Hobbit: Into the Fire, The

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.

A much more streamlined version of Peter Jackson's overbloated Desolation of Smaug, this fanedit eschews much of the superfluous dalliances found within the theatrical cut, such as the romance between Tauriel and Kili, Kili's wounds, and both the ridiculous barrel sequence and Erebor forge sequence. Definitely a better experience than the original, and it cuts straight to the narrative heart of the film. I personally might have tried to include more of Tauriel and Thranduil, but I'm not a Tolkien purist, I just enjoy seeing those sides of Middle-Earth.

I'm planning on crafting my own fanedit once the Extended Editions of all three films are available, but this film makes many improvements I had already envisioned, while creating several news ones that I hadn't even thought of. It's definitely worth a watch.

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.

My wife and I watched your work yesterday night on the big screen, and all I can say is THANK YOU! She wouldn't even go see D.O.S. in the theaters because she'd been so disappointed after watching AUJ. But the work you did chopping it down and focusing the narrative made an amazing difference. We could really FEEL the story of the Bilbo (instead of just cursing PJ every two minutes). Also a special thank you for all the technical work you put into your edit. I know most of what you do is "invisible" to others, but all that time, care and craft makes a massive difference when folks like me sit down to lose ourselves in a lovingly crafted return to middle-earth.

"Bilbo...his name is Bilbo."
Peter Jackson seems to have had the same problem as Thorin - forgot who the main character is. Into the Fire takes us back to Bilbo Baggins and his story, it's that simple.

RangerKris, I thank you again for your undertaking. It has given me a Hobbit movie that satisfies my need for a true to Tolkien experience. I appreciate how open you were to suggestions on the discussion board during the editing process, allowing everyone to chime in on what a purist version would be. The visual and audio editing was excellent as usual. I will be watching the final Hobbit installment with much more ease, knowing that however packed full of over the top, extraneous material, I will have hope for a purely Tolkien ending.

P.S. Maia Sauron was pulled off masterfully!