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The Hobbit: The Tolkien Edit

Incanus

Auror
The version of the film by TolkienEditor would be the only one worth having a copy of, in my view. Sounds vastly superior to the original edits. The first two items alone would just about make it watchable.

From TolkienEditor:

Let me start by saying that I enjoy many aspects of Peter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy. Overall, however, I felt that the story was spoiled by an interminable running time, unengaging plot tangents and constant narrative filibustering. What especially saddened me was how Bilbo...

https://tolkieneditor.wordpress.com/
 
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Sheilawisz

Queen of Titania
Moderator
Thanks for sharing this Incanus, it's really good.

I agree that the interminable running time really is a problem with the Hobbit trilogy. As much as I enjoyed An Unexpected Journey, which is my favorite, I spent the final thirty minutes or so wondering when it was going to end. The Desolation of Smaug was even worse, with that endless sequence about the Dwarfs fighting Smaug...

So yeah, I would edit that in the first place in order to have shorter films.

The background story about that bloody white Orc was really unnecessary, too. I got sick of seeing the same monster over and over again, and I never understood why he was so important. However I don't quite agree that the skirmishes in the first two films should be removed, they add some fun and excitement.

Why remove Tauriel? I love her!

Also, I disagree with removing the Investigation of Dol Guldur. That was one of the best parts of the weak final installment, at least for me... It was really cool to see Saruman and Galadriel fighting, especially when Galadriel transformed like that, it was dark and very impressive.

I appreciate the Old Bilbo prelude of the first film.
 

Nimue

Auror
AAA I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR SOMETHING LIKE THIS SINCE THE FIRST MOVIE CAME OUT thank you for notifying us!
 

Gryphos

Auror
While this person has made a few changes that I disagree with (such as the cutting of the Dol Guldur subplot, and the complete elimination of Tauriel's character, as opposed to simply her stupid love triangle) I must say this does work well (and I loved the Hobbit films). However, 4 and a half hours is extremely long for even a middle earth film, which is why if I had my way Peter Jackson would have made two Hobbit films as opposed to a trilogy.
 

Incanus

Auror
I think this is highly significant:

The investigation of Dol Guldor has been completely excised, including the appearances of Radagast, Saruman and Galadriel. This was the most obvious cut, and the easiest to carry out (a testament to its irrelevance to the main narrative).

No matter where in the spectrum you might be in appreciating these films, I think there is a lesson here for all of us who are in the throws of trying to make a story work. This is an important question: if these scenes were so easy to remove without a trace of a ripple-effect on the rest of the story, you have to ask--what is this material doing there? It seems to me that if there were just a few of the obvious tie-ins to the LOTR movies, they would have a much greater impact. Dozens and dozens of these references only serve to dilute them all. I think the prelude, and the too-many action sequences, also exhibit this watering-down effect.

Unfortunately, I couldn't tell whether or not the enormous and innappropriate rock-giant-things of the first film got cut or not. I really disliked that part--such creatures could not possibly exist in Middle-earth.

And while I think Evangeline Lilly is a fine actress, and makes for a wonderful elf, ultimately this section of the movie is just one more Bilbo-irrelevant sub-plot.
 

Gryphos

Auror
Incanus said:
if these scenes were so easy to remove without a trace of a ripple-effect on the rest of the story, you have to ask--what is this material doing there?

What's it doing there? being awesome! I mean, come on, does every single part of a story have to be crucial? Is there no room for harmless, enjoyable fluff? I loved the Dol Guldur scenes because they were cool and interesting, and to me that's all that matters. Maybe others feel differently and strictly follow the Chekhov's Gun principle in their writing, but I like to think that so long as something is enjoyable/interesting to read/view, it can have a place in a story.
 

Ireth

Myth Weaver
I *loved* the Dol Guldur scenes, especially when Galadriel showed off her badassery. We got a glimpse of how powerful she could be in Fellowship, when she was tempted by the Ring; now we can see how powerful she is in her own right. It's a nice callback to the original trilogy. Plus it explains why Sauron is in Mordor during the original trilogy rather than sticking around Mirkwood.
 

Tom

Istar
Please don't pounce on me for saying this, but I liked the subplot with KilixTauriel. And not because I'm a sentimental person--not in the slightest. I'm the sort of person who ruins romantic scenes in movies by making snide comments and over-analyzing the mechanics of the relationship. My friends have learned never to watch romantic movies with me.

The reason I like it is, it added depth to the movie. Tolkien's chapters about the dwarves' imprisonment in the Elvenking's fortress were always kind of murky for me, because they didn't have a lot of detail or character interaction. I wanted the elves to have names and personalities and stories. I liked Tauriel because she's a well-developed character, and though she and Kili did sort of steal the thunder from Gimli and Legolas' friendship, I liked the relationship. It wasn't overdone, it didn't feel forced. Plus it actually had some very touching moments, such as when Kili shows Tauriel his runestone and tells her of the promise behind it.

I'm usually a canon stickler, but for The Hobbit trilogy I've decided to relax a bit about PJ taking liberties. Not to say I didn't find a lot of the fight scenes unnecessary and repetitive. However, I actually liked the scenes in Dol Guldur. They added an air of menace to the movie and made the conflict more complex--this enemy is very sinister and shadowy, while Smaug is the more blatant, in-your-face type of villain.

My reasoning is, when you read The Hobbit, you realize that it's something of a kids' book. It's simplistic, and it doesn't delve into a lot of complex subplots and other details. I think PJ was trying to flesh out the story, make it deeper and tie it more closely to LoTR. When you think about it, in the books the only links between The Hobbit and LoTR are Bilbo finding the Ring and vague mentions of the Necromancer--who, BTW, hadn't even been fully realized as Sauron at that point in Tolkien's writings.

While I'm displeased with some of the extreme lengths PJ took the new subplots to (the orcs attacking the Greenwood and Laketown, for instance), I generally felt like they were there for a reason. After all, in the future, I'm pretty sure that the LoTR films franchise is going to be something like Star Wars. People are going to watch the prequel, The Hobbit trilogy, before LoTR, the original, and it won't make sense if The Hobbit's plot has no bearing on the plot of LoTR.

So there's my two cents. (Actually, looking back on the length of this post, it's more like five bucks.)
 
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Ireth

Myth Weaver
Please don't pounce on me for saying this, but I liked the subplot with KilixTauriel. And not because I'm a sentimental person--not in the slightest. I'm the sort of person who ruins romantic scenes in movies by making snide comments and over-analyzing the mechanics of the relationship. My friends have learned never to watch romantic movies with me.

The reason I like it is, it added depth to the movie. Tolkien's chapters about the dwarves' imprisonment in the Elvenking's fortress were always kind of murky for me, because they didn't have a lot of detail or character interaction. I wanted the elves to have names and personalities and stories. I liked Tauriel because she's a well-developed character, and though she and Kili did sort of steal the thunder from Gimli and Legolas' friendship, I liked the relationship. It wasn't overdone, it didn't feel forced. Plus it actually had some very touching moments, such as when Kili shows Tauriel his runestone and tells her of the promise behind it.

I have to disagree. I thought the healing scene in Laketown was utterly cheesy, not to mention wildly Mary Sue-ish on Tauriel's part. (Seriously, no elf of her age and lineage should have healing powers equal to Elrond of Rivendell!) Kili's dialogue in that part just made me cringe. It read like a bad fanfiction. I appreciate Tauriel's presence as a badass female character, but for the most part I felt the romance was unnecessary. Though I did feel sorry for her during the Battle of Five Armies, so that's something.
 
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Tom

Istar
I have to disagree. I thought the healing scene in Laketown was utterly cheesy, not to mention wildly Mary Sue-ish on Tauriel's part. (Seriously, no elf of her age and lineage should have healing powers equal to Elrond of Rivendell!) Kili's dialogue in that part just made me cringe. It read like a bad fanfiction. I appreciate Tauriel's presence as a badass female character, but for the most part I felt the romance was unnecessary. Though I did feel sorry for her during the Battle of Five Armies, so that's something.

Yes, now that I think about it, my Mary Sue radar was blipping during that scene. The healing was cheesy and canonically incorrect; seriously, couldn't she have just used the athelas? It has its own healing properties without the aid of Elven magic.

That being said, I didn't mind Kili's little speech. I honestly thought it was rather sweet, though undeniably sappy. He gets a pass from me for being half-dead and most certainly delirious. If he had been in his right mind he probably wouldn't have said anything like it.
 
The edit really shows the impact of extending such a short story into 3 films. There just wasn't enough of the original material to pull it all together. For instance, you can't just put Azog on a bus between film 1 and film 3, you have to show the antagonist doing SOMETHING in Act 2, they've got to be hunting, plotting etc etc - hence showing him at Dol Guldur. Of course in the book its not a problem because its tiny so a short gap between the wolf chase and battle at the end, but there must be something in the 3 hrs that make up the Deso of Smaug.

I agree with Tom, the story is more a kids book rather than a deeper story as LOTR was. Though there is some depth to Bilbo's actions with the arkenstone, I think that shows a great portrayal of love and friendship towards the dwarves and Thorin in particular, as Thorin realises at the end.

Its also because Tolkien didn't write romances into his stories, so in LOTR the writers needed to expand the interaction between Aragorn and Arwen (which I loved) and introduce Eowen's love interest. Sorry but a group of guys wondering around the countryside just gets boring after a while particularly for modern audiences. And then the writers needed to do it again with the Hobbit and there was NO female character at all so they had to create Tauriel. I loved her kickassery - it was a fantastic compliment to Legolas and showed the martial prowess of the elves. but yes the romance was forced as it was inserted from scratch and they didn't manage to pull off integrating it into the story, so ultimately its unsatisfying even with lots of eye gazing and tears between the two comely actors.

The other problem was that with the extended screen time they were tempted to add in all sorts of bits and pieces that Tolkien wrote about, because unlike many other authors there is a lot of this stuff published for him. Hence the scenes with Dol Guldur and the ring wraiths. For my part I loved these scenes even though they weren't integrated with the story, as I didn't buy that Sauron was behind it all with the orcs and the 'strategic location' of the mountain - that was just written in an attempt to integrate the Dol Guldur subplot but it didn't work in my opinion. In movie 1 it was a justification that Sauron wanted a dragon in his army, by movie 3 it was the justification that he wanted the mountain itself. Make up your mind Gandalf... er Peter. As it was I liked the Dol Guldur part of Tolkien's writing so I loved to see it on the screen - though I thought Galadriel looked funny rather than fearsome when she sent Sauron packing, like she was telling off a school kid. Gotta use another method I think to make a beautiful actress look scary.

Overall I think the failings in the movies demanding the edit show the limitations in the original story and Jackson, Walsh and Boyen tried but it wasn't enough to fill so much screentime.

And WHAT was up with Legolas's eyes btw???
 
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Tom

Istar
And WHAT was up with Legolas's eyes btw???

What, their bright blue color? That was just the result of using CG coloring instead of the contacts used in LoTR. In fact, in LoTR, Legolas' eyes were supposed to be that bright blue, but Bloom forgot to put the contacts in for some scenes, leaving his eyes their natural brown. In other scenes, when he did remember to wear the contacts, the cameras did some weird color distortion that turned them purple! So, actually, the unnervingly bright blue of his eyes in The Hobbit was correct.

How do I know all this? Because prosthetic makeup and the like interests me, and at one time I was considering a career in it. I love researching the methods they use in different movies.

For instance, I noticed that in The Hobbit, the dwarves' hands are short and have broad fingers. I thought, "Okay, they must have used either CGI or prostheses to make their hands proportionate to the rest of their bodies." Turns out Weta Workshop used silicone hand prostheses that slipped on over the entire forearm like a glove. I thought that was very cool.
 
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I found his blue eyes a bit unsettling, he looked inhuman and inhumane. By contrast Tauriel and Thranduil had blue eyes that looked.. er normal
 

Tom

Istar
I found his blue eyes a bit unsettling, he looked inhuman and inhumane. By contrast Tauriel and Thranduil had blue eyes that looked.. er normal

They were unsettling. Thranduil was also rather unsettling. The way he moved was very catlike, very feral. It accentuated his inhumaness and drew attention to the fact that he's been living in Mirkwood, closed off from all contact with the outside world, isolated from his Sindarin kin, for hundreds of years. No wonder he's gone a bit...wild.
 
Yes, he was catlike and feral, his face expressionless yet suggesting a deeply held pain from the past. I thought he was one of the best portrayed characters out of the Hobbit movies, seeing him on the elk in the last film was fantastic.
 
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Mythopoet

Auror
It doesn't really matter what you think of the Dol Guldur stuff or Tauriel. If his goal was to make an edit that was as close as possible to the book The Hobbit, then you can't argue that those cuts were necessary. Those things did not happen in the book The Hobbit, therefore they had to go.
 

Tom

Istar
It doesn't really matter what you think of the Dol Guldur stuff or Tauriel. If his goal was to make an edit that was as close as possible to the book The Hobbit, then you can't argue that those cuts were necessary. Those things did not happen in the book The Hobbit, therefore they had to go.

Of course it matters what people think. Just as people have a right to adapt a movie as they see fit, other people also have a right to explain and discuss their opinions of the adaptation.

I can't argue with the purpose he had in mind when creating the Tolkien Edit, but I can say that I wish it had been done differently. Instead of strictly cutting all non-canon material, I would have preferred he stay true to the spirit of the movie and cut only what would be deemed unnecessary and pointless fluff (e.i., most of the repetitive fight scenes, Tauriel's healing scene, etc).

While I am not a fan of some of the liberties PJ took with the source material, I don't think that cutting every element exclusive to the movies is the best way to go. Though I agree with the spirit of the Tolkien Edits, I disagree with the execution of the idea.

Movies are a different medium than books, and it's hard and often impossible to strictly follow a book's plot when adapting it to a movie. And that's what "based-on-the-book" movies are--adaptations. Adaptations are rarely completely true to their source material, and often expand on and fill out elements of the original that the adaptation's director feels should be explored in greater depth.

I think the scenes in Dol Guldur--and that whole subplot in general--underscored the main plot nicely. As the events with the White Council and the driving of the Necromancer out of Dol Guldur were taking place at the same time as the events of The Hobbit, it made sense to incorporate them and use them to tie together The Hobbit and LoTR.

Like I said, Peter Jackson may have strayed from the narrative quite a bit, but it's not necessary to cut all material that was not covered in the book.
 
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Incanus

Auror
Of course it matters what people think. Just as people have a right to adapt a movie as they see fit, other people also have a right to explain and discuss their opinions of the adaptation.

I can't argue with the purpose he had in mind when creating the Tolkien Edit, but I can say that I wish it had been done differently. Instead of strictly cutting all non-canon material, I would have preferred he stay true to the spirit of the movie and cut only what would be deemed unnecessary and pointless fluff (e.i., most of the repetitive fight scenes, Tauriel's healing scene, etc).

I'm with Mythopoet, and TolkienEditor, all the way here. Anyone is free to learn how to video edit and make their own version. This particular edit was carried out to bring the movie(s) in line with the book. Period. While I'm sure most folks don't like this idea, I'm thrilled about it. It appears there are at least a few other folks that might feel similar. Can't we have a version for us?

The bloated version will always be there--its not like this version suddenly removed the official movie off the shelves or anything. Most casual viewers of the movies will likely never even know this edit even exists, much less see it.

The way I see it, ALL the sub-plots eminently qualify as 'unnecessary and pointless fluff'. Lord of the Rings backstory is a matter for Lord of the Rings, not The Hobbit. I guess I'm cynical, but I can see only one reason to include any of these sub-plots--to make what should have been one movie into three. I think that's a terrible reason to include anything.
 

Gryphos

Auror
Incanus said:
I'm with Mythopoet, and TolkienEditor, all the way here. Anyone is free to learn how to video edit and make their own version. This particular edit was carried out to bring the movie(s) in line with the book. Period. While I'm sure most folks don't like this idea, I'm thrilled about it. It appears there are at least a few other folks that might feel similar. Can't we have a version for us?

Absolutely. I full well encourage things like this. But as to anything, one can still express an opinion on the matter, say what they'd do differently, etc.

Incanus said:
The way I see it, ALL the sub-plots eminently qualify as 'unnecessary and pointless fluff'.

Well, from a storytelling standpoint it is arguable that explaining why a vitally important character disappears for half the story is necessary and far from pointless. I fact, to be honest, what the **** was Tolkien thinking writing the original story that way, even if it was for kids? That's bad storytelling from where I'm standing, and a mistake that should be recognised and scrutinised.

But that's a subjective matter, and many others do feel differently.

But as to something's unnecessariness(?) meaning it should be cut, should it? As I said earlier, I like fluff! Well, good fluff anyway, fluff that entertains me. Yes, the Hobbit cold have been made into one film (just) but then where would all the cool Dol Guldur stuff go? Where would the badass battle scene fit in? Everything would be moving along so fast. Two films would be perfect, I think.
 
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