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The Hobbit: The Expected Cut of An unexpected Journey

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Lord_Elrond_St.Hubbins

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UPDATED WITH CUT LIST

Hey Fan-edit forums. I'm nearing completion on a fan edit (my first) of An Unexpected Journey. This film has been super fun to edit. I know there are a few edits of this already going around. I haven't seen any other versions of this film so I don't have anything to compare it to.

My goal was originally just to take out Azog. He is not a very satisfying villain. actually he's obnoxiously boring. He is still in the Moria scene, and in frame for a second during the climax, wich i think is inconsequential in the cut context. Then I went to town and just tried to make it the best version of this that I could think of. My focus is on narrative impact and taking out fan service references to LOTR unless they are totally necessary. I also paid attention to pacing the movie doesn't feel as slow as before. these are dwarves with a mission!!

Around 30 minutes have been chopped from the running time of the EE and some elements have been moved around. This is conservative in the cutting. I didn't cut any entire scenes that weren't Azog related, but almost every part of the movie has been altered except for riddles in the dark. I tried to use as much footage as possible as long as it fit my goals. I always knew there was a good movie hiding underneath the flubber. This version of the film doesn't bash you over the head with too much information, and releases information information in a more timely fashion.

This fanedit is great for someone who has never seen LOTR. It doesn't give anything away from the later films and creates an exciting movie that doesn't pander to the audience. I wanted this to be a movie where someone can start from, not a prequel just for people that are LOTR fans.

Cut List

-Prologue-moved/re-cut- the prologue is pretty much gone, we jump right into the plot of the movie. Information is given to the audience through the film, no need to spell it out right away. scenes from the prologue are now used like flashbacks.
-Frodo cut from film.
-Bits of Bilbos dialogue removed for pacing.
-Dwarves dinner cut sparingly, makes the dwarves less outright insulting.
-Insertion of Erebor flashbacks during Dwarve planning. I love the way this turned out. flashbacks cut for pacing/context.
-Moria scene cut to eliminate Azogs "oath".
-All other major scenes with Azog cut from film.
-Radagast introduction cut 90%, some of it moved to his second appearance.
-Gandalf/Thorin arguments about elves edited to make less of a big deal out of it.
-Extended action cut from troll scene.
-Radagast pipe weed lines eliminated. I kept the stick insect one.
-Chase of the wargs mostly cut from the film.
-Circling of elves on horse around dwarves shortened.
-Bilbo checking out the picture with Sauron's ring removed
-White council scene cut to remove foreshadowing to LOTR.
-Galadriel psychic communication edited out, but still alluded to.
-Gandalf/Galadriel one on one scene cut. Cheesy and ruins the flow.
-Stone giants are still in the film, but the ridiculous aspects of the scene removed.
-Bofur-Bilbo conversation about homelands removed.
-Fall into goblin town shortened.
-Entrance of the ring, falling from gollums pocket, removed.
-Ridiculous physics elements edited from goblin town escape.
-Bilbo speech before out of frying pan cut in half and put to music from the ost.
-Out of frying pan edited to remove most Azog shots and make it more about the wolves.
-Gandalf/moth fan service nonsense removed.
-Music from the OST replaces two themes in the climax scene. very badass stuff (shout out to kerr for inspiring this change)
-Elijah woods removed from credits
-instrumental introduction to final credits song removed
-three new pieces of music added to the credits from the ost
 
Another big change to the tone of this edit comes by the deletion of all the mushy speeches, except for Bilbos at the very end. I think these speeches violate a basic rule of good story telling: Show, don't tell. These speeches are gimmicks to get the audience to feel a certain way, but really they just slow down story telling. If the story is told right the audience will be able to feel the intention of the film maker instead of being told what to feel.

in the LOTR movies, all the mushy speeches happened in ROTK, and they were acceptable, and worked as the series was winding down. it was confirming what had been built up in the viewers throughout the series. However, the Hobbit is the first of three, and having so many overwrought speeches here really dumbs down the movie.
 
(Don't take this as any sort of attack. This is advice.)

Out of curiosity, have you seen either of the two previous Hobbit edits. It's usually a wise move as a newcomer to watch the previous edits, so you know what others have already achieved. Both edits were quite popular and won "Favorite Edit of the Month". "There and Back Again, Part 1" by Menabailee and "The Arkenstone Edition" by kerr. (Menbailee did his before the EE came out, but kerr used that as his base.)

What makes this one stand out against the others?
 
Thanks for the comment, I'd never take anything like that as an attack :o

I just got to check out the "Arkenstone Edition" by kerr tonight. I don't want to sound like a newcomer turd ;-) but I'm confident that my edit is better than kerrs'. They are actually quite a bit different. I like a few things kerr did, especially with the music. it's cool, I really like the music in the final climax. Actually kerrs climax works better than mine. the pacing is a little difficult with azog totally removed, I have to work on it more. I don't like the color correction kerr did on the film. it looks totally washed out. I don't know why all the songs are edited out and the goblin town section was taken apart so much.

I think that my edit is different and possibly better for two reasons.

First it's more honest to both the source, and to Jackson's vision. it uses the strengths of Jacksons vision, while taking out the worst parts. The way I edited the beginning of the film is radically different and I think improves the first half of the movie considerably.

secondly, I think my choice of cuts are just better storytelling. kerr is telling the same story as the EE just minus the songs and some cgi stuff. My edit takes the story in a different more dynamic direction.
 
after a lot of toying around I decided to put azog back into the climax scene. And I think it works. He appears in the moria scene and never again until the climax, this makes it surprising for the viewer and for thorin at the same time, and saves this edit from potential problems with editing the other movies.

I also borrowed one from kerr, with azog back on the mix, the music from the soundtrack fits well in the last scene, this alone makes the entire scene worthwhile. It's really epic.
 
Two more late additions and this the edit is complete, rendered, and beautiful!

I originally cut bilbo's speech before out of the frying pan, but when test screening the edit with a friend we both agreed that it just went too fast from the exit of the caves (dusk) to the action in the trees (nighttime) so I added this speech back in to make that transition a little better, it is however cut down and edited and about half the length of the original speech. I also put it to the music from the ost entitled "dreaming of bag end"

the other addition is for the closing credits, I cut out the instrumental introduction to the main closing credits song, so it goes right into that (which i think is a pretty cool song) i took out the LOTR throwback music that concluded the credits and added three cool tracks from the OST that were not found in teh film: "the dwarf lords" "erebor" and "a very respectable hobbit" all very cool tracks.
 
although this fan edit is officially finished i had a strange idea last night.

I really like the songs in the movie. How fun wold it be if I made a subtitle track in the style of karaoke lyrics. of course this would come up only during songs. The movie could be interactive!
 
Your cutlist certainly sounds cool. I'm very interested to see how this turns out.

Do you think you would be able to show some clips via Vimeo, just to show off some of your more radical changes?
 
This has been approved by the Academy and is released!

Thread moved.
 
Huge Tolkien fan here, read everything and seen everything many times. I will be downloading and watching soon. Having seen the previous excellent edits (and preferring that of Menbailee by a slight margin), I am likely to compare them - one particular comment you made I disagree with. Some of the speeches are the best part of the LOTR/Hobbit series, such as Gandalf speaking with Frodo in Moria about deciding what to do with your time, and showing pity on Gollum. I found that to be a key scene (besides being great writing); it gives insight into how Gandalf sees things, and where Frodo gets his inspiration later in the series. I liked some of the speeches in the Hobbit - some not so much - but if you read Tolkien, speeches and words of wisdom play a huge part. But in any event, I will approach with an open mind, I'm sure based on your cut list it will be an improvement over the original.
 
I agree with you, but the speeches in Lotr are different in character to the ones in The Hobbit. where in LotR they do exactly what you say, and are important for character development, the hobbit assumes you already know who the characters are, so the speeches feel less genuine and are more repetitive. I tried to take a middle path, and actually added somethings back in that i had originally cut. I look forward to hearing about how you take it. It's very interesting how subtle cuts in the hobbit can change it so dramatically.
 
Just as a reminder this film is now in the running for fanedit of the month! So if you saw it please leave a review on the site! if you didn't see it and own the blu ray of the hobbit feel free free to check it out and vote for the poll if you liked it!
 
Hi [MENTION=27729]Lord_Elrond_St.Hubbins[/MENTION], I got your edit a while back and must say I really liked it when I watched it this weekend. Congratulations on accomplishing this difficult feat sir! :) I'll leave review on IFDB. Cheers :)
 
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