Hobbit: The Spence Edit, The

I don't think I've ever been as disappointed with a series of movies as I have been with the Hobbit. The official cuts are lifeless, characterless, shallow, and ultimately constipated in their ability to engage and entertain anyone who isn't looking for a fodder-fest. Thank you Spence for taking these, shacking them mercilessly and presenting something that actually feels like a hobbit movie, and a pretty decent one at that.

Audio/Video: 10
This is probably the best 7gb mp4 I've seen. Great video, great audio. Perfect 10

Visual Editing: 9
For the most part this is perfect editing. There are a few spots where cuts seem forced or fades occur that seem unnatural due to the fact that they never occur until the very end, but that's just being nit picky on my part.

Audio Editing: 9
Again near perfection. Just a few areas where the audio cuts seem rushed, but I would be hard pressed to approach the superb job done here.

Narrative: 7 (UJ 9/10, DoS 8/10, BotFA 6/10)
I love what is done with UJ. Wow! That was the movie I had hoped for in the first place. BUT, I do wish the warg chase/eagle rescue was still present in some form as it's one of my favorite moments from the story. I really enjoyed the almost complete omission of Legolas and what's her name from DoS and keeping the dwarfs out of the mountain. While Gandalf's special quest is intriguing and very insightful into the lead up to the Lord of The Rings, I felt it was a bit distracting albeit very neatly trimmed and well done. I'd love to see an edit with Azog completely removed as a major player. His character demands too much attention and steals the focus and attention on the true story at hand, in my opinion. Also, removing the intro of the arkenstone leaves the viewer scratching their head as to why everyone is so obsessed with something that we only first see (though we don't know what it is unless we've seen the movies before) an hour and a half or so into the edit. I wonder what the edit would feel like if we followed Bilbo predominantly during the battle and when he gets knocked out the next scenes we see are him seeing Thorin fall to the ground and rushing to his side. The fighting is just too over the top and ridiculous for me. That being said, the battle did seem like it was rushed, or rather, unexplained/resolved. The story inches along, then KA-POW! Orcs, Bats, Eagles and Mountain Goats. Perhaps a flipped scene of the dwarfs cresting the hill could be input to show the first coming of the orcs instead of the earth mover dune worms. The narrative is strong through the first two film cuts, but most likely due to terrible source content and not Spence's narrative abilities, the final film narrative is kind of flat. Would love to see what Spence can do with an extended source for BotFA for perhaps a version 2.0?

Enjoyment: 8
This edit has saved the hobbit films for me. And even though I may have some qualms with the narrative, this is my current go to version of what should have been a 3 hour adventure. Great job Spence!

As soon as it was announced they would be stretching out The Hobbit into three movies, I knew someone around here would take up the job of reducing it back down to the single movie this SHOULD have been. Spence has, IMO, done a fantastic job of doing so! A/V Quality and Editing are superb, seamless, and honestly I didn't see anything to suggest anything was cut. The only reason I was aware of anything removed was due to having seen the original versions, otherwise I likely wouldn't have known.

If I have a real criticism or complaint, it's that honestly I think more could have been cut. This is very much the film Peter Jackson probably would have made and released had he been asked to make a single film, but it's not a particularly easy film to enjoy: it's still a pretty slowly paced slog.

That said, this edit has permanently replaced the theatrical trilogy on my shelf and I HIGHLY recommend it to anyone who wants to see The Hobbit but doesn't want to sit through nine hours of film.

I just want to say that this film was excellent. I really enjoyed it. Spence did a fantastic job of bringing the three Hobbit films down to the one film that it should have been. And as he stated, the film felt far more epic than the original three, with almost all of the corny stuff cut out.

Great work!

Superb job =) very close to the book itself. Special thanks for removing:
- Much of "goblin town".
- Tuning down much of Legolas show off and screen time scenes.
- Tauriel/Kili romance bahhh, PJ must had been out of his mind or it was Fran and Phillipa's doing (chicks lol).
- Barrel "platform video game" scene (dreadful scene -.-).
- Lake town's boring scenes... (million thanks).
- Alfrid Lickspittle dreadful character (hope he has a terrible death in the extended edition MUAHAH).

MAGNIFICENT ENDING MUSIC WITH ACTORS VOICES =)

I pinpoint/suggest a few things should you "revisit" this edit again:
- "Warg attack" at the end and the eagles rescuing the company. I think you may have removed it because of Azog's scenes, but putting as much as the "Warg attack/eagle rescue" would be an excellent addition and faithful to the book.
- I would have liked to see the entire fight sequence of the White Council, i just love to see Saruman fully fighting the wraiths.
- I think the battle of the five armies was a bit shortened out, trying to increase it a bit wouldn't harm =).
- Beorn was missing in it's entirety. I think he should appear talking, in part, with the dwarves and lately in the battle, instead of jumping of the eagle's back, you could put him just in the middle of the fray, since he also appears in the books.
- Bolg should have been seen dying by the hand of Legolas, as Bolg is the other Orc commander from Gundabad. I think it will be more credible for the Orc army to retreat since they loose both their top commanders.

Many thanks Spence

A better title for this would be "The Peter Jackson Director's Cut."

I've always felt a sympathy for Mr. Jackson, seeing as Guillermo Del Toro was given the privilege of three years to plan two films but him leaving the project screwed him over creatively. Jackson wanted the spent year and a half back, so he could trim the script down to ONE film, and make a film that was more in line with HIS vision than Guillermo Del Toros.

The studio would not concede.

He now did not have enough time to make two films one. He had a year and a half to storyboard, plan vfx, props, production design, and costumes for two whole 3 hour films. Guess what? He wasn't successful. He hardly finished much of the first half hour, and had to plan many of the shots on the fly. This is an insult to one of the most unique directors of our time, and its a scary notion that even a director as accomplished as HE could not achieve creative freedom.

This edit very much honors him, with an edit that brings more focus on the character arcs that last from the beginning to end of the story, eliminating much of the unnecessary subplots that Guillermo added. It brings out many details one could previously miss when spread out across 3 whole movies, such as how Jackson brilliantly used every scene where Sting and the Ring are used as a motif to show how much Bilbo has evolved since the last time he used them. Such as how the scene where Bilbo encounters Smaug mirrors the scene where he encountered Gollum, again to show his evolution. Thus, the story evolves tonally and visually with the evolution of a character.

Literally my only complaint for the entire edit was your decision to cut one scene which was an absolute necessity to the film; Gandalf smoking a pipe with Bilbo after the battle has ended. It perfectly reduces the massive scale of how much has changed, in terms of the story and the characters, to such a simple but beautiful shot. It calls back to the very first shot of the film in the case of your edit.

However, your edit still works so well without it that I will not remove a star for it. It simply would have elevated your edit from magnificent to perfect.

For anyone who was disappointed with the Hobbit, whether as a fan of the book or a casual viewer, this is definitely the best edit of this film which exists.
Thank you, for preserving this director's vision, Spence.

~Silver Screen Samurai~