Hobbit: The Spence Edit, The

My critique, in "play-by-play" style:
- The edit opens with a short pan across Hobbiton and then immediately goes into a conversation between Bilbo and a newly-arrived Gandalf. Gone is the Prologue, older-Bilbo's narrative, and Frodo.
- Cutting "are there any other wizards?" line makes Radagast's intro later a little sudden
- I missed Balin's explanation of sword names since it helps explain "Sting" later on
- Very good keeping Azog/Sauron conversation--helps promote the idea of "bigger things afoot"
- Trolls handled well, good work removing most of the juvenile humor
- I personally missed bombur breaking the bench, but that scene isn't necessary
- Excellent editing of Bilbo no longer falling from cliff
- Goblins handled well--especially the cut to Orcrist falling to ground with the other swords. very clever. Like most edits, the Goblin King's fall down into the depths is assumed to be his end.
- Subtle but excellent edit of finding of the ring. In Spence's edit, the sword illuminates the ring, but Bilbo doesn't notice it at first--then he does a double take and stoops to pick it up. In the Maple Films edit (which is my go-to edit of the Hobbit Trilogy), he just does the double take--we don't get the slow reveal of the ring on the ground. It's a very quick edit, but it really made a big difference toward not making the finding of the ring so sudden (in the original cut, he sees gollum drop it, which introduces a host of problems of its own--the least of which is that Bilbo really is a thief since he knows the ring belongs to Gollum long before meeting him).
- There's a huge cut of the entire "Out of the Frying Pan" chapter as well as the Eagles and Beorn. There's a -lot- of material gone, and while I would have preferred to keep Beorn added, the cut works fine for the most part.
- One thing -not- explained by the previous cut is the rather noticeable plot hole of them suddenly having ponies again.
- Why didn't Gandalf warn them to "stay on the path"?
- For a moment, the elven musical theme shows up during the spider fight--a very strange choice. It didn't sound bad, but it certainly didn't fit.
- Ha, you just had to keep one, over-the-top, Legolas-surfing-on-a-spider scene in there, didn't ya?
- As expected, Tauriel and the love triangle is gone
- A minor plot hole: Kili's injury is not explained, but I suppose it's not too much a stretch to just assume it was a consequence of tumbling down a ramp and through rapids in a barrell.
- The pacing feels a bit fast for Bard to just show up suddenly.
- Radagast kind of comes out of nowhere since we've neither heard of nor seen him before he shows up in the high fells. As mentioned earlier, might have been nice to retain the Bilbo/Gandalf conversation of "are there any other wizards?"
- Balin's line "only a black arrow could have pierced the dragon's hyde" is retained, but his son explaining that Girion left a weak spot is cut. This has consequences later...
- Excellent work getting rid of Alfrid and minimizing the master. Pacing is a bit quick, but ok
- Also as expected, the Dwarves are never separated in Laketown, and there is no orc/elf raid
- The cuts from sunset to moon to keyhole are a bit rough, the pacing too fast
- There are some audio issues when bilbo enters Erebor--the echoes (presumably the surround channels) are a good several seconds early
- Awesome work with Bard simply using his last arrow to slay Smaug. The extreme nature of the many cuts to Laketown lead to some issues, though. Since we were earlier told that only a Black Arrow could do the job, and Bard was never informed of the weak spot since the dialog with his son is cut, he effectively doesn't know there's a weak spot (in the book, a little bird told him--literally...). This means that when he busts out of that window, carrying only a standard bow and a quiver of standard arrows, he's essentially facing down the dragon out of desparation, trusting only to luck. This doesn't quite sit right with me. Another problem is that, since the Master was never properly established as a mustache-twirling villain, I kind of feel bad seeing the poor guy get squashed by a falling ex-dragon. There's only a split second to note that his barge is filled with gold. At the same time, he can't -not- be killed since it's necessary for the Master to be out of the picture in order for Bard to progress to leader of his people.
- Thorin's madness comes on a bit quick...
- Good handling of battle, other than the somewhat silly part where the moose scoops up a half-dozen orcs and Thranduil beheads them all in one swipe.
- The battle at Ravenhill handled very well--even explains how he got orcrist back w/out too much wacky Legolas antics.
- I would have preferred to have Radagast completely removed from the final rally (as he has been in other edits--the Maple Films edit, for example).
- Good cut of "I lost that ring anyway"--Bilbo lying to Gandalf just didn't seem right
- Interesting idea, moving older-Bilbo's narrative to the end, but I think I prefer it as an opener as it has been in other edits.

The Spence edit is an extremely innovative and high-paced edit. It comes in at a half-hour shorter than many book cuts while still retaining many of the non-book cut scenes (the White council, Dol Guldur, High Fells, etc). Visual quality is fine, but the musical score can often cover the center (voice) channel. Still, it's amazing how much material has been packed in while keeping the flow mostly intact. I personally prefer a Book Cut, but this is a very well done edit--a joy to watch, if for no other reason than to see Spence's impressive work.

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 agree with everything thecuddlyninja said below, and I agree with the others who have said before me that the original theatrical versions are too much bloated with uninteresting stuff. This is how the hobbit should have been released in theatres in the first place. My only wish would be that the audio of this edit was more balanced and had six instead of two channels.

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!

I like Hobbit 2, but Hobbit 1 (with the exception of the dwarfes entering Bilbo's home and the whole sequence with Gollum) and 3 I find to be completely uninteresting and nowhere nearly as good as the Lord of the rings movies.

So I was interested how Spence could improve the Hobbit-movies by forming them into a single movie. First and most important, does it work as a single movie? Yes! Sure it's a bit long with nearly 3,5 hours, but it works really well and just shows that it should have been a single movie from the get-go.

Is it now as good as the lord of the ring movies? Imho, no, they are still way better, but it's an improvement over the theatrical versions.

----------SPOILER-WARNING---------

What Spence did was to remove Azog as an instrument to create tension, imho that is a good decision. Sure it reduces a bit the tension now, but Azog and his orcs are so uninteresting that it hurts.

And he removed the love-triangle between Legolas, that elve-woman and one of the better looking dwarfes. In Hobbit 2 it added some sort of romanticism, and it created a story-strand where the elve woman leaves her kin to fulfill her true love, how she heals that dwarfe and how the dwarf gets killed in front of her in the end. That was actually something that enriched Hobbit 2 and 3. I like a little bit of romantic feelings in movies, the things about sacrificing things for love... but it should be credible and natural.
The problem was that it was unbelievable from the start and it involved only secondary characters, so I think overall it was a good decision to cut it all out. Sure some feeling is missing then, but either these things are done in the right and credible way or not at all.

The other big removement was the "prophecy"-story strand, the lake people believed in the prophecy that one day a dwarfe king would come to reclaim the mountain and its riches. This is removed (although Thorin actually uses the word prophecy in his speech, but that was probably not easy to remove), and many would probably welcome it. But for me, this was one of the things that actually worked well in Hobbit 2, namely that the Lake people living in poor conditions develop some hope that things could change for the better, because of the prophecy. In Hobbit 2 that was the main motivation that they would help the dwarfes, give them weapons and set them free again.

Here the main-motivation is only the hope for the gold in the mountain, but without the prophecy-belief, why would they believe that 13 dwarfes would succeed where whole armies failed before? Imho the prophecy-element was crucial to explain the hope of the Laketownpeople and imho it added that nice consequence that the belief in the prophecy brought them complete ruin by waking up the dragon who then destroyed their town. This is one change/removal that I felt was hurtful.

The other problem was Bard shooting down the dragon. This problem has nothing to do with Spence's edit, but with the theatrical shooting of the scene and lazy writing. All people from Lake-town know from experience that the dragons skin can't be hurt by mere arrows, and yet what does Bard do? He goes up with merely his normal bow and normal arrows and thinks he can do the impossible!

It would have been different if he went up with the clear thought and memory that the dragon lost some of his skin in the encounter with his ancestor, and so goes up with the clear will to try to shoot an arrow into that wound, and then tries, misses, tries, misses, but then succeeds.

But thank goodness, that the scene with the molten gold and the golden dragon was removed and the dwarfes triyng to fight the dragon...

The big battle at the end was nicely shortened, which for me was most welcome. The only problem was the appearance of the eagles and Bilbo saying "The eagles are coming"..., but he hasn't met any eagles in this edit, so why does he associate anything with them or knows anything about them?

The other, but forgiveable problem was in the first third of the movie, where the dwarfes have horses in one scene and then not, and then they have horses again...

---SPOILER-warning-END---
Verdict:
It works as a single movie, it's overall better than the theatrical version (though still not nearly as good as the lord-of-the rings movies, but that is the source's problem), and proves that the Hobbit-story should have been told in a single movie from the get-go.

Editing is mostly great and smooth. Great work, Spence!