The Bilbo Edition

Initial release: 6/14/2015

Final release: 4/25/2018 (ver 3.1)

Editor: Daniel Udel/DanielU92

Length: 4:38 hrs

Website: https://goldfishblues.wordpress.com/ "'Where other cuts focused on specifically getting the film down to its barest bones possible (the 3 hour cut is especially impressive from an editing standpoint, although feels rushed IMO), or being sacredly bound to the book canon and nothing more, my edit was always about combining the films into a single, faithful adaptation of my favorite book while retaining my favorite parts of the films. In particular, The Hobbit is about Bilbo Baggins, and the trilogy suffered from an overbalance of characters, many of which are not even in the book at all. Although I understand why Jackson’s team added a lot of these additions, I knew that at the heart of this trilogy lied a fantastic film centering around the hobbit himself, perfectly casted and acted by Martin Freeman. This film is about Bilbo and is as faithful to the book as much as possible. I purposefully did not add any new music or scenes from other material, only cutting and rearranging what was already present in the trilogy.""I had three goals in mind for this fan adaptation:""1. Streamline the bulky 8+ hour trilogy into a single, coherent, narratively rich story that is both faithful to the essence of the source material while still maintaining the best of Peter Jackson’s original contributions and deviations""2. Maintain suspense and tension in iconic scenes and allow for the remarkable acting of all actors involved, particularly Martin Freeman and Ian McKellen, to shine. Bilbo is the heart and soul of the story and unlike the original trilogy that dodges around him, he remains front and center as the audience surrogate and the thematically rich protagonist at the core of the story.""3. Provide the best possible fan-adaptation that can satisfy both lovers of the original films and lovers of the source material. Although there are other fan-edits that excel in different areas (check out the 2-Hour Fan Cut by Fiona van Dahl!), I truly believe my film is narratively the superior choice amongst the “long-form” fan-adaptations.'"