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The Hobbit cut down to a 4 hour film.

(I haven't watched this yet)

While I have no problems with someone doing this after the movie has been in the theater and released commercially, I do wonder where he got the film for the battle of five armies prior to it be released on DVD or digital. He might explain that somewhere on his site but I didn't want to give him any web counts. Basically I didn't want to support illegal piracy.

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"Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer."

ah good point mapper, I hadn't considered it from that perspective....

I highly recommend this version of the film. I watched it when I downloaded it a few months ago and I watched it again with my boys last week. I would not want to watch the full films over and over (or even once more) but I expect I'll watch this version many times. The edit has been done really well - there are two or three jumps in the narrative where it seems a bit strange (e.g. Gandalf being with them in one scene and not in the next, with no explanation) but otherwise you wouldn't know this wasn't the intended version of the film. The fact that the films can be cut by half without losing any of the story just shows how much unnecessary extra stuff there was in them.
For anyone dissappointed by the Hobbit films, I'd recommend giving this a try - there is actually a good film in there!

I'll wait for a fan edit that utilizes all three extended versions, though An Unexpected Journey Extended doesn't offer anything, so I'll just wait when BotFA Extended is released and view a fan edit then. Extended's are the real versions for me, but I would like to have a Hobbit 4 hour short version that cuts through the fat.

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My Lotr backlog: 305/952[][][][][][][][][][]32% completed
Painting Lineup: Mumakil x2, Rohan Heroes x8, Haradrim, SKoDA

Just gave it a watch.

It's really a lot better than the three individual films, though there are a few spots where the editing detracts some pacing, emotional impact, and resolution from the film (Fili and Kili, for example, die off-screen--a consequence of eliminating the Tauriel-Kili romance).

The Hobbit could have worked as an individual film, but it wouldn't look like this. This really is a "Tolkien edit;" as it stands, it wouldn't be marketable for a mainstream audience.

Holy Devlan Mud, how did he leave the Smaug scooby doo chase in?! I feel like everyone agrees thats the worst scene in the whole trilogy. In general though, I like it a lot better. I can't really make it through the films theatrical, the extendeds have some interesting stuff but this is watchable, sans dragon chase.

I've been wanting to do something like this for a while now. I've been waiting for the extended release of BOFA but it was nice to watch this for some ideas.

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Cheers,

P

I recommend checking out the Spence Edit, 3h 25mins.

http://www.fanedit.org/ifdb/component/c ... pence-edit

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- RIP Fimbul and Narzug -

A very good find. The summary makes it sound even better than the Tolkien Edit (though it's a shame to lose Beorn).

I can't seem to find it anywhere online though.

orc-archer, thanks again for pointing out the Spence Edit.

I would say it's as good a final product as you can get from the Jackson Trilogy. Following that, the only way to improve the films more would be to remake them entirely.

I feel that it is important to note that the "Tolkien" version of LotR was a Stanley Kubrick film starring the Beatles (basically the worst thing that could have ever been). The "Christopher Tolkien" version would be a blank screen because he would never let it be made. This is not the "Tolkien Edit", this is the " Literal Book Edit".

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"Leave Sauron to me."
If you're in the Raleigh, NC area, let me know.

Let's face it. You can't make a mule into a race horse.
The LOTR films were masterpieces.

The Hobbit films stink.

Fade to black............

They didn't stink. They just weren't as good as LotR because obviously the Hobbit could NEVER be better than LotR.

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"Leave Sauron to me."
If you're in the Raleigh, NC area, let me know.

I would say that they were bad films, even taken on their own. The trilogy suffered from major pacing issues, lack of perspective, lack of consistency, poor script, poor plot, poor acting, poor character development, excessive melodrama, and, perhaps most importantly, lack of authenticity due to excessive CGI. These are fundamental problems that would exist whether or not they were compared to LotR.

Some of that is the fault of the source material--a children's story that does not necessarily translate well to a film.

The saving grace of these films are the performances by Martin Freeman, Ian McKellan, Andy Serkis, and Benedict Cumberbatch. The Riddles in the Dark sequence is the highlight of the trilogy. Other than that they were really a mess.

I don't see how you can call the acting bad, and then say the acting was the saving grace. If the CGI was bad, I would agree that it was a detriment, but the CG was incredible so I fail to see how that is a negative, especially when other movies (like Episode 7 and Avatar) were filled to the brim with CG and were praised (and in Avatar's case was literally the only reason to watch). I do agree the pacing wasn't the best.

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"Leave Sauron to me."
If you're in the Raleigh, NC area, let me know.

Martin Freeman and especially Andy Serkis delivered phenomenal performances. McKellan, Cumberbatch, and Pace were good. Many others performed admirably. A great deal of the rest of the cast was just plain bad. Richard Armitage, for example, has a decent screen presence and strong voice, but his delivery of lines was far too over-the-top and melodramatic--unnatural. Even the best actors in the trilogy were let down by a bad script. The only actor who had both a good set of lines and a good performance was Serkis.

I, personally, DO NOT praise Avatar and Episode 7. That statement alone may shut the discussion down lol. Authenticity is very important to me in a film. I like as little CGI as possible, or CGI that's used in a minimalistic or supportive (rather than domineering) way. There was very little on the screen at any one time in the movies that was actually real. I could tell. And so could everyone else. The films may as well have been computer animated.

CGI has come a long way. But if you notice that the film was mostly CGI, then the film has failed to convince you of its authenticity. "That movie had good CGI" and "That movie felt very real" are two very different compliments.

Though the texture, lighting, etc, for the CGI in the Hobbit is cutting edge, it was employed in ways that can never be natural, besides being excessive. Legolas' gravity defying bridge jumps and the Goblin chase scene are just two examples.

The bottom line for me is that The Hobbit films, taken alone, are not entertaining or engrossing. Only when you compare them to LotR do you realize just how wasted and disappointing they are.

I will respectfully disagree with you Jamros. Although the Hobbit films did not come close to the quality of the LOTR, they still got the key parts of the story right:

-Interactions in the Shire.
-Riddles in the Dark
-Flies and Spiders
-Dialogue with Smaug
-Destruction of Laketown
-Acting skills of Martin Freeman, Luke Evans, Ian McKellan, Christopher Lee, Andy Serkis, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Lee Pace.

I have seen many fine edits of the film that have been cut down to 3 hours that are extremely well done. I am disappointed with the Hobbit but I'm still glad it was made because it introduced the world of Tolkien to a new generation. It was not a perfect picture but it brought new people into this world and the hobby. This is better than nothing in my opinion. In addition, you don't need to watch the Hobbit as the LOTR will always be there.

In my opinion, the biggest criticism I have for the two Middle Earth trilogies is not CGI, the length, elf/dwarf romance, or deviations from the book. It is that in all 6 films, there are no non-white people in significant roles. In addition, the trilogies missed a huge opportunity to hire little people to play the Hobbits and Dwarves. Although I still prefer Middle Earth over Game of Thrones, at least that TV show had a far more diverse cast and hired the amazing Peter Dinklage. The only people of colour in these films are either some background non-speaking roles in Laketown, Haradrim/Easterlings where you can't see their faces anyways except for the one mumak commander, and the orcs/goblins/uruks (who are completely covered in make up).

Don't get me wrong, I love these movies and I don't believe that Peter Jackson is an active racist. However, it deeply saddens me that in the 21 century we have two trilogies that never even considered people of colour to have speaking roles in a fantasy world. I believe that this is something to be far more upset about than any other criticisms we have heard about the Hobbit.

I don't really agree with this. There's a key difference between being open to all and being diverse.

Diversity is something born of needing to have all different kinds of people in order to show fairness and lack of prejudice. However, necessary diversity is actually prejudiced in a way, as it makes a distinction between people and makes choices based off that.

While the notion of having little people play Hobbits/Dwarves is a far more debatable one, I'd argue pure race isn't.

As you mentioned, people of color are involved, from the East races to Orcs. Just because the color of their skin isn't prominently flown around like it's a big deal, doesn't mean they weren't meaningfully involved, and thus racism or anything like that is a nonfactor.

Besides, most cultures are based off of real civilizations or a combination of them. So most of the minorities would be the Eastern civilizations such as Rhun and Harad. And in something like Lord of the Rings you can't be higgly piggly with race, as race is genetic and a kingdom in Lord of the Rings is likely going to be pretty genetically intertwined. There's not exactly a whole lot of immigration into Gondor (maybe because of their big wall (jk))

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Forlorn, I remove my Iron Guard from the pile of Goblins; just staring at that 6 with disbelief.

Very, very interesting post about ethnicity in Middle-earth.

I will leave the quality of the Hobbit films alone now; if you (all) enjoyed them, then--to each his or her own.

But ethnicity in Middle-earth is something I mull over quite often. I was very surprised to see minority faces in Laketown. Not happy, not angry, just surprised. In fact, I was trying to envision the scenario that had led people from Harad/Rhun to immigrate to Laketown lol.

I say that as someone with a mulato Cuban/mixed race Hispanic background/heritage.

Skin color is a big deal in the books. It's mentioned repeatedly. There are very, very few "swarthy" or dark-skinned characters among the Free Peoples: the Harfoots, the Druedain, Tom Bombadil, the men of Lossarnach, a few others. In these cases it may also be understood that their skin has been tanned from the sun, or that they are simply a regional variation of a light-skinned ethnicity, ie, not a different "race."

Tolkien actually often uses "swarthy" to indicate a villain: Bill Ferny is a prime example. Pale is almost always good. Fair skin with grey eyes is the ideal heroic combination. Slanted eyes and dark skin are a clear demarcation of evil.

I understand The Lord of the Rings as Tolkien's attempt at creating British mythology. Middle-earth is a medieval European term for the terrestrial, vs celestial, world; Middle-earth is mythological Europe. I don't care if Tolkien wants to uphold European beauty standards in a book meant to emulate or pay homage to pagan European mythology. It's not offensive, and I don't think it was conscious racism. There's nothing racist about waxing poetic on how you find fair skin attractive. You can find that sort of language across world literature; the Arabian Nights and Les Mis also praise fair skin. Things Fall Apart praises dark skin.

BUT--every "non-European" ethnicity in LotR is evil. There are groups which correspond to Arabs, Indians, sub-Saharan Africans, Asians, etc, and they all have pledged themselves to literal evil or have been coerced into fighting on the side of literal evil. They didn't need to be included in the story at all; but when they were included, they were almost exclusively hideous bad guys.

I don't think it was conscious racism, again, but I do think it's an emulation of ancient European tribalism and monarchism--and I must also recognize that I am not the target audience for LotR, and every aspect of it does not have to appeal to/appease me.

Film-wise, I wouldn't really have a problem with every single actor being white/having European heritage/even being exclusively white British. But that's purely based on my interpretation of what LotR is supposed to be. I don't think it would be right to include a bunch of white guys in a hypothetical Epic of Sundiata movie; I don't think it would be right to include a bunch of blacks in a hypothetical Beowulf movie. Tolkien describes skin color and hair color and eye color and bloodlines in LotR constantly, and it was meant to be a mythology for the British people. Skin color was important to him, and he wanted his heroes to be attractive according to the Anglo-Saxon tradition. So keep it white, sure.

TL; DR: LotR is a celebration of European, especially British, culture and ethnicity. As a minority myself (in the US), I am not upset about the lack of color in the LotR or Hobbit films.

I would generally agree with Jamros that the Hobbit films were an overdone mess; there's a film and a half in there, or maybe a tight three hour film, but not three 3 hour spectacles. This is not to say that the films did not have stand out elements. Richard Armitage's Thorin was a stand out. The use of various Irish and British character actors gave the no-character dwarves of the book memorable personas. The dinner party scene and the later, weightier discussion is utterly charming. Gollum was fun. Even some of the hints of the larger Jackson-Middle-earth were fascinating (such as Thranduil's scars).

There are various reasons for the many flaws. One key element was Hollywood's cunning plan to get buttocks on seats - turn everything into a 3d sensorial overload theme park ride. The idea that the LOTR films were long epics - well, let's make 'em longer. The tonal and stylistic changes between Jackson and Del Toro were a bit jarring and the stylistic differences between LOTR and the Hobbit were, in general, odd.

I'd watch and -rewatch the Fellowship of the Ring. I'd never do so with the Hobbit films.

As for diversity - that's a tricky one. The "real" middle ages of our world were rather more diverse than we imagine. Indeed, one of the reasons the western European "dark ages" were a bit of a rubbish time for all was because of how the various Islamic nations cut off the trade routes between Europe and China. Even then, life relied on a complex network of trading arrangements and contacts across the globe. If we imagine Minas Tirth as Byzantium in maybe the 10th century, you would expect a bunch of people who look sort of Greek-ish (as we do see in the film - check out the various terrified city folk) and a huge cohort of people from everywhere else in the army (as both auxilliaries and local soldiers), people from the Levant, people from the Persian empire, people from Kerala in India, people from Egypt, people from further south in Africa. We don't see that, sadly; there was an opportunity missed there. Byzantium was repeatedly attacked by wagon-riding (one could say wain-riding) nomad peoples from the Steppes, the Pechenegs, but centuries later, the Byzantines were in alliance with those very same Pechenegs against newer, more hostile Turkic and Iranic steppe people. In real history we had the Huns, who were probably a Turkic steppe people - whose numbers would have included ethnic Chinese, and, in turns out, ethnic Germans. All of these sorts of parallels could have been hinted at, if not outright explored. This would not have contradicted the books in any shape or form.

The actual key characters of the cast would be a bit messier - they are all explicitly whiter for various reasons: English-gentlemen hobbits, Nordic dwarves (by way of Scotland), pale Elves and the way we're meant to understand Aragorn and Boromir's kinship.

If the films were to be remade now, they would be made with one eye keenly fixed on the Chinese/Indian/Korean markets. We got the Arwen-as-heroine character in the Fellowship of the Ring because German distributors wanted an explicit romance and a female heroine. Hollywood, and the global system it represents is quite risk adverse, so when someone putting up money and infrastructure expressed a need, you say "yes." The core cast might still be white, but you'd likely see the world as something more ethnically complex. (We see some hints of what might have been, in the Lake Town sequences in the Hobbit films)

But that's all by the by. The Hobbit films are as much a reflection of Hollywood financial anxiety after the crash as well as Jackson just doing a workmanlike job on a film series he wasn't supposed to have to direct.

They could have been so much better.

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Dreaming of getting back to painting...any month now.