The Lord of the Rings: Book I – The Return of the Shadow
by KerrThe first of a six-part edit made to bring Peter Jackson’s adaptations of “The Lord of the Rings” as close as possible to the original book by J.R.R. Tolkien, this covers the first half of “The Fellowship of the Ring”.
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(26 votes, average: 8.50 out of 10, rated)
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Original film name: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
New film name: J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings: Book I – The Return of the Shadow
Film studio name: New Line Cinema
Edit crew name: kerr
Date original film was released: 2008
Date edit was released: January 2009
Original runtime: 208 minutes
New runtime: 65 minutes
Amount of time cut/added: approx. 144 minutes cut, 4 minutes added
Changes:
- - There is no prologue. Like in the book, this edit begins on a less serious note (Bilbo’s party etc.), and only later do we learn the importance of the Ring. Parts of the prologue have been inserted elsewhere, which I’ll point out when we get there.
- - New title sequence. Just to give the edit a unique feel, really. Before the company credits and film title (which has been changed to “J.R.R Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings”), Christopher Lee recites the Ring Verse.
- - “Book I – The Return of the Shadow” title added over Frodo reading in the forest.
- - Gandalf’s ride through Hobbiton has been reworked to remove Bilbo’s narration and include some shots from the theatrical version. Just because I preferred the theatrical version – it gives a better introduction to both Gandalf and Frodo, and Bilbo’s narration that replaced those scenes in the EE is really quite pointless. In order to make this work, a continuity issue arises: After they ride over the bridge, they are seen riding through the fields (which replaces a shot from the theatrical that was used in an earlier scene in the EE), then in the next shot they are riding through the marketplace seen to be on the other side of the bridge. I don’t consider it that big a deal, though, since the continuity of that sequence was rather murky to begin with.
- - Bilbo is not seen panicking over having “lost” the ring. As in the book, the importance of the ring is not emphasized until after the party.
- - As Gandalf reads Isildur’s account, the Battle of the Last Alliance from the prologue is seen, unnarrated. In order to remove the narration, the sequence has been shortened slightly.
- - Removed the shot of the Black Rider on the hilltop after Frodo and Sam see the wood-elves. Frodo and Sam don’t know as of yet that they are being hunted. In order to follow the book, neither should the audience.
- - Removed all the Isengard sequences. As in the book, that encounter is retold in Book II, and we have no idea of what’s happened to Gandalf until then.
- - Merry doesn’t distract the Black Rider with the bag of vegetables. Both because it’s not in the book, and (mostly) because I find it silly.
- - The Hobbits do not encounter a Black Rider on their way to the ferry. The Riders are heard, but not seen until one comes chasing after Frodo as he runs to the ferry. To make the Black Riders more frightening and less incompetent. Also, not in the book.
- - Shots of “scary” inhabitants of Bree have been cut. Peter Jackson seems to think that Bree should be a frightening place, but it wasn’t in the book, so I’ve tried to make it a bit less ominous.
- - The Inn of the Prancing Pony has been recolored. Originally, it was tinted with a sickly yellow. I’ve made it a bit warmer to make the inn seem more pleasant.
- - Shots of “scary” people at the inn have been cut. Again, to make Bree a little less ominous.
- - Cut Sauron’s line “I see you!”. Not in the book. In fact, in the book, the Eye is not even aware of Frodo until Amon Hen, and doesn’t “see” him until he claims the ring at the Cracks of Doom. In PJ’s movies, it seems that Sauron discovers Frodo all the time, which undermines his role as a villain. So in this edit, he just says to Frodo that he “cannot hide”, but without discovering his exact location.
- - Removed shots of sleeping Hobbits that were intercut with the Black Riders. A cheap and unnecessary way to heighten tension.
- - Arwen doesn’t catch Aragorn off his guard. To lessen Arwen’s importance and make her seem lees like Xena the Warrior Princess and more like the elf maiden she’s supposed to be.
- - Added subtitles for “Frodo Fîr” (“Frodo is dying.”) and “Be iest lîn” (“As you wish”).
- - Cut Sam’s lines “What are you doing!? Those wraiths are still out there!”. To quote faneditforum-member spelledaren, “Why is Sam so stupid?”
- - Cut the Witch-King’s “Give up the Halfling, she-elf!” and Arwen’s “If you want him… Come and claim him!”. Again, I feel it makes Arwen too much of an action-heroine.
- - Arwen doesn’t summon the flood at the ford. Both to lessen Arwen’s importance, and because it’s not in the book – where it was Elrond and Gandalf who summoned the flood.
- - Cut Arwen’s line “What grace is given me, let it pass to him”. Both to lessen her importance, and because I haven’t the slightest clue what it’s supposed to mean.
- - As Arwen cradles the unconscious Frodo in her arms, we fade to “End of Book I”. Like the book, this edit ends with Frodo falling unconscious at the fords of Bruinen.
The new version of Book I is finished and uploaded. The following changes have been made from the first DVD release:
- - The title sequence has been changed to match the style used for Books V and VI
- - Gandalf’s line about the “long-expected party” has been cut to allow for a smoother audio transition
- - Cut some of Bilbo’s speech, going directly from “I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like, and like less than half of you half as well as you deserve” (or however that line goes…) to “I regret to announce this is the end”, without the mumbling in-between
- - The Last Alliance flashback has been extended to include the establishing shot of the marching armies and a shot of Elendil wielding Narsil
- - Shots of the Wood Elves have been flipped to fix a continuity error
- - Cut Pippin’s “Oh, that was close” and Merry’s bit with the carrot after their stumble down the cliff
- - Cut Frodo seeing the Eye at the inn
- - Cut Aragorn throwing his torch at a Ringwraith
- - Cut Sam’s line “Look Frodo, it’s Mr. Bilbo’s trolls!”
- - The flight to the ford has been shortened somewhat
- - Also, this release has a higher video bitrate than the first one, and the audio work has been improved throughout
Intention for this fanedit: To separate Peter Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy into six parts that adhere as closely as possible to the six books of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings”. This is done by both restructuring the films to match the narrative structure found in Tolkien’s book, and by removing as much as possible of the material that has no basis in Tolkien’s vision of Middle-Earth. For Book I, that chiefly involved removing the prologue and the Saruman subplot, as well as to end the edit at the fords of Bruinen.
Software used:
- Adobe Premiere Pro CS4
- Adobe After Effects CS4
- Adobe Photoshop CS4
- Womble MPEG Video Wizard DVD
- AutoGK
Additional comments: This fanedit primarily intended for fans of Tolkien’s work. Its intention is not to improve the films in and of themselves, and viewers unfamiliar with the book will probably be left confused and unsatisfied, and would be better off watching the originals.
Also, there is a rather noticeable technical error about 5 minutes in: The dialogue only plays from the right channel for about one minute. This is because I realized a bit too late that I wouldn’t be able to edit in 5.1 – I re-ripped the audio from the EE, replacing the 5.1 soundtrack with a 2.0 one, but since I don’t have the theatrical DVDs at my current location, my rips of those are still in 5.1, which causes audio problems for the sequences where I’ve used theatrical footage. Hopefully this does not detract too much from the experience, and the issue will be resolved for the DVD version.
Release info:
65m. PAL XVID
720×304
2.0 stereo, 192 kbps MP3
NTSC Single Layer DVD
192kbps Dolby AC-3 2.0 (sorry, no surround sound – and the official 2.0 track only has a 192 bitrate)
approx. 64 minutes
3,18 GB
Changes from the XVID:
- The audio issue has been fixed
- The black riders are not seen until encountered by the hobbits on the road
- The scenes at The Prancing Pony have been recolored, again – I wasn’t entirely satisfied with the version seen in the XVID, so I made some subtle improvements
- Some further changes to the elvish subtitles to make it seem less modern – “I’m” –> “I am” etc.
- Audio transitions have been improved throughout
Special features:
- “The Finding of the Ring”: A 7-minute short that retells the events of “The Hobbit”, featuring footage from the animated “The Hobbit” (1977) and narration from the LotR audio books by Robert Inglis
- “The Prancing Pony” Color Comparison: A side-by-side comparison showing the color change
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IMAGES:
cover art by Kerr (Label by AvP) (download here):
double disc cover art by kerr (download here):
cover art by boon23 (download here):
cover art by AvP (DOWNLOAD HERE): see this artist’s fanedit covers gallery HERE
cover art by AvP (DOWNLOAD HERE):
Images:
cover art by AvP (download here):
Awards:
Winner of the true fanedit contest in January 2009:
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I nearly have completed my own “book cut” and I log in to find this! You’ve beaten me to the punch, and it looks great. I will keep checking for the eventual DVD.
Looks great!
Review by Kirkafur — January 27, 2009 @ 7:06 am
My comments from Faneditforum:
“Just finished watching this and I have to say I’m impressed.
The new titles and Christopher Lee reading out the ring verse is impressive, this was blended perfectly into the start – well done – it looks very professional.
Now I have to say, this is so seemless, that I didn’t even notice things missing until like the last ten minutes. Even then it was because I remembered things were missing – not that I’d noticed. The sound, picture and editing are simply flawless.
Even your added bit of subtitle matches the other perfectly – I thought it was original – in fact, I had to read your list of edits to notice what had been cut as I noticed nothing!!!!
Fade and end credit – really professional looking.
If this is the taste of things to come with this edit – I’ll be the first in line.
5/5 easy. Well done Kerr.
“
Review by white43 — January 29, 2009 @ 3:04 pm
Ditto from what white43 said. I am amazed at how much better it is by the mere cutting of Liv Tyler’s lines. Many of the other edits to this movie were total hackjobs, yet this one seems to be put together seamlessly, especially the ending scene at the Ford of Bruinen. I also appreciated the incorporation of material from the theatrical version at the beginning. I wish more people would vote. It would be a travesty if this one does not win the prize this month.
Review by buddythegoon — February 5, 2009 @ 7:43 am
Very nice!
Review by balken — February 5, 2009 @ 6:17 pm
Nice, but not perfect. The new intro works, but later references to Gollum for example become weird, because we know nothing about him. I wasn’t too fond of Gandalf’s ride through the Shire. I was going to buy it, but then there came another scene with focus on him speaking, and still with no words. I prefer Bilbo’s sillyness.
About removing the black rider you say that “Frodo and Sam don’t know as of yet that they are being hunted. In order to follow the book, neither should the audience.” But isn’t this just a smokescreen for the fact that it gets hard to cut from the hilltop to the field, because of the sudden shifts in music it would require? I mean, it’s obvious that they are hunted, you have already shown us all the other Nazgul scenes.
I think I noticed two sound cuts (apart from knowing that they are there), one was in Bree when they are nearing the inn, and the other was when the Nazgul enters the inn. Just some unevenness.
Now that I’ve gotten through that: excellent editing choices! This edit does most, but not everything, that I would want to do myself. The edited scene at the Ford is especially good, a great improvment over the original.
A minor point: if you are trying to follow the books as closely as possible, why does Gandalf show off fireworks to the children? I mean, it’s a good scene, but it wouldn’t be too hard to remove.
I’m giving this 4 out of 5. I will try to watch the rest, but from TTT it gets increasingly difficult to keep the movie true to the books…we will see how it goes! Good work, keep it up!
Review by spelledaren — February 6, 2009 @ 2:16 pm
5/5 to me. But I think it is because the Tolkien angle fits good for this first part (the suspens about what happened to Gandalf and the nice cliffhanger, for exemple)
I wonder how will look the following edits…
Technicaly I did not notice anything wrong. Great job!
Review by TMBTM — February 7, 2009 @ 10:11 pm
My comments from Fan Edit Forum:
Downloaded this yesterday, I really cant believe this is your first edit, amazing stuff. Couldn’t
fault it anywhere ( not that I was trying to ). Look forward to the next book, enjoyed every minute of it, and this is without doubt a much better way to watch Lord of the rings.
I shall be rating this 5/5 if I could give it more I would. Excellent job.
Review by searcher — February 16, 2009 @ 3:33 pm
First off, I would like to comment on how the idea of separating the 3 movies into a series of 6 is brilliant. I have never read the books, but I loved the concept so I decided to give this a go.
Book 1 was very enjoyable. It ran so smoothly I forgot which parts you actually took out, as I missed none of them. The new opening and closing sequences were extremely well done and very effective. Right away they take the viewer and overwhelm them with the fact that they are about to experience LOTR in an entirely new way. The ending was also nicely executed and the not mentioning of Gandolf until book 2 was a very good way to build the suspense. I honestly cant think of any negatives or criticisms of Book 1, it really was very well done. 5/5
Review by skyrunner — February 18, 2009 @ 8:11 am
Nice idea, but really not better than the originals. After the great reviews I was hoping for a lot more. (5/10)
Review by dop — February 26, 2009 @ 2:36 pm
great well worth it good job
Review by hunter12 — March 4, 2009 @ 8:04 am
I’ve just had a viewing of this and think it is excellent in every way. If I wasn’t an avid viewer of the originals, I would have had no idea what was cut out. Excellent stuff.
Review by zeropolis79 — March 5, 2009 @ 2:15 am
i enjoyed all of the creative decisions in this “book cut” and as a whole this works very well. many of the scenes now have a different *feel* and meaning, and much of the *oh my god are you kidding* rolling of the eyes moments are now gone. thank you kerr!
on a technical note, i did not find any audio or video issues to report, and the two “features” on the dvd were an added bonus! the presentation of this edit and the following execution is impressive. i look forward to each part in your book cut series.
the only issue that could have been made better would be a 5.1 audio mix instead of the included 2.0 mix. regardless, this is a fantastic edit.
9/10
Review by joebshmoe — March 5, 2009 @ 11:49 pm
kerr,
Wow! Impressive debut. I personally had zero problems with your editing decisions. In fact quite the opposite, I thought they were excellent. The pacing was very compelling, and beginning the movie with Bilbo writing is Awesome. The battle flashbacks were mixed in perfectly, and even seemed to carry the ‘timing’ of PJ in the way they were interwoven. Audio transitions were seamless here.
I am very happy that I have Book II here to pop in
10/10 Stars
-0 Stars. I can’t find one thing I don’t like about it.
Review by ab5tract — March 6, 2009 @ 5:28 am
A very good edit, this is what fanediting is all about, taking us to a familiar movie but with an all new spin,
the flow of the edit is very good, the progress of the story from happy shire, to gandalf uncovering the truth (great place to put in the flashback) to bree, nazgul and so on and so forth, the only tiny problem might be the gollum part, because we as the audience don’t know about gollum – perhaps it would be possible to rearrange a few of Gandalf’s lines and add gollum finding the ring + bilbo getting it to the isildur story? – just a thought
i am really looking forward to the rest.
10/10
Review by Sunarep — March 8, 2009 @ 1:51 pm
Awesome, thank God for editing software…I thought I was going to have to watch those Liv Tyler scenes for the rest of my life! Makes the movie much better (for a real Tolkien fan anyway) and I am having a hard time waiting for Book II (The download).
Review by Laz322 — April 10, 2009 @ 3:54 am