Petty's Purist LotR Edits [4]

{{ I have toyed with the idea of seeing if I could send them to Martin Freeman, who gave an excellent turn as Bilbo and then got lost in his own film under all the awful additions. Ive always felt bit sorry for him about that. }}

Had to pause my marathon yesterday due to unexpected door bell business - finished it now. Still love it (apart from the obvious bits that are impossible to get around). So grateful to have these to watch now, I never thought you’d be able to salvage anything from the last two films. What are you all waiting for, forumshirelings? Watch them!

And you should reach out to Freeman, I’d wager he would prefer these. Ian McKellen too

{{ Whats your thoughts on this Ringo.
I have been doing a bit of tweaking to a couple bits at start of film 2 I wasnt happy with, mainly around the Beorn stuff (and a little on how much Necormancer/Ring time to give stuff, bearing in mind I envision these for watching first before the LotR's films, but without spoiling LotR's as PJ did).
Now as Ive edited from the special editions it has the introduction scene where all the dwarves come out in pairs.
But I can see why its not in the theatrical version, not because its bad, its not its one of the better little scenes and is some Bilbo stuff. But in PJ's Beorn just chased them all into his house as a bear and got his snout bashed in by them as it was shoved out his own door.
He knows there are dwarves there and lots of them already, making the scenes contradict one another and the later intro scene redundant.
So I was thinking of just cutting the entire chase out. Going from Gandalfs saying he might be friend or foe. then cut straiight to woodchopping. So it makes sense again.
If I can get it to work of course. }}

{{ Too jarring a leap. So instead opted for removing any shots of Beorn, snout in door too, so they close the door before he gets there. Thus he doesnt see them so doenst know who is there. }}

Petty - I think you should schedule some pickup shots to smooth out your version. If you can't get the original actors, maybe you and Nagual could act it out with sock puppets.

{{ Ok so Ive finished redoing my film 2 of the hobbit edit. Not major changes, well some, but mainly smallish ones.

1. Removed the wide shot when Bilbo is spying and sees Beorn in bear form. I never have liked this shot because for some weird reason they wanted to fool the viewer into thinking he was another warg of some sort, and gave him a weird long non-bear like body with a long wolfie snout in the wide shot, which he doesnt have again anywhere else in film, including in the close up of his head which immediatly follows (it remains).

2. The chase to Beorns has been reedited so the orcs pursue them there and you hear lots of Beorn but dont see him. This includes when they arrive at the house, they now slam the door shut before Beorn reaches it, so Beorn is unaware of exactly who is in his house.

3. The Beorn sequence has been reordered to make more sense. The scene immediatley after closing the door has been shortened to remove Gandalfs dialgue telling them all to get some rest, and instead we now have the introduction to Beorn scene in the garden. This fixes the time issue of them going to bed as soon as they arrive and into a night shot when it cant possibly be even lunchtime yet (given its dawn when they set out for Beorns and orcs on wargs pursue them most of the way, which they could not have outrun over a long distance).

4. The scene following in Beorns house at th table, has a few extra lines of dialogue put back in. Mainly Bilbo asking if there were more like Beorn, though the answer is edited to just "Once there were many," then reaction shots before Beorn changes topic. And his wanring about growing numbers of orcs in the area, just to add hints of that for the large number that turn up for the battle at end.

5. We now have the night scene with Bilbo looking at the Ring, and Beorn patrolling and changing back from bear to man.

6. This is now followed by them getting their horses and Gandalfs conversation with Beorn. This is extended slightly with Beorn now mentioning that there are rumours the Necromancer can raise the dead, and his questioning of Gandalf over if this could be the Enemy again, and Gandalfs reponse that Saruman the Whie says it is not possible. This is the only direct reference in the film to the Enemy, but I feel it necessary to set up Gandalf choice to shortly leave better, and it works I feel as something a viewer will connect the dots on after watching LotR's, without it being too intrusive into Bilbo's tale. And it implies the matter was discussed at Rivendell when we saw Saruman there, given a bit more meaning to that scene and reference to the White Council which we dont see in this edit.
There is also some narrative sense to Bilbo being most effected by the Ring on his jounrey at this point, this is the closet its come to its Master in thousands of years, closer even that Frodo was in Mordor to him.

7. There are some minor shot alterations to when Gandlaf sees the statue at the elven gate with the eye marking on it and chooses to leave to smooth it out.

8. Removed the second reaction shot from Gandalf when Bilbo tells him he found something in the goblin caves- it was laying it on too thick and made Gandalf seem like he was already way more suspcious than he should be.

9. In the Mirkwood section I removed the more severe trippy elements, such as Bilbo seeing two of hmself or walking backwards. And I reworked the shots where Bilbos hand brushes the web and sets the tremors off to make them smoother.

10. Reworked the scene where Bilbo decides to climb the tree to find the sun by removing the bit where Pj falls back on just having everyone yell and shout rhubarb at each other again. Now goes from Bilbo staring up at tree talking about needing to find sun to him climbing the tree.

11. The spider sequence has been reworked. A shot has been cut inlength so Bilbo no longers falls so far and its more believable. And he no longer gets captures by the spider. Instead it cuts to black after he falls the second time and lands on the webbing and comes back up on the spiders dragging all the wrapped dwarves into their nest. We then see Bilbo already with the Ring on. The main reaosn for this is he doesnt get captured in book, but also this way he names Sting after its first kill, not its second, which seemed more fitting.

12. When the dwarves escape and have the fight with the spiders I have removed all the wide shots from this sequence of the spiders bearing down on them, this means you never see how many there are (as there are tons in PJ's) and they can simply hack a few on way out before elf capture. The scene where the elves capture has been recut so the dwarves just run right into the elves. Which is much smoother.

13. Elevenking section remains unchanged bar some sound smoothing here and there. The introduction to Bard scene on the river bank has been edited to reinstate a shot I accidently left out of the last edit, making his appearence less abrupt and jarring.

14. The scene where Bard is persuaded to take them to Lake Town has had a shot removed where Bard runs his hands over the arrow damage to the barrels. As its too obvious they are arrow holes as opposed to scrape and bash damage.

15. Slight change in sound when cutting from them going through Laketown to being at Bards to smooth it out.

16. The windlass conversation has had any mention of the black arrow removed so as not to identify them with the huge arrows in the flashbacks. The point of the tale now being he loosed a scale not that it needed a giant black arrow to do it (this also means Bilbo no longer says black arrow to Smaug either in his conversation later).

17. Reinstaed Thorin asking Bard to get them weapons as an excuse for keeping Bards telling them to wait there and exiting the house- this smooths out the cut into the next scene of him outside the house prior to going to find the tapestry.

18. When they leave Laketwon the scene following with the Master and Alfred has had the twitter joke removed, left by accident again, and the sound smoothed out somewhat between scene end and transition into next scene

19. On the final journey to the mountain and the overlook at Dale and then the scenes at the secret door, I have removed a number of wide shots to obscure the amount of dwarves you can see at any one time, so as not to draw undue attention to there being three missing.

20. When Bilbo is going into Smaugs lair he no longer knocks and shouts asking if anyone is home. Its a reference to the chapter 'no one home', but it doesnt happen in the book, refers to Smaug having left for Lake Town, and doesn't make sense for Bilbo creeping down to a dragons lair to do it.

21. When Thorin is having the dwarves rebuild the gate cut a shot of Dale, as it stood too close compared to where we saw it before, and its slightly confusing I thought.

22. When the dwarves are arming up and Thorin goes all Samug voiced recut it so the second part of his Smaug like dialogue is cut, making it seem slightly less overplayed.

23. Reworked a few battle scenes so events play out more sensibly. Reworked the dwarf shield wall so the orcs hit it when they should, and reused the saved battle shot that was in between to put between Gandalf with Bilbo and Lake Town men retreating to Dale and the orcs breeching Dale, to space the events out more.

24. Cut a few unneeded shots of Dains pig riding and fighting, and removed a few of the more ludicrous fighting shots that remained in.

25. Put an extended fade to black between Bilbo crying over Thorins body and Bilbo sitting alone when Gandlaf joins him just to hold the moment a little more.

26. The film has a slightly different ending. It still ends on Bilbo looking at the Ring, then transitioning to old Bilbo looking at the Ring, but when he clasps his hand round it, it goes to the final shot of the camera panning in on the Lonely Mt map, cutting the remake of the Gandalf arriving for Bilbos party taken from FotR scene.
I never liked that, it doesnt work well if I want these to be seen as a prequal, watched first, and secondly they obscure and muffle a line so you cant hear it "You havent changed a day" just to make it fit this film with a different actor. If you have to change it then dont put it in!
I also changed the music at the end so it transitions into the films main theme as we see the Lonely Mt on the map.


Think thats everything.
I still have to output the file- so if anyone has any thoughts or suggestions, or doesnt like the sound of something Ive done, now is the time to say so before I finalize it. }}

Seems like you cut out another 10-15 minutes.

{{ nah just under 8 minutes shorter, minus credits its now 2hrs 22 minutes long compared to the former 2hr 30. Its still long but but not excessively long. I added a few lines and shots back in, not as many as I cut but a few which balanced it back out. }}

{{ seeing as there seems to be no complaints (or indeed comments on the topic) about the proposed changes to my edit Im going to go ahead and output the file and tomorrow Ill be replacing the original with this new one. }}

Was busy with work this weekend, sorry! Saw this on Friday and was going to comment, but didn't find the time - the changes sound good to me, look forward to see the new version. Not sure when I'll get the chance to do that, though, my internet connection over the next few weeks will be shitty, so might not get to watch it until mid July.

{{ File has been ouputted, I'll be replacing the existing one with it overnight, so should be ready to download or watch from tomorrow. }}

{{ Its a bugger only having the free version of google drive- DoS is half uploaded, only taken 6 hours. And it says still got 7 and half to go! For less than 4 gig! I know they want you to fess up for the pay version, but thats a ridiculous amount of throttling }}

{{ Thats the final version of DoS uploaded, you can find it here- }}

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gVk4zYW7yoCv6qFByuE1Tmjth61PzyzT/view?usp=sharing

send it to Martin Freeman.

{{ For anyone returning to the forum here are the links for TH purist edits- }}

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1u5pXQyQklaeJYAGQMT69a_iKkeH-TQvR/view

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gVk4zYW7yoCv6qFByuE1Tmjth61PzyzT/view

Ayup Petty...

Thanks.

{{ Hope you enjoy them Feanor- any comments or suggestions welcome.

And heres the lnks for LotR's Purist edit (huge thank you to Ringo for uploading these after I lost them) - }}

Book 1
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EPmLskq2jqfl6ip3m-XGNW3YmBXTkM51/view?fbclid=IwAR1NC2lxsSGKuiowXBqUCY7MychQWVa2PGQoQWxS05LYggsAU43yvnOr_8M

Book 2
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1h4_Q83E-eADgEOgCcBn1yTJxHpc44o02/view?fbclid=IwAR0ak5Xbt04YqWJ3KIs0ARmBkUfeL1mZdFB_3QzJx9uNk0gL-UoI3uohDuk

Book 3
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1989GFoTIjPr_TakSST2u1w47UZQlTf4c/view?fbclid=IwAR1p1wFJ_1GHMyfiXt1VaNMwBGQhCVKsUruR3w4ndq9pk9JSwoXdAxulPhU

Book 4
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1myNypEGV__VWLUpy1kJl_fZrtooEwaqP/view?fbclid=IwAR2YMWPm6YcbZwa125iWH7hJrE20j0bO-Ygy4pqBTrsGQmBy2LBdC9thiEo

Book 5
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vY5ClxX3dra4Iw0arLJwSNI2n20oLpCV/view?fbclid=IwAR3g3BOz4k5SAnpUxveani_pj0dvy17RGe9Qu1XxWlzyFNIvXu-sxrkJb-s

Book 6
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NsNjCeN9mfbbecFJ2a9fXApOXJ1-vWBh/view?fbclid=IwAR1SlOOClmtc7WJFy-aZvyVfqMRpeYzR3KlapixdzN7qdm2GaVBzqE8D94U

Watching these for the fourth time now (I think), and the latest edit of part 2 for the second time. Give them a go, guys, you'll be surprised by what petty has been able to do here

Couple of notes on part 2 - biggest improvement is obviously the Beorn sequence. It just flows better, and the day/night issue is solved quite nicely. I'm not sure if I'm imagining things, but I seem to remember an early edit (years ago) where Legolas was cut entirely, or at least close to it. If this is correct, why put him back in (I might be wrong, though)?

{{ I think Legolas always got a cameo. Mainly on the basis of if they wanted a bit of fan service he was the only character that would make any sense to make a brief apprearence- so I just reduced it to being brief- he is only in a shortened version of the scene where the elves capture them, and walking into the Evven Kings Halls- I think that shot is why I kept him in it, as was no real way to smoothly edit him out and keep Bilbo sneaking in, they are all one shot at the end.
On the edits, I had hoped more folk here would check them out, but I greatly appreciate your championing of them Ringo }}

I see - I guess the scene itself is OK, I just don't like him being there And I agree, people should give these edits a chance - can't speak for anybody else, but for my part I've finally got TH movies to watch that I actually like. My sister said the same when I watched them with her. So kudos for acheiving something I thought was impossible!

{{ Thinking about it I dont think it would be possible to take him out entirely. He doesnt have much to do, but it is unfortunately necessary to progress story or information, he captures the dwarves, and its him Tauriel tells that the rest of spiders have been taken care of, losing that would make it odd all the spiders just disappear without explanation, and then he is on the bridge when the Gates are shut. So sadly he is there to stay, but its all he gets at least. }}

Im downloading your file Petty, am SO looking forward to watching this later on

{{ Hope you enjoy them Az. Thanks for taking time to watch. }}