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The Hobbit [M4 Book Edit 2021] [4 Hours]

hothstation

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m4semperfi said:
hothstation said:
I have never seen The Hobbit due to all the negative reviews, but I would love to see this one when it is fully prepared. Thank you for your efforts thus far!

Feel free to message me if you want, I can send the version I have right now (Which I spent a year on) so it's far from just a rough cut, but if you check earlier in the thread there was some feedback so I'll have to take another look. Might be a while until I update it, many of the things I might change are very minor
revel911 said:
For that Insert Disc 2, how about just an old school ... Intermission screen,.

Well, it's not an old school movie. The movie is provided as 2 iso files, a disc 1 and a disc 2, in the maximum quality I could use to fit on 25gb blu-rays. Just like LOTR extended editions. They can be played in VLC too. The transition between part 1 and 2 is physically impossible to make fluid, and since no Middle Earth film has ever really had an intermission, I feel it works best to just follow the part 1/part 2 disc format. Now of course, you're probably referring to the mp4 version which still has that same transition, I only provided it because some people can't download 40gb, but you'll just have to make due with the transition and pretend you are on a disc. I see no problem

Thank you for taking the time to respond; I will certainly message you.
 

scriptering

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m4semperfi said:
Wow, thanks!
-Yes this could be possible, I'll add it to my update list. Although, if I can't do anything with it, I don't think it's a huge deal. Thranduil is the one with the huge grudge against Thorin while the other elves just despise them and dont care about them, so in my eyes the situation in their heads is like fuck it, not our problem anymore, had enough with them anyways..
-This would definitely be possible, but I actually enjoy a bit of the goblin fighting escaping. I've removed all the stupid parts so now it's just slashing and running, and the music is good. I think it's a fun sequence, and a good pay off after having to only hear about legends and tales of Dwarves for the past hour, to finally see them just fighting and some real action. You could pretty easily do this yourself, if you rip the iso to a video file, or edit the mp4 version.

After watching it again I do agree with the goblin fight scenes, the movies definitely portrays the company as fighters, and it’d be a shame to see Dwalin lugging around the twin axes for nothing! Plus there is a fight in the books when they are escaping. I think I’m going to try and edit it so it switches to bilbo waking up when Gandalf asks where he is, but I’m not sure if it will be good or not.

As for making changes, don’t worry about the time, as this comment section shows, us fans are in it for the long haul!
 

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Hello, to anyone that sees this thread. I've done a pretty big update, and I'd like to think I'm almost there to 100% finishing, I haven't updated the download but I will within the next month or so.

New Improvements! Some technical, but a lot help the story

* Goblin song scene is redone to be more professional, I decided to re-add some of the footage/song, so it's not as chopped up. Definitely an improvement.

* I tried an alternate music transition for Gandalf/Bilbo talking -> Rivendell hiking montage as well as Dwarves Escaping -> Gollum at the exit of the caves. I think they are a little more natural, especially with the constraints.

* Added a color adjusted shot of Bofur/Gloin/Fili/Kili hiking up to the mountain with the rest to help sell the illusion that the whole company is there

* Added a brief scene showing Orcs marching towards the Mountain so the audience is aware of them, we learn that the Orcs want to attack and take over the Mountain now that the dragon is dead, and Elves/Dwarves/Men are trying to claim it

* After this, there is also another brief scene where Gandalf tries to warn the others about Orcs coming, but it's not the full scale LOTR type dialogue where he makes hints to Sauron and Azog etc, it's just simple - Orcs are coming but no one believes him. This deviates from the book unfortunately, as in the book Gandalf didn't have a days-notice heads up on the Orcs, but it really works well to smooth out the story

* Added a piece of footage showing Fili/Kili walking across the ice so the cut to them inside the stone building isn't as abrupt

* Changed up the transition from Kili's death to Thorin/Azog, it flows a little more naturally

* Added SFX for the Orc pulling out the blade from Kili's chest

* Added about a minute worth of footage showing Thorin struggling to fight Azog, that way we establish they are dueling on the ice, Thorin is in danger, but then the Eagles come, and the rest plays out the same

* Added another shot of Azog laying dead, incase the audience missed him laying dead in the foreground

* Redid entire audio mix, a little less loud on my new sequences, so overall the 5.1 set up should be much closer to perfect, ambience, foley sfx, etc all in the right channels, including adding an echo reverb to Gandalf's eulogy at thorin's funeral

* Fixed a bunch more minor audio things that no one would notice unless you watched it on loop but this is always nice\

So, the question is, does anyone else have final ideas for a book edit of The Hobbit? Put over a year of work into this with the use of other edit influences, the physical book, and my own personal taste. If you are new to my edit, it's similar to the Maple one but I made several choices to make it closer to the book in parts and also used my own techniques to achieve certain story/editing goals, roughly 4 hour runtime.
 

hothstation

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m4semperfi said:
Hello, to anyone that sees this thread. I've done a pretty big update, and I'd like to think I'm almost there to 100% finishing, I haven't updated the download but I will within the next month or so.

New Improvements! Some technical, but a lot help the story

* Goblin song scene is redone to be more professional, I decided to re-add some of the footage/song, so it's not as chopped up. Definitely an improvement.

* I tried an alternate music transition for Gandalf/Bilbo talking -> Rivendell hiking montage as well as Dwarves Escaping -> Gollum at the exit of the caves. I think they are a little more natural, especially with the constraints.

* Added a color adjusted shot of Bofur/Gloin/Fili/Kili hiking up to the mountain with the rest to help sell the illusion that the whole company is there

* Added a brief scene showing Orcs marching towards the Mountain so the audience is aware of them, we learn that the Orcs want to attack and take over the Mountain now that the dragon is dead, and Elves/Dwarves/Men are trying to claim it

* After this, there is also another brief scene where Gandalf tries to warn the others about Orcs coming, but it's not the full scale LOTR type dialogue where he makes hints to Sauron and Azog etc, it's just simple - Orcs are coming but no one believes him. This deviates from the book unfortunately, as in the book Gandalf didn't have a days-notice heads up on the Orcs, but it really works well to smooth out the story

* Added a piece of footage showing Fili/Kili walking across the ice so the cut to them inside the stone building isn't as abrupt

* Changed up the transition from Kili's death to Thorin/Azog, it flows a little more naturally

* Added SFX for the Orc pulling out the blade from Kili's chest

* Added about a minute worth of footage showing Thorin struggling to fight Azog, that way we establish they are dueling on the ice, Thorin is in danger, but then the Eagles come, and the rest plays out the same

* Added another shot of Azog laying dead, incase the audience missed him laying dead in the foreground

* Redid entire audio mix, a little less loud on my new sequences, so overall the 5.1 set up should be much closer to perfect, ambience, foley sfx, etc all in the right channels, including adding an echo reverb to Gandalf's eulogy at thorin's funeral

* Fixed a bunch more minor audio things that no one would notice unless you watched it on loop but this is always nice\

So, the question is, does anyone else have final ideas for a book edit of The Hobbit? Put over a year of work into this with the use of other edit influences, the physical book, and my own personal taste. If you are new to my edit, it's similar to the Maple one but I made several choices to make it closer to the book in parts and also used my own techniques to achieve certain story/editing goals, roughly 4 hour runtime.

I do not have a question per-se, but I wanted to thank you for giving us an update on your mammoth project!
 

MusicEd921

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I am so excited to check out the finished product.  This sounds like a monster of a project and I love the fact that you've really done your homework and cherry picked your favorite ideas, used the book as your go-to and pieced it altogether with your own flair to it.  I feel like the finish line is so close!  Keep it up!
 

M4_

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Thank you guys for the kind words.

Theres like 3, maybe 4, technical music transitions that aren’t 100% perfect (I think they’re fine, others think so too, but some think they are a little unnatural). I can keep messing around with but at the end of the day it doesn’t change much or impact the story at all. So i’m not too concerned about that.


So the final conclusive questions to come into play are:


-There is a time jump during a music montage of the battle where thorin “teleports” to ravenhill. The only alternative would be to have him riding goats but that means I need to include Dwalin who in my version never was up there. I really don’t think this fixable due to the nature of this book edit. I’ve smoothed it out as much as I can since my previous version but yeah there’s nothing more to be done. And of course. Goat riders are stupid and not very tolkien.

-The other controversial part is with the final battle people were confused that thorin wasn’t seen dying. I am sticking with this as per being a book edit. BUT, as I said in my other comment, I included more footage of the fight showing him struggling and an additional shot of Azog dead, so it’s even more obvious what happened. I think it works very well now, so as far as I’m concerned this is not a problem anymore.

-This isn’t as controversial, but someone thought thorins change of heart was too sudden when he charged out. I have several factors: Thorin isn’t as crazy in my version, so it’s a little more believable. Second, I’ve just recently improved it so the scene with dwalin ends with a long reaction shot of Thorin looking afraid and stunned. It’s like he gets flash of what the heck am I doing. I also used a color adjustment effect so the shot gets slowly warmer progressively kind of like he fades from a pale and lonely king into a brighter stronger king. Of course it’s very subtle and it’s something that almost happens subconsciously to us as the audience see, but not like anything jarring or unprofessional. Id relate it to a very very VERY mild version of old Theoden to young theoden lol. Anyways, IF i were to include the dragon sickness ending scene where he sinks in gold that’s not like the book, makes the dragon sickness too much of a plot point, makes it feel like a real sickness instead of just being stubborn, and finally means I have to show smaug getting covered in gold or why else would there be melted gold over the entire hall.

From my point of view in terms of story part 1is 100% done. For part 2, Id love to say it’s done, but with those above “controversial transitions” I keep wavering back and forth if it works for the general public as a book edit and as a movie. For me it works. But it’s very hard to make everyone happy.

Were there any other controversial parts I’m not remembering? Please help me out! I’m talking story parts that were weird or confusing
 

Dr. Chim Richalds

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I'm only about half way through (Beorn's house) and am greatly enjoying it.  Nice work.  Since I'm trying to watch as I read with my kids, I don't think I'll get too much further before you're done and and set in stone.

The only thing I've noticed so far that I don't think has already been mentioned is that there's about a half-second shot during the Warg attack where an Orc is visible riding one (~1:35:30).  

Other than that (and the previous stone giant discussion) no suggestions and it's great so far!
 

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Dr. Chim Richalds said:
I'm only about half way through (Beorn's house) and am greatly enjoying it.  Nice work.  Since I'm trying to watch as I read with my kids, I don't think I'll get too much further before you're done and and set in stone.

The only thing I've noticed so far that I don't think has already been mentioned is that there's about a half-second shot during the Warg attack where an Orc is visible riding one (~1:35:30).  

Other than that (and the previous stone giant discussion) no suggestions and it's great so far!
Thanks! Oh yeah, with the Orc, I have noticed that too, if you go frame by frame you can see them in a couple shots. It'd be too hard to completely remove, so ive settled with this: in Jackson's universe, instead of wargs being let loose by the goblins, the goblins have wargs with orcs that control them and direct them. The few you see in the background are just the handlers making sure the wargs are doing their job and going after the targets. So despite being able to see a couple background orc riders, it's still largely a wolf attack on the dwarves like the book. Ill just think of these orcs as an easter egg for those that pay super close attention
  
And I'll be honest, thats amazing that an edit I made is being shown to kids who are also getting the story from the book. Im only 19 and this was my first edit, I just made this for myself, but now ive seen that was worth it to share it here.

Also, final notes on the stone giants, I really did try to figure out if there was anything I could squeeze in but nothing really flowed naturally, we'll just have to pretend the stone giants are behind the fog. I wish there were some nice shots of them in the distance on the mountains, or much smaller versions of stone giants, that wouldve been perfect.

Anyways, general update: I never like setting dates, but this project has gone on for quite some time. I will say that by this Friday the new mp4 version will be up, and the disc version will follow since its much larger files. The only possible things I will be adjusting are the music "controversial" transitions, which if you know them then you'll recognize these following ones. These are not automatically "bad," these are just things some people point out, some dont, and I think theyre fine, but its all up to your opinion. So here we go, the final list (Will edit if necessary):

* Bilbo/Gandalf talking at cave -> Hiking montage (Music)
* Gandalf talking at Rivendell -> Thorin taking company to leave early morning (Music)
* Dwarves Escaping goblin town -> Gollum appearance at cave exit (Music)
* Fili/Kili walking on ice -> inside stone building (Music)

* Thorin changing his mind from hiding to charging out (Narrative, plus I think it works, so this way stays)
* Teleporting to ravenhill during music montage (Narrative, physically can't fix unless I change the entire final battle to include goats/dwalin at ravenhill)
* Thorin switches swords midway through battle (Plothole - It's either my way, or Legolas throws a sword at an orc thorin is fighting from like 30 feet away... There's just no way this is flying in a book cut, legolas has already been removed from BOTFA)
* I would prefer 4k footage for some of the slight cropping I have done in very very brief shots, so if that is ever released, I will be able to make a pretty nice & easy update, but this will be a while from now!

I have decided that by sticking with the books, mixed with editing out garbage, these transitions are "necessary" and if anyone has slight problems with them, I understand, but it's just part of the limitations of a fan edit. The only way to improve them would be to undo these edits, make it more like PJs version, less like the book, and then what do we have..
 

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Regarding Bilbo supposedly "bugging out", a different fanedit (Expected Edit, I think) trimmed away at the dialogue to remove any reference to a "second orc army", but Ravenhill is still about to be surrounded and overrun. (Azog sent a major detachment over to do it, maybe? And maybe a bird told Gandalf?) This also gets around the problem that a whole 'nother Orc army would tip the odds over so far that not even the Eagles and Beorn could save the day. (Hardly anything about that wretched battle makes any sense anyway!)

Any thoughts about this?
 

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MovieMaven said:
Regarding Bilbo supposedly "bugging out", a different fanedit (Expected Edit, I think) trimmed away at the dialogue to remove any reference to a "second orc army", but Ravenhill is still about to be surrounded and overrun. (Azog sent a major detachment over to do it, maybe? And maybe a bird told Gandalf?) This also gets around the problem that a whole 'nother Orc army would tip the odds over so far that not even the Eagles and Beorn could save the day. (Hardly anything about that wretched battle makes any sense anyway!)

Any thoughts about this?
I'm still not quite sure, so the implication is that Bilbo would run over to Ravenhill to warn Thorin about Orc reinforcements instead of running there to hide like my version, but without Legolas warning them.

I think there would need to be the dialogue at least of Bilbo/Gandalf noticing them running up there on goats, which includes Dwalin, already messing up my structure where Dwalin isn't up there, so then Bilbo/Gandalf point out Thorin needs help, without Legolas's information, and finally, Bilbo runs up there on his own. This seems like a decent plan, but looking at the existing footage/dialogue + my edit I'm not really sure it can be done. Any further restructuring would just make it even more of a mess, I think the way I have it cut is as good as it can get (at least, in the latest version, Im not sure if you guys are referencing a version from 1-2+ weeks ago)

I also want to point out something I was recently thinking about: we never actually see Bilbo show that he has any real combat skills against Orcs  (which is closer to the book), so him running away isn't quite so unrealistic, we need to forget that in the original Hobbit movies Bilbo had proven his fighting skills, we'd seen him kill a handful of huge Orcs, wargs, etc.

In my edit the only time he remotely shows any skill is when he fights a 3 foot tall weak goblin, which he barely survives and falls off the edge into Gollum's cave. The next time, he stabs a few spiders but with the protection of the ring.

He's shown his wits and courage through his hobbit characteristics, being smart, clever, sneaky, so we have no reason to believe he would be able to use those characteristics in a huge battle, especially when has the chance to hide with the ring. The one exception with the characterization we have is, I imagine the Bilbo in my edit might risk his life to protect or save Dwarves from the company, but as we know they are far away still locked in Erebor. So because Bilbo doesn't have combat skills to risk keeping the ring off and fighting Orcs with Gandalf, he runs to safety, just how it was in the book.

So while it's not perfect, because my-edit-Bilbo would probably want to stick with Gandalf, it's still passable, in such a convoluted, mess of a battle.
 

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Could I get a link to check this out? I honestly don’t remember if I had I. May, but it sounds great and I’d love to compare it to the Maple Films version.
 

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New artwork

Project first released half a year ago, been updating it this whole time, confident it's one of the coolest book edits out there if you are interested, dm me! :)
 

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Once again bumping my thread with an update, I know most people are either sick of hobbit edits (then you can click off) or you've already made up your mind on your favorite edit, well maybe the new VFX I have will change your mind 

For anyone new, this re-edit of the Hobbit is one of, if not the, most book accurate versions to date (within reason, obviously some changes for the sake of a cinematic experience), it is a huge improvement on bad filmmaking decisions, very high attention to detail, in an extended edition format at 4 hours, similar to each LOTR, and the Middle Earth atmosphere/physics/combat in my edit is much more in line with what was established in LOTR. So whether you're a huge book fan, a huge LOTR fan, or just a huge fantasy film fan, you'll love this project.

All feedback/criticism provided from staff (TM2YC) has been heard, and fixed, despite what previous comments may suggest. On top of that, I've built a small discord community and have gotten a wide variety of viewers to help try to perfect this edit both technically and narratively.

The update will be out sometime this week, feel free to PM me whenever and I will send you my website which will have all information.
 

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any news? :)
Yep, just finished exams today, super happy to really give all my attention to this project for the next week.

Update for anyone following:
As I've implied earlier, the digital version is 99.99% finished and so my website has that version linked, but I was always planning on doing one more patch. It's not a case of me struggling to "release a final product", but rather, I just wanted to get a good version out last month, finish up school and take a break, then come back and finish the job with some fresh eyes.. And so that's where we are, I've done just that. The theatrical footage has also shipped to me a few weeks ago so those minor tweaks been implemented, and some more things which I'll detail below. I can now export the final digital version this weekend, get the subtitles, chapters, audio commentary, and everything else all set up bundled into it, then it's finally good to go, probably uploaded on Tuesday!

Special Features Notes
-Replaced title screen with a new title, "Durin's Folk"
-Redid dissolves for title cards/most fade-ins to now be more exponential and not so sudden

Main Edit Notes:
-(Theatrical footage fix) Finally improved the other Rivendell transition I was iffy about, when we cut from Moon Runes/Elrond saying "not deem it wise" to the Dwarves, there is no more bleeding leftover music. I was able to remove it by using the theatrical version, which had no music while the Dwarves were talking.
-(Theatrical footage fix) Extended Mirkwood sequence featuring a new shot of the path/more dialogue kept from extended
-(Theatrical footage fix) When Bard finds the prophecy, the theatrical version has been inserted to replace the extended, which is identical except it does not have a shot of Alfrid "spying"
-Removed a shot during the goblin escape sequence that showed the Company on two separate levels which was never expanded upon in my cut, since it's assumed they're just all together on the same bridge, so no need to show that

Continuing to try to be a perfectionist:
- (Theatrical footage fix) When Dain arrives, slightly higher quality video & audio has been inserted. Now the entire edit is uniform in the quality of its source files, (the original footage I used had been transcoded from the blu ray h264 -> high bitrate h264 back when I couldn't figure out how to work with MKVs lol, but now I do, so that second layer of compression isn't necessary)
- Thought I might as well, finally added some waterfall SFX during the first hiking montage to match how the official AUJ montage also sounded, but this was the only exception, the rest of the montage was silent except for music
- Added extra dialogue when they are escaping the goblin tunnels to provide context that the daylight will save them from the goblins "Daylight! come on!"-Gandalf
- Added back very quick center channel audio when the Eagles show up and Ori/Dori are hanging, so now their yells don't fade out
- Removed Bain's grunt when Bard shoots the arrow
- Removed Bain's face from the shot of Bard holding his broken bow (Missed that, whoops)
- Added the Laketown trumpet composition info to the credits along with the other special compositions/sung songs
- Some very minor additional audio mixing tweaks to really make sure everything is as best as can be - no missing ambiance/wind background sfx when I replaced music, no imbalanced music volumes, no missing footsteps/breathing/other foley SFX, every transition I do every single detail is considered
 

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Let me know when you've got a second version ready with all those areas worked on. Once those edits are finessed to be as smooth as all the others this will be a great edit.
Hey there! Just letting you know that all of the things you commented on have been fixed in this edit (& more), if you're curious you can read the update log on the download page (which I can send to you again, it's been a while and you've probably forgotten about this project). To summarize it's my vision of a single movie extended edition book accurate Hobbit.

What actually surprised me was that there are only 2 other Hobbit edits of the same "editing philosophy/length" on IFDB, every other hobbit edit listed is a duology, trilogy, or non-book focused edit (which is totally fine!), but with that in mind, I feel a bit more content knowing that I (personally) feel I'm submitting something that hasn't been explored or experienced as much, especially with the new VFX edits added. Even with those 2, the Maple edit and Billy Batson edit, each still offers their own unique and different vision.

Anyways, I've submitted using the website function but if there's any problems let me know. I'm completely understanding that it's a slow process and you have dozens of other edits to review too, so in the mean time, thanks for the work you do here & if anyone here checks my edit I hope you enjoy, feel free to PM me w/ any questions/feedback.
 
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  • New color grading, not only to match a little closer to LOTR, but mainly to fix the over saturation and permanent "green tint"

Did you also add any film grain to make it look a bit less digital and closer to "The Lord of the Rings"?
 

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Did you also add any film grain to make it look a bit less digital and closer to "The Lord of the Rings"?
No, this was something I tested but it didn’t feel right. It’s hard enough to accurately replicate it on screen plus then matching LOTR. If someone can pull it off and share their method then I might
 

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No, this was something I tested but it didn’t feel right. It’s hard enough to accurately replicate it on screen plus then matching LOTR. If someone can pull it off and share their method then I might

Have you tried the film scan overlay method using scans of real film?

If not, here's a place where you can find some free high-quality film scans that you could use:

https://tdcat.com/downloads/filmgrain/
 

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Have you tried the film scan overlay method using scans of real film?

If not, here's a place where you can find some free high-quality film scans that you could use:

https://tdcat.com/downloads/filmgrain/
I tried built in grain with specific settings in Premiere and later also a 35mm film grain, but these are just layers and don’t interact differently with shadows and the actual content like real film grain. So yeah it’s possible and maybe I should test watching the whole movie with it but when I was doing test clips it felt like it wasn’t necessary
 
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