Review Detail

Hi Stromboli -

Now, I’ve been with Adam Dens’ edit for some time now, but it’s time for a changing of the guard.

Your edit is absolutely stupendous. I’m so used to the above edit it took me time to adjust to the “new material” or remember what was changed.

But I’ll be with this one for a while.

Btw, I loved the White Council. Excellent placement as an add-on.

I’ve expounded a bit on this film with Adam’s, so I’ll just mention a few things that really do knock this one out of the park:

1) obviously the 6-ep formatting made the viewing very pleasurable.

2) all changes from Dens’ edit make sense and improve upon those ideas.

3) bard = excellent character development

4) the story is so streamlined it truly should have been done this way. You say it’s not necessarily a book edit, ah, but a book edit it is. Beautifully simple story.

5) the crown achievement of your edit is thorin and bilbo. This was the most frustrating part of PJ’s original, because even at 11.5 hours it felt forced and false.

Allowing it to grow organically is exactly what’s needed, but your edit does one better: they never had time to develop a proper friendship. Thorin’s final scene is now rather poignant in this context. It also shows bilbo’s final line to be somewhat false, but “we get it”.

Bravo on this one, Stromboli!

6) the battle is so clear to understand, so easy to follow, that I’m amazed I was as confused as I was before. Wonderful work.

A new fave, just adding my two cents. M.C.