Hobbit: Into the Fire, The

I've fallen way behind on reviewing edits that I have watched, and I have watched this one twice. I will keep this short. It is perfect. I had never watched any of the Lord of the Rings movies, nor the first Hobbit movie---neither had I read the books. But reading some of the summaries and reviews here for the different edits, I decided to try, since my main reason for keeping away had been the length. I am currently reading The Hobbit and loving it. So for me, this edit is the sequel to Kerr's Hobbit, the Arkenstone Edition, since that is the only version of the 1st movie I had seen. And it works perfectly. There is no hint that anything at all has been cut, re-ordered or fan-edited in any way. It simply plays like an excellent movie. I have every intention of watching this a third time, along with a 3rd re-watch of Kerr's Arkenstone cut of the 1st Hobbit, before I may actually venture to the theater in December to see the unedited 3rd and final movie. I am really a big fan of this edit, and reading the book concurrently with it, it makes it even more impressive to me. If there were going to be big flaws, I would definitely notice them since Tolkien's words are so fresh to me now (I have only just read beyond the point where this edit ends). I suppose I owe it to myself to see the original Jackson version now, but I know there is no way it could be better than what you have presented here. I give out a lot of pretty positive reviews around here, but this is one I wish I could give an "11" instead of just a 10. Just excellent and highly recommended to everyone! It also got my vote for edit of the month.

RangerKris successfully strips this film of it’s over the top antics and gratuitous violence. Center stage is the hobbit for which the story is named. Smaug is no longer part of a series of cut-rate and beatable video game bosses–he is the greatest of calamities. A delight to watch, Into the Fire is the masterfully edited story rescued from The Desolation of Smaug.

Thank you RangerKris.

This fan edit does everything right: it cuts out a ton of padding and unwanted subplots, it's got excellent audio and video quality throughout, and it tells a coherent, well-paced story. Yet, despite that, I still found myself as bored and frustrated as I had been with the theatrical cut.

The problem is not with the editor, it's with Peter Jackson. And having seen this edit - that cuts out nearly an hour from the original movie - I've concluded that Desolation of Smaug is beyond saving. There is one very simple reason for this: Jackson misguidedly sought to replicate the tone of his Lord of the Rings trilogy instead of replicating the tone of the book.

Whereas the Lord of the Rings novels had end-of-the-world stakes upon which an increasingly dire, dramatic tone was appropriate, in the case of The Hobbit it's completely inappropriate. The Hobbit story just isn't grand enough and the stakes aren't high enough, and so it all becomes a total drag. Worse, the whimsical and funny charm of the book has been almost entirely abandoned, when it should have been front and centre.

The Hobbit should have been a short, fun adventure starring Bilbo Baggins. What we've got instead has been a deathly long melodrama starring Thorin Oakenshield, with Bilbo as one of his sidekicks.

That said, if you liked the original cut of DOS but considered it a bit on the long side you'll love this edit. It's as good as this film is ever likely to get.

Another brilliant edit by RangerKris.
I was waiting for this one since I saw ranger's first edit (Fire of the Dragon) which I thought was excellent, but this is even better.
Technically the Audio / Video quality is excellent, the encoding is very good, color rendering and motion estimation and detection is very good, no blurring, no jerkiness or pixelation of any sort
Visual editing, you just would not know that this was an edit, seamless transitions that flow naturally. Same goes for for the audio.
I deducted one point from the audio editing and audio quality because I wish ranger would do a 5.1 surround sound. It makes watching on a big screen with a sound system a bit more enjoyable.

The narrative is excellent. fast and focused with no distraction or side tracks. If you showed this film to some one who has not seen the original theatrical cut, they would never now there was something missing, the only negative thing that can be said is the missing dwarves that were left in lake town; but this is not Ranger's fault, the material to fix that is simply not there; even that little drawback is mostly not noticeable, you have to be really pedantic and nitpicking and do a head count to notice it.
For diehard Tolkien fans this edit is god sent to save us from the excesses of PJ.
When it came to Enjoyment, I decide to watch all three versions back to back, the original, Fire of the Dragon and Into The Fire; I can tell you right now, the original fell down immediately, I just could not finish it, it was a 2 horse race and Into the Fire came ahead just by a nose ;)
I would recommend this edit to any Tolkien fan, and to any one who has even never heard of Tolkien or the Hobbit, it is just a very good and entertaining movie.
I hope that Ranger would tackle unexpected journey and produce a purist edit out of it, and when Battle of the Five Armies comes out, that he would take all three parts and produce one coherent smooth movie out of them.

An outstanding edit which reveals some brilliant film-making by Jackson et al.

I think this edit can be summed up by wife, who has not seen the original DOS "But this film is really excellent! Why the criticism?"

The editing is seamless. The characters such as Beorn, Bilbo, Thorin, Gandalf, and Bard are given razor sharp focus, with great character moments. The editing of Smaug is just superb. And the pace of the film. Wow. This is a rollicking 90 minute adventure.
What is cut? Mostly orc battles (extras fighting), video game sequences (bouncing river raft and the Smaug Boss Battle vs. dwarves), and focus on secondary characters (Legolas, Kili?, and lady elf). Hurra!

Sound is disappointingly stereo AAC, which I had to fiddle with to sound decent through my surround sound system. (I docked 2 points from A/V quality for that)
Visual fidelity a-ok.

There was one music cue which sounded off to me - as they leave lake town, there's a brief view on the boat with an off musical cue before the shot of Thorin. I would recommend cutting straight to Thorin and the music there.
(And a little repeat on Bilbo's running sound when the great flag falls on him? I noticed it second time round).

An amazing 63 minutes has been cut from this - and it isn't noticeable at all. Class editing (and shows how much filler was in the original release!)
Oh, and great little flash of Sauron in his "Angel of Light" form. Loved it!

I watched this edit two nights back to back and thoroughly enjoyed it both times. Kudos ranger, this is masterful editing.

(PS: For a first time viewer the silver Smaug works fine - my wife thought it was dragon scales glittering in the moonlight.)