I've structured my post as if it's ready (because it feels that way to me), but I'm treating it as a work-print because I'm sure some things might change due to feedback and perhaps even during the edit of Part II. Any thoughts are welcome!
The Hobbit (Ironfoot Edition) Part I – An Unexpected Journey
Original Movie Title: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey / The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
Genre: Adventure
Franchise: The Lord of the Rings
Fanedit Type: FanFix
Original Release date: 2012 (AUJ) / 2013 (DOS)
Original Running time: 3h02m (AUJ) / 3h06m (DOS) ← used half of DOS
Fanedit Release Date: February 2015
Fanedit Runing Time: 2h34m
Time Cut: 2h01m
Available in HD?: Yes
ARTWORK
FANEDIT INFORMATION
Brief Synopsis:
I've cut down The Hobbit Trilogy to two films to make it a more clear, streamlined and enjoyable experience.
Intention: My attempt has been to cut down The Hobbit films to two films with an eye to good solid storytelling. I believe these films to be valuable gems suffering from bloated and boring scenes that bring down the entire narrative. I’ve cut only what I found unnecessary, unsatisfactory or needed to for coherence.
Other Sources: Used the Extended Editions.
- The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. (ink-dipping sound)
- The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Soundtrack (An Old Friend)
- The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Soundtrack (The Hidden Valley)
- Misty Mountain cover-song by Taylor Davis
- Free sounds from Freesounds.org (waterfall-sounds, owl-sound)
I've also taken inspiration from: The Dwarfed Edition, The Arkenstone Edition, There and Back Again, Into the Fire and The Tolkien Cut.
CHANGES
Editing details:
My source material were the Extended Editions with 5.1 surround sound to isolate dialogue wherever needed. I’ve done my best to make my edits seem as flawless as possible and I hope I will have succeeded in making it impossible to tell what I’ve changed without knowing the source material. General changes are:
- The prologue has been removed, but some shots are used elsewhere, such as over the Misty Mountain song.
- Azog has been visually cut from the first part of the duology.
- Sauron has been removed and Azog takes his place as the (still unseen) threat in Dol Guldur. I’ve replaced the references to a sorcerer in Dol Guldur with “The Defiler”.
- Kili-Tauriel-Legolas love triangle removed.
- Radaghast, the White Council, the High Fells and everything related to the Nazgul (because of its silly climax in BoFA) has been removed.
- I’ve kept the cartoonish action scenes (Goblin escape and Barrel sequence), because although they take away any sense of real danger, I believe they are rather fun and creatively done. However, if popular demand should ever urge me to recreate my cut without them, I’ll oblige.
Cuts and additions:
Example clips and a screenshot:
Opening
Exiting Rivendell (without a White Council)
Removing Azog
From Eagles to Beorn (AUJ to DOS)
The Necromancer becomes Azog the Defiler (still unseen)
(WORK)-RELEASE DETAILS:
The Hobbit (Ironfoot Edition) Part II - There and Back Again
Outlineof intentions
DOS:
-Start with Bard entering Lake-town with fish-barrels. We would knowthe dwarves are in them when see Bombur's eye peering out after aremoved fish.
-Use the EE-scene where they walk in “the world of men”, but skipany spying or arrests. Instead, we'd immediately have them discussingweapons (and some repeated exposition).
-Use Dol Guldur (EE-version to foreshadow with “they must not enterthat mountain”
, but try to get around Sauron and theringwraith-battle of BoFA.
-Reduce the Master's screen-presence to his scene at his footsteps,blessing Thorin's journey to gain its riches. This scene containseverything we need from the Master and none of the others offeranything more than caricature variations on the same theme.
-Not sure how much to keep from the action-scene with Smaug. It mightbe all of it, but I'd like to trim it a bit.
-Get rid of the exploding gold. Instead, the statue just melts withoutlocal explosions.
BoFA:
-No ringwraiths. Gandalf returns from Dol Guldur, having seen thearmy.
-Dramatically reduce Alfrid's antics and everyone thinking it's a goodidea to delegate important actions to him.
-Once the people of Lake-town move to the lonely mountain, we maybedon't need to know more about them until Bard is at the doorstep(with the elves).
-Re-order (or make a sequence of) Thorin's madness.
-Remove the voice-overs from Thorin's turn from madness.
-No carriage-ride from Bard.
-Trying to intercut the battle so more things happen at once.
-Tauriel dies. The most willingly helpful elf in The Hobbit(obviously) neither appears or gets mentioned in the Lord of theRings trilogy. This makes more sense to me if she would have died.I'm not entirely sure how to accomplish this narrative element yet,but I'm willing to try such things as: using sound or music (amelancholic version of her theme), digitally adjusting the image tomake her (and only her) lying motionless after she gets struck off acliff,...
The Hobbit (Ironfoot Edition) Part I – An Unexpected Journey
Original Movie Title: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey / The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
Genre: Adventure
Franchise: The Lord of the Rings
Fanedit Type: FanFix
Original Release date: 2012 (AUJ) / 2013 (DOS)
Original Running time: 3h02m (AUJ) / 3h06m (DOS) ← used half of DOS
Fanedit Release Date: February 2015
Fanedit Runing Time: 2h34m
Time Cut: 2h01m
Available in HD?: Yes
ARTWORK
FANEDIT INFORMATION
Brief Synopsis:
I've cut down The Hobbit Trilogy to two films to make it a more clear, streamlined and enjoyable experience.
Intention: My attempt has been to cut down The Hobbit films to two films with an eye to good solid storytelling. I believe these films to be valuable gems suffering from bloated and boring scenes that bring down the entire narrative. I’ve cut only what I found unnecessary, unsatisfactory or needed to for coherence.
Other Sources: Used the Extended Editions.
- The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. (ink-dipping sound)
- The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Soundtrack (An Old Friend)
- The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Soundtrack (The Hidden Valley)
- Misty Mountain cover-song by Taylor Davis
- Free sounds from Freesounds.org (waterfall-sounds, owl-sound)
I've also taken inspiration from: The Dwarfed Edition, The Arkenstone Edition, There and Back Again, Into the Fire and The Tolkien Cut.
CHANGES
Editing details:
My source material were the Extended Editions with 5.1 surround sound to isolate dialogue wherever needed. I’ve done my best to make my edits seem as flawless as possible and I hope I will have succeeded in making it impossible to tell what I’ve changed without knowing the source material. General changes are:
- The prologue has been removed, but some shots are used elsewhere, such as over the Misty Mountain song.
- Azog has been visually cut from the first part of the duology.
- Sauron has been removed and Azog takes his place as the (still unseen) threat in Dol Guldur. I’ve replaced the references to a sorcerer in Dol Guldur with “The Defiler”.
- Kili-Tauriel-Legolas love triangle removed.
- Radaghast, the White Council, the High Fells and everything related to the Nazgul (because of its silly climax in BoFA) has been removed.
- I’ve kept the cartoonish action scenes (Goblin escape and Barrel sequence), because although they take away any sense of real danger, I believe they are rather fun and creatively done. However, if popular demand should ever urge me to recreate my cut without them, I’ll oblige.
Cuts and additions:
Opening:
- Flashback, Prologue, Frodo and most of the “Hey, remember Lord of the Rings?”-moments removed. Instead, Bilbo (though still addressing Frodo) jumps straight into his own story. Everything that’s important will be repeated and I want to get to the dwarves as soon as possible.
- When Bilbo opens his book, the drawing of his younger self has been digitally removed (not perfectly yet) so he seems to open it solely for writing in it.
- Use of the “Old Friends”-song to accompany the beginning.
- Use of sounds from sound libraries and FotR (ink dipping) to compensate for the ones that got lost while drowned in music.
Unexpected Company:
- The long burp of Ori has been skipped.
- After Balin says “It appears we have lost our burglar.” I’ve reversed a shot of Thorin looking at Bilbo and everything after that has been cut.
- Some footage of opening flashback (slightly de-saturated) has been put in over and after the Misty Mountain song (when the theme is reiterated by violins). Inspired by the There and Back Again-cut.
- When they leave the shire we go straight to the farmstead where we will meet the trolls. The first night (including the Azog & Thorin backstory and the orc spying on them), the conversation in the rain about wizards and Radaghast’s first introduction have been cut.
Roast Mutton:
- When Thorin mentions being betrayed by the elves, we see that part of the
flashback (slightly desaturated). Imitated from There and Back Again-cut.
- One frame has been cut from Ori throwing his slingshot to logs being dropped, making it feel more fluent.
- Talk of parasites and the ridiculous “We don’t have parasites” - “Yes we do!” part has been skipped.
- Radaghast cut.
A Short Rest:
- Used the shot with the waterfall (from whey they leave Rivendell) to make a
smoother transition into the hidden valley. Because the sound of the waterfall was drowned in music, I used a different waterfall-sound as background noise.
- Used the Hidden Valley-song to bridge the gap.
- Trimmed the elves circling around the dwarves
- After Elrond arrives and greets Gandalf, we cut straight to them having dinner. (Removed a subtitle that’s fading in).
- Put the dwarves eating in front of Elrond asking about the blades.
- Cut out Thorin’s refusal to share the map with Elrond. Instead that scene begins with Elrond inspecting the map (imitated from Kerr’s Arkenstone Edition).
- White Council cut entirely.
- Azog’s weathertop-scene cut.
- After Elrond says Gandalf is not the only guardian of middle earth, we cut to Gandalf’s conversation with Galadriel about supporting Thorin and Bilbo giving him courage. Galadriel is deprived a more obvious entrance, but I hope Elrond’s lead in will suffice to explain her presence.
- Gandalf talking about Bilbo gave me the opportunity to make a match-cut to him looking at the Rivendell he’s leaving behind. This scene goes over
into them walking, rather than cutting to the Gandalf-Galadriel scene
that now comes before it.
Over Hill and Under Hill:
- The walking shot with the waterfall-shot was cut (as mentioned previously).
- Stone Giants removed. As soon as Bilbo loses his footing, we skip to the part afterwards, where Bilbo falls. (Imitated from The Arkenstone Edition, though I placed Thorin’s “We need to find shelter!” a bit later).
- Cut another one of Azog’s “I’m coming after you.” shots.
- To make the transition to them sleeping more smoothly, I used the lightning sound from Azog’s outside scene and made it sound like it’s coming from outside the cave they rest in instead.
- Shortened the dwarves fall to make it less ridiculous.
- Cut out The Goblin King’s talk of Azog.
Riddles in the Dark:
- Kept every single frame of Gollum.
Out of the Frying Pan into the Fire:
- Digitally removed Azog from the first shot of the wargs. Not entirely flawlessly, but easy to miss.
- Imitated and even lifted parts from the There and Back Again-cut to remove Azog and let it be suggested via voice-over that the eagles dropped them at Beorn’s home. However, I made Gandalf dialogue sound more from afar to match better with the eagle-shots and I’ve also made color-correction some
of them to make it night, which made for a cleaner transition.
Queer Lodgings:
- Used the Extended Edition scene with Beorn where they each come out in pairs.
- After Beorn pours some milk, we skip ahead to avoid the Azog-dialogue.
- I’ve kept Beorn’s lines about these lands crawling with orcs to foreshadow the climax-attack during the battle sequence.
- Used the Extended Edition scene where Beorn talks about orcs gathering in Dol Guldur, but replaced “the sorcerer” with “The Defiler”. I’ve used the word from where it has elsewhere been cut while still matching the tone of voice. This worked much better than anticipated as you never see their lips anyway.
- I generally trimmed the EE-conversation between Beorn and Gandalf down to remove all references to the orcs chasing them (that aren’t anymore) as well as specific references to Sauron or Ringwraiths. Re-ordered some shots for a
smoother transition.
Flies and Spiders:
- Cut Dwalin’s line about there being no sign of the orcs and reordered the shots to use a more menacing one when Bilbo says “This forest feels sick.”
- Cut the weird Galadriel telepath-exposition.
- Used the Extended Edition version for Mirkwood, though I’ve cut the white stag, trimmed their walking and color-corrected the last part to match the blue-ish hue of the rest of this sequence.
- Cut Bilbo seeing himself.
- Added a little bit of red into the shots when Bilbo is looking from atop the trees. Somehow that makes the shot more believable for me.
- Bilbo losing his ring and killing the baby-spider removed.
- Removed Gloin’s reference to Gimli. I don’t mind him mentioning Gimli, but the Legolas’s over-the-top insult to set it up is annoying.
- Removed Tauriel saying “more spiders will come”, though kept her heroic interlude as I want to keep her.
Barrels out of Bond:
- Once everyone is inside and the Elven gate closes, we skip them walking to and being put into their prison cells. We go straight to the shot of Dwalin thrusting his cell-door. (Imitated from There and Back Again cut)
- Removed the interaction between Tauriel, Kili and Legolas. No weird love-triangles or trouser-jokes in this cut!
- Added a shot of the Arkenstone when Thranduil talks about it. The shot has been reversed to lift from the king to the jewel.
- Removed the talk of Legolas fancying Tauriel, but used her last shot (reversed) when she looks sad to end the scene with. Now it’s because of Thranduil’s refusal to care for the world outside, which was the point of this scene anyway.
- I’ve left in the beginning of the exchange between Tauriel and Kili about his runestone. It humanizes both camps to one another, but without any infatuation or sociopathic stares from Legolas.
- Kept the entire barrel-escape sequence although I removed Tauriel looking upset at Kili being wounded
- Removed the worst of the GoPro-shots.
- Removed Gandalf’s visit to the High Fells.
- Added the scene where Thranduil interrogates the orc (would normally come after Bard), but cut him mentioning the morgul-poison in Kili’s wound and The One (Sauron). Orcs are gathering for a war over Erebor, that’s all we need.
- We end on Bard after Balin asks whether his boat is available for hire. I’ve added a softer version of the dramatic cliffhanger sound of Desolation of Smaug.
Credits:
- Removed Elijah Wood & Christopher Lee and put in Luke Evans & Evangeline Lilly instead.
- Put in my own (user)name next to the editor as fan-editor.
- Put the end-scene from An Unexepcted Journey (where Smaug opens his eye) behind the credits.
- Flashback, Prologue, Frodo and most of the “Hey, remember Lord of the Rings?”-moments removed. Instead, Bilbo (though still addressing Frodo) jumps straight into his own story. Everything that’s important will be repeated and I want to get to the dwarves as soon as possible.
- When Bilbo opens his book, the drawing of his younger self has been digitally removed (not perfectly yet) so he seems to open it solely for writing in it.
- Use of the “Old Friends”-song to accompany the beginning.
- Use of sounds from sound libraries and FotR (ink dipping) to compensate for the ones that got lost while drowned in music.
Unexpected Company:
- The long burp of Ori has been skipped.
- After Balin says “It appears we have lost our burglar.” I’ve reversed a shot of Thorin looking at Bilbo and everything after that has been cut.
- Some footage of opening flashback (slightly de-saturated) has been put in over and after the Misty Mountain song (when the theme is reiterated by violins). Inspired by the There and Back Again-cut.
- When they leave the shire we go straight to the farmstead where we will meet the trolls. The first night (including the Azog & Thorin backstory and the orc spying on them), the conversation in the rain about wizards and Radaghast’s first introduction have been cut.
Roast Mutton:
- When Thorin mentions being betrayed by the elves, we see that part of the
flashback (slightly desaturated). Imitated from There and Back Again-cut.
- One frame has been cut from Ori throwing his slingshot to logs being dropped, making it feel more fluent.
- Talk of parasites and the ridiculous “We don’t have parasites” - “Yes we do!” part has been skipped.
- Radaghast cut.
A Short Rest:
- Used the shot with the waterfall (from whey they leave Rivendell) to make a
smoother transition into the hidden valley. Because the sound of the waterfall was drowned in music, I used a different waterfall-sound as background noise.
- Used the Hidden Valley-song to bridge the gap.
- Trimmed the elves circling around the dwarves
- After Elrond arrives and greets Gandalf, we cut straight to them having dinner. (Removed a subtitle that’s fading in).
- Put the dwarves eating in front of Elrond asking about the blades.
- Cut out Thorin’s refusal to share the map with Elrond. Instead that scene begins with Elrond inspecting the map (imitated from Kerr’s Arkenstone Edition).
- White Council cut entirely.
- Azog’s weathertop-scene cut.
- After Elrond says Gandalf is not the only guardian of middle earth, we cut to Gandalf’s conversation with Galadriel about supporting Thorin and Bilbo giving him courage. Galadriel is deprived a more obvious entrance, but I hope Elrond’s lead in will suffice to explain her presence.
- Gandalf talking about Bilbo gave me the opportunity to make a match-cut to him looking at the Rivendell he’s leaving behind. This scene goes over
into them walking, rather than cutting to the Gandalf-Galadriel scene
that now comes before it.
Over Hill and Under Hill:
- The walking shot with the waterfall-shot was cut (as mentioned previously).
- Stone Giants removed. As soon as Bilbo loses his footing, we skip to the part afterwards, where Bilbo falls. (Imitated from The Arkenstone Edition, though I placed Thorin’s “We need to find shelter!” a bit later).
- Cut another one of Azog’s “I’m coming after you.” shots.
- To make the transition to them sleeping more smoothly, I used the lightning sound from Azog’s outside scene and made it sound like it’s coming from outside the cave they rest in instead.
- Shortened the dwarves fall to make it less ridiculous.
- Cut out The Goblin King’s talk of Azog.
Riddles in the Dark:
- Kept every single frame of Gollum.
Out of the Frying Pan into the Fire:
- Digitally removed Azog from the first shot of the wargs. Not entirely flawlessly, but easy to miss.
- Imitated and even lifted parts from the There and Back Again-cut to remove Azog and let it be suggested via voice-over that the eagles dropped them at Beorn’s home. However, I made Gandalf dialogue sound more from afar to match better with the eagle-shots and I’ve also made color-correction some
of them to make it night, which made for a cleaner transition.
Queer Lodgings:
- Used the Extended Edition scene with Beorn where they each come out in pairs.
- After Beorn pours some milk, we skip ahead to avoid the Azog-dialogue.
- I’ve kept Beorn’s lines about these lands crawling with orcs to foreshadow the climax-attack during the battle sequence.
- Used the Extended Edition scene where Beorn talks about orcs gathering in Dol Guldur, but replaced “the sorcerer” with “The Defiler”. I’ve used the word from where it has elsewhere been cut while still matching the tone of voice. This worked much better than anticipated as you never see their lips anyway.
- I generally trimmed the EE-conversation between Beorn and Gandalf down to remove all references to the orcs chasing them (that aren’t anymore) as well as specific references to Sauron or Ringwraiths. Re-ordered some shots for a
smoother transition.
Flies and Spiders:
- Cut Dwalin’s line about there being no sign of the orcs and reordered the shots to use a more menacing one when Bilbo says “This forest feels sick.”
- Cut the weird Galadriel telepath-exposition.
- Used the Extended Edition version for Mirkwood, though I’ve cut the white stag, trimmed their walking and color-corrected the last part to match the blue-ish hue of the rest of this sequence.
- Cut Bilbo seeing himself.
- Added a little bit of red into the shots when Bilbo is looking from atop the trees. Somehow that makes the shot more believable for me.
- Bilbo losing his ring and killing the baby-spider removed.
- Removed Gloin’s reference to Gimli. I don’t mind him mentioning Gimli, but the Legolas’s over-the-top insult to set it up is annoying.
- Removed Tauriel saying “more spiders will come”, though kept her heroic interlude as I want to keep her.
Barrels out of Bond:
- Once everyone is inside and the Elven gate closes, we skip them walking to and being put into their prison cells. We go straight to the shot of Dwalin thrusting his cell-door. (Imitated from There and Back Again cut)
- Removed the interaction between Tauriel, Kili and Legolas. No weird love-triangles or trouser-jokes in this cut!
- Added a shot of the Arkenstone when Thranduil talks about it. The shot has been reversed to lift from the king to the jewel.
- Removed the talk of Legolas fancying Tauriel, but used her last shot (reversed) when she looks sad to end the scene with. Now it’s because of Thranduil’s refusal to care for the world outside, which was the point of this scene anyway.
- I’ve left in the beginning of the exchange between Tauriel and Kili about his runestone. It humanizes both camps to one another, but without any infatuation or sociopathic stares from Legolas.
- Kept the entire barrel-escape sequence although I removed Tauriel looking upset at Kili being wounded
- Removed the worst of the GoPro-shots.
- Removed Gandalf’s visit to the High Fells.
- Added the scene where Thranduil interrogates the orc (would normally come after Bard), but cut him mentioning the morgul-poison in Kili’s wound and The One (Sauron). Orcs are gathering for a war over Erebor, that’s all we need.
- We end on Bard after Balin asks whether his boat is available for hire. I’ve added a softer version of the dramatic cliffhanger sound of Desolation of Smaug.
Credits:
- Removed Elijah Wood & Christopher Lee and put in Luke Evans & Evangeline Lilly instead.
- Put in my own (user)name next to the editor as fan-editor.
- Put the end-scene from An Unexepcted Journey (where Smaug opens his eye) behind the credits.
Example clips and a screenshot:
Opening
Exiting Rivendell (without a White Council)
Removing Azog
From Eagles to Beorn (AUJ to DOS)
The Necromancer becomes Azog the Defiler (still unseen)
(WORK)-RELEASE DETAILS:
- 1080p MP4 (Preview available)
- 720p MP4 (Preview available)
- 360p MP4 (Preview available)
The Hobbit (Ironfoot Edition) Part II - There and Back Again
Outlineof intentions
DOS:
-Start with Bard entering Lake-town with fish-barrels. We would knowthe dwarves are in them when see Bombur's eye peering out after aremoved fish.
-Use the EE-scene where they walk in “the world of men”, but skipany spying or arrests. Instead, we'd immediately have them discussingweapons (and some repeated exposition).
-Use Dol Guldur (EE-version to foreshadow with “they must not enterthat mountain”
, but try to get around Sauron and theringwraith-battle of BoFA.-Reduce the Master's screen-presence to his scene at his footsteps,blessing Thorin's journey to gain its riches. This scene containseverything we need from the Master and none of the others offeranything more than caricature variations on the same theme.
-Not sure how much to keep from the action-scene with Smaug. It mightbe all of it, but I'd like to trim it a bit.
-Get rid of the exploding gold. Instead, the statue just melts withoutlocal explosions.
BoFA:
-No ringwraiths. Gandalf returns from Dol Guldur, having seen thearmy.
-Dramatically reduce Alfrid's antics and everyone thinking it's a goodidea to delegate important actions to him.
-Once the people of Lake-town move to the lonely mountain, we maybedon't need to know more about them until Bard is at the doorstep(with the elves).
-Re-order (or make a sequence of) Thorin's madness.
-Remove the voice-overs from Thorin's turn from madness.
-No carriage-ride from Bard.
-Trying to intercut the battle so more things happen at once.
-Tauriel dies. The most willingly helpful elf in The Hobbit(obviously) neither appears or gets mentioned in the Lord of theRings trilogy. This makes more sense to me if she would have died.I'm not entirely sure how to accomplish this narrative element yet,but I'm willing to try such things as: using sound or music (amelancholic version of her theme), digitally adjusting the image tomake her (and only her) lying motionless after she gets struck off acliff,...
