The Hobbit Part 2 (Sequel to my Hobbit hybrid)

[samspider3]

Why has Bilbo waited 60 years before beginning to write his book? What has he been doing all those years? And what is the significance of the book, anyway? Especially since he had put off starting it for 60 years. It would be effective if you could somehow imply that Bilbo's reasons for recording his journey were a way to connect with Frodo and leave them as a legacy after he has gone

You can actually asume Bilbo has been living a peaceful life after finishing Erebor's Quest. The reason of why he began writing the book was visible at the beginning of The Hobbit Part 1, my previous fan edit, where you can listen in the narration that Bilbo decided to tell his story in a detailed way to Frodo. In Hobbit Part 1, I never cut the Introduction of what happened to Erebor. I don't believe he is grumpy, he is just like an artist who doesn't like his job to be seen until he's completely sure he has done it.

It's just my two cents but if your goal is to deal with the bloat of the film's, then this seems like the perfect thing to leave out.

Actually, my intention with the ending was to make it a little bit more complete. I always felt the original Ending of the film was kind of choppy and tasteless. When I was waiting for the film, I was actually expecting seeing a slow transition of Bilbo getting old and beginning to write his book, with Frodo at some point, but in the end the film's ending felt kind of abrupt. I wanted to make something similar to Return of the King's ending, where it takes it's time to conclude every point of the story. Gandalf's arrival was included more like a wink because we don't really see it's him until we hear his voice. Was inspired by an idea Masirimso17 gave me and I thougth it was a pretty nice touch.

Now, my intention with the film is not exactly to cut a lot, because as I said before, I actually liked Battle of the Five Armies and I want to include scenes from the Extended Edition, but what I really want to cut are some things fit the continuity I stablished in my Hobbit Part 1 Fan edit

 

[Neosmith]

Hey, Sam.

Just found this thread - it's cool to see your thoughts on this. You're in the minority of people attempting to make two long Hobbit edits and I'm really interested in seeing Part 1.

The extended cut comes out on VOD this week, so I assume you'll try to use that.

A couple of comments.

Tauriel will die after he falls with Bolg off the cliff. I edited a little bit the scene where Kili dies to not make it that tragical or dramatic, because as I said, i cut the love story. Tauriel's death will lead to Legolas to enrage and fight Bolg. Everyone hates Tauriel, that's a fact. I don't. I just think she is a bland and a little bit uninteresting character, so I decided killing her is a wise choice. I mean, we don't know anything more about her after this movie, so I don't think it won't hurt anyone if she gets killed.

Afraid I have to disagree with you there - I've met some big Tolkienists who are quite fond of the Elf. I personally have nothing against her and I appreciate the female presence in the movie. But the prospect of her dying in the film is quite intriguing, and would offer a more tragic end to her character.

Personally, if I were able, I'd kill of 3-4 Dwarves during Smaug's attack in Erebor. I'd also make the Necromancer the final villain of the film.

Finally, I changed the ending a little bit. This is one of the reasons I felt a little bit disappointed with the movie. The Idea of Bilbo going to the door and welcome Gandalf is good but... I thought the ending was going to be longer. I didn't expect something like Return of the King, where the ending was like 2 hours long or something like that, but I thought they were going to take their time to conclude the film.

From what I know, there was more to the ending. The original bookend scenes should've included Frodo's father Drogo, while the Five Armies story was to include Thorin's funeral and Dain's coronation. The funeral has been confimed on the Extended Cut.

 

[Neosmith]

It's about discipline: there are many scenes, angles, dialogs and stuff you love and want to keep in there. But then the movie starts getting bogged down. So you do an edit pass, check the runtime, too long? Do another edit pass, check time. Do it again and again. I've made something like 7 or 8 passes, always whittling it down, finding those areas I can either cut or trim tighter.

This is the standard in Hollywood, too. Why you often see a "Deleted Scenes" section on DVDs and such; those are the things they would have wanted to keep in, but needed to cut for various reasons.

I think you're completely overlooking the realities of production and post within the American film industry. Blockbuster films are not edited in isolation - they are often constructed as a film is being shot, which is one reason as to why we get trailers long before a picture is ready for release.

There are a lot of voices that contribute to what ends up on-screen, including producers, executives and even audiences (in the case of a test screening.) But more than that, the editing process is often constrained by pre-determined release dates, with the crew having less than an ideal amount of time to assess their footage and do more passes.

Can you imagine just how little post-time they had to revise AUJ after they announced the new 3-film structure? The movie entered production with one schema and then had to emerge under a different paradigm. Certain things also evolved pretty radically - Azog and Bolg were redesigned several times and switched around.

Ideally, they should've pushed back the release dates of the three films by a year to give the filmmakers enough post time, but that would've been impossible due to all the scheduling and merchandising tie-ins.

The problem with PJ's Hobbit trilogy is that he needed the movies to be LONGER, not shorter. it's the only way they could justify stretching it out to three movies so they could sell more tickets. Which is why PJs Hobbit is often referred to as a Hollywood Cash-Grab - and it has created a train wreck as far as editing, pacing, and the rest go. It's a genuinely sloppy movie overall as released.

Artistic interest is not extricable from commercial interest in Hollywood filmmaking. Heck, LOTR was originally envisioned by Jackson as a two-part movie, before New Line said they wanted a trilogy. Would that've made a better or worse adaptation - who knows?

Quite simply, the tale of The Hobbit grew in the telling. In turn, so did the expenditures and the eventual total b.o. Filming a third Hobbit film had cost the studios a lot of money, especially since they had renegotiate actor contracts and film a lot of new footage that could permit the filmmakers to tell the story they wanted to tell, while also having to revise and discard a lot that was already produced.

What The Hobbit would originally look like as a two-part film, complete with Classic Bolg and Azog 3.0 in his original location, and the initial structure and unaltered plotline, we likely won't know unless the studio decides to release a special Hobbit duology version. And only then will it be possible to make a qualitative comparison between the two versions, because right now the official two-part Hobbit does not actually exist.

Lord of the Rings? Yes, it needed to be long. Hobbit" Are you fecking serious? LOL

I don't really get this perspective. Where is there a rule that states, which movies deserve to be short or long adaptations? Benjamin Button was a short story that made for a 2.7 hour epic, while the 300-page Dexter became the basis of a 12-episode TV series.

 

[samspider3]

You're in the minority of people attempting to make two long Hobbit edits and I'm really interested in seeing Part 1.

If you only knew. The Hobbit is basically my most ambitious project xD. I can send you the links of Hobbit Part 1 if you wish by PM.

The extended cut comes out on VOD this week, so I assume you'll try to use that.

I was aware of this actually . But thanks for your suggestion. You can be sure I'm willing to use that version.

From what I know, there was more to the ending. The original bookend scenes should've included Frodo's father Drogo, while the Five Armies story was to include Thorin's funeral and Dain's coronation. The funeral has been confimed on the Extended Cut.

I've been reading about the new scenes for the movie because some people went to theater to watch it in Extended Edition, and apparently, there are no Frodo or Drogo scenes as you mention it, another reason to keep the montage I did with the ending shown above. Dain's coronation and Thorin's Funeral with the Arkenstone is one the scenes I've been waiting more for, and it's a fact I will add that segment

 

[samspider3]

Here is the scene of Bard going to the Tower but without him shooting arrows at Smaug. In Hobbit Part 1, I cut the scene where Bain hides the black arrow, so to avoid some confusion about why he decided to get out of the boat, I used the mentioned scene as a Flashback.

 

[samspider3]

As my intention is to use some material I decided not to include in my first part of the Hobbit, here I am showing the scene where Gandalf is interrogated by one of the Orcs. This Orc is talking about some rings in the Extended Edition of The Battle of the Five Armies, one of which Gandalf is wearing. In the Hobbit Part 1, I did not use that subplot of the ring Azog was looking for, so to give some context I added part of the conversation between Thorin and Gandalf in the Prancing Pony, where they talk about Thrain's Ring, followed by a scene where Azog steals the ring from Thrain.

Oh and during Galadriel's rescue part, I cut the line "I will destroy you". I felt it was kind of silly.

Now, in this other video, I am showing you two things. One, i cut the line where Bilbo says to Thorin he as Thorin himself promised to the People of Lake Town they would give them gold. Bilbo only promised that in the Extended edition of Desolation of Smaug, not in the Theatrical version. However, this line is still present in the Theatrical version of Battle of the Five Armies, and this is a mistake. A little one, but still...anyways, here is the scene slightly rearranged.

Also, I thought it would have looked cool if I add Smaug in the background when Thorin says "I will not part of a Single coin. Not one piece of it" to make more emphasys in the fact Thorin is sick and talking with the same exact words Smaug used before. For this part, I used a shot with similar mouth movement to accomplish the ilusion of lip sync between Thorin and Smaug. The original shot where Smaug says "not one piece of it" does not completely show him saying it, and that's why I used this one

 

[samspider3]

Some of the scenes from AUJ and DOS will be used in my fan edit as flashbacks, and as flashback, I decided to low a little bit the saturation so we can understand it is a flashback. Also to stablish some continuity with DOS, where they talk about Girion and the Flashback is almost gray.

These are some of the scenes I will use:

-Bain hiding the Black arrow. This shot will be used at the beginning of the movie to give the audience an idea where he hid it and why he decides to abandon the boat with Tauriel and the other dwarves.

-Bilbo talking to Smaug and recovering the Arkenstone. This scene did not appear in the last fan edit and in the original movie, the scene is shortened. This scene has been modified to avoid redundancy with the black arrow stuff, but we can see a little bit more of Smaug by doing this.

-Gandalf talking to Thorin about Thror's ring and Azog taking the ring of Thrain. This scene will be used to give some context to the scene where an orc interrogates Gandalf about the other rings, and this is part of the subplot of Thrain in DOS Extended Edition. But we can assume Thrain actually died, because like the first part, this fan edit does not show anything about Thrain's fate.

-Gandalf speech about why he chose Bilbo for the Journey. This scene will be used near the end of the film, when Bilbo says good bye to Gandalf. It will allow to give an emotional touch to the farewell.

-Lord Elrond saying to Bilbo he is welcome in Rivendel if he wants to live there. This scene was shortened to 16 seconds and it will be used in my ending, where Bilbo writes his story and he almost says to Frodo he wants to leave Bag End.

 

[Neosmith]

I really like the flashback approach - it is well executed.

I especially commend the graphic match when you cut from CG Azog to Classic Azog/Gandalf Interrogator. Nice! :-D

 

[samspider3]

I really like the flashback approach - it is well executed.

I especially commend the graphic match when you cut from CG Azog to Classic Azog/Gandalf Interrogator. Nice! :-D

Thanks a lot . It was a little bit difficult to come with an idea of introducing the Thrain's ring stuff. In the beginning, I wanted to add the scene where Gandalf meets Thrain in Dol Guldur in DOS to get to the flashback scene, but i decided to not use it because I couldn't come with how i would explain why Thrain is not in the story anymore. He was killed by Sauron in the last film, but I did not use that footage and using it would suppose a continuity error. Would not make sense.

Another thing I did later: Did you know Gandalf says a speech during Thorin's Funeral scene? Unfortunately, this speech was cut from the film (I don't know why because it's actually very emotional) and it can only be heard in the Behind the Scenes. I re integrated the speech into the scene, with some modifications in the sound to match the film. Oh, the wonderful magic of editing

 

[Neosmith]

Thanks a lot . It was a little bit difficult to come with an idea of introducing the Thrain's ring stuff. In the beginning, I wanted to add the scene where Gandalf meets Thrain in Dol Guldur in DOS to get to the flashback scene, but i decided to not use it because I couldn't come with how i would explain why Thrain is not in the story anymore. He was killed by Sauron in the last film, but I did not use that footage and using it would suppose a continuity error. Would not make sense.

Another thing I did later: Did you know Gandalf says a speech during Thorin's Funeral scene? Unfortunately, this speech was cut from the film (I don't know why because it's actually very emotional) and it can only be heard in the Behind the Scenes. I re integrated the speech into the scene, with some modifications in the sound to match the film. Oh, the wonderful magic of editing

There are a lot of things left out of the film that one can spot in the BTS footage - I'm really hoping they'll finalize the effects for the unused Sauron/Gandalf scenes for a future mega-set release, which everyone knows is coming, in say the next 3 years.

There's also a near-finished Acorn scene, which is great. I think the funeral speech was cut, cause Jackson fears getting flack for too many endings, as happened with ROTK.

 

[samspider3]

Here is the Speech I talked about

 

[samspider3]

There are a lot of things left out of the film that one can spot in the BTS footage - I'm really hoping they'll finalize the effects for the unused Sauron/Gandalf scenes for a future mega-set release, which everyone knows is coming, in say the next 3 years.

There's also a near-finished Acorn scene, which is great. I think the funeral speech was cut, cause Jackson fears getting flack for too many endings, as happened with ROTK.

The Acorn scene is one I'm trying to add in the Fan Edit, but I still need to manage where I will put it. But regarding the speech, I believe it allows to say good bye to an important character in a sensitive way. He could have used it at least as voice over.

 

[samspider3]

This is one of the Flashback scenes I was talking about. Here I used the scene where Bilbo talks to Elrond, but modified and trimmed to fit the context in my Fan Edit. As you can see, I also made the colours a little bit grayish to make emphasys it's a Flashback.

 

[samspider3]

Here is the other Flashback. As you can see in this clip, I removed some bits where Gandalf reveals he always knew about Bilbo's ring. By adding Gandalf's Speech about why he chose Bilbo for this journey, gives a delicate and emotional touch to their farewell, and that's why I decided to show it at this point. Colours were de saturated too.

 

[samspider3]

One of my intentions of my Fan Edit is to make Tauriel Die in this movie because she doesn't appear in other LOTR films and she is not mentioned again. I provide you my best edit to give the illusion Tauriel died. It was a little bit difficult to accomplish this because I don't have enough footage of Tauriel "inconcious". However, to give this character a deserved good bye, I have added some shots of Legolas and Thranduil with sad expressions. One of the shots of Thranduil, where he feels sad for Legolas departure, was instead used in this scene to make it a little bit more emotional and to give the impression, both Thranduil and Legolas feel very bad for her death.

 

[thecuddlyninja]

Is it just me or does Evangeline move her head? I know you don't have much to work with but the reaction shots accomplish your intention for me. Perhaps try a version holding on a still frame of her for 3 or 4 seconds and see how it looks? Not the most elegant solution but I think you want a couple more seconds of "stillness" to sell the death.

 

[samspider3]

Is it just me or does Evangeline move her head? I know you don't have much to work with but the reaction shots accomplish your intention for me. Perhaps try a version holding on a still frame of her for 3 or 4 seconds and see how it looks? Not the most elegant solution but I think you want a couple more seconds of "stillness" to sell the death.

Yes, she does move her head, but you could imagine she was just moved by the wind (?). It's a strong wind xD. That was the only good shot I could use to make it seem she died. Making a still frame for 3 seconds might look a little bit obvious. I thought the same in the past haha. Still, thanks for the suggestion. But I believe it is the best I can do for Tauriel. In an earlier cut i made of this scene, it was waaaaaaay shorter, and did not show any emotional moment. It didn't look like she even died. I'm more happy with this edit

 

[thecuddlyninja]

Yes, she does move her head, but you could imagine she was just moved by the wind (?). It's a strong wind xD. That was the only good shot I could use to make it seem she died. Making a still frame for 3 seconds might look a little bit obvious. I thought the same in the past haha. Still, thanks for the suggestion. But I believe it is the best I can do for Tauriel. In an earlier cut i made of this scene, it was waaaaaaay shorter, and did not show any emotional moment. It didn't look like she even died. I'm more happy with this edit

Overall, I think it works well enough. If I were you, I'd experiment with creating a zoom out on a still shot, just because a 4 or 5 second shot would really sell it but I totally understand. Either way, good job and the reactions play very well the way you did them.

 

[dangermouse]

Yes, zoom or pan (or both) on a still is a good idea. Right now it doesn't work. Are there any scenes of her falling? Fall into still shot with pan and zoom, reaction shots. She's dead.
Or ask TMBTM to add some blood spatters ala War of the Stars! ;-)

 

[samspider3]

Overall, I think it works well enough. If I were you, I'd experiment with creating a zoom out on a still shot, just because a 4 or 5 second shot would really sell it but I totally understand. Either way, good job and the reactions play very well the way you did them.

I'm still doing some experiments, and i'm trying the suggestion you gave to me . Thank you very much.

Yes, zoom or pan (or both) on a still is a good idea. Right now it doesn't work. Are there any scenes of her falling? Fall into still shot with pan and zoom, reaction shots. She's dead.
Or ask TMBTM to add some blood spatters ala War of the Stars

Unfortunately, there is not another good shot of her to make her look she died . The only shot of her falling was already used and after that, I can't do anything. But still working on this :3. Really appreciate your feedback.