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The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - The Mystery Cut

Masirimso17

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This edit is already finished. Like with my Spider-Man: Homecoming edit, I'm just waiting for the great @"theryaney" to provide me with some awesome covers and for the edit to be uploaded before I submit it.

For years my favorite Hobbit fanedit has always been "An Unexpected Journey: Arkenstone Edition" by @"kerr"  and in my eyes was always the gold standart for any future edits, including my own edits. Whenever I rewatched the series, I always went with the Arkenstone Edition for the first chapter, and that never changed...

...until the great video essayist and reviewer Chris Hartwell released his own fanedit of the trilogy. Most of the changes made were well done  yet familiar, save for one in his Extended versions: the Dol Guldur subplot.

Now most edits either retain this subplot, completely remove it, or slightly modify it without it being a huge difference. As far as I know, none of them did what the Hartwell Cuts did. Essentially, he cut Radagast's visit to Dol Guldur, cut the morgul blade, and cut any utterance of the name "The Necromancer". Although that name is the only thing that ties this subplot to the throwaway reference in the original novel, ironically its removal makes a huge improvement in the story.

Now when Radagast appears, he only goes to Gandalf regarding his concerns regarding the spiders spawning from Dol Guldur that are infecting the Greenwood. Now the White Council discussing the darkness in the woods, which has been called long, monotonous, and pace-breaking by many, has instead become quick, mysterious, and interesting. Now their discussion, without Gandalf bringing solid proof, brings doubt to his worries and does not take away as much from the main plot of the first movie.

I loved this idea and decided that it was a huge enough difference for me to tackle the first Hobbit. I remember that Kerr graciously gave me his permission to use his edits as a source for my own, so my edit is mainly sourced from his edit. To make the edit my own, however, I added a few small but imo valuable "dwarf personality" moments where they get to shine with their little quirks. Once again the main attraction here is Hartwell's ideas (in fact this can alternatively be called the Kerr/Hartwell Hybrid Cut) but I gave the movie a bit of my own little preferences as well. I didn't go overboard however and didn't add back the "Blunt the Knives" sequence or Bofur's song at Rivendell or anything, because lovely as they were, they were pacebreakers rightfully unused by Kerr and many other editors.

Here's the full changelist:

Further changes to the Arkenstone Edition:
  • Added Bifur's line and Bilbo and Oin's subsequent exchange regarding the axe in his head from the Extended Edition.
  • Reinstated Bombur getting huge cheeseblocks and Bofur saying "he eats it by the block".
  • Reinstated Bofur throwing Bombur an egg and his catching it with his mouth. I've always loved this moment, especially after learning Stephen Hunter miraculously did that in one take. This cast is just so charming and wonderful :D
  • Reinstated Thorin's rousing speech to "take back Erebor" as I always liked and missed that scene in the Arkenstone Edition; this time though the dwarves argument comes after Balin implying they're not the brightest bunch. This edit required me to bring the planning scene back to its original structure, although I didn't add back any of Kerr's cuts besides Thorin's speech so it's still shorter than the theatrical/extended cuts.
  • When Radagast appears, instead of Radagast visiting Dol Guldur (which never happens in this version) we quickly flashback to an earlier scene that was cut with Radagast discovering dead plants and animals in the Greenwood and the spiders that caused it. It is much shorter though, with the huge section of him healing a hedgehog in his house still cut.
  • Radagast never gives Gandalf the morgul blade. When we return from the flashback, Gandalf gives Radagast some old toby, and then we hear warg howls.
  • Added Kili flirting with the elf playing the harp in Rivendell, and the subsequent joke with the dwarves laughing at him.
  • The White Council scene has been re-edited to mimic how Chris Hartwell did it, save for some different shots of Galadriel to make her location consistent. Like Hartwell did, I masked out the Morgul Blade from the scene and made the scene much tighter and more mysterious, with the added bonus of the company of dwarves being part of Gandalf's plan because of his worries (which it already was, but it is much more emphasized here and makes the plot much more focused).
  • Regraded the treasure room at the end to make it look more like how it looks in the sequel (much darker with a green tint). I masked Smaug's eye so it still shines.
To admins: Like I said in my Spider-Man: Homecoming thread you can go ahead and archive my Return of the Jedi and X-Men threads as I don't intend to return to editing them very soon.
 

M4_

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> I masked out the Morgul Blade from the scene 

Seems like this year is the year of masking out blades, I saw Hartwell do it in the video, then just today I decided to include the scene with the blade masked out and some other trims as a special feature/deleted scene on my book edit, and now I've just read about how did it too. Looks like he started a little trend!

But this is pretty cool, I've always thought Chris hartwell really nailed it in terms of just making the trilogy more watchable, while still keeping sideplots, still keeping lotr set up, etc. Basically showing PJs full story just in more a digestible way, which I think is great. Personally, I'll always stick with the 4 hour book edit route, similar to what Maple edits established, but both are still the best ways to watch the trilogy, as Ive never been a fan of the one movie 2-3 hour edits, just seem too fast.
 

hbenthow

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Did you color grade the parts that you took directly from the Blu-ray to match those that you took from the Arkenstone Edition?

Also, do you plan on editing the last two Hobbit movies to remove the Sauron references?
 

Masirimso17

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hbenthow said:
Did you color grade the parts that you took directly from the Blu-ray to match those that you took from the Arkenstone Edition?

Also, do you plan on editing the last two Hobbit movies to remove the Sauron references?

Yes I did, and I already removed the Necromancer references in my Desolation of Smaug edit Fire & Water. Don’t get me wrong I’m keeping the Sauron subplot, just cutting the name “Necromancer” as I explained more in detail above
 

Masirimso17

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Turns out I forgot to cut Galadriel mentioning "the riddle of the Morgul Blade" in this edit. D'oh!

bd6.png


I think I'm going to refine my masking out the Morgul Blade too. Expect a fixed version soon.
 

Masirimso17

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So I finally Finally FINALLY fixed this edit, and it is currently back online. I originally wanted to release this alongside my "Siege of the Lonely Mountain" fan edit, however progress is slow with that one, so I figured it was high time I released a fixed version of the first part. The most important fixes are removing Galadriel's mention of the morgul blade I missed AND using @M4_ 's version of masking out the morgul blade as it looks way better than my attempt (thanks M4 for letting me use it!)

I ultimately decided not to include Kili flirting at Rivendell for various reasons. I also replaced most of the footage with the theatrical (and sometimes Extended) Blu-Rays as the source for a higher bitrate master without any further compression (although some scenes with color correction, text replacements or visual effects made by Kerr I had to reuse, but those moments are few and far between and absolutely unnoticeable in quality difference!)

If anyone is interested, start a private conversation with me!

EDIT: I forgot to mention that I had to fix two visual glitches I noticed while watching through the edit because Premiere Pro is a little b*tch when it comes to m2ts files(!!!), so as far as I know there are no visual glitches BUT I did not force myself to re-rewatch the edit besides those scenes to look for any errors.

SO IF THERE ARE ANY I MISSED, please let me know and I'll fix it!
 
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