Hobbit: Into the Fire, The

First, my apologies for the tardiness of this review. It's been a busy summer moving my family halfway across the country. I was a screener for the first incarnation of this edit, Fire of the Dragon (http://www.fanedit.org/ifdb/component/content/article/79-fanedit-listings/fanfix/1033-hobbit-fire-of-the-dragon-the), and while I thought it was a vast improvement, I (and others) still felt like a more seriious take on the film would be preferable. Ranger613 decided to take this on and this edit is the result. And, for me, it is indeed preferable to the Fire of the Dragon edit. Ranger calls this a "book purists" cut and while that may be true, it isn't the reason I enjoy it more. I never read The Hobbit. But I did feel like Jackson was trying to straddle a line with these movies that just doesn't work. He's trying to keep them in line with the original LotR trilogy, while also trying to make them lighter fare more in keeping with the source material. It just hasn't worked for me and I prefer edits that aim to remove the silliness and video game like action to reveal something much closer to LotR. For the first chapter, I now go to kerr's Arkenstone Edition. And now, for the chapter two, I will go to this. A word of warning though, this definitely does not play as a standalone film, not that the original did either. While we all have yet to see the third and final chapter, it feel entirely possible to me that the best edit will be a four-ish hour film (or two two hour films). One final note, there has been much discussion of the final scene of Smaug shaking off the molten gold (recolored here). I provided feedback during the editing process on this and, to me, it is still not right in my mind. But I have to say that my wife, who had never seen the original movie, didn't even notice. In fact, I didn't tell her this was a fan edit. She simply said it was much better than she expected after the first one (which we saw together in the theatre). To me, that's high praise! Good work, ranger613!

Personally I can not wait until Jackson's Battle of the Five Armies is available on DVD/Blu-ray - that way faneditors can be unleashed to put together an edit encompassing all 3 bloated Hobbit films into hopefully one epic movie. For now however, one could do far worse than check out Ranger's Into The Fire edit of the second movie. 63 minutes may sound like a lot to cut, but when watching this excellent exercise in how to save a movie, it becomes painfully clear just how bloated and overlong this needless trilogy of movies really are.

Amongst the many improvements, I would single out the huge improvement of the barrel sequence which no longer feels like some CGI excuse to have Legolas leaping all over the show, and perhaps even better is the way in which the finale no longer has to subject us to more set-piece nonsense as the dwarves go through various levels in computer game fashion to douse Smaug in gold. Ranger's editing hand is invisible during these sequences - quite excellent work.

In fact, there's only one scene where you could really feel the editor at work. As the dwarves leave Laketown for Erebor, there is a jump cut of a sort and it just stands out as an "edited" scene. A small complaint however, as I loved how the Orcs no longer attack Laketown. Indeed, other than this, Into the Fire is a genuinely excellent exercise in how fanediting can improve on the original film. My go to version? You bet it is. I can only hope that Ranger may have a go at making one huge Hobbit fanedit of all three films at a latter date. I whole heartedly recommend this to everyone, a quite sterling piece of work. Thanks Ranger :)

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.)

This edit is much better than the original version. Technically I did not notice any issues, the video quality is high and the audio is only 2 channel but also a high quality. The best part is how much of the movie has been cut but how little you notice the missing pieces.

I loved the LOTR trilogy but could never quite get into the books. However, The Hobbit is one of my favorite books of all time and I have been nothing but disappointed with the Hobbit films. They are overly long, filled with constant unnecessary reminders that these movies are prequels to the LOTR trilogy, and the films seem to forget that Bilbo is suppose to be the main character. Unfortunately some of those things still remain in this edit, which is why I had to take a few points off of enjoyability and narrative.

Nevertheless, this edit will be my official go to version for Desolation until someone creates a literary cut of all three Hobbit films. I highly recommend anyone who likes fantasy to check out this edit and to skip the theatrical cut all together.

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.