Hobbit: The Spence Edit, The

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Hobbit: The Spence Edit, The
Faneditor Name:
Fanedit Type:
Original Release Date:
2012
Original Running Time:
513 minutes
Fanedit Release Date:
Fanedit Running Time:
195 minutes
Time Cut:
318 minutes
Available in HD:
Synopsis:
This is a 3 film in 1 edit running at 3 hours 25 minutes. This is not intended as a "book cut" but instead tries to imagine what Peter Jackson and Co. might have made if they had decided to do the story as one film.

My goal is not to make the film more like Lord of the Rings in tone, but in spirit. The gag-filled action scenes that Peter Jackson has become fond of are minimized, except when appropriate. It feels more epic. The pacing is quicker. It feels more in line with those films, while also becoming even more different from them.
Intention:
It was an experiment in seeing just how much could be removed from this story while still making it work.
Other Sources:
Music:
Howard Shore's scores from all six Middle Earth Films
Far Over The Misty Mountains Cold by Clamavi De Profundis

A few shots from The Lord of the Rings here and there.
Special Thanks:
All the FE.org members that participated in my thread deserve much credit, especially everyone who previewed my workprint as I went along.
Release Information:
Digital
Cuts and Additions:
There are many, many individual cuts, too many to list in all. Here are some general concepts:

General Cutlist:
- Remove Prologue with Older Bilbo
- Much of the Dwarves dinner antics are cut
- Azog is no longer following/hunting Thorin's company, but he is still one of the main villains.
- Radaghast is removed until his scenes with Gandalf in DoS.
- The White Council scene in Rivendell is removed, but they still rescue Gandalf later in the film.
- Rock Giants are gone.
- Goblin tunnels are heavily cut, but 99% of Gollum's scenes are kept.
- Beorn is not in this film.
- Most of Bilbo's struggling with how the Ring is changing him is gone, as it felt out of place in this story.
- Tauriel is now just another elf, her relationship with Kili does not occur.
- Legolas is heavily trimmed to be more of a fun cameo than a full fledged important character.
- The Barrel sequence is much shorter, and the company is no longer chased by Elves or Orcs.
- Bard's family and the politics of Lake Town have been completely removed.
- Alfrid appears in some shots but has no lines of dialogue.
- Dol Goldur is wrapped up before we meet Smaug for pacing reasons.
- The Dwarves fight with Smaug inside Erebor is completely removed.
- Smaug's attack on Lake Town is heavily edited.
- Major cuts throughout Battle of the Five Armies to get the story moving and the pieces in place faster.
- Major cuts to the battle for length and pacing.
- "Misty Mountains" theme re-instated when Thorin rallies the army.
- Kili's death rearranged to remove Tauriel.
- Many cuts to Ravenhill for pacing.
- The film features a new ending created using the various Old Bilbo shots and voice overs, shots from Lord of the Rings, and the delted "Dreaming of Bag End" music cue.
Faneditor Name:
Fanedit Type:
Original Release Date:
2012
Original Running Time:
513 minutes
Fanedit Release Date:
Fanedit Running Time:
195 minutes
Time Cut:
318 minutes
Available in HD:
Synopsis:
This is a 3 film in 1 edit running at 3 hours 25 minutes. This is not intended as a "book cut" but instead tries to imagine what Peter Jackson and Co. might have made if they had decided to do the story as one film.

My goal is not to make the film more like Lord of the Rings in tone, but in spirit. The gag-filled action scenes that Peter Jackson has become fond of are minimized, except when appropriate. It feels more epic. The pacing is quicker. It feels more in line with those films, while also becoming even more different from them.
Intention:
It was an experiment in seeing just how much could be removed from this story while still making it work.
Other Sources:
Music:
Howard Shore's scores from all six Middle Earth Films
Far Over The Misty Mountains Cold by Clamavi De Profundis

A few shots from The Lord of the Rings here and there.
Special Thanks:
All the FE.org members that participated in my thread deserve much credit, especially everyone who previewed my workprint as I went along.
Release Information:
Digital
Cuts and Additions:
There are many, many individual cuts, too many to list in all. Here are some general concepts:

General Cutlist:
- Remove Prologue with Older Bilbo
- Much of the Dwarves dinner antics are cut
- Azog is no longer following/hunting Thorin's company, but he is still one of the main villains.
- Radaghast is removed until his scenes with Gandalf in DoS.
- The White Council scene in Rivendell is removed, but they still rescue Gandalf later in the film.
- Rock Giants are gone.
- Goblin tunnels are heavily cut, but 99% of Gollum's scenes are kept.
- Beorn is not in this film.
- Most of Bilbo's struggling with how the Ring is changing him is gone, as it felt out of place in this story.
- Tauriel is now just another elf, her relationship with Kili does not occur.
- Legolas is heavily trimmed to be more of a fun cameo than a full fledged important character.
- The Barrel sequence is much shorter, and the company is no longer chased by Elves or Orcs.
- Bard's family and the politics of Lake Town have been completely removed.
- Alfrid appears in some shots but has no lines of dialogue.
- Dol Goldur is wrapped up before we meet Smaug for pacing reasons.
- The Dwarves fight with Smaug inside Erebor is completely removed.
- Smaug's attack on Lake Town is heavily edited.
- Major cuts throughout Battle of the Five Armies to get the story moving and the pieces in place faster.
- Major cuts to the battle for length and pacing.
- "Misty Mountains" theme re-instated when Thorin rallies the army.
- Kili's death rearranged to remove Tauriel.
- Many cuts to Ravenhill for pacing.
- The film features a new ending created using the various Old Bilbo shots and voice overs, shots from Lord of the Rings, and the delted "Dreaming of Bag End" music cue.

Trusted Reviewer reviews

5 reviews
Overall rating
 
9.5
Audio/Video Quality
 
9.4(5)
Audio Editing
 
9.4(5)
Visual Editing
 
9.6(5)
Narrative
 
9.4(5)
Enjoyment
 
9.4(5)
(Updated: April 03, 2022)
Overall rating
 
9.8
Audio/Video Quality
 
10.0
Audio Editing
 
10.0
Visual Editing
 
10.0
Narrative
 
9.0
Enjoyment
 
10.0
After following Peter Jackson's production diaries with excitement throughout 2012, I remember the surprise at the mixed reviews and the disappointment of finally seeing "An Unexpected Journey". The let-down was repeated with each subsequent instalment, and ever since coming across this site I have intended to look through the wide variety of edits in the hope of finding something more pleasurable to sit through, I finally got around to it and chose this out of the well-regarded ones first for the simple reason that it is among the shortest.

This work is absolutely amazing, vindication of the production as a worthy companion to its predecessor trilogy. Yet again I marvel at just how much of a film(s) can be removed (sixty-odd percent here) while still remaining coherent, though in this case that alone is hardly a compliment with all the filler present in the originals. What really stands out (or perhaps doesn't) is just how unnoticeable the excisions are, anybody unfamiliar with the story would have little cause to believe that this could be anything but an non-professional effort, this view upheld by consistently excellent audio and video quality.

Being familiar with and fond of the original book I do miss a few things though, mainly "Blunt the Knives" and Beorn. The latter provides the only real issue for me, after escaping the goblins the company now suddenly get ponies from somewhere (the shot of them mounting up feels a bit brief on its own) and within two minutes they are being sent away (to where?). This is not a plot hole in terms of creating contradictions but it did take me out of the moment a little.

It remains for me to see if any of the longer cuts (up to double the runtime) can provide such a good balance, until I then this is without a doubt the version I would turn to.

User Review

Do you recommend this edit?
Yes
Format Watched
Digital
Comments (0) | Was this review helpful? 2 0
Overall rating
 
9.3
Audio/Video Quality
 
8.0
Audio Editing
 
9.0
Visual Editing
 
10.0
Narrative
 
10.0
Enjoyment
 
10.0
This is now my go-to-version of The Hobbit. So much more enjoyable than Peter Jackson's overly long version. Here we get Tolkien's single book in a single movie. Still long? Yes. Does it feel too long? No.
The flow of the story is seamless, as are the video and audio editing. The one audio problem is that the volume is very low, you have to jack it up to hear all the dialog. Subtitles would help. If anyone made those, please share. Otherwise I may make the srt file myself.

User Review

Do you recommend this edit?
Yes
Format Watched
Digital
Comments (2) | Was this review helpful? 0 1
(Updated: July 03, 2015)
Overall rating
 
9.7
Audio/Video Quality
 
10.0
Audio Editing
 
10.0
Visual Editing
 
10.0
Narrative
 
9.0
Enjoyment
 
9.0
Trimming excess from Jackson’s eight hour trilogy of The Hobbit sounds excellent to me. Anyone familiar with the audio adaptation from Nicol Williamson knows of at least one working model. Spence cut this down to around three hours, without sacrificing narrative integrity.

Video - Outstanding work here. Seamless editing.

Audio - Two channel, really? Dynamic - some would say too dynamic - sound design. Some of the sequences were way too loud, though a compression tweak is often considered sacrilege. I couldn’t always grasp what actors were saying. Minor quibble, actually. There was nothing jarring or chopped. Solid.

Narrative - Absolutely no question here. The plot stays coherent and works! Truncated or missing characters I did not, by and large, miss. Beorn was the only soul I regretted. If anything, more characters could have been tossed, meaning the bulk of the dwarves. Tolkien never elaborated on most of them and most could have been dispensed with. The final battle felt short, and also somehow felt “small” ...

Enjoyment - to be honest, though, near the end I was ready for the whole movie to come to an end. Certainly not the fault of Spence, who has done a magnificent job here. I disliked the films when I saw them. The DVDs seemed less overwhelming, but Spence’s edit is a whale of a lot better. Enjoyable example of superior story telling. Some movies might be unfixable, however, and I suspect The Hobbits are three.

Nevertheless, I recommend this highly.

User Review

Do you recommend this edit?
Yes
Format Watched
Digital
Comments (0) | Was this review helpful? 0 0
Overall rating
 
9.2
Audio/Video Quality
 
10.0
Audio Editing
 
8.0
Visual Editing
 
9.0
Narrative
 
10.0
Enjoyment
 
9.0
This is how The Hobbit should have been! In terms of narrative structure, this is 100% spot-on in terms of an epic Hollywood Hobbit flick. I personally didn't shake my fists in anger that anything was removed, and if anything I felt it could have been cut down more.

There were a few edits that stood out to me, as others have pointed out, but overall this was a smooth ride through Middle Earth. Hats off to Spence for this!

User Review

Do you recommend this edit?
Yes
Format Watched
Digital
Comments (0) | Was this review helpful? 0 0
(Updated: April 20, 2015)
Overall rating
 
9.2
Audio/Video Quality
 
9.0
Audio Editing
 
10.0
Visual Editing
 
9.0
Narrative
 
9.0
Enjoyment
 
9.0
This works very well and really shows that it should have been a single film. I didn't notice any technical issues though I'm probably not the best reviewer for that. I marked down one point in A/V Quality for not providing 5.1.

My positives are too numerous to detail here. Suffice it to say this removes almost all the major issues I had with the films. Some highlights:

- The abridged opening. Initially (before seeing the theatrical DoS or BotFA) I was concerned that cutting the opening too much might not allow us to adequately get to know all the various characters we're going to have to keep straight. But in the end, most of the dwarves are just glorified extras that we really don't need to get to know. Introducing Bilbo, Thorin, Balin and Dwalin is enough.

- Though the Stone Giants scene never bothered me as much as some, its absence helps the movie get moving.

- The more ridiculous elements of Goblin Town are mercifully removed, keeping the focus more on the Riddle in the Dark where it should be.

- The seams between films are very well done. Only one minor issue there and it is mentioned below.

- Very much abridged barrel ride!

- No more molten gold!

- The majority of the elves physics-defying athleticism is gone.

- The end battle is feels much more focused, and for me at least, the focus on character helps to make it MORE epic.



Some minor narrative issues I had as I watched:

- Gandalf 's rather unexplained absence from the troll scene is a bit weird.

-While the transition between AUJ and DoS works very well overall, it's a bit strange to suddenly have the company on horses only to send them off moments later.

- The barrel sequence is well done but ends rather abruptly. And the cut from the first encounter with Bard to Gandalf is weird. It feels like it skipped ahead. It needs one more beat if possible before the transition.

- Radaghast is out of place as he is never really introduced.

- I would have liked to have seen no trace of Dune-esque worms, but it's extremely brief.

- There's still some elvish athletic magic, which apparently extends to the reindeer they ride. But again minor gripe.

- I'm much happier with this version's take, but Thorin sort of magically comes to his senses. I'd rather have that than how the theatrical version presented it, but if there's anything in the EE that might help, it would be beneficial imo.

- Another personal gripe is those damned eagles. I would have liked to see them removed completely.

- I'd also have liked to have seen the auction gone. I think cutting from Bilbo seeing Bag End again right to Ian Holm would work. Although I would miss the "he was my friend" line.

Overall, I thought this was great work and it certainly works as a single movie. If some of my gripes could be addressed when the BotFA EE comes out, a v2 would be most welcome! My gripes are all minor, however, and this will be the version I most likely watch in the future.

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Yes
Format Watched
Digital
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User reviews

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9.5
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9.7(31)
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9.4(31)
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Overall rating
 
8.8
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9.0
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9.0
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9.0
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8.0
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10.0
So I recently re-read THE HOBBIT, finished a couple nights ago. Loved it. When the movies came out, though, I basically cached out at the Bombur Barrel Roll. However, this time around, I perused the available fan edits, hoping I could find a version that cut that scene. I ended up watching the Spence edit. It’s one of the shorter options at 3hrs 45 or so for the whole trilogy. Obviously cuts a lot. Notably, it cuts Beorn entirely, a character who is certainly in the book, and I’m sure that’ll bother some, but I felt okay with it. The Battle of Five Armies felt particularly choppy and a little un-dramatic, and having only seen the original once, I can’t say whether that’s the fault of the source or the edit. (Incidentally, I’d completely forgotten that the Orcs had Nydus worms!) I actually wish he’d have cut a couple more very small silly bits, like a Bombur Belly Smash, or Legolas’s first surfing entrance, but overall, I really enjoyed watching this version. That was a big change and a big surprise. Not being triggered by all the dumb stuff helped me see all the good stuff. Martin Freeman is just the best Bilbo. So fun to watch and to root for. I love the distinct personalities of each dwarf, which is an accomplishment considering there are 13 of these characters, and you find yourself actually caring if one of them dies. More Gandalf and Gollum is great. Doing LSD in Mirkwood. And Bilbo saying he’s going to finish the quest because he values the principle of home and the Dwarves need to reclaim theirs—a gem that the movies added to the story. Basically the good stuff shines through when it’s a tighter narrative (though admittedly not without some tradeoffs). Oh, and my favorite change in the Spence Edit (aside from no Bombur Barrel Roll) was that Bard shoots the dragon with his great longbow instead of a mounted turret gun! That just seems much more heroic to me. Anyway, I think some of you like the Hobbit movies, and I sincerely think that’s great, but this was a big win for my personal tastes at least, so I thought I should report in! I’m grateful to have more good Tolkien content!

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Yes
Format Watched
Digital
Report this review Comments (0) | Was this review helpful? 0 0
(Updated: January 05, 2024)
Overall rating
 
10.0
Audio/Video Quality
 
10.0
Audio Editing
 
10.0
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10.0
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10.0
Enjoyment
 
10.0
This is my 100th fanedit review...an I open with a huge APOLOGY!
I thought I had reviewed this...but alas...OOPS!

THIS EDIT (and one other), were the driver to my return to this forum a couple of years ago.

THIS EDIT...inspired me to creat my own Hobbit edit....and it was and remains a game changer...not just for me, but for many other fan editors.

Spence did things here which had not been done by anyone at that point.

The Logolas solution, The removal of the Black Arrow, The Barrel ride, The scoring change as the dwarves emerge and SO much more.

This was and remains an inspirational edit. I've watched it more times than my own...and many others have too, and also borrowed many of the genius flourishes within...(yes, I am guilty of this too).

Little did I know back then that I would get the honor of working with this genius.

To be able to strp away near on two thirds of the material and retain a compelling, balanced and well paced narrative is already a huge achievement...but to then sig down and refine it to this polished finish is a glory to behold.

OVERDUE, I thank you publically, for your work, your frienship and humility in permitting me to borrow from your creative efforts.

This remains MY GOTO....

No point going into the technicals...they are spot on.

Long may you REIGN!
Owner's reply January 06, 2024

Thank you so much for your kind words and wonderful review! It's been a pleasure working with you, and hopefully we continue to do so for the foreseeable future!

Report this review Comments (0) | Was this review helpful? 3 0
Overall rating
 
9.8
Audio/Video Quality
 
10.0
Audio Editing
 
10.0
Visual Editing
 
9.0
Narrative
 
10.0
Enjoyment
 
10.0
As a simple guy that likes movies I really enjoyed this. The story works so much better and feels much more in the spirit of lord of the rings as one great lean adventure film as opposed to 3 bloated movies. The pacing was great. There were only a few spots I could really tell it was edited namely the dragon raid and legolas showing up out of nowhere at the end. There were a couple others too but they slip my mind now. Considering the shear volume of stuff removed it's amazing there were so few easily noticeable instances. Great edit as always Spence!

User Review

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Yes
Format Watched
Digital
Report this review Comments (1) | Was this review helpful? 0 0
Overall rating
 
9.8
Audio/Video Quality
 
10.0
Audio Editing
 
10.0
Visual Editing
 
9.0
Narrative
 
10.0
Enjoyment
 
10.0
I consider this edit to be one of the "Big Five," and is actually the first of the group!

Basically my only complaint about this edit was when Smaug gets hit by the regular arrow (genius idea) he sort of just teleports up into the air. I understand this was done to cut out shots of Bard and Bain, but it jarred me out of the experience a little. This was also done because, as stated, you wanted to cut out as much as physically possible whilst retaining a functional movie. You succeeded in this goal, no question.

The counterpoints to my one complaint are:

Legolas throwing orcrist back to Thorin after running out of arrows was a 200 IQ move on your part and I've seen it re-used be a few editors out there just due to how ingenius it was.

You also replaced the theme of Thorin & Co. busting out of Erebor with the Misty Mountains Theme, and I've only ever seen that in your version, and one other (Wraith's) who did it as a shoutout to your own! Another stroke of genius here brother.

Anyone who wants to watch a version of the Hobbit that has absolutely no fat on it, this is the one you want. Absolutely bare-bones version here, and executed to perfection. Not to mention the inspiration this edit has had on many many others. Nice work Spence!

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Overall rating
 
10.0
Audio/Video Quality
 
10.0
Audio Editing
 
10.0
Visual Editing
 
10.0
Narrative
 
10.0
Enjoyment
 
10.0
This is, by far, the best way to watch The Hobbit. I'm a huge fan of the LotR Extended Editions and this is the perfect companion to incorporate into a binge watch. I'm glad that the extra material was left in rather than a straight book cut which I don't think was the issue with the films. But all of the bloat was taken out making this a rip roaring film.

The only real issue in this edit is the battle of the five armies but, like previously mentioned by other reviewers, is an artifact of how messy the original cut of the battle was. I'm still surprised how cohesive this cut is and will probably never watch the originals ever again.

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