J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit (Maple Films Edit)

My biggest thought after watching this edit was, "I thought this was supposed to be JRR Tolkein's The Hobbit?" I don't really feel that it's fair to title this edit in such a way when it's nowhere near a book cut. I still had to watch the Elven/Goblin fight during the barrel sequence, the dwarves still ran around with Smaug inside the mountain, Bard still shot the arrow off of his son's shoulder, and we watched the whole finale unfold between Thorin and Azog. It'd be one thing if there were just no good way to cut these things out, but they have all been skillfully taken care of in various other edits. This is absolutely a better film than the theatrical trilogy, but it falls short as a book cut, which is what I expected given the title.

Finally, I thought it was odd the massive amount of effort that went into all of the formats and subtitles available for this edit, yet they lazily copied and pasted the credits from The Battle of the Five Armies? Not only are there names of actors and characters who never appear in the film, there are drawings of them! I've heard time and again that the goal with fanedits is for them to feel like theatrical releases. When the end credits started rolling and a bunch of faces popped up that weren't in the film, it definitely screamed fanedit to me.

I apologize for the harsh review, but I have to disagree with the general consensus here--they put a lot of effort into this one, to be sure, but it fell short in a lot of ways for me, unfortunately.

I've long known that there must be a good movie hiding within the mess that is The Hobbit trilogy. The Maple Films edit takes some excellent steps toward pulling that good movie out of the muck. It's an improvement, to be sure. But for me, it ultimately fell short.

In an effort to save time, the Maple Films team ended up cutting out a lot of moments and scenes that I believe were necessary for narrative cohesion. Most notable, the Battle of Azanulbizar, which establishes Thorin's history with Azog. For better or worse, Azog is the major antagonist of the trilogy, and in order to give the final fight some emotional weight the history of the two characters is essential. Without it, he's just a random orc that is, for unknown reasons, an old enemy of Thorin and their conflict falls flat for the viewer.

Stray thoughts/criticisms

-In an attempt to achieve visual consistency with The Lord of the Rings, they went overboard with the color grading. The desaturation throughout the film is far too extreme.
-A good effort at fixing Smaug the Golden, but he still appears wet while exiting Erebor. I acknowledge that this is one of the two most difficult challenges that fan editors of The Hobbit face. The other great challenge is...
-...the transition between An Unexpected Journey and The Desolation of Smaug. This cut leaves a lot to be desired. The voiceover was a creative solution, but in my opinion the flight of the eagles was cut far too short and the whole thing feels off.
-I loved the way this cut handled the deaths of Kili and Fili. I think the cut could have used a bit of polish, but the idea was fantastic.

When I left the theater after seeing the first of the Hobbit "trilogy," I didn't enjoy the movie on the whole, but appreciated elements of it. My end game was always going to be a 3-in-1 edit of the whole trilogy into a proper precursor to the LOTR trilogy. After the second two films, I felt very cynical about the whole endeavor and did not bother to check out any fan work in that department... until now.

Once enough time had passed, and my distaste was not so close at hand, I decided to check out and watch whichever 3-in-1 seems to have been most well received, preferably one that claims to be faithful to the book, and does not try to retain the White Council stuff. I think I made the right decision in picking this one.

I sat down and watched it in one sitting, punctuated with a few pauses. I had an open mind, intentionally not being in a critical mindset, but instead imagining that I had just time travelled from early 2012 and was skipping straight into THIS being my only experience with Peter Jackson's Hobbit project. And, with that mindset in place, I was enthralled. As someone who fusses with perfectionism when editing, I didn't notice many issues at all. There are a few spots where the audio transitions aren't fully seamless, but I was more than willing to go along with these and take them in stride; I doubt they could be made very much better. Only after watching this one did I download a few other Hobbit edits to compare and contrast, and this one appeared more sound (no pun intended) in this regard than the portions of the others I spot-checked.

This cut removes much, and does so with fluidity. A fair bit is retained that I would have liked to see gone, but I understand why they are there. Orcs still attack the company as they flee in barrels, but I understand that it would have been very abrupt to remove completely, and jarring with the music. The editor does, however, tie this sequence into the story later with a reworked scene in which Bolg and Azog meet up and march on the Lonely Mountain. It's a little unfortunate that Kili gets injured and appears to be in pain, but we don't follow up with him again.

For the time being at least, this is my go-to version of the film, and I look forward to having friends and family over to watch it as part one of four in a LOTR quadrilogy.

I do have a few suggestions, however, should the editor decide to revise this work. These are minor, and the edit has great integrity as it is. Nevertheless, being fidgety, I went ahead and did my own little fan edit of this fan edit, with the following changes:

[Redacted; I feel bad for listing such minor things which don't amount to much. The edit doesn't need any tweaking, even if I did a smidge just for myself.]

All of these tweaks are very minor, which is a testament to a very well-done fan edit. I heartily recommend this as "The Hobbit" movie for any audience.

If you watched the Hobbit movies because you loved Tolkien's book, J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit is for you. I did not notice any problems with Audio/Video quality or Audio Editing, but there is one very noticeable visual edit of an unsalvageable scene with Smaug. That scene aside, a first time viewer could watch this film without knowing it was a fan edit. The narrative is straightforward without losing interest, and focuses primarily on the characters we come to care about. Compared to the original films, J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit is a more enjoyable and less bloated way to take part in Bilbo's Adventures.

As a life-long Tolkien fan, I can't express how disappointed I was with the original Hobbit trilogy, which made finding this fan-edit one of the highlights of 2015 for me. It's still not perfect, but it allowed me to watch the Hobbit and enjoy the great story that it is without being distracted by the excess or ridiculousness that filled the originals. Not only that, but it was cut and edited so well that I often wasn't even able to tell where it was altered from the original. The extent to which audio and video are seamlessly edited is quite impressive, and I loved the changes he made to the soundtrack so it would be more internally consistent. From now on, this is the definitive version of the Hobbit in my book, and I won't be watching or recommending any others. If you like the Hobbit and want to enjoy it on the big screen, carve out 4 hrs and give this version a go. It might just recapture some of the magic you hoped would make it into the originals!