like this, check this video regarding the VFX and read the description https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gm2CDRDPJmU for you may find some useful things 😃

Some previews:

The Shire
youtu.be/GlWReFMmk4Y

Out of the Frying-Pan into the Fire
youtu.be/3HF4PX2Mtto

Smaug Leaves Erebor
youtu.be/1Dqhtd0Eb9s

Blu-ray Version Release
https://i.imgur.com/VZkUC2n.png

Digital Version Release
https://i.imgur.com/82r4waN.png

Dark_Avenger said:

I didn’t think I would ever find a perfect fan edit of the Hobbit that hit all my personal marks, but I honestly can’t think of a more definitive version than this one. I really enjoyed the Maple edit a while back but couldn’t shake a couple nagging things I disagreed with (cutting Beorn’s EE scene and Thorin’s funeral were things I would have preferred).

Your M4 edit has truly become my go-to version of these movies. I always enjoyed the Hobbit trilogy, more than the average person I would guess, but I saw them as heavily flawed with a really great movie buried underneath. Amazing job with this, and thank you for giving me my gateway into the fan edit rabbit hole!

Thank you so much! I feel what you mean, making a Hobbit edit is basically like putting together a puzzle in a very specific way, some pieces excluded, some included, some in different orders, and how they’re all formed comes down to the editor’s vision (personal preference), so it can be very hard to find one that you mostly agree with. Just glad to see others happen to have a similar vision as me!

DMC said:

Hayden the person? No. But I do hate the idea that Anakin reverts to his younger self upon his death because “that’s when he was good.” Anakin was on the “good side” when he died; that’s the whole point of ROTJ’s ending. He should appear as the version of himself that died saving his son from the Emperor IMO.

I agree that makes complete sense and would’ve probably preferred it kept that way, but to be honest George never told us that is the “idea” behind why he looked younger in the movies, that’s just fans coming up with a (very logical) explanation.

What if you looked at it through the lens that Anakin’s good side was trapped in his deformed, dying, suited body, which is all a result of him being evil. Now he realizes this and regrets it, so by reverting to his younger self, it shows he’s finally back at peace with himself before he destroyed himself. An older Anakin that’s not deformed doesn’t technically “exist” in this universe, as by the time he was old he’d already gone through the Vader transformation. Just ideas. Again, I still agree with you though.

PMed

No problem, it’s always great to help others and fun to discuss Hobbit stuff here. To save you a future headache, if you notice any glitches in the video (that only show up in your editing software), you might have to bite the bullet and re-encode the MP4s. You can do the DNxHR method I showed or you can just Handbrake and put quality settings very high. My friend did the same MKV to MP4 thing with The Hobbit and had the same issue as me.

DrVibble said:

Hi again, back for a couple more questions…

I noticed that in your edit, when the company is approaching Erebor, the extreme wide shows fourteen distant black figures rather than the nine in the original film. I remember seeing this shot in the Maple Edit; is this that same shot borrowed, or a new VFX shot specifically for this? Either way, what sorta permissions would I need to use the shot in my own edit? (I kinda feel dirty borrowing so much, I just have zero VFX experience… thinking about learning some basics to see if I can make my own stuff)

Yeah this one is borrowed from the Maple edit. I gave full credit on both my website & fan edit documentation along with mentioning it in the audio commentary so I hope that’s good enough haha, in the fan edit community it’s totally fine to build off each other as long as you don’t try to steal credit (or use other people’s work as promotion). So with that, don’t feel bad at all about using other VFX! Especially if the edit is just for personal use. Also, since his edit was pretty compressed h264 video I just used the crop tool and grabbed the tiny specs of the Dwarves and threw them on top of the original shot. that everything is as high quality as possible.

Second and last question, are the deleted scenes found in the appendices that come with the extended editions? I’ve wanted to re-add Gandalf’s speech in my own edit ever since I learned it was a thing. There’s also one, perhaps two other brief deleted scenes I wanted to try re-adding.

Yeah they are all in the Battle of the Five armies appendices. I don’t remember which segments exactly but if you rip them and check through you will find them. You can also try googling the deleted scenes (like the acorn one) I think some have talked about which segment it was shown in. I do know the cut Eulogy was on Appendices Part 11

Yeah, I think you should be good to go on everything. Takes time to learn but I think you can figure it all out, in terms of audio/the credits. The one tricky thing left is of course, the intermission text. For now you could just write it out in the LOTR Aniron font and put it in white, then worry about coloring it later. Also, actually it wouldn’t be too hard to make it blue even if it’s already gold, colorizing tools have that capability.

If I get the time I might actually make them and improve upon the one I already made, and release them at several colors here (gold, brownish, blue, etc.). We’ll see, but no promises as of right now.

DrVibble said:

Regarding your advice for making the credits, I can understand it all until the last part, as I’m not familiar with using key frames. Though I’ve so far got by fine by just fiddling around and teaching myself Resolve’s functions, I’ll look up some tutorials for these more specialised functions. Also, while that covers the scrolling cast section, what should I do for the rest of the crew credits? Since it seems a hell of a task to go through and write out every individual crew member, is the rest just nabbed from one of the films?

I didn’t touch the crew members haha that would take wayyy too long. As you saw in my edit the credits had the black background, so I didn’t use the BOTFA credits I spliced in the Unexpected Journey credits instead, and so since it was a trilogy all shot together (like LOTR) I think it’s good enough to just use their credits. I only changed the cast because it was more noticeable. Also, you don’t even have to modify the scrolling cast it’s just an extra touch, but if you do yeah don’t worry about the crew.

For keyframes, I would suggest just looking up a tutorial on youtube for how to make a scrolling credits in your software I am sure there is a way, there might even be an easier way than I described, youll just have to make sure the speed at which the credits scroll is the same.

I have zero VFX experience, and Adobe software has a pretty steep price tag; I could try to do what I need to do within their one-week free trial, unless you can recommend any free alternatives?

That would work. If you want you could just rip the intermission from my edit and use it in yours if you want, also the maple edit has a similar one you could probably do the same (as long as you give credit if sharing)

To get the video file I rip it from the Blu-Ray with MakeMKV and then encode it using HandBrake, but I’m not sure whether to encode it with Stereo or 5.1 audio. For the DVD it was just Stereo, but now I’m not sure what’s best. Since we’re likely working off similar discs, what settings did you use?

You’re going to want to encode into Waveform (.wav, and set it at 24 bit), this is uncompressed and lossless so it is best for editing! You won’t lose any quality.

With handbrake, that means you have the video track all good to go. If I were you, when you converting I would just uncheck the audio and ignore it.

Take your original MKV, unaltered, and drag it into Audacity. Then, export each track as a mono wave file.

I’ve made a tutorial for the whole process I use, actually, so if you want it’s here: https://youtu.be/Y-u3F3Jhwrg?t=119

That way, you load in your video and audio separately, but since they are the same length it doesn’t matter they will line up. The audio doesn’t need to be attached to the MP4

Start the tutorial about 2 minutes in, when using MakeMKV, you can make it so it only gives you the main DTS HD MA audio track and not the others. If not, you’ll have all the audio tracks and when you load into Audacity you need to choose the audio track but it doesn’t tell you which is which, I reckon just click the top one. Then follow the tutorial to about 7 minutes in for the process with Audacity. I think this tutorial is good for setting up 5.1 in your software https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZ30eAFgjMQ but you can experiment. Research how to load 6 WAV files into 5.1 set up

Sorry if the repeated questions are bugging you.

Not at all!

DrVibble said:

How do you go about making an all-new credits sequence? Are there templates you can get somewhere, do you replicate it from the original films, or do you just have to do the entire thing by hand?

Here’s what I did for the new credits, and since you’re so nice and I’m bored at work I’m going to give you full rundowns on everything:

• For the main starring list, this is easy, just type the names in the same font and place them in your timeline all evenly spaced out with proper fade length (I believe from black -> fully faded in to name was about 3-6 frames I forget but you can check just go frame by frame and count), so that way you can type all the main cast that showed up in your edit (If your edit is similar to mine you can just copy that, The company, Thranduil, Bard, etc)

• For the scrolling credits this took a bit more work. Take screenshots of every scrolling credits from all 3 movies, or just open the movie and pause at the scrolling credits. Go movie by movie, one by one, and list every single person shown in the credits, can just use notepad or something

• You can ignore/delete all the repeated names obviously, so by the time you get to BOTFA you can easily skip over gandalf the dwarves bilbo etc

• Delete characters that were not present in your edit. For example, random Hobbit from market scene played by whoever, just google this character and see what they look like. If you remember they were only in that market scene and if you cut out that scene, then you can delete them to be realistic. It was a long process but I think I got it down so I included every single character that made in appearance in my edit. Although be careful, in that example I think some of the hobbits show up in the last shire scene. I definitely remember I removed Radagast and Sauron from the credits without having to even check because I know they didn’t even appear at all.

• Order them in whatever way you want, I tried to put them in somewhat chronological order of appearance

• This is the fun part, then go into photoshop and make a large image that’s 1920 pixels wide and probably at least 2000-3000 pixels high, because remember it’s going to be scrolling.

• Type out all the names and use those screenshots from earlier of the official credits to match the font, color, and size, it doesn’t have to be 1:1 accurate just as long as you think it’ll blend in with the official credits. Useful: https://www.theonering.net/torwp/2014/06/26/90498-the-lord-of-the-fonts-a-guide-to-fonts-in-the-hobbit-and-the-lord-of-the-rings/1/

• Crop your image if you made it too big you don’t want unnecessary black space at the top/bottom, then export as PNG and load that into your software. If you are editing in 1920 x 1080 you’ll need to add the black bars at the top/bottom for the correct aspect ratio, but for me I edited in 1920 x 800 (no black bars) so I was fine.

• Position your credits down below off the screen. Then, find the very first frame where you see the scrolling credits pop up at the bottom of your screen, match your image to that spot with a key frame. You’ll need to do some math and I was able to figure it out without any prior knowledge of doing this but try to calculate how fast the credits move up, like see how long it takes for the original “cast” word to move up to the last frame on the top before disappearing and make a key frame for your credits there at the same spot, then subtract how far the distance was, then just make another keyframe that same distance but added on etc etc not sure how to explain maybe a better way of doing it but I figured out this way.

What programs would you recommend for learning basic VFX to make that ‘Intermission’ text? You don’t have to put a full tutorial for the effect down here, that could get complex (though some starter tips wouldn’t hurt 😃)

I used After Effects CS6 for the intermission text, I actually found a tutorial on youtube for adding noise to words and it was actually not too hard even though the tutorial wasn’t related to LOTR at all, I started following it but then halfway through by just some one of the basic noise effects adjusted it turned out that was all I needed. It’s a very simple effect all you need to make sure is you have the goldish glow color. Once you export and load into premiere, you can always color correct it more and speed up the layer to make the “shiny reflections” faster, that’s at least what I did. I could potentially check exactly what I did later.

On another note, would it be possible to re-use some of the custom VFX shots you have in this edit, and if so whose permission will I need to ask for? (I mainly aim to use this edit for private viewing, but if it turns out well I might end up sharing it.)

Yeah sure, as long as you give credit wherever you share the edit. They were made by my friend eric1894, who I’ve added to the editors section in the end credits along with myself. If you google my hobbit edit and check youtube there is a VFX reel posted by him which has a download in the description for all/most of the VFX without any of my color grading or film grain. But preferably, you wouldn’t use those VFX as promo or in any trailers etc., as they were made for my cut and would be a little unfair for his work to be used as promotion for someone else’s unrelated edit, although I know you wouldn’t do that anyways as I’m sure you understand - just clarifying.

Jar Jar Bricks said:

sidshady12 said:

sherlockpotter said:

New attempt. Lots of clean up done, but it may still need some work, of course.

https://streamable.com/t22rsz

Random fan editor here, had to look up what the original scene was but if you don’t know it’s edited it’s impossible to tell it was, after all, movies do this kind of ADR/audio manipulation in post all the time and we probably don’t even know because we don’t know where to look for spliced audio. I’d say this is good enough to work

I definitely wouldn’t go that far, sid. Try some headphones. It’s pretty close, though.

Okay I hear “end” needs some work but everything else is good

sherlockpotter said:

New attempt. Lots of clean up done, but it may still need some work, of course.

https://streamable.com/t22rsz

Random fan editor here, had to look up what the original scene was but if you don’t know it’s edited it’s impossible to tell it was, after all, movies do this kind of ADR/audio manipulation in post all the time and we probably don’t even know because we don’t know where to look for spliced audio. I’d say this is good enough to work

Google it, you’ll find them in a few seconds

Well I don’t know if any fan edit is ever truly perfect but if you really mean that then thank you - happy to hear you enjoyed.

iantnvol2 said:

This is really fantastic! I was thoroughly disappointed at the theatrical Hobbit releases, as I absolutely loved the book. I also saw lots of the first fan edit attempts several years ago, but didn’t really care for the changes or quality. This will be my go-to version from now on as the blu rays collect dust. Great quality and you did an excellent job adhering to the book and unearthing the good movie buried underneath 3 mediocre prequels.

Thank you for watching! Glad you enjoyed

Blu-ray ISOs are finished! (And art)

Unfortunately, downloading both parts will run you up by 70GB or so, but it’s worth it to get the max HD and all the bonus content packed onto the discs. So of course, there will always be smaller digital file downloads, but I know some of you out there have blu-ray burners and like to have physical copies still 😃

No problem! This is fine to talk about here, there aren’t many Hobbit threads plus it relates to mine.

In my edit, from what I remember I changed 3 subtitles:

The first two were shots which already had subtitles so I had to crop them out. I upscaled the scene by the absolute minimum I had to in order to get the old subtitle off the screen. This involves moving the location of the shot (you slide it down a little bit, so only the bottom part is cut off, and upscale to remove any black spaces). Once upscaled, I tidied up the shot to make sure it still looked good by using a sharpen effect. They were only like 3 seconds long so really quick, if you handle your source files well and export at a good bitrate an audience won’t ever be able to tell that the picture quality is slightly different in a few quick shots (because of the upscale, it can reduce quality slightly), but if you do it all the time or have really detailed shots that last a long time they may start to notice. I can’t even notice myself and I made the edits lol, so don’t worry too much about quality as long as you do your best.

The other time I simply used a new shot without a subtitle and added a fresh subtitle on top so no upscaling required. It was a shot of the Orcs marching and I added Azog yelling during it, and then I could write whatever I wanted. This option is much better but can only be used in rare situations if you get lucky.

I don’t recommend redubbing entire scenes though it can get messy with the blocking if you upscale, so I tried to do it only when I had to. Also, the font is ITC Weidemann Medium and depending on which film it’s either white or greyish, then just add a slight bottom right black shadow with like 80% opacity, example https://i.imgur.com/E3oj7E5.png

DrVibble said:

I remember seeing the Maple Edit sometime last year; it actually inspired me to start making my own edit of the trilogy. I’d love to see your version; the summary describes some really intriguing changes! Do I have to get it from your site? (pretty new to OT.com and I’m not 100% sure how all the processes work)

Sounds good, and basically on this forum (and fanedit.org) you can get links in private messages so I’ll go ahead and message you the download link