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The Red Book of Westmarch, Book I - The Return of the Shadow

I am late to the party, but one thing I would really like to see is:

Fade to black after Gandalf tells Frodo he is leaving the Shire. Then put in:

... seventeen years later.

And cut to Gandalf coming back to the 'Is it secret, is it safe?' scene.
 
This is just too cool. I'm all giddy about Lord of the Rings now, for the first time in my life (I haven't read the books). Like a gazilion other people, I watched the films in the theatre without any real excitement. While I enjoyed them quite a bit, they didn't elicit any real joy from me, nor did they make me care all that much about any of the characters. I have the EE's (AND the theatrical versions!) on DVD, but I haven't even watched them. That's how little I care.

And then I watched this. Suddenly, everything worked.

Every great story needs a good beginning to make us CARE (in one way or another). Starting with an incredibly serious historical prologue, complete with battle scenes and the whole lot, is not a good way of doing this. The ring verse instead gently reminds us that this is a serious fantasy story, but with poetry and ominousness - and brevity! - instead of pomp and blood. (The appendix is also a cool way of introducing us to Gollum.) But the real beginnning takes us to straight to the hobbits making us actually care about Bilbo and Frodo and the hobbits the way Tolkien intended. Cutting Bilbo panicking about the ring, adds immeasurably to this. There's a party, but you sense something is afoot. Gandalf's arrival was also wonderful in the theatrical version, and I understand why you stick by it (even though I don't know the EE version), I can't see how it could be improved. I love the lush greens, the fireworks, him meeting Frodo - the whole bit. (I didn't notice any continuity error.)

As for the journey, I think your cuts work. I was a bit apprehensive reading your cutlist and scared that you would have cut too much tension-building. But the ferry scene was at least as exciting and scary this time, so no problem there.

The ending is also very nice. I don't mind Arwen's antics in the original, but I see where you're going with this. I'm somewhat uncertain that it's a good idea to let someone apart from Arwen summon the flood, though. It's obvious with the horse-shapes that SOMEONE summoned it, but PJ changed that for a reason. It shows that the elves (represented by Arwen) are in control, as opposed to SOMEONE is in control (and could it be the elves?). Mystery is all fine and dandy, but it shouldn't go too far, especially when we won't find out until the next instalment (if ever).

The very end is great. If I didn't know the story, I would actually be worried for Frodo's life. You could think at this point that Frodo was simply a macguffin to introduce us to the elves and Gandalf and the REAL story. It's a great place to end the story (I didn't mind the "grace" line, though), and it avoids the TOO MUCH problem that plagued the theatrical editions. It's a lot of story to take in three hours, that's probably why there's an EE. Now it's an incredibly exciting pilot for a TV series, and I can't wait to see parts 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.
 
I just wanted to make sure, is the link to RS for the DVD for the new version? How large is the new version? Thanks.
 
All the latest versions are at fanedit.info
But Books III and IV are to updated soon.
So it's safe to download 1, II, V and VI for the time being without worrying about downloading a DVD that has an update pending.
 
Well, I hope commenting on that (and later likely the other five volumes) is not too late, as I still would like to make some input on possible future changes.

I'm a rather passionate Tolkien fans, and I regret that I have not the time (or the nerves) to try to do something similar.

As I do like silent movies, and as the objective of your cut is to recreate the structure of the books, I came to think that you might use intertitles to mark chapter breaks (either with a complete black screen, or just similar to the title sequences). I did not really think this through, but that could be a good way to soften some cuts, and to recreate the feeling of, well, watching a book.

The only real thing I'm thinking about would be using other bits of the Prologue during the Shadow of the Past chapter, the Council of Elrond, and Gandalf telling Frodo about Gollum in Moria:

- Maybe even the Three, Seven and Nine Rings could be shown during Christopher Lee's recitation of the Verse of the Rings (I actually assumed that they would include the poem into their prologue), and some close-up of Sauron's armored face, and the Ring.

- Some stuff about Gollum (best starting with Gollum looking at his hand and hissing 'precious') could be inserted right after Gandalf told Bilbo that the ring had already been called precious by someone else, or at another point in this scene, or when Gandalf ponders about 'Riddles in the Dark' at the fireplace.

- I'm not sure about cutting the line about 'Mr. Bilbo's trolls'. Bilbo told the Hobbit children about them, and as you are using footage of the SEE we can see the trolls standing there in the background.

Oh, and I was really impressed how much better Arwen's introduction works without her stupid line, and how much better the whole Bruinen ford scene works without stupid talk.
 
I probably won't update these any time soon (except for Book IV, which will eventually get a new version so that it matches with the other five), at least not until the extended blu-rays (hopefully with deleted scenes) appear. I do appreciate comments and suggestions, though!

Calgmoth said:
As I do like silent movies, and as the objective of your cut is to recreate the structure of the books, I came to think that you might use intertitles to mark chapter breaks (either with a complete black screen, or just similar to the title sequences). I did not really think this through, but that could be a good way to soften some cuts, and to recreate the feeling of, well, watching a book.
Click to expand...
I thought about stuff like this way back when I first started the project, but decided against it, mostly because the pieces of film that correspond to the book's chapters vary greatly in length. Also, I felt that it would be a bit too distracting. I did use the book's chapters for the chapter selections of the DVDs, though. What I think would work, and would be really interesting, would be to make LotR into silent movies that adhere even closer to the books, using the original dialogue, intertitles and stuff like that.

Calgmoth said:
- Maybe even the Three, Seven and Nine Rings could be shown during Christopher Lee's recitation of the Verse of the Rings (I actually assumed that they would include the poem into their prologue), and some close-up of Sauron's armored face, and the Ring.
Click to expand...
I tried this, but the shots didn't fit all that well with Lee's recital, so I had to drop this idea.

Calgmoth said:
- Some stuff about Gollum (best starting with Gollum looking at his hand and hissing 'precious') could be inserted right after Gandalf told Bilbo that the ring had already been called precious by someone else, or at another point in this scene, or when Gandalf ponders about 'Riddles in the Dark' at the fireplace.
Click to expand...
I tried some variations of this, too, but for various reasons none of them worked out. I think it was mostly because of the sound editing, which made using the Gollum stuff really difficult.

Calgmoth said:
- I'm not sure about cutting the line about 'Mr. Bilbo's trolls'. Bilbo told the Hobbit children about them, and as you are using footage of the SEE we can see the trolls standing there in the background.
Click to expand...
Heh, that's precisely why I cut it. We heard about the trolls, and we can see the trolls standing in the background, so we don't need to be told that they're there.

Calgmoth said:
Oh, and I was really impressed how much better Arwen's introduction works without her stupid line, and how much better the whole Bruinen ford scene works without stupid talk.
Click to expand...
Thanks! :)
 
My intertitle idea certainly would not work at every chapter break. Mostly because there are chapters that have been totally omitted, or are to short to be a real chapter. But that could be circumvented by only using them when reason dictates that it could work ;-).

When talking about the Ring verse, I thought rather about stills (or slow motion), but I admit it would likely be pretty complicated.

The whole silent movie idea really has something to it, especially as I was totally surprised by how well your prologue fragment without narration worked. That might be true for other parts of the movies as well, although it would be a huge effort to decide where to make the dialogue/text breaks.

Oh, and did you think about trying to establish the original time gap between 'The long-expected Party' and 'The Shadow of the Past'? That was something that bothered me really when I saw the movie the first time (17 years certainly would make no sense with not only Frodo but the other Hobbits remaining at the same age).

In any case, this first cut is really, really good.
 
No, I never seriously considered adding the 17-year gap. Nothing in the film suggests that such a long time passes (nobody ages, and we don't see any of Gandalf's actions other than reading the scroll of Isildur), and I think it would be out of place with a "17 years later" title card/subtitle.
 
Hello, I just have one question:

Would you recomend me your version instead of the official one to show it to my wife? (She is not familiar with LOTR movies or books).

Thanks in advance...!
 
I would also like to ask about the hosting of the Red Book of Westmarch films on the info site; the downloader is reporting that the "File owner's public traffic is exhausted." Is this something that will be fixed at some point during a monthly update, or is there a better way to watch these films? I'd love to see them!
 
Rapidshare FAQ said:
[h=4]I get the error message: Public Traffic exhausted[/h]The owner of the file has no more Public Traffic, therefore no files from that customer can be downloaded. At 00:00 CET, the Public Traffic will be reset and you can start downloading files from that user again.
Click to expand...

.
 
Please fix the Hobbit when it drags its sorry ass onto BR !
The makings of a faithfull(ish) movie are sobbing away in a corner of this mess.
Loved your LOTR edits, if anyone can salvage anything from this farce my money's on you (metaphorically).
 
I was really impressed with this edit (have not seen the other 5 books), so I am eagerly waiting for the updated edits of all 6 books using the BluRays as the source.
 
I'm new to the fanedit thing, and never could have imagined interest in an edit of my favorite series of all time, LOTR. Yet by reading the comments I was intrigued. After watching all six books, I was shocked to find there was room for improvement, actually quite a bit of room! The key change being, the shuffling of scenes to create continuous storylines, as per the books. I'm not a purist necessarily, I liked some of the creative ideas PJ added, but the consolidated story lines key to becoming fully engrossed in the movies.

Beyond the masterful resequencing of scenes, the cuts were generally excellent. I despise too much silliness and over the top action. Totally takes me out of the movie, which is why the Hobbit series is so horrible. I want an adult version, and here it is.

I won't go on because I cannot figure out how to access the IFdb site and submit a formal review. The option to sign up does not work, just takes me to sign in page, which I do not have username and password yet. Any help with this is appreciated. I had to do review here with no other option.

Great work! Only thing I would have liked would be a little bit better video quality, but maybe that is something I am doing in the download process. Still new at this, as I said.

Peace - kellenpure
 
[MENTION=27411]Kham Slater[/MENTION] please send a PM to [MENTION=8530]Q2[/MENTION] for help with IFDb.
 
I don't understand why you kept Bilbo's inane 'precious' blathering over the Ring when that never, ever, ever happened in the book and severely hurts the Hobbit's innocence and resistance to corruption. The book made it clear that Bilbo had a moment of weakness, recovered, and placed the Ring on the mantel for Frodo. The subtleness of it showed just how strong his character was and how the Ring, for all his years, had failed to corrupt him. This, coupled with the scene at Rivendell where he's cgi morphed to look grotesque completely ruined the narrative for me as Bilbo is, and always will be, my favorite character in all of Tolkien's mythos. I did enjoy the work you did on The Hobbit considering all of the changes they made and I was hoping this would be similarly faithful to the books.
 
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