Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Edits, The

I'm not a hardcore fan of Tolkien's universe. As such, I discovered it with The Lord of the Rings movies. I enjoyed them a lot, but I enjoyed their extended versions a lot more, IMO they benefited from the added scenes.

The Hobbit however, even in its theatrical version, was far too long as a 10-hours long trilogy. You don't need to know the original story was only one book to notice the Hobbit trilogy is bloated with unnecessary stuff.

Battle of the Five Edits reduces The Hobbit to a 5-hour long story divided in 5 chapters. Only the essential is left, the story is streamlined and much more enjoyable this way.

Technically speaking, it is flawless. I didn't notice any abrupt cut, whether in the video or the audio.

There are, however a couple of "weirdness's"
One : because the editor removed Tauriel entirely but left Kili being wounded with a poisoned arrow, we see him feeling very weak and nearly dying to suddenly feeling better a few minutes later. The thing is, it was necessary to leave the poison arrow in the edit to explain while Kili noisily fell down the stairs which alerted the nearby guards. Removing the arrow would have made Kili's sudden weakness equally weird, so there was no way to avoid this without leaving Tauriel in.

Two : in the story Gandalf comes and goes between the dwarves and his investigations. In this edit we don't see his investigations (the story is supposed to be about Bilbo after all), and because of the removed scenes in the last chapter he simply "reappears" a bit out of nowhere in front of Erebor in the middle of Thranduil's army. This felt a bit weird as I watched it, however to be objective, it's no different than him coming back to rescue the dwarves from the trolls in the nick of time. I used to wonder why Bilbo tells Gandalf "you come and go as you please" in Fellowship, at least now I know :p

After proofreading I realize: I spent more time talking about the negative than the positive, but the truth is these little weirdness's are the only "negative" things I had to say, and I'm using the word loosely.

Overall, the positive outweighs the negative by a huge margin and the editor deserves praise for his work, especially given the source material they had to work with.

Amazing cut!

Watching three movies in one night especially three extended editions is absolutely never enjoyable if even possible but I did with this one and did not want to put it down.

The series is absolutely fantastic! I prefer watching most films in shorter sittings, so the episodic format is perfect, and that alone makes this my preferred viewing experience of The Hobbit! I gave it a 10/10 because I think I don't think it gets better considering the source material, but I still wouldn't say that every episode has an equally good narrative. While episodes 1 and 2 are absolutely perfect, episode 3 feels a bit strange because the story rushes through so much in a single episode. Episode 5 is also very good, but it does of course almost entirely consist of fighting. I was very surprised that it includes a lot of scenes from the extended edition, but they do work fairly well in the context. I highly recommend getting the version of the edit with the Arkenstone and Gandalf in the beginning of episode 5 to add some much needed non-combat-related drama to the episode.

As the saying goes, “Sometimes less is more.” So it is with this fun and exciting edit, so it is with this review.
While long the originals are, this one is not, and the better for it. It was only a few months ago that I watched Hobbit trilogy, first the edited versions, then the extended editions. The latter was after acquiring the Blu-rays for a great price, but I digress. Well-proportioned, this can be viewed in multiple sittings, without losing one's place.
Technically this edit is, in my estimation, flawless – visually and audibly. I enjoyed it as if it were a studio cut. The transitions are seamless, the cuts precise, the scenes well-placed. The story flows nicely, the narrative emended. In short, a triumph!
Having not (yet) seen all the other Hobbit edits from which this wonderful work was wrought, I’m guessing it’ll be an enjoyable rabbit hole.
To all the editors from whence this treasure has come, if this edit represents the sum of its parts, then well done!