Review Detail

The short version:

Anyone who is interested in watching a version of The Hobbit that keeps the large majority of the originals, but dials back the silliness pretty heavily, would be wise to check out TM2YC’s work! I personally don’t care for the Radagast/White Council parts, but TM2YC made it much more digestible, so if you as a viewer don’t mind those parts, or think they’re “meh” then you will find this version very palatable and, in my humble opinion, superior to the originals.

Everything about this edit is seamless. Literally nothing stood out to me, it all the edits were seamless and it was executed very well. I have a couple very small critiques about certain scenes being included, but overall this edit was fantastic and flawlessly done. Great job here TM2YC!

I wrote the rest of this review WHILE watching the edit to provide a less formal play-by-play-review. I figured it could be refreshing for some people to read my live reactions and thought process put to paper in what I hope comes off as more organic than a traditional wordy review! I had the cutlist pulled up and would read the list for each of his parts before and after watching them, and sometimes in the middle when I noticed a cut. (To clarify, like I said above I only noticed cuts because I know this material forwards and backwards)


The Long Version:

-This edit is extensive with the Micro-cutting, but light on the Macro-cutting; Only 31 minutes cut from the total runtime, but bolstering a VERY extensive cutlist full of small snips, adjustments, and rearrangements.

-Loved your cut of "you must be Mr. Boggins" you were absolutely correct, it's far funnier that after a very cordial introduction Bilbo is just goes "Nope."

I…..I’m not angry that you cut out Blunt the Knives, but….did you have to? :( In all seriousness I totally get it, I just love the song.

HOWEVER….I really like what you did here with its removal, the pacing of the Bag End sequence was tightened up considerably by removing it and the other overly silly stuff. I actually REALLY liked how you removed that bit of silliness at the table prior to Gandalf giving Thorin the key, and even Blunt the Knives, contrary to what I just said! ……You may have changed something in me here and I’m not sure how I feel about it

The bit where Gandalf mentions the dragon doesn’t surprise Bilbo like it did originally because you cut out the previous scene where Bofur describes Smaug to him and Bilbo is like “yeah I know what a dragon is” I'm not sure if this is a critique or not, just something I noticed

Honestly I haven’t seen any of the scenes regarding the White Council and Radagast in forever, and while I personally don’t care for them, I can say that the work you did with them as a whole made them far more palatable.

GREAT work with removing Radagast from the Warg chase. Watching the appendices for how/why they did what they did here made me appreciate what they were going for, but it’s definitely not great lol. Your version is much better!

I’ve never seen anyone rearrange the day/night sequences in Rivendell. Very interesting to see it done this way! You also kept some of the more controversial bits from the dinner, but I actually liked the elf maid joke, so I appreciated that you left it in, but fixed it up!

The Radagast/Gandalf flashback was very nicely done!

I think keeping the storm giants was a questionable call, I understand why some people like this bit but it destroys all sense of danger for the company, in my opinion

Edit - I will concede that while I don't like the storm giants scene for the above reasons, I wouldn't actually go so far as to call them "silly" so I can't actually fault you for leaving them!

Staying with Bilbo to have the Gollum sequence instead of cutting to the dwarves was also something I don’t think I’ve seen before!

I was a bit surprised to see that you left in the dwarves’ slide down into the goblin tunnels, as well as part of the extended edition discussion with the Goblin King with Bofur’s silly monologue. As well as Gandalf decapitating that goblin with a slice and then gently bonking his head off. (Not necessarily a critique, just an observation!) Note: I just saw that you mentioned this bit in your cutlist

Leaving in the Golbin King’s resurgence and subsequent falling-on-the-dwarves is another thing I feel you could have cut to reduce the silly factor further!

All the adjustments you made to the Eagles and Azog bit were well done!

Absolutely not a critique, just letting you know: Thorin says “Did I not say that you would be a burden, that you would not survive in the wild….I have never been so wrong in all my life” but in your cutlist you state that you cut out the “that you would not survive in the wild” part. Again, not a negative, just FYI!

I very much liked that you toned down how much Thorin seems to detest Bilbo throughout this film. I get that he was fairly averse to having him along but I always felt it was pretty over-the-top. Good move.

All-in-all, great work here. I’ll be watching the next two versions over the course of the next few days and posting my reviews for them as well!