Hobbit: The Anti-Cringe Cut, The

This fan edit is fantastic! The quality of the editing was top-notch and the episodic format was a spark of genius! Having the flexibility to watch the fan edit in one-hour bite-size pieces was extremely convenient. Although there is some cringe that didn't cut and some narrative inconsistencies, this fan edit was a job well done overall!

What I loved:
- Quality of the visual cuts and transitions
- Quality of the audio cuts and transitions
- Feels like a complete story, despite removing the main villain
- 5-episode mini-series format

What I didn't love:
- The extremely cringey scenes where the Goblin King sings, I was very surprised that these were not removed from an anti-cringe cut
- I also cringed during the trolls scene where one of them was talking about boogers and other annoying dialogue
- Gandalf mentions to Elrond in Episode 2 they encountered orcs, but they didn't encounter any in Episode 1
- Kili is seriously wounded after the barrel ride, but we never see him get hurt
- Bard grabs the black arrow inside his home, but then later his son Bain has to risk life and limb to give it to him, which reminded me that the scene of Bain hiding the black arrow in a boat was cut

I appreciate the attention to detail in removing the god awful cringe from the films, this is great.

In the past Alfrid's massive and inexplicably bouncy, gold-laden bosom had me flare up with dragon sickness for a fraction of a second until I realised what was going on; the ridiculous love triangle, wherein Kili for some reason had a substantially normal/smaller nose than his brother, presumably to make Tauriel amenable to him and have him as a romantic lead - an unnecessary pollution of the original narrative - finally I am indeed able to avoid all the cringe and cherish the good parts of this trilogy.

Thank you for this.

Sorry for the long wait for the review, I finally finished the last episode last night.

Audio/Video Quality
Yep this was all good, I didn't notice any audio or visual quality issues.

Visual Editing
The visual editing was mostly good, however in some shots the cropping made the characters look a little stretched. It wasn't really a problem most of the time, only sometimes when the shot was a closeup.

Audio Editing
Again, the audio editing was mostly good. There was the occasional awkward transition, but these were very few and far between. The only scenes that had noticeable edits were in the 'Out of the Frying Pan' sequence and the Battle of the Five Armies. However, these are very difficult scenes to chop down, so it's understandable.

There were some really cool edits, these kind of apply to both visual and audio editing, but I'll just mention them here. I really liked the way you changed the scene where Thorin goes back to normal. I didn't even notice that the scene had been modified until the end when I realized that Smaug wasn't in it. I also really liked the flashback to the Carrock when Bilbo gets knocked out, it made the tragedy of Thorin's death much stronger and made for a really good way to introduce the eagles into the battle.

Narrative
I think you made really great use of the TV show format, every episode ended in a perfect way where it felt like an ending but I still was anticipating the next episode. However I do have some small nitpicks.

One thing I noticed in the scene where Thorin goes back to normal is that some of the stuff he remembers people saying to him are from scenes that were cut from the edit. I think it was just dialogue from the scene where him and Dwalin are talking in the throne room. This could be fixed by just including that scene right before the gold room scene.

I also found it a little strange that Bard pulled out the black arrow from his living room, but seemingly forgot to bring it with him to kill Smaug and needed his son to bring it. I understand that this is difficult to avoid due to what happens in the original films, but this could maybe be fixed by just removing the part where Bard reveals that he had the black arrow all along, and it could be implied that Bain grabbed the black arrow from the Laketown armory or something. This could be a payoff from the scene where he tells the dwarves that the black arrow knocked off one of Smaug's scales. These are only very minor flaws, the narrative as a whole was very enjoyable.

Enjoyment
I very much enjoyed this edit. It did a good job in splitting up the Hobbit movies in a way that felt right with the format, it didn't just feel like 3 movies split into 5 parts. A very well done edit!

I watched the version with 5 episodes, which I thought was a great idea. I couldn’t fault the audio and visual editing for the most part, however the lurid colours used for the title at the beginning of each episode wouldn’t be to my taste, they looked a bit tacky to me. I also remember a pretty noticeable cut at the “out of the frying pan into the fire“ point, where the light changes quite suddenly. I do believe other edits have edited that part a little more smoothly. You correctly imo deleted the very cringeworthy Orc ambush/Radagast bunny sled sequence, yet at the beginning of episode 2, during the dinner scene in Rivendell, Gandalf mentions being ambushed by orcs. I was also disappointed to see several cringeworthy scenes retained in episode 2, namely some of the dwarves antics and the song number in Rivendell, the entirety of the sockem Rockem Stone giants scene and the Goblin King song. Good effort overall though.

For the origination of the episodic structure golden stars rain down on this fan-edit (and editor) eternally. Not sure about the colours on the intro and outro screens but hey its cool enough.... Gold is just better!!

Never-the-less I score the narrative down. Of course inconsistencies and holes are going to be rife when trimming off and cutting down but one in particular stands out where at Rivendell there is mention of an orc ambush, yet the last scene was the trolls. And the Galadriel scene with Gandalf not followed by any Dol Guldur, is redundant (and it's cringy)..... We must accept this wizard simply comes and goes with little to no notice at all from time to time!! Too; cringy dwarf/elf love at the soiree seeps its way in; Goblin King's 'made in Rivendell... Second Age' throw away remark is cringy; company - by order of the king - attempts to break down their magic door like imbecilic cringemeisters; and the black arrow fiasco needs to be done away with in favour of straight up arrow shot, as it is a cringeworthy moment - better to let Smaug die by surprise (explains away Thorin's cringy madness as being shock, hehe)..... Seriously, if this is 'The Anti-Cringe Cut' these issues need addressing!!

It might be an idea to aim for 4 episodes at ~50 mins and 1 final episode at ~40 mins, with illustrative credits only, and a LOTR trailer/teaser consisting of White Council footage combined with some Frodo at Bag End shots. Calling it 'The Battle of Five Episodes'... if not 'Anti-Cringe' this cringe will be fine!!!

Really appreciate the quick intro title screens and outro 'To be continued....' not breaking immersion too much during back to back play-through. Video editing on the episode title blooms was great except for slight stutters here and there, and the final one that got a different font. Audio editing needs bass depletion at times (mainly durge at begining) as it may anger neighbours.

Oh and one final thought is on the transition between 4 and 5. Definitely difficult here as it gets frantic. To me it seems as though the best end point for 4 is on Thorin's face when he sees all the elf arrows pointing at him. Beginning 5 with Bard looking to Thranduil and the elves lowering their bows. With the 'There And Back Again' title blooming at the point where Bilbo goes to Gandalf if the panning shot looking at Erebor over the spears can be slowed down?!?