Review Detail

This is one of the first Hobbit edits I ever saw, and one of what I consider to be the "Big Five."

While I personally don't care for the Dor Guldur suplot, it is trimmed and handled very well in this version.

The audio quality is a little off, I'm not sure what it is, but it sounded a little funky on my watches.

There is a re-usage of a sequence when Smaug is flying towards Bard in order to cover up some shots that were taken for use later. I noticed it upon subsequence watches and it seemed pretty obvious, but I didn't catch it on my first watch, so I'd say it worked alright. This ends my complaints (if you can really call them that) and I shall now launch into my compliments!

WOW the sequence of killing Smaug with a regular arrow was handled beautifully here. Spence did something similar, but he focused on trimming out everything he possibly could while allowing the edit to still make sense, and so it didn't quite work as well as yours did here. Brilliant work L8wrtr.

The other scene that stands out to me is how you handled the dwarves NOT giving up and leaving the mountainside when they can't find the keyhole. There's a single re-used and reversed shot of Thorin looking out over Balin's shoulder to allow the sequence to work, and it works beautifully. When trying to recreate this bit, I had to watch the scene a few times in order to figure out how he made it work. Again, wonderful stuff.

The rest of the edit follows suit; perfect editing, tasteful trimming, and as any good Hobbit edit should strive to be: vastly superior to the originals. I don't really feel the need to point out how all these other bits were done, as they've been addressed many times by many others, just know that it was all very well done! Great work here L8wrtr, your edit will continue to create ripples.