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

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!

Really enjoyed it, so much better than the originals. Finally we have a Hobbit movie adaptation which can be considered a true successor to the LOTR films

Watching this edit made me realise just how much of the theatrical Hobbit movies was bloated and unneccessary to the main story. The movies are called The Hobbit - instead we got The Dwarves v Legolas v Gandalf v Azog starring A Hobbit. Bilbo nearly vanished in his own movie under everything else. When he returned to Hobbingen in the end, and the movie so obviously wanted the viewer to feel the "man, have we had an adventure with this guy, right?"-moment, I felt nothing for the little man who indeed traveled a long and bumpy road. Too much else had happened.
That is not to say I hated the movies in general; I enjoyed Part I and II in the cinema for the most part (returning to middle-earth in super-3D was just great), especially Part I, Smough was great and the actors all did a good job, but I was severely disappointed by Part III, which was just such an obvious "Hey-The-Kids-Liked-LotR-Battles-right"-cashgrab.

Anyway, enough of me: I loved this edit of The Hobbit. By cutting practically everything what wasn't in the book, now you have the 4,5h movie The Hobbit - with his hero front and center and never too far from the action. Yet it preserves the central arc of its secondary characters, the dwarves and their quest to reclaim their stolen home, who also profit from not drowning in side-quest and god-awful love stories (seriously, tell me one good reason this was in the movies except to stretch the run-time to fill three movies). Gone are: Legolas (except for a nice little cameo), Tauriel, Gandalfs side-quest (which I thought was cool in itself, but again just distracted from the main arc and the emotional core of the story), Azog-related flashbacks (turns out you don't need an hour of backstory to give an Orc a motivation to hunt good guys. That's just what they do. And without telling the viewer his history in detail, he even gets a bit more mystique and seems more threatening than before) and the more ridiculous and/or stupid parts of action and humor. The editing was seemless all the way, and yes, me and my girlfriend too noticed the gold falling off of Smough when he exits the mountain, but as another reviewer already said, this is a minor thing which will only register with viewers already familiar with the theatrical cut.

All of this combined makes for an adult movie, which still has a lighter tone to it that LotR, in which all the care and work that was obviously put in it by director, actors, costume designers etc. etc. can really shine. I could talk a lot more about this, but other reviewers have already said it all in a more eloquent way than me, so let me just finish with the statement that this is now the definitive version of The Hobbit for me, and I'm already in the process of spreading the word to friends and family, who unanimously loved it, too.

I've seen a number of Hobbit fan edits since An Unexpected Journey was first released, and this is by far one of the best. Dustin Lee (as he credits himself in the edit) has done an excellent job condensing the trilogy down into a single film just a bit longer than the extended version of Return of the King. Though I did watch it over two nights, the edit really flies by. The large sections that were cut, such as the Dol Goldur subplot, the White Council, some of the battle at the end, were done so seamlessly. I know lots of other trims were also done, and while I did notice a few things missing, there was probably much and more I didn't notice.

The audio was great, though there were a handful of audio transitions where the music faded out a bit suddenly into silence, but those were soon forgotten. There were no visual glitches or stray frames, though as daxtreme pointed out, Bilbo slipping off the cliffs before they get captured by the goblins was kind of odd. Lee did a good job on the recoloring of Smaug leaving the mountain and spinning off the gold. You really need this shot, and it's not hard to imagine that after spending years laying on a pile of gold that he'd have a bunch in his scales.

There were a few narrative issues. I wasn't a huge fan of how Azog was handled. We get that he's hunting the dwarf party and that there's some bad blood there, but it's never really explored. Because of that, the final fight betweem Azog and Thorin doesn't have much weight (but good job cutting Thorin getting stabbed through the foot!) It also wouldn't have hurt to show Legolas returning Orcrist to Thorin (Spence did it wonderfully) to show the growing unity between the dwarves and elves and explain how Thorin got his old sword back. I understand wanting to create a version more like the book, but as with any adaptation, concessions must be made.

Video quality was great, but given that the edit made use of two BD-50 discs (25.5 GB and 36.5 respectively) a little more space could have been used for the video. The quality was great, but it could have been excellent. The video quality on the menus suffered a bit, but again, this could have been taken care of by using more of the available space. If you're going to utilize the BD-50 format, why not take more advantage of it?

Overall, I enjoyed this edit, but I'm torn between this and Spence's version being my preferred version. If you're a purist and want something close to the novel, watch this version. If you didn't mind things like the Dol Goldur subplot, Spence's version is still great too.

Well,

I have to say, I had high hopes for this, I even hyped it up to my friends prior to watching seeing the good reviews and whatnot. And wow did it deliver.

Here's the thing: I watched this with 3 other people, 1 one of whom had seen The Hobbit trilogy once before, the other 2 having not seen the trilogy at all (but they did watch LOTR). For my part, I watched The Hobbit trilogy Extended Edition once like 6 months ago after seeing them in theater, and LOTR, well, I lost count. We watched both the movie and the short film, Durin's Folk and the Hill of Sorcery, which I will rate separately from the main edit. The most important part is still the main movie, after all.

So, this is splendid work. What Maple Films have accomplished is incredible. I can safely say this will replace The Hobbit for me, and I kinda like the original movies, even though they're quite bloated. This is just better pretty much on all fronts, including the short story.

Editing is seamless throughout, especially audio. I LOVE how Maple Films changed some of the soundtrack in the movie to that of The Hobbit (or outright removed some scenes with the wrong LOTR music in it), excellent choice. Much of the info that has been cut out, like Azog's lack of presence early in the movie, the viewer can fill in very, very easily. The focus is on Bilbo, and it's for the better.

Here's what those who watched with me said (remember, 1 who had seen the trilogy before, 2 who hadn't):

- Everything makes sense. They never felt lost, although some events happened rather quickly near the end.
- The pacing is perfect, they weren't bored nor overwhelmed.
- Without dragon sickness they would have hated Thorin to the core, so he makes for an odd but interesting protagonist (or side protagonist, actually)
- They loved Gandalf's sidequest, but understand why it was cut. It's not relevant to Bilbo's story.

There is 1 edit which we found jarring: When the company is going into the tunnels to receive cover from the rain after leaving Rivendell (and fall into the goblin caves), Bilbo slips and falls off the cliff. The edit at this moment is quite jarring and goes from "Bilbo standing on the cliff slipping" to "Bilbo holding by 1 hand off the edge" like instantly. All 4 of us noticed.

The end with the 2 dwarves dying was a bit quick too, but I thought it would be worse. Kudos for pulling it off, seeing how complicated this situation was to begin with. Also, not even 1 of them noticed the dragon flying with gold pouring around him, so I guess this is really not an issue for first-time viewers. And I even told them there would be a visual continuity issue in the movie beforehand, and they still didn't notice. I'd say this is very much non-factor and affects only repeat viewers. After I told them, they said they thought it was dirt or remnants of the wall or something. The brain just fills it in, it would seem.

The actual Battle of the Five Armies is a bit of a mess, but then again, it is as well in the original. Cutting it just serves the story, which is what matters in the end.

Overall, I would highly recommend this edit as a replacement for The Hobbit trilogy. Tells a full, concise and cohesive story, sticks to the main characters very well, and doesn't omit any important character moments.

As for Durin's Folk and the Hill of Sorcery: I feel like either of 2 things could be done with it.

1. Trim down the scenes which are also included in the movie cut, especially the scenes before entering Mirkwood, and the scene before Radagast the Brown meets the company. Some of those scenes are borderline related with the Hill of Sorcery and its subplot anyway.

or

2. Remove everything not related to Gandalf and Radagast's adventures. That would remove about 30-35 minutes of content. Yes, that includes Thrain in Dol Goldur. For that, a good source of that scene would be the theatrical cut of Desolation of Smaug, where Thrain doesn't appear at all. Durin's Folk and their story is not essential viewing leading into LOTR, so it's not necessary and could be removed. Dol Goldur and the Necromancer, however, are.

Still, Durin's Folk and the Hill of Sorcery is well put together, and definitely worth the watch. A great prelude to Lord of the Rings.

Thank you Maple Films for this great work.

J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit by Maple Films: 9.9/10
Durin's Folk and the Hill of Sorcery: 9/10