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Now the Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies has come out, I've been working on some stuff to continue my first Hobbit hybrid, where I transformed An Unexpected Journey and Desolation of Smaug into a single 3 hours and 16 minutes movie.
I must emphasyze 2 things about these films. First, I know a lot of people here want to cut a lot from the movies in order to make them more close to the original book, but personally, I don't really care if the movies are or not close to the book because what I really care about is the coherence, the plot, the presentation of the movie itself. When you know a lot about the source material, you give prejudices on the film, and you will probably notice a lot of people that liked the movies or not don't have to use the "because it's not like in the book" argument. As I said, I care more about the presentation of the Fan Edit, because if you try to make some purist edition or something, some problems will be noticed, and that's why I believe TolkienEditor failed in some of the cuts he proposed, because it's so close to the book that he cuts some parts that give coherence or continuity to the scenes. Mistakes that I don't want to make.
Second, I actually liked Battle of the Five Armies. I enjoyed it. But I cannot stop feeling that it's kind of short. Like it lacks some important scenes or the cuts are rushed. I believe they chose the WORST moment to make the film that short. So basically, I would cut very little from this film, and In fact i would actually like to wait a little bit for the Extended Edition to add all the scenes. But still, I need to make some cuts because there are some little things I did not like and I want to establish continuity with my Hobbit Part 1 Fan Edit.
These are some of the changes i've been working on:
-No "The Hobbit" tittle card or "Battle of the Five Armies". The movie begins with Smaug escaping from Erebor and going to Lake Town to destroy it, as I wanted to make it feel like it's still the same film, but cut in two parts.
-Bard will not be shooting a lot of arrows to Smaug, just one. I think it's a very nice scene, but kind of stupid if you think about it, because Bard knew Smaug can only be killed with a Black Arrow, why would he lose efforts? It's like he forgot something that important. Also, I removed the part where Kili says "he hit the Dragon!" and Tauriel says the Dragon's armor is tough and cannot be penetrated. We already know that, don't know why they did this line. It's like Jackson did not trust the audience would remember important details like this one.
-I would like to cut as much as possible a lot of Alfrid scenes. I think he's stupid and it's the closest thing to Jar Jar Binks in Battle of the Five Armies. I would like to make him more like Bard's loyal sidekick than some coward and mean human being. I know Alfrid is supposed to be an ass, but he becomes the comic relief and I think he's not funny at all. It's Childish comedy. Anyways, I will show him not as a coward, but one of the men who fought in the Battle.
-As in the First Part Fan Edit, there will not be a Love Triangle. Tauriel and Legolas will only be friends. There is a scene where Legolas says to Tauriel "Yes, he is my father. But he doesn't command my HEART". I searched a little bit and Found out that this is a translation mistake. It's "But he doesn't command my WILL", something that favours me a lot because I want to cut Legolas love feelings for Tauriel, so I changed the subtitles.
-Bilbo will have an extended Flashback, when he was with Smaug and took the Arkenstone. This is my opportunity to include a scene that I decided to suppress in the last Fan Edit, but will work perfectly in this one.
-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.
-Legolas jumping rocks is gone. I can tolerate a lot of things Legolas has done on Lord of the Rings saga, but this looked like a Mario Bros. scene.
-As I already said, the deleted scenes will be added once the Extended Edition comes out.
-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. My proposed change was this. Once Bilbo installs again in Bag End, we get a soft transition to old Bilbo wrtting his book, and we get some Narration. "That, my dear Frodo, is where I come in". I will use some takes from Fellowship of the Ring Extended Edition to accomplish this. After this, I will use the footage where Bilbo talks with Frodo that I decided not to use in the first Fan Edit. After Frodo goes to wait Gandalf, we see Bilbo smoking and narrating and then we get another soft transition of Gandalf arriving Bag End, while Bilbo is seeing the ring. Then Bilbo welcomes Gandalf and the film concludes. This is basically an approximation of what i was expecting to see when I was watching the film in the theather.
Basically, these are all the changes I Pretend to make. But until the Extended Edition comes, we will have to wait a little bit
I must emphasyze 2 things about these films. First, I know a lot of people here want to cut a lot from the movies in order to make them more close to the original book, but personally, I don't really care if the movies are or not close to the book because what I really care about is the coherence, the plot, the presentation of the movie itself. When you know a lot about the source material, you give prejudices on the film, and you will probably notice a lot of people that liked the movies or not don't have to use the "because it's not like in the book" argument. As I said, I care more about the presentation of the Fan Edit, because if you try to make some purist edition or something, some problems will be noticed, and that's why I believe TolkienEditor failed in some of the cuts he proposed, because it's so close to the book that he cuts some parts that give coherence or continuity to the scenes. Mistakes that I don't want to make.
Second, I actually liked Battle of the Five Armies. I enjoyed it. But I cannot stop feeling that it's kind of short. Like it lacks some important scenes or the cuts are rushed. I believe they chose the WORST moment to make the film that short. So basically, I would cut very little from this film, and In fact i would actually like to wait a little bit for the Extended Edition to add all the scenes. But still, I need to make some cuts because there are some little things I did not like and I want to establish continuity with my Hobbit Part 1 Fan Edit.
These are some of the changes i've been working on:
-No "The Hobbit" tittle card or "Battle of the Five Armies". The movie begins with Smaug escaping from Erebor and going to Lake Town to destroy it, as I wanted to make it feel like it's still the same film, but cut in two parts.
-Bard will not be shooting a lot of arrows to Smaug, just one. I think it's a very nice scene, but kind of stupid if you think about it, because Bard knew Smaug can only be killed with a Black Arrow, why would he lose efforts? It's like he forgot something that important. Also, I removed the part where Kili says "he hit the Dragon!" and Tauriel says the Dragon's armor is tough and cannot be penetrated. We already know that, don't know why they did this line. It's like Jackson did not trust the audience would remember important details like this one.
-I would like to cut as much as possible a lot of Alfrid scenes. I think he's stupid and it's the closest thing to Jar Jar Binks in Battle of the Five Armies. I would like to make him more like Bard's loyal sidekick than some coward and mean human being. I know Alfrid is supposed to be an ass, but he becomes the comic relief and I think he's not funny at all. It's Childish comedy. Anyways, I will show him not as a coward, but one of the men who fought in the Battle.
-As in the First Part Fan Edit, there will not be a Love Triangle. Tauriel and Legolas will only be friends. There is a scene where Legolas says to Tauriel "Yes, he is my father. But he doesn't command my HEART". I searched a little bit and Found out that this is a translation mistake. It's "But he doesn't command my WILL", something that favours me a lot because I want to cut Legolas love feelings for Tauriel, so I changed the subtitles.
-Bilbo will have an extended Flashback, when he was with Smaug and took the Arkenstone. This is my opportunity to include a scene that I decided to suppress in the last Fan Edit, but will work perfectly in this one.
-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.
-Legolas jumping rocks is gone. I can tolerate a lot of things Legolas has done on Lord of the Rings saga, but this looked like a Mario Bros. scene.
-As I already said, the deleted scenes will be added once the Extended Edition comes out.
-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. My proposed change was this. Once Bilbo installs again in Bag End, we get a soft transition to old Bilbo wrtting his book, and we get some Narration. "That, my dear Frodo, is where I come in". I will use some takes from Fellowship of the Ring Extended Edition to accomplish this. After this, I will use the footage where Bilbo talks with Frodo that I decided not to use in the first Fan Edit. After Frodo goes to wait Gandalf, we see Bilbo smoking and narrating and then we get another soft transition of Gandalf arriving Bag End, while Bilbo is seeing the ring. Then Bilbo welcomes Gandalf and the film concludes. This is basically an approximation of what i was expecting to see when I was watching the film in the theather.
Basically, these are all the changes I Pretend to make. But until the Extended Edition comes, we will have to wait a little bit