Hobbit Part 2: An Adventure's End, The

In my view even better than Part 1, nothing missed from the source and all the additional baggage I can remember (albeit from about eight years ago) gone. It is amazing how the total runtime is three hours less than that of the theatrical trilogy despite adding some of the deleted scenes.

Wraith has created a masterful edit which offers different versions, for different tastes. The visuals, audio and enhanced story are very well done. It was a joy to experience and I highly recommend.

It has become rather difficult to review Hobbit edits here on IFDB and not be biased by one's own personal preferences, but I will try!

I think I watched the Tolkein Edit version of Wraith's project.

For starters, I'll say that starting the movie with the Prancing Pony scene was marvelous! It's a great introduction for Thorin; the scene was great, it just gets cut out of a lot of edits due to the 3-in-1 structure that most people adopt, or even the 3-in-2 structure that usually doesn't have a prologue at the start of part 2. You circumvented this by putting it at the very beginning!

Wraith states that he left no scene untouched, and that is quite apparent! He put a lot of love and careful consideration into every FRAME of these films, and has created a beautiful work of art as a result. I can't pretend to be anything other than a total amateur at this, and so I also can't pretend to think that I know how every single little scene and frame could/would be improved, so I mostly stay away from the micro-cutting. I think this led me to find the abundance of cuts here to be a little jarring, but overall I don't think most people will notice; I think it stems from the number of edits I've seen (not to mention the originals)

Other than that small nitpick, and my own personal preferences for what got cut/left in, I don't have any complaints! This is a wonderful 2-film edit of the Hobbit, and I think anyone and everyone who is interested should not only watch it, but I think they will find themselves quite pleased to see that Wraith here has provided different versions of his edit for people who desire different things to be cut or left in! "It's got a little something for everyone." Great idea here man, and great work!

This review is for both parts of this edit.

I admit I’d given up hope on the Hobbit. I’m someone who first was exposed to the Tolkien world through the Fellowship of the Ring movie. I’ve since read the books, including the Hobbit. But I never wanted a book version of the Hobbit. Jackson seems to have not wanted one either, but felt he had to in some ways. The result was a disjointed and uneven theatrical version. The extended editions are better but still have too much.

This edit is the best I’ve seen. Though I admit I stopped trying after BotFA was released. This feels more like a prequel to LotR. But no edit will erase the flaws that were filmed. I recently rewatched LotR and it holds up. The world feels real, lived in. Here the CGI and sets stand out like a sore thumb; it feels rushed compared to LotR. It’s an inferior prequel, to be sure, but lord knows we’re used to that at this point. But if you’re interested in a prequel rather than a Hobbit movie, this is probably the best you’re going to get. There are pacing issues introduced by the edit. But I prefer these hiccups to the original. And that, my friends, is actually a ringing endorsement of Wraith’s work!

I still think that the best parts are in the early parts and it falls apart in the the conclusion. It definitely has the feeling of a Marvel movie where the last third is bombast for the purpose of bombast. Little is achieved narratively from a way too long action scene. And, my god, I don’t care if it was what Tolkien wrote (I can’t remember), repeatedly writing the heroes into impossible to survive circumstances and then having them saved at the last minutes by eagles is lame.

The Hobbit trilogy will never rise to the level of Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy. But this is now a watchable prequel.