The Hobbit

Kinda relevant.

I saw a deleted scene from Return of the King.

Of Saruman being killed.

...........HOLY SHIT HOW DO YOU LEAVE THINGS LIKE THAT?!!!

Well he doesn't die at Isengard in the actual book but eh.

Speaking of extended editions, the extended edition of Battle of Five Armies manages to make Dáin Ironfoot even more awesome.

Bask in his greatness as he reduces those FAITHLESS WOODLAND SPRITES to minced meat.

And of course, The King is dead. Long live the King.

I'm...ambivalent...to the fact that that horrifying ogre with the maces for hands and with hooks in its eyes for the harness gets more screen time where we get to see it viscerally crushing anything in its way.

Peter Jackson Freely Admits The Hobbit's Production Was a Shambles

Not surprising. That's one of the biggest battles that LOTR's ever had on film and it goes on and on for like two hours or so.

I found it engaging but I can imagine that for the filming portion that all must have been hell to shoot.

I find it somewhat disturbing that Jackson winged it so much on the story. That explains why so much of the screen time is dedicated to largely pointless action scenes; they didn't have anything else to fill it with.

Yeah, it's basically when the book is winding down because Smaug is dead but the battle is an afterthought and a general Reality Ensues, and it's only described in the barest of terms in the actual book.

IIRC, Bilbo is knocked out for most of it, even.

Indeed he is.

My main criticisms of the scripts is that Desolation of Smaug doesn't feel like it's got a central narrative unto itself (Unlike An Unexpected Journey, which was Bilbo learning to be concerned of the plight of others, and Battle of Five Armies which his Thorim dealing with his heritage) and that Gandalf's plot never narratively ties into the main plot enough for it to come across as more than something to keep Gandalf out of the way for a time.

Like, all I needed was for in Battle, Gandalf be faced with the knowledge he should abandon Bilbo and the Dwarfs to hunt down Sauron now but chooses not to.

I can agree with that. While Five Armies and Desolation both have lots of padding, I feel like the extra scenes in Five Armies make sense and tie into the plot (and in cases where not the plot as a whole, then at least the individual characters), whereas Smaug had a lot of scenes that just felt superfluous.

Though I don't feel the same about Gandalf's scenes specifically.

edited 22nd Nov '15 2:59:51 AM by KnownUnknown

If you merged Desolation with Battle, you'd get a pretty good movie. A Unexpected Journey gets a pretty solid character arcs and plot, Desolation of Smaug and Battle of the Five Armies suffer from looking like a single movie split in two.

The Elf plot struggles from being split in two as well, but still comes to a thematic conclusion in Battle of 'emotions and feelings are legitimate, even in a setting of political turmoil.'

Overall I love the thematic message of the Hobbit trilogy; the well-being of those around you are important to your well-being, and not in a simple fashion.

But, Smaug comes short of satisfyingly concluding anything on that.

Yeah, it would have been better if it had been 2 movies at first like they'd said, but the problem is that there's a lot of stuff that, by that point, would have been a pain to cut out.

if it were up to me I'd leave A Unexpected Journey mostly unchanged, but I would merge the two latter movies and:

- Cut (or trim down to 1/3 of its size) the part with the forest and the mirkwood spiders.

- Remove Tauriel entirely.

- Trim the stay at Thranduil's.

- Make their escape less lengthy.

- Cut Legolas down only to the scenes he shares with Thranduil (accounting for the removal of Tauriel).

- Merge Azog the Defiler with Bolg. Make Bolg the nigh-unkillable-pale-Orc who killed Thorin's gramps. You could even have him be called Bolg the Defiler.

- Remove Alfrid entirely.

- Cut down the scenes at Laketown to a third of their size.

- Subsequently the first half of Battle of Five Armies (which is basically a huge standoff between the Elves, Men and Dwarves until Azog and Dáin arrive) is compressed into some fifteen minutes.

- Leave the eponymus Battle of Battle of the Five Armies mostly the same, but give Fili and Kili more memorable deaths. They went out kinda blandly if you ask me.

On my other forum home, one user has been trying to make a supercut of the movies, extended edition scenes included, with an eye towards making them link with the other Jackson films and not with the books. She ended up with 5 hours of stuff she felt was still essential and had to concede that even the supercut is still 2 movies.

Precisely.

Accounting for a two-film narrative instead of three films, with the epic way the barrel ride was portrayed THAT could have been the big climax of the first film, maybe showing them enter Laketown at the very end. It works the same way as the ending of Fellowship of the Ring, as the book ended with Sam and Frodo splitting from the group and the big fight that ended the film was told mostly second hand as they find Boromir's body at the start of The Two Towers.

And thus the second film would open with them entering Erebor and pissing off Smaug. That way each film tells their own complete story and the first film doesn't end on a cliffhanger.

Meeting Bard was the original intended split.

Personally I think the scope of the narrative is too big for a theatrical release film triligy. The Hobbit moves at such a pace trying to cram everything in that it struggles to justify it all. (Unexspected Jouney did it the best)

I'd say, narratively, the hobbit makes more sense in an episodic TV series format, but the technology and budgets do not exist to actually produce such a thing.

This amused me.

Has anyone seen Dustin Lee's fan edit of the trilogy called "JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit"? It's… quite interesting. For those who wouldn't know, the guy cut the whole thing down to a single 4 hour movie:

• The flashback at the beginning is removed, as well as the flashback about Azog killing Thror.
• The stone giants scene is skipped.
• The action scenes are trimmed down a lot, and the fight between Thorin and Azog at the end of the first film removed.
• The whole subplot with the White Council and Dol Guldur, as well as Radagast, are entirely cut.
• Tauriel is nowhere to be seen (well, she's seen once, in the background) and there's a lot less of Legolas.
• There's also a lot less of Alfrid.
• And several scenes were rearranged to take the changes into account.

I'd say most of these changes were salutary, but some were a bit excessive. Removing the part where Bilbo saves Thorin from Azog and the subsequent "I've never been so wrong" scene does more harm than good if you ask me.

And while everyone agrees that Tauriel was a dispensable addition, removing her also means changing the context of Kili's death, which makes the rearranged scene very awkward. The final fight between Thorin and Azog also lacks some weight due to Azog being barely present and barely introduced in this version.

Those are the main gripes I have with this fan edit… Otherwise, it is remarkably well done, and trimming down the fat definitely makes the narrative more focused and coherent overall.

edited 19th Jul '17 4:43:08 PM by Lyendith

Not to mention removing the flashback scene of Azanulbizar also removes Azog's motivation for hunting Thorin. It just makes him seem like this random white Orc that just decides to hunt the Company for no reason.

It's an interesting idea, but generally I'd do it differently I'd leave An Unexpected Journey untouched and condense Desolation and Battle into a single film

Yeah, there's a lot of stuff in Desolation that could have been removed to fit the BOFA in at the latter part of the film...not to mention a good bit of filler in BOFA that could have also gotten tossed.