Review Detail

First of all, I would like to say my brief thoughts on the original Hobbit Trilogy and other edits that I've seen, plus my relationship with LotR in general. I have read The Hobbit and the LotR trilogy many years ago, although I did that after seing LotR in cinema. I enjoyed all of them, it is an amazing work that changed and shaped the fantasy theme forever. I also loved the LotR movies, seen them many times both in theatrical and extended versions. The Hobbit films on the other hand, not so much, with the exception of the first. I also did watch them several times, both theatrical and extended versions. The first one I really liked, I don't care that it alleviated from the book. I didn't like every minute of it, nor did I enjoy having as a new main villain a cgi monster, but whatever. Let's just say that from the overall three hours extended version, I could easily cut 20-30 minutes and be completely happy. The second Hobbit, was just a drag. It wasn't bad per se, I was just bored out of my mind, felt like a filler. Finally, the third one I really disliked. At first I thought, ok we went through the filler the last time, now it will be the good stuff. Nope, that was a bad movie alright. But I should have known, when they decided to make a trilogy out of a 300 pages book and some extra notes.

Before this I watched "The Hobbit, There and Back Again" version, by L8wrtr. Unfortunately, he saved only the second film for me. To be more specific, I was fine with everything up until the death of Smaug. So, overall, the third film remained to be saved. I needed a more aggressive edit. When I remembered to search about it, there where actually quite a few of them, but I saw lots of people mentioning this and Maple's edit, so I went with this. I checked to see the runnitme here after the death of Smaug, and I realised that M4 had cut an extra 20 minutes compared to L8wrtr's version. So I thought, maybe this will do it. Yeap, it did!

FIrst of all, even thought I was ok with the folllowing in the original, I realised I didn't mind at all or even liked:
- that Galadriel was gone
- Radagast too
- the fight with "Sauron", Gandalf, Galadriel etc bye bye
- Azog was only at the end as an unknown leader
- Legolas was as a cameo
- and the most important change of all, the removal of Arkenstone's effect on Thorin. Now, the overall problem was greed, one of the oldest reasons in history of "man".

Be that as it may, although I understand that the editor was going for a "book edit", I couldn't get over the following two cuts (the third one I just went with it):
- Firstly, the flashback of the war with the dwarves and Azog, was a much needed scene in order to establish Thorin as a character and make the audience understand where he comes from and why he is a little bit of a jerk. After all, besides Bilbo, he is the main character, so the background was important aaand it didn't contradicted the fact that we see him again at the end of this edit.
- My second issue has to do with the second and third film. Removing everything about Bard, first of all created a missing part with the destruction of the town, where everyone suddenly is safe and sound in a camp, after the onslaught of Smaug at Laketown. I mean, at one moment Smaug destroys everything and Bard kills him and then "everyone" is ok outside the city. Secondly, it wasn't a bad plot having Bard playing a role as a leader to these people, it actually enriched the character.
- Lastly, by removing everything that actually involved Gandalf offscreen, it made him look as if he is always missing for no reason! It makes the viewer wonder, why isn't Gandalf, yet again, with the company? What on earth is he doing?

So, for anyone who is a purist or didn't like all of the films, I most definitely recommend this version! I mean, how much more to cut out without it becoming a mess? And a huge plus, it has subtitles!!! For me, it will be my go-to version for the last two films. I checked if I can watch this after I watch L8wrtr's version up until the death of Smaug, but it's not possible, they contradict each other a lot. So I will either watch L8wrtr's edit of the first one or even the original movie and for the last two films, M4's will be my go-to version!

Thank you M4_ and thanks to anyone who read my review!