9/10 : it's very close to perfection for me.
I won't go into what I liked because it's everything EXCEPT these few little things that I will list here.
No wait, first let's talk about the bonus : "Of Durin's Folk etc." : 10/10, excellent, not a single complaint about it.
Now the little nit-pick about the Main File, wait let me take my notes (yeah I keep notes about every fan-edit I see) :
- After Goblin Town there should be no Azog, just wargs and some goblins but I understand the change: if you don't have Azog here then he will pop out of nowhere 3 hours later and it will feel weird because there would be no context for this character at all. Many other fan-edits have that issue so it's a necessary evil that makes sense.
- The transition from AUJ to DOS : this is a problem in EVERY fan-edit I've seen, it's really difficult to do but I noticed 2 different ways of tackling the issue (this editor's solution is have a voice-over with Galdalf talking about Beorn's house as you see them fly on the Eagles' back over the Misty Mountains. The other option is to skip the Eagles and make the Dwarves run away from the Wargs and join it with the DOS scene where they also run away from Wargs before reaching Beorn's house. The cut is much simpler to do so the transition flows better but I don't want the Eagles to be cut out, it's blasphemy: they are essential to the Book so the editor is right).
- The Barrel-ride : OMG why ??? I've see CRAP-fanedits that handle this disgusting nonsense: I can't believe that the BEST fan-editor out there had to make me sit though that vomit-inducing scene again. Sorry for being hard, but this is my NUMBER ONE problem with these movies: it's what broke the Trilogy beyond repair for me. Of course it's PJ's fault not the editor, but it shouldn't be that hard to fix : the editor fixed things that were much harder to do, so I don't get it. Maybe he doesn't hate the barrel-ride as much a I do ? Am I exaggerating with this barrel-ride issue ?
- Giant centipede : it's gross. I hate fuxxin't insects, let alone giant ones. Not a big issue, just gross.
- Thranduil's stupid face-melt : again, this is PJ's fault not the editor's but I saw other editors handle it. They don't show the "negotiation": they go from Thranduil saying "you have my word" to Thorin being thrown back in jail, Balin asks "he offered you a deal?" and Thorin answers "I told him to go fxxx himself" (we may not speak Khuzdul but we get the gist), implying the whole conversation with Thranduil without showing his stupid face-melt CGI crap.
The only thing you miss is the reference to the White Gems but since PJ didn't do anything with that sub-plot there is no point in mentioning them. Yeah we really needed this to be a Trilogy, right PJ ?
But Alfrid's "hilarious" antics in BOTFA were way more important than finishing a sub-plot you started...
- Golden Smaug : OK this one is REALLY hard to fix, the only attempts I saw were still weird. Just go get a beer when it happens so you don't see it, there is no other way. We really needed it to be a trilogy... Can't believe some idiots still defend that choice and make pathetic servile youtube videos to lick PJ's boots. What a joke.
- Dain's stupid retarded headbutts : what the FXXX was PJ thinking ??? Again, not the editor's fault. I guess it's fixable but goddamnit that's a LOT of work to re-edit that whole overly dramatic war-montage (which is pointless 'cuz we don't care about dead elves we never met and I don't buy Thranduil being shocked: you led your people to their doom for a bunch of gems you greedy axxhole). Some editors managed to fix this mess but it must have taken them so long that they didn't have time to fix all the rest of the retarded crap from BOTFA, so it wasn't worth it. Again, go get a beer when it happens and be happy that there were no were-worms earlier.
- No goats, then goats: this is a problem of the Theatrical Cut (yeah they actually showed this nonsense in the official release that people paid for: so unprofessional...), I guess the editor is right: there is no fight between Dwarves and Elves in the Book but it feels weird to see Thorin ride a goat that was never there to begin with.
That's it, it may seem like a lot but aside from the barrel-ride these are all tiny nitpicks that when I summed up amount to a mere 0.5/10 (the other 0.5 is for the Barrel-ride alone) : everything else is solid gold.
Solid : not goddamn molten gold on Smaug !!! Oh wait, was PJ trying to give a reason for why Smaug is called "the golden" even if he is red ? It wasn't worth it , PJ : that whole Eebor Indiana Jones crap scene was beyond retarded.
There is no room to write all the good stuff, look how much I wrote just for a few tiny little nit-picks !
Now, to the editor (who may be here: he walks here and there they say, as an old man hooded and cloaked):
when old, march to Gondor ! Demand to be buried next to King Elessar, for you too saved Middle-Earth from Evil.
PS : he also fixed the color somehow so now it looks like Middle-Earth again not some cartoonish videogame.
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Jan_El_Senor
7 years ago
The cut is much simpler to do so the transition flows better but I don't want the Eagles to be cut out, it's blasphemy: they are essential to the Book so the editor is right).
Agreed, but I do wish he cut Gandalf sending the moth before the Eagles came.
Perpetual outrage is the most popular religion today.
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GoldenEye
7 years ago
So I'm the editor, and yes I do walk here and there on these boards :)
I'll try to respond to most of your points here.
- The AUJ/DOS transition. Ugh, you're right in that every faneditor has struggled with this. My solution was exactly what you said- cutting the eagles actually makes the scene work better, but so many people were pissed that I cut them! So I had to reinsert them at the cost of having an awkward transition.
- Now I cut the barrel ride down considerably, surely you don't think it was that bad?? My version doesn't have Legolas tiptoeing across heads or Bombur bouncing across rocks and orcs!
- I thought Thranduil's face melt was pretty cool actually.
- Gold Smaug was a huge pain for me. You really need to show him bursting out of the mountain, but it's impossible to remove the gold from his skin without having access to the original CG files. Changing the color isnt't too hard, but the shiny texture can't be fixed. Oh well.
- The battle sequence was such a sloppy, cartoonish mess in the theatrical version. The Extended Cut only increased the lunacy. PJ's version of Dain was horribly conceived, but I had to include him for the sake of continuity. The head butts were silly, I agree.
Thanks though for the nice words overall. It was a lot of work and I'm glad you enjoyed it :)
J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit
www.maple-films.com/the-hobbit-fanedit
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Conan-1982
7 years ago
Hello, thank you for answering my overly long post :)
I just wanted to point out another thing that I liked : you are the only editor who managed to do something with the final scene of AUJ (Smaug's eye), I like that scene and the way you inserted it in the second file was really nice !
Yeah the barrel ride is a really deep scar that will never be fully healed even if I sail to the Undying Lands: it's because the hype was clouding my judgment from the beginning of AUJ all the way a year later half-way through DOS.
I was so happy to be back in Middle-Earth that I didn't notice any problem with AUJ and I was still enthralled while in Mirkwood (not even the face-melt disturbed me back then, my happiness blinded me completely) ... and then that Orc face popped up out of nowhere and all the hype and happiness faded away in an instant and I felt dead inside.
It's a very personal reason and I realize I may be making too much of a fuss over it.
I've shown your edit to 2 friends of mine who are not huge LOTR nerds but they like the LOTR-Trilogy while they didn't like The Hobbit at all : now they do :)
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