J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit (Maple Films Edit)

What a task this must have been! The amount of work needed to edit not just 1, but 3 (long) films must be immense.

Regarding the story, I found I agree with pretty much every removed scene / piece of dialogue / character. I was not sure some of these would work but after watching, I’m impressed. The overall narrative is now focused, thematically sound and represents a close interpretation of the original book.

As time and time again have proved, it’s a terrible idea for any scriptwriter / director / book writer to try to “interpret”, “improve” or “expand” on Tolkien’s work and worldbuilding. When Middle Earth is concerned, once you start adding characters and plot points unrelated to Tolkien, the final piece will always become worse.
Rule of thumb: no one improves on Tolkien’s world, no one. The swift extraction of many of these new characters and plot points, from all of the 3 original films, does indeed create a story that’s a “close approximation” of Tolkien’s vision.

In terms of quality and visual / audio editing, I could find no flaws.

Thank you for this!

I liked it, there were certain things I didn't, and certain things I liked more than the other edits. Left stuff in I liked alot. I'm happy with it. Will for sure rewatch it at some point. Cheers

This is one of my favourite films of all time now, and it doesn't even properly "exists." Thanks so much for making it.

I just saw it complete and enjoy it, in perfect HD and amazing 5.1! I always thought what The Hobbit would be like if I reassembled it by following the book and removing everything that had nothing to do with it and spoiled it; although I was always lazy, and I recently discovered this project that successfully made it. So congratulations and a thousand thanks for making me enjoy this way and giving me the definitive and perfect work.

the perfect edit. I loved this fan edit, it is what should have been done from the beginning, it is quite close to the book and the story becomes more enjoyable, cutting all the things that were left over. I think of all the fan edits this is the best I've seen.