The Hobbit Abridged (Hunt)

Initial release: 1/30/2018

Editor: Cassandra Hunt

Length: 3:38 hrs

Website: http://blog.cassandrahunt.com/the-hobbit-abridged-my-3-5-hour-cut-of-all-three-hobbit-films-freely-available-under-gpl "My aim with the Abridged cut is to create a succinct single film that serves what I believe to be the original intent of the three Hobbit films. To achieve this, I specifically aimed for the Abridged cut to:     Serve as a prequel to The Lord of the Rings movies in terms of tone and themes,     Retain as much of the fun and adventurous wonder of the book as possible,     Remove over-extended plot points, orc encounters, and dialogue,     Cull the most egregious offenses to physics and subpar CGI,     No Radagast. The goal therefore is not to replicate the original The Hobbit book. The tone is too different–darker, more serious–to recreate a book meant as an adventurous romp for children. The original cuts of The Hobbit films aim to strike the same dramatic pitch as The Lord of the Rings, a sweeping, operatic saga. The protagonist of The Hobbit book is Bilbo, and Middle Earth is laid before us through his eyes, expanding with his experiences. Bilbo still serves the “everyman” role in The Hobbit movies; his cloistered life in The Shire leaves him as clueless about the wider realms of this fantasy world as the audience, presumably. (Although through The Lord of the Rings trilogy the audience has actually already ventured the depths of Moria, the pinnacles of Gondor, and the heart of Mount Doom.) But he’s not the protagonist of these movies. This is Thorin’s quest. His legacy at stake, his antagonist on their heels, his inner demons to be overcome. This isn’t something I felt I could escape with clever editing. The framing of the Battle of the Five Armies makes it almost impossible to not set up Peter Jackson’s vision of the historic feud between Thorin’s family and Azog, for instance. So we have a film of Bilbo “sharing in Thorin’s perils”. And as Bilbo “finds his courage” and proves his usefulness to the company of dwarves, Thorin’s respect for Bilbo grows. This element of the relationship between the dwarves and Bilbo follows the book somewhat. However I cut a bit of film-Thorin’s pointed disdain. After all, what fun is joining a group on an adventure if you feel constantly rejected?"