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

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I have a vague memory of seeing any of the The Hobbit films in the theater, because I passed out for large chunks of it, and my distaste led me to avoid the others. But I grew up on the Hobbit before I even knew about LOTR or understood who Tolkien was, so I've always wanted to give it a chance. I bought the DVDs and never even opened them, so this was a new experience for me. The "Trilogy" was well-known as a studio cash grab chopping up a relatively short book into three films (this is a fascinating breakdown of it: http://www.comingsoon.net/movies/news/601909-stretching-hobbit-trilogy-numbers). The article explains how they spent 2m30s of screentime to cover a single sentence (ultimately averaging 2 mins per page), and it really felt like it.

I was glad I came across this fan-edit. It no longer feels like a bloated, dragging yarn designed to steal money from your pockets while it puts you to sleep. It is now an David Lean-style epic (complete with a stylish "Intermission"), adhering faithfully to Tolkien's book. The edits were so flawless, I literally had to jump online to find where the first movie ended because I knew I was in 'Smaug.' It moved at a brisk pace but still felt expansive and awe-inspiring. So much so, I felt forced to watch the LOTR films afterward.

This was clearly a labor of love, with amazing attention to detail. There is a plethora of formats available for download, and richly designed custom covers for every format and in multiple (!) colors. The originals will stay sealed and collect dust, as this is now my official version of the film.

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(Updated: September 02, 2016)
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9.6
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9.0
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10.0
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9.0
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10.0
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10.0
I have seen the Theatrical versions of all 3 films, the extended versions of the first 2 (yet to watch my copy of BOTFA:EE), and The Spence Edit that combines all 3 movies into one. Well I have to say, above all of those, THIS is my favourite Hobbit viewing experience! The plot remains focused on Bilbo and the Dwarves throughout and this really emphasises stronger character connections. Special moments between Bilbo and Thorin or Bilbo and Bofur really shine as they're no longer lost among a ton of bloat. This actually made the ending feel way more impactful and I actually teared up a little which is something I have never done watching The Hobbit movies before. Including 1 or 2 extended edition scenes from the 3rd movie really helped with this too. I'm amazed Dustin has managed to cut so much and yet this edit still has so much heart.

There are some really positive edits made in this fanfix:

- Cutting Azog nearly entirely from the first film and he and Bolg completely from the second.
- Cutting Radagast and his woodland creatures entirely.
- Cutting the "Where is Thrain, is he alive?" plotline.
- Reducing Legolas/Tauriel, their subplot really isn't that interesting.
- Cutting out some of the ridiculous action scenes; Bombur's barrel bouncing, the erebor molten gold scene and especially some of Legolas' antics which are ludicrous (the falling stairs one!)
- The dragon sickness is mentioned plenty and it's effect on Thorin becomes very clear but no longer are you slapped in the face with it repeatedly (That awful Thorin hallucination scene)
- The bad VFX shots like in the molten gold scene are gone, he even colour corrected the GoPro shot in the barrel riding scene so that it blends in seamlessly.

There are very few drawbacks to this version but they are:

- The scene with Bilbo sat on the bench where Gandalf is introduced is a little too desaturated, this is fixed in the blu-ray but not in the MP4.

- There is a short intermission half way through the running time where they meet bard. This is fine on the blu-ray version as it is split across 2 discs but the the full length MP4 version also has it which means you may need to fast forward through it if you're watching in one sitting.

- The shot of Smaug flying from Erebor covered in gold is still present - it's been masterfully recoloured to the colour of his flesh by the editor, but it still is dripping from him and stands out like a sore thumb. I'm certain with a bit of creative editing this shot could be fully removed.

[SPOILER START]

- Towards the end two character deaths have been moved to occur at the same time, this is a great idea as it removed Legolas' action scenes with Bolg and aids in keeping the Tauriel/Kili romantic plotline out of the movie. However it's not executed flawlessly. Azog stabs one of the characters and Bolg stabs another, reaction shots are shown but when it cuts back to Azog the character he stabbed has vanished, no body is even visible. This was jarring for me and I had to accept that he'd died without any real impact. It felt quick. I would have included Azog dropping the body, cut the shot of him falling past Kili below, and had either another reaction shot to hide the cut or gone straight to the shot of the body hitting the floor, whatever worked. Aside from this their deaths were well done. Just a bit of jarring editing for me personally.

[SPOILER END]

Overall though the visual and auditory quality is fantastic. The narrative is the best I've seen for The Hobbit and really made me rank it much closer to LOTR. Enjoyment factor through the roof and all in 4 hours. Astounding work from Dustin Lee!

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(Updated: August 26, 2016)
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9.2
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9.0
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9.0
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8.0
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10.0
Most of the critique offered of these films comes from Tolkien fans and unsurprisingly most of the criticism is about adaption. For me this hides a more fundamental truth about the films failures. Whatever ones enthusiasm for the source :

1) They are extremely poorly structured, the set ups are over long and tedious, the pacing is off and the resolution to many of the set ups either telegraphed or simply wither.
2) They lack any kind of tonal personality or coherence. Indeed they do not know what they are or whom they are for. They attempt to be an homage, all-round family entertainment, profound and geo political and replace the charm of the book with occasional bouts of the most excruciatingly unfunny humour and in the last film the gags become vicious and brutal.
3) The most lamentable element is the poor values of the story telling endless fighting which achieves no change, characters undergo experiences and do not change and relationships are inconsistent. You can remove entire sections and no story telling is lost that is why the experience of watching them induces fatigue. Even more insidious are sub plots which threaten to overwhelm and indeed detract from the main story.

Some how the maker of this edit has managed to reduce or expunge many of these problems but he has had to be brutal. The sub plot of Dol Gulder which could have given these films there gravitas is axed and separated out into a small feature, entirely necessary, but the re imagining of the Hobbit in the style of the Rings needed that sub plot and was rich with potential. Indeed because it was sketched into the appendices of the Rings it needed first class writers to flesh it out and these films convince me that Fran and Phillippa, however dedicated, just do not have the talent to create something special by extension.

Other changes are less brutal but the editor of this film knows his subject and so we see Martins Bilbo emerge in to the central performance and shines more brightly for it. Curiously his editing style, which gives the story pace and focus, then enables you to enjoy the physical establishment of middle earth that much more and all the hard work of the fantastic crew in Wellington who created the textures of the film.

As others have said elements are clunky particularly the Dwarf deaths but if you want to sit down with the Hobbit as a winter film without your teeth grinding this is the ones to watch.



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Overall rating
 
9.0
Audio/Video Quality
 
10.0
Audio Editing
 
8.0
Visual Editing
 
8.0
Narrative
 
9.0
Enjoyment
 
10.0
This is one of two fan edits I watched of The Hobbit trilogy (the other being The Bilbo Edition). I watched the two fan edits after making my own, private, fan edit for my friends and family to see, and wanted to see if any other people had the same ideas as I did.

Like most Tolkien fans, I found the trilogy disappointing. It had so much potential, but in the end, it was not the movie that I waited years and years to see. Such disappointment was what prompted me to seek out fan edits of the movies.

Now, personally, I can't decide whether I prefer this version or The Bilbo Edition. I think both are spectacular fan edits from people who both had similar ideas on how to improve the movies. Comparing the two, I think that this version probably has the better music and transistion editing, but I still can't decide which is better.

That said, I think Dustin Lee did a marvelous job editing out all the distracting subplots and action foolishness.

*Improvements*

- The first thing you'll notice about this edit is the color correction. While I didn't mind the colors from the original movies, I have to say that the color correction really makes the movie look a lot better. If I'm not mistaken, this is the only fan edit that does this.

- The flashback to Erebor is completely gone. This was one of those times with the original movie where I was waiting for the story to start, and just thinking, "Wouldn't it be better to just to introduce Erebor during the Unexpected Party? That way, we would be confused along with Bilbo." My observations turned out to be spot on, as the filmmakers felt the need to spend a good half-hour at Bilbo's house, telling us everything we already knew. Now that the flashback is cut out, the story flows a lot better.

- Gandalf is onscreen in three minutes. No more of this "Oh look! It's Frodo! Hi Frodo! I wasn't expecting to see you here!" the filmmakers don't need to add extra characters to familierizes viewers with LOTR, as they already have Gandalf and Elrond.

- Dol Guldur subplot is completely gone. It's still clear that Sauron is behind some of the events that happen in the story, but it's put more in the background, in favor of telling Bilbo's story. You know, "The Hobbit?" Not "The Wizard." Not "The Dwarves." "The Hobbit."

- Likewise, Tauriel and Legolas are now minor characters. I'm fine with Legolas being in the movie (as he likely would have been at Mirkwood at the time), and I'm not opposed to showing a few female characters, but the way these characters were used in the original movies just distracted from the story, and ended up going nowhere. Now, Legolas and Tauriel just appear briefly in Mirkwood, briefly at the Battle of Five Armies, and there's no crazy Legolas stunts, no Orc invasion in Lake Town, and absolutely no love triangle.

- Azog isn't introduced until the Goblin King mentions him. This way, we don't get introduced to the threat that the Orcs pose until a much later point than the movies originally did. I felt with the original movies that the filmmakers were upping the stakes much too early in the films. I'm fine with the expanded role of the Orcs, but they just came into the movies too early... Movies need to start out slow, and then build up, and Dustin Lee did a good job at making it flow that way.

- Dustin Lee does some digital alteration to make all thirteen dwarves appear at the Lonely Mountain during the long-shots, and also changes the Orc subtitles at one point to fix what would otherwise have been continuity errors.

Now for the things that I didn't like.

*Things That Can't Be Fixed*

- Despite the filmmakers' efforts to make Gandalf a more likable character, they inexplicably cut out Bilbo inviting Gandalf to tea, making it look like Gandalf invited himself, and broke into Bilbo's house. This is one of the things that bothered me about the movie, and unfortunately, no amount of fan editing is going to fix it.

- Likewise, some of the dwarves don't really look like dwarves, and Thorin is too young.

- Azog. I'm one of the people who wanted to see Bolg instead of Azog. It would have been more interesting to see a subplot about an Orc that wants revenge on Thorin for killing his father during the Battle of Moria, than the subplot we actually got about an Orc that just happens to hate Thorin and his family for no apparent reason. Once again, no amount of editing is going to fix this problem.

- Gandalf inexplicably disappears when the dwarves head toward the Misty Mountains. In the original movies, there was an explanation for this, but since the Dol Guldur subplot was cut, they just leave without him for no apparent reason. I guess one could assume from Balin's words that they were going to "wait in the mountains until Gandalf joined us. That was the plan," that Gandalf had business to attend to, and sent the dwarves on ahead (similar to at Mirkwood later). But it just feels a bit odd.

- So many things I wanted to see for action. When I was a kid, I imagined all the torches in the goblin caves slowly going out, the room getting darker and darker, and then the fire exploding, killing a bunch of goblins. Then, Glamdring coming out of the shadows, visible only by its glow, and killing the Goblin King. Then, the sword is raised, and we see Gandalf's face made visible by the glow of the sword. That would have been so cool. Did we get that in the movie? No. Is it possible to put it in the movie? No.

- Bilbo finding Smaug's weak spot is still a pretty bad. In the book, Bilbo simply asks to see Smaug's chest, secretly planning to see if there's a weak spot, despite the fact that there's no reason for him to believe so. Oh wow? Look! He DID have a weak spot! How coincidental is that? The filmmakers must have realized this, and decided to put in a legend that Smaug had a weak spot. I was expecting Bilbo to actually ask to see Smaug's chest specifically to see if the legend was true, as that would have made so much sense. More sense than the book, in fact. And then he would tell the thrush to tell Bard about the weak spot. But, nope. Instead, Bilbo sees the weak spot by chance, as does Bard. A wasted opportunity, in my opinion. It can't be fixed. Just consider it an adaptational change that did absolutely nothing for the story.

-Last, but not least, Gandalf claims that elvish swords glow when Orcs are near, but the filmmakers mess up by having only Sting glow.

Now for stuff that the editor could have done.

*Editing Oddities*

- Despite the inclusion of Azog, there's no backstory about it at all. We're just left to assume that they're enemies for no reason whatsoever. Granted, I don't want the flashback to the Battle of Moria to be as early as it was in the movies, but maybe it could have been moved to before the dwarves meet Beorn or something.

- Just a matter of taste here, but I would have rather saved everything about the Ring being connected to Sauron for the LOTR movies. The ring should not be affecting Bilbo this much this early on, and it's kind of distracting from the story. It also makes Gandalf and Bilbo's speech at the end habe a completely different meaning than it originally did in the book. In the book, Gandalf was saying that Bilbo didn't accomplish his quest because of luck, but because it was his destiny. In the movie, he's saying that Bilbo didn't accomplish his quest because of luck, but because he had a magic ring. It would have been nice to see the footage re-looped to match the conversation from the book.

- I don't know why Dustin Lee kept the dwarves encountering Smaug. It adds nothing to the story but to pad it out. I'm pretty sure that had the filmmakers done just two films like they originally planned, Smaug would simply have left his cave as soon as he was done talking to Bilbo.

- Thorin inexplicably has Orcrist back for the final battle. I wouldn't have minded a shortened Legolas vs. Bolg fight just to solve this plot hole (I don't mind him riding a bat, and the fight could have ended with the bridge collapsing over Bolg, leaving the audience to assume he was crushed to death, and this would have cut out those crazy broken stair-climbing stunts).

- Despite Dustin's attempt to digitally alter the shot, it's still clear that Smaug is covered with some sort of liquid when he leaves the mountain.

- And last but not least, I have to side with the guy who edited The Bilbo Editon, and say that there's very little likelihood that Smaug would know the name "Okenshield," as Thorin got that name AFTER Smaug took over the kingdom. It's not impossible that Smaug had messengers of some sort, but I consider it quite a stretch that he would have found out anything about the dwarves he stole the kingdom from.

*Final Thoughts*

It's considered one of the best fan edits of the Hobbit trilogy, and, despite the fact that I've only seen one other, I have to agree. It's very well done, and has much better pacing and storytelling than the original movies did. Do I recommend this edit? Yes! Watch it with your family, and enjoy it!

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(Updated: September 12, 2021)
Overall rating
 
8.8
Audio/Video Quality
 
10.0
Audio Editing
 
10.0
Visual Editing
 
10.0
Narrative
 
8.0
Enjoyment
 
6.0
A good way to watch these if you want to see the book adapted to film without committing to the 9 or so hours of the originals. Considering this doesn't flow perfectly anyway, I honestly think it could have been even shorter. I also get the sense that the original movies just weren't that good, meaning this did not add up to an amazing whole either. I may update this review removing my recommendation if I find a shorter edit that I prefer.

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