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

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.

When I left the theater after seeing the first of the Hobbit "trilogy," I didn't enjoy the movie on the whole, but appreciated elements of it. My end game was always going to be a 3-in-1 edit of the whole trilogy into a proper precursor to the LOTR trilogy. After the second two films, I felt very cynical about the whole endeavor and did not bother to check out any fan work in that department... until now.

Once enough time had passed, and my distaste was not so close at hand, I decided to check out and watch whichever 3-in-1 seems to have been most well received, preferably one that claims to be faithful to the book, and does not try to retain the White Council stuff. I think I made the right decision in picking this one.

I sat down and watched it in one sitting, punctuated with a few pauses. I had an open mind, intentionally not being in a critical mindset, but instead imagining that I had just time travelled from early 2012 and was skipping straight into THIS being my only experience with Peter Jackson's Hobbit project. And, with that mindset in place, I was enthralled. As someone who fusses with perfectionism when editing, I didn't notice many issues at all. There are a few spots where the audio transitions aren't fully seamless, but I was more than willing to go along with these and take them in stride; I doubt they could be made very much better. Only after watching this one did I download a few other Hobbit edits to compare and contrast, and this one appeared more sound (no pun intended) in this regard than the portions of the others I spot-checked.

This cut removes much, and does so with fluidity. A fair bit is retained that I would have liked to see gone, but I understand why they are there. Orcs still attack the company as they flee in barrels, but I understand that it would have been very abrupt to remove completely, and jarring with the music. The editor does, however, tie this sequence into the story later with a reworked scene in which Bolg and Azog meet up and march on the Lonely Mountain. It's a little unfortunate that Kili gets injured and appears to be in pain, but we don't follow up with him again.

For the time being at least, this is my go-to version of the film, and I look forward to having friends and family over to watch it as part one of four in a LOTR quadrilogy.

I do have a few suggestions, however, should the editor decide to revise this work. These are minor, and the edit has great integrity as it is. Nevertheless, being fidgety, I went ahead and did my own little fan edit of this fan edit, with the following changes:

[Redacted; I feel bad for listing such minor things which don't amount to much. The edit doesn't need any tweaking, even if I did a smidge just for myself.]

All of these tweaks are very minor, which is a testament to a very well-done fan edit. I heartily recommend this as "The Hobbit" movie for any audience.

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.