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

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.

I must say that this edition is hope for these movies. Hobbit finally is The Hobbit. But if I can say one critic word, you have to change end credits because for example Saruman is not in this edition. Also there is no Gollum.

I've watched other Hobbit edits before watching this one.
Suffice to say that this is the only version of The Hobbit trilogy I recommend watching. In tone its true to the spirit of LoTR that most fans anticipated in the films. It was there, between the stretch-marks of a studio-mandated third film. What Dustin's done here is a monumental task. He's taken 12 hours of films that were filled to the brim with incoherent nonsense, and he made it a close approximation of the film that PJ has intended to make, when it was just two films that combine to make one long watch.
I've seen both the theatrical and the extended films, and lost interest in The Hobbit as a franchise almost entirely, until. now. After watching it just once, I found myself lipsyncing on my second watch, much in the way I always have while watching Lord of the Rings.
Dustin's made some very clever edits. While watching this, every time it hits me that when Smeagol says "Just us", he's referrng to excluding Gollum. In the theatrical and extended movies this comes off as just a joke on the insane Gollum, perhaps because of the timing. I absolutely love this, because it reveals a step of nuance in that Bilbo never even picked up on Smeagol's split personality and simply perceives him as a raving lunatic, but the audience gets it..
I will never watch the theatrical or extended films again. Maybe after many many many more rewatches of Dustin's cut, I might give them a go, but I feel like it'd be a disservice to what I consider the definitive version of The Hobbit.
I'll also mention that visual editing is fantastic and just slightly tweaked enough to make a more coherent visual fidelity with LotR. I've only seen it twice now and am yet to see anything that I wouldn't agree with as a good and appropriate creative decision. This really is The Hobbit with the grissle cut out- 65% of the footage is cut. I'm honestly in love with this Edit. Actually it makes me as obsessed as I've been with LotR. Hard to believe, but seriously. It was so hard for me to believe that I had to sign up just to write this review.
We didn't have this edit. It was taken from us. But Dustin helped to take it back, and he could.
This is probably the best version of The Hobbit there will ever be.