Jackson to do The Hobbit, after all?

I saw it yesterday.

Overall, I liked it. Having seen the first two I kinda knew what to expect going in and it met those expectations (for good and ill).

I did not have much of a problem with the new additions, especially Tauriel and the big bad orcs. The Hobbit as Tolkien wrote it would be been more of a Bromance. The LotR tie-ins were nice, too. I remember reading a long time ago the whole idea of Bilbo’s ring being the “one ring” happened long after he wrote the Hobbit, so I don’t mind the George Lucas retcon.

That said, the LotR movies have the same lasting impact to me that the original Star Wars trilogy has. I’m not sure I’ll watch these again intentionally – unless I do some crazy Peter Jackson Middle Earth marathon, but I enjoyed the ride.

The only time I got thrown out of Martin Freeman as Bilbo was at the end when he was explaining his thoughts on Thorin. I expected him to say, “Well, you know… he’s just this guy.”

Also saw it yesterday (haven’t had time). Overall I liked it - not great, but adequate entertainment. Didn’t mind Tauriel, though the last dialogue there is cringeworthy.

A pity they had to spoil the movies by making them a trilogy. I think this could have been done easily - and much better - as two movies.

I heard there’s a fan edit that cuts the trilogy down to 4 hours. Basically, it gets rid of all of the non-Bilbo parts.

Honestly, I didn’t mind the non-Bilbo bits. They work - for me at least - in the context of all the films. Besides, it helps make sense of why Gandalf is absent all the time.

What I would like to see is to trim the excessively lengthy bits which add nothing to the narrative or even enjoyment of the film - e.g., the bunny chase, the barrel ride,…some bits at the end which 1. everyone knows is coming, and 2. employs the oldest action movie cliche ever and just drags on and on.

The cardinal sin - to me - of the Hobbit trilogy is that at many times during these films I’ve sat and thought “ok, let’s get on to the next scene” and been bored. I can live with weird narrative choices and inconsistencies as long as I’m well entertained. At it’s core, the films are great popcorn entertainment (and a decent retelling of the book). They just need some tighter editing.

This is completely due to having to fill out three movies. I mean, I understand the allure of an extra $500m+ that another movie would make but that required a lot of stretching, as well as other story elements to add a quadrant. I didn’t mind these too much in the movies themselves but will look forward to seeing something like this or making my own when the Battle of Five Armies comes out.

Here are the notes the editor posted:

So, over the weekend, I decided to condense all three movies (An Unexpected Journey, The Desolation of Smaug & The Battle of the Five Armies) into a single 4-hour feature that more closely resembles Tolkien’s original novel. Well, okay, it’s closer to 4.5 hours, but those credits go for ages! This new version was achieved through a series of major and minor cuts, detailed below:

•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). Like the novel, Gandalf abruptly disappears on the borders of Mirkwood, and then reappears at the siege of the Lonely Mountain with tidings of an orc army.

•The Tauriel-Legolas-Kili love triangle has also been removed. Indeed, Tauriel is no longer a character in the film, and Legolas only gets a brief cameo during the Mirkwood arrest. This was the next clear candidate for elimination, given how little plot value and personality these two woodland sprites added to the story. Dwarves are way more fun to hang out with anyway :P

•The Pale Orc subplot is vastly trimmed down. Azog is obviously still leading the attack on the Lonely Mountain at the end, but he doesn’t appear in the film until after the company escapes the goblin tunnels (suggesting that the slaying of the Great Goblin is a factor in their vendetta, as it was in the novel).

•Several of the Laketown scenes have been cut, such as Bard’s imprisonment and the superfluous orc raid. However, I’ve still left quite a bit of it in, since I felt it succeeded in getting the audience to care about the down-beaten fisherfolk, and the struggles of Bard to protect them.

•The prelude with old Bilbo is gone. Like the book, I find the film works better if the scope starts out small (in a cosy hobbit hole), and then grows organically as Bilbo ventures out into the big, scary world. It’s far more elegant to first learn about Smaug from the dwarves’ haunting ballad (rather than a bombastic CGI sequence). The prelude also undermines the real-and-present stakes of the story by framing it as one big flashback.

•Several of the orc skirmishes have been cut. I felt that the Battle of the Five Armies provided more than enough orc mayhem. If you pack in too many before then, they just become monotonous, and it lessons their menace in the audience’s mind. I was tempted to leave the first Azog fight in (since it resembles a chapter in the novel), but decided to cut it for a variety of reasons. Mainly, because it was tonally jarring to jump from the emotional crescendo of Thorin being saved by Bilbo (and the sense of safety the company feels after being rescued by the eagles), straight back into a chase sequence again. Plus, I think the film works better if Bilbo is still trying to earn Thorin’s respect the entire journey, as he was in the book. Not to mention the absurdity of Bilbo suddenly turning into John McClane with a sword!

•Several of the action scenes have been tightened up, such as the barrel-ride, the fight between Smaug and the dwarves (no molten gold in this version), and the Battle of the Five Armies. Though, it should be noted that Bilbo’s key scenes—the encounter with Gollum, the battle against the Mirkwood spiders, and the conversation with Smaug—have not been tampered with, since they proved to be excellent adaptions (in no small part due to Freeman’s performance), and serve to refocus the film on Bilbo’s arc.

•A lot of filler scenes have been cut as well. These are usually harder to spot (and I’ve probably missed a couple), but once they’re gone, you’ll completely forget that they ever existed. For example, the 4-minute scene where Bard buys some fish and the dwarves gather up his pay.

My main goals in undertaking this edit were to re-centre the story on Bilbo, and to have the narrative move at a much brisker pace (though not so fast that the audience lost grasp of what was going on). Creating smooth transitions between scenes was of particular importance in this regard. I even reordered a few moments in the film to make it flow better. The toughest parts to edit were the barrel-ride and the fight on Ravenhill (since Legolas and Tauriel kept bursting in with their gymnastics routine). If you have any further questions over what was taken out and what was left in, please post them in the comments section.

When in doubt, cut more Laketown. From the comments, this version of the movie(s) would have broken into parts 1 and 2, with the 1st ending at the trip across the lake after making the deal with the Master and people of Laketown to share the wealth of the Mountain, and part 2 starting with the arrival on the far shore.

That sounds like an enormous improvement, one that might make the trilogy watchable. I’ve only seen the first two and don’t plan on viewing the third, but edits like this would change my mind and I’d give it a go.

Yup. Just don’t ask where he got the Five Armies footage.

The fan edit sounds good and is something I was considering teaching myself to do as I do think there is a good movie to be found in all of this mess.

Personally I would have left in some of the Tauriel material but I know I’m in the minority on this one. I also would have left in the White Council scene from the first movie as it was eluded to in the book, wasn’t it? I think that scene plays well but none of the rest of the Dol Gulder plot-line does. Where ever possible I would have removed any over the top action sequences that play more like a cartoon than a live action film and break immersion accordingly.

O.k., I finally saw this, just before it leaves theatres. There is probably the least “wrong” or annoying in this movie of the trilogy, but it’s amazing how light and vapid the whole trilogy was - there was actual tension and drama in the Helm’s Deep fight, while the Five Army battles just feel unengaging and uninspired.

I was actually completely fine with at least the intentions behind much of the additional content in the trilogy - as long as the material was consistent with what Tolkien wrote happened. So I enjoyed all the White Council material, and it was great to get the opportunity to see even stunt double/CGI Christopher Lee kick ass one last time. And I was fine with the addition of Tauriel, since if ever material was in need of diversification by adding some female roles, it was Tolkien’s writing, and an elven warrior fit the material. Same with the inclusion of Legolas, since we know he was likely involved in at least the Battle of Five Armies. And the creation of Azog, since movies work better with identifiable protagonists.

But so much was just pointless and wretched, including almost all of Laketown, the expansion of Bard’s role to the point where the first half of this movie made him the primary character and the resulting marginalization of Bilbo and his role, and Jackson’s constant heavy-handedness and over-simplification when dealing with things like Thorin’s greed, the “black arrows” of Bard (and the omission of Bilbo’s role in finding Smaug’s weakness) and constant slapstick crap. Radagast. I also disliked the treatment of the ring - in the Hobbit, the ring is supposed to be a consequence-less magic item fortuitously found, which Bilbo happily employs whenever desirable. I really wish these movies had been released in chronological order, so that the reality of the ring’s nature could have been revealed to moviegoers as intended. I also remember being really disheartened when reading the beginning of Lord of the Rings, to discover that Bilbo was too old to participate, which would have come across far better in the LotR movies if we were already acquainted with Martin Freeman’s Bilbo, as he did an amazing job with the character - perfect.

There were some other things I liked: the look and character of Smaug (and related action scenes) were perfect in both movies (although his story should have ended last film); I liked the Tolkien fan service by mentioning Morgoth and Angband; I liked what little we saw of the Dwarf army and the discipline of the Elf army (although they seemed like clowns during the battle - and what was with them joining the battle by charging the Dwarf rear, as if they wouldn’t have been savaged given the immediately prior scene?), I liked the Elf King and the White Council as previously mentioned, and Martin Freeman and Richard Armitage really brought their characters to life in unexpected ways.

This really could have been the best of the movies, if it was a single 3.5 hour movie, and I think cutting it down to that duration would be surprisingly easy (although couldn’t always be done with the existing footage). A lot of the significance of various character arcs was lost when split - this movie, in particular, just doesn’t work as a stand-alone movie, and it’s hard to appreciate the love triangle when it’s difficult to even remember.

I guess I’m more glad than not that these movies were made — but it’s close, and I’m not sure I’ll ever watch them again. Which makes for an interesting comparison to the Star Wars prequels, which I definitely wish were never made – but there are many scenes in them that I’d enjoy rewatching.

I didn’t think Tauriel was even at the top of the list of things I would like removed from these movies. I mean I don’t know she was necessary, but there is probably a good 30 minutes or so from each movie I would remove, maybe a little more. I can’t even imagine an extended version.

It’s weird to find myself in agreement with Desslock when it comes to movies, but: I agree with Dess. Which probably means everybody else hates us now. ;)

The problem is almost all of the additions to the film which weren’t in the books feel like digressions away from the main plot, not enhancements which enrich the overall experience. I like Tauriel, but she felt like a character in need of her own arc; and not a dreadful “love triangle / star-crossed romance,” because that is clearly not Jackson’s forte. Likewise, Legolas’s presence isn’t that unreasonable, since he is canonically Thranduil’s son; but all of his scenes felt gratuitous, like he’s just there to appease the fanboys/-girls, not because he adds anything to the story (…omg, he’s Middle-earth’s Wolverine). I thought Azog made a pretty credible antagonist in the first film, only to be completely sidelined in the second before returning for the third; that would be like, say, sidelining Vader before ESB to be replaced by Darth Pancho, before bringing him back in RotJ. Same with the White Council: it was great seeing them in action, particularly Galadriel; but again, it just doesn’t have anything to do with the central narrative.

I also disliked the treatment of the ring - in the Hobbit, the ring is supposed to be a consequence-less magic item fortuitously found, which Bilbo happily employs whenever desirable.

Well, here it gets tricky, since as I dimly recall, Tolkien hadn’t mapped out LotR when he wrote the Hobbit. Thus, making Gollum’s ring the One Ring and the Necromancer was Sauron etc. were retcons he invented when he wrote LotR. But since the films have been made backwards, it’s impossible to ignore what happened in the LotR trilogy.

I agree with the sentiments about Tauriel. I didn’t think the character was terrible, and obviously from a studio point of view, The Hobbit suffers from a lack of female characters, so I get why she was added. She just didn’t fit into the movies very well. The love triangle with the dwarf was goofy. I think her story would’ve been improved if it was just the tension between her, Legolas, and Thranduil’s call to duty.

In the same vein, having Legolas show up isn’t a bad idea. It fits into the books, and from a studio perspective is a good callback to the LotR trilogy. Unfortunately, Legolas’ role in The Hobbit trilogy isn’t to advance the story as much as he’s there to just show up and provide “cool” moments that are undercut by the not-quite-convincing CG.

Has anyone seen the EE of Desolation? Did anyone find the re-addition of Thrain in the middle of Gandalf’s battle with the Necromancer kind of dumb?

I finally saw the third movie about two weeks ago. I do admit that it is probably the best of the three. The least objectionable anyway, although there are parts of it that still make no sense and could easily have been deleted. But it is an action packed ride, with some emotional pulls.

What happened to the Arkenstone?? Also, what happened to the elven jewelry? You know, the whole reason the elves were there…wasn’t it?

The Arkenstone was returned for 1/14th of the treasure.

Which is given to the men of Laketown and the elves I thought, presumably those gems as well.

Thanks to this kotaku article, I now know about two 3 hour cuts of the movie on top of the 4 hour fan edit mentioned above.

This one is by “underhilleditor”.

And the more promising one (I think) is this one by David Killstein. It has an example of a 5 minute sequence that has been condensed from 33 minutes, taking out all orcs in the process. I watched that 5 minutes, it was excellent, I couldn’t even tell where the cuts were made, it was so nicely done.

Wow, that David Killstein 5 minute preview was excellent. Thanks for posting Rock8man.

Yeah, seriously, that sounds pretty close to my ideal edit. Looking forward to seeing it.

His comments on the Dragon Sickness mirror mine up thread pretty closely as well.