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

As someone who was forced to watch original Hobbit film in the cinema and could never get through the other two, this was a breath of fresh air.

This edit makes the film much much much closer to the original books, and also leads much better into the Lord of the Rings.

The only criticisms I'd make of it, is it's a bit stop-start near in the first half (I feel like there is still more that could be cut!) and the battle of the five armies ends quite abruptly. Like, there isn't really an end? What happened to the 5 armies?

I'm not sure if I'm really being fair, because if the footage isn't there then you can't do much more, but it just needs something to complete the battle.

Having said that it's so so so close to being perfect, and so much better than the originals.

I wish I had known there was an intermission! We watched it in 3 sittings.

9.7/10

I am a huge LotR's fan but really struggled to enjoy/finish the original Hobbit trilogy. I found them extremely bloated and tough to sit through (I fell asleep in the theatre several times). Fortunately, this was one of my first introductions to fan editing and it honestly set the bar extremely high. Not only did I love this edit but it's now my only go-to when watching these movies.

The scene edits for the most part are perfectly executed with only a few very small cuts that are slightly noticeable. I was particularly impressed and how the Smaug scene played out as that seemed to go on for days in the original cut.

The pacing and storytelling were very well done considering a large chunk of the trilogy was cut and anyone who can still keep my attention for a 4-hour feature length film has my instant approval.

I only had the stereo SD version for years but thankfully just got the 5.1 1080p version and can't wait to watch this again.

Thank you for making these movies watchable in one sitting and inspiring me enough to take on my own edits. I highly recommend this version.

This is now my definitive version of The Hobbit trilogy. I've watched it twice and it has continued to be my favorite version of the films.

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

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.