Hobbit Legendary Edit: A Lord of the Rings Prequel, The

Wow....just wow. After watching I had to show other people. Everyone loved it. The voice over in the beginning had everyone wondering if they wanted to sit down for 4 hours to watch this edit, but a few minutes in and everyone was completely absorbed. This is the way to enjoy the Hobbit Trilogy! Thank you so much!

Probably the closest to Tolkien vision of the book.
This was my first fan edit. I came across the legendary cut on archive.org before becoming a member of fanedit.org. I give wraith credit for the monumental undertaking he took on condensing 3 movies together while trying to keep the tone of Lord of the Rings and doing justice to the Hobbit story. While it is an improvement and closer to the book the break neck pace the story moves at doesn't leave a lot of breathing room for certain scenes; in fact I missed a lot of the slower moments that Jackson had. I really felt it in the first 3rd when the journey begins as we have constant transitions of them on horse back 2 minutes of talking than more transitions of walking. This was probably unavoidable and I do love this edit the: redone opening/ending, the battle of five armies was more tight, and the smaug scene was done to perfection, compared to Jackson where it went on to long. This is still a wonderful edit of the Hobbit and I have high praise for Wraith I am now curious of his takes on Lord of the Rings as I am not the biggest fan of the extended cuts minority opinion I know. One problems I did encounter was with the audio right before Rivendale in the tunnels the audio got wonky it only lasted a few seconds and it was probably due to to streaming,

This one was great and surprising.

Video and audio quality is great and everything you expect from a Hobbit edit is there.

But first I was surprised how much this is closer to the LOTR feel, especially evident in how the Bag End feast was edited with its focus on food, sharp cuts, and audio overlap as the scene ends.

Then, the removal of the eagle escape was an unexpected stroke of genius I didn't know I needed. When the story is presented in one movie the eagles break the flow and introduce plot holes. This change fixes that and keeps the story going and pressure on.

The only bad cut I noticed was the Goblin King. His first scene is too close and sudden, it's missing at least an establishing shot. Other than that, the shield wall jump and ice jump were left in, which I only mention because I've seen an edit where that is removed (Stromboli). And no subtitles, for those who need them.

All in all, a great one-movie Hobbit experience.

I love my book-edit of the Hobbit but I have to admit that some of the non-book material that was added by Mr. Jackson and company was not half-bad. This edit is a fantastic, condensed, and serious Lord of the Rings prequel based on Peter Jackson's 'Appendices' material that was added to make things connect with the LOTR films. Therefore, this edit is probably best for those who never read the book and only saw the Hobbit films. The edit is a reasonable length and the pacing is excellent, as well, feeling refreshingly focused.

Very intrigued by the tease that we may get 'Legendary Edits' of the LOTR trilogy as well...if this Hobbit edit is any indication, this project may end up as something truly special.

Recommended!

Edit: all the minor stuff I’ve found before has been (quickly) addressed by Wraith, so I’m updating my review. Well done!

The goofy jokes are mostly gone, and a lot of extra stuff (not present in the books) was competently removed.
The new score works great as well, in many occasions changing the tone of the scenes for the better.
Overall, I enjoyed this quite a lot. Great job from the editor on this one!

At the Battle of the Five Armies, I really think the (small) bit where the Elves jump over the dwarves’ shield wall should be removed. That is the silliest part of the trilogy for me, it’s a bafflingly stupid decision for the Elves to do that. But I understand that’s hard to remove while maintaining the coherence of the Battle itself.