the Battle of five armies: A first Look

3/11/2015

I spent about an hour last night doing some rough edits on the digital copy of Battle of Five Armies. I'm not doing any real editing until the Bluray comes out March 24, but already I can tell that the third film will be the most difficult to cut down and still make sense.

I can't recall another major blockbuster film that feels so sloppily put together. The editing is mediocre at best. When Kili is stabbed by Bolg, I counted TEN back-and-forth closeups between him and Tauriel with both of them looking sad and misty-eyed. TEN SHOTS! We only needed that one awesome shot of Frodo tearing up after Gandalf falls in Fellowship of the Ring to convey the character's emotions.

Anyways, I digress. The film is a mess, plain and simple. Hopefully the Extended Edition will fix things a bit when it comes out later this year, but right now the theatrical version is just all over the place. The two most prominent Hobbit fanedits online right now (The Tolkien Edit and David Killstein's There and Back Again) have done their best to fix that, but there are still major issues that will be tough to work around.

After March 24, I'll post a detailed list of my edits for Battle of Five Armies. On top of the obvious cuts such as the remaining White Council/Dol Guldur scenes and anything with Alfrid/Legolas/Tauriel, I'm also considering more drastic changes that will keep this fanedit closer to the spirit of the book. We shall see!

19 Comments

Jake

3/13/2015 03:15:47 pm

Good luck this is gonna be a tough one to do. Very excited about it though.

That Azog/Thorin battle is especially dumb. And Tauriel ruins the Fili and Kili deaths. Lucky Bilbo was unconscious for that garbage.

Andrei341989

3/16/2015 07:46:02 am

I too eagerly await your edit in 1080p and 5.1 surround sound. Those worms definetly need to be removed and a ton of other stuff. I just want you to know that you have at least one guy that dreams of this version. Do not get discouraged. The third film deviates a lot from the book so instead of trying to make it follow the book why not try it to just make sense in the context of the new hobbit film. Remove the worms, remove whatever filler you can... and hopefully it will be decent enough. For example the battle between Azog and Thorin... it's really silly, don't know how to fix that.

Dustin

3/16/2015 09:27:19 am

The worms are not going to be a problem to remove, at all. Just goes to show how pointless they really were in the film. The actual battle itself will be trimmed considerably, as will the Ravenhill sequence. Most of the Thorin/Azog fight was well done, except the silly exploding out of the ice bit. I'll see what can be done!

3/17/2015 06:55:08 am

That would be awesome if you could show the battle between Thorin Azog and at the end they kill each other, without the ice scene. Dol Guldur needs removing, love triangle as well.... Unfortunately the ending needs expanding (like what happens to the treasure and stuff) but they never show in the film; I am guessing the November extended edition will show it. I admit I once tried my hand at edditing an 1080p 13 GB .mkv film...it was a pain. I really appreciate your work. Can hardly wait to do a Middle earth marathon: start with a 4 hour or so Hobbit and the Lotr extended edition on blu-ray :D. I admit I don't have the patience to re-watch all of the 3 hobbits film again....but your cut, I surely would.

3/23/2015 02:59:26 am

I had to respond to your newest comment via an older comment, because there was no reply box next to the new one!

Yes, I will release a 1080p MKV file with 5.1 audio once the Extended Edition comes out later this year. In the meantime though, I will release a 1080p stereo version in early April. This will be made available via downloadable Vimeo link and/or MKV torrent.

3/17/2015 02:38:33 am

I feel your pain on the shots where actors look back and forth at each other. My current project is LOST, cutting out all of the back stories and fixing the chronology. My two biggest frustrations with this project are music cues that are as subtle as sledgehammers and the abundance of Jack looks at Locke, Locke looks at Jack, Jack looks at Locke, Locke looks at Jack, Jack looks at Locke scenes. The only blessing is that it occasionally gives me a trim on said music cues.

3/17/2015 03:32:08 am

It helps if you have the original music cues to work with. That way, it's possible to cover up some of the audio cuts you make. Of course that doesn't help if you have dialogue and SFX overlapping at the same time!

franklapidus4ever

3/17/2015 09:29:57 am

Interested about your edit of LOST. May I ask why you are removing all of the backstories? Those were some of the most interesting parts about the show in my opinion.

P.S. I don't mean to derail the conversation from The Hobbit, but the LOST fan in me can't resist ;) haha

3/17/2015 10:12:47 pm

I had flashbacks. I think it is lazy story telling that generally doesn't serve the story. I don't mind the content of the flashbacks and am kicking back and forth what to do with them. One idea is individual episodes (prequels if you will) called "Passenger Dossiers." The other idea is to make straight up prequels that fuse the flashback pieces into one chronological narrative (that's the one that I am leaning more and more toward however it is going to require a ton of work figuring out a time line that makes sense). Part of the problem with plan B is the music and sound affects cues. The source material was made for episodic viewing on network TV. It wasn't made to be repurposed like this. Some parts of plan B just wouldn't work very well, particularly the crash as seen from the inside of the plane because there's too many overlapping POV's and some have dynamic music and sound effects and some don't. The transitions within the scene would be jarring and obvious and the only solution that I am able to think of for that is to leave that material out altogether (which is something that I am not inclined to do).

I just blew into Season 3 last night. The restructured story plays out nicely, we have the others and the tailies in the story from day 1 , scene 1. One big ommission is the Nikki and Paulo storyline, that was flashbackward storytelling at it's worst and, while some deleted scenes and webisodes are going in, that one is going out.

3/19/2015 12:56:34 pm

Ah, that makes sense now. I actually kind of did something like that a while back, except I used only the flashbacks. I wanted to edit every character's flashbacks together in chronological order so that everyone kind of stars in their own mini-movie. It actually turned out really well in my opinion.

Michelle Johnston link

3/20/2015 09:07:04 am

Many thanks for the update Dustin. I am still very intreagued by this project. I have just completed watching the E.E.s of the first two movies for the first time since experiencing the third film. They are not flattered now they are part of a completed Trilogy.

Whilst I loved the opening sequence in Bag End very much, the return on the Dwarves in the rest of the Trilogy is so poor it feels out of place.

I was also in favour of the introduction of the Dol Gulder storyline but if you take out Sir Ian's, Cate's and Antony Sher's performance in the E.E. it really is extremely poor. It is robbed of any critcal tension because each stage is telegraphed and Saruman's dialogue and Radagasts performance is so uneven I would rather be without it.

I say all of this because the only way to produce anything like a satisfactory presentation where you are not endlessly fast forwarding is to go back to the book because it will enable Bilbo to be much prominent and Martins consistently strong performance is more than capable of carrying the reduced film. I am less certain of Thorin and how you deal with him in Erebor in the final film. I am interested to see how editing can deal with his curiously stagey contrived performance where it all becomes a bit like political sound bites rather than a flowing organic journey to redemption. Once again this will have resulted from the filming coming from several different and distinct periods where the intent and external framing of the various sections was radically changed.

3/20/2015 11:36:02 am

Thanks Michelle, I say for certain that there will no Dol Guldur/White Council subplot in this fanedit at all. I'm probably going to do what a few other faneditors have done and make a standalone short film based on that side quest. It's just too distracting from Bilbo and Thorin's quest.

You are right, it's very obvious that certain sections of the third film were substantially altered late in production. Since I don't have access to whatever original footage was initially shot, I'm stuck with what we saw onscreen. The eventual EE may provide some more options but I'm not holding out too much hope!

3/20/2015 06:38:40 pm

If I may pose a question: Why are Tolkien fans so hard to please?

3/20/2015 09:03:20 pm

Every "fan' is different I can only speak for myself. I have been a life long fan of Tokiens, books not as it happens the The Hobbit which I read to my children. However the more relevant point is I love film Jane Eyre/Sparticus/Ten Canoes/ A wonderful Life in other words a very broad taste for movies. I do not judge the Hobbit Trilogy through the Tolkien lens but the Movie lens and in that regard I conclude I do not like Sir Peter's style of film making. His films are overlong and use a sledge hammer technique to make his points but the Hobbit films are different. They are poor examples of his own style of film making. He makes investment in character and lets it go. He sets up plot lines and then delays the development so long they are robbed of drama.

But the really poor element of the Hobbit Trilogy is the narrative they spent 2 years prepping with GDT and yet you are sure from Sir Peter's candid commentaries that a good deal of it is made up on the hoof and it shows. The shooting of Kili by a Morgul shaft so that Tauriel can rush after him is one of so many contrivances. If the villain had planned to poison and kidnap the heir of durin and he had been tracked over 250 miles it would make sense but it is out of the blue like the battalion of CGI Orcs that attack the company and contradicts Saurons stated aim to remain covert at that time. You sense the plot being made up as you watch the films positioning and repositioning characters as they make endless changes to the narrative flow. Lets have more Legolas and give him an adversary lets give Taureil a love triangle and add some dopy dialogue and all this eventually overwhelms a perfectly good story.

The book simply needed reinforcement by placing the story in its geo political context the dwarves reducing and bringing into focus and three characters needed to be more rounded and developed
Thranduil/Bard/Bolg so we really understood their motivation in going into battle. It was quite a simple challenge to make a smaller quest story which in the main has been bungled by trying to pretend its the same journey as the Lord of The Rings.

3/20/2015 11:50:15 pm

That's a broad question. Obviously with any popular book, there will be fans that find any movie adaptation disappointing. So even though (in my opinion) Peter Jackson did a terrific job in bring LOTR to the big screen, you can't please everyone with your interpretation!

In the case of The Hobbit, there are some fans (like myself) who felt it was unnecessary to adapt a short novel into three long epics. On top of that, PJ's filming style has changed since LOTR to one that is over-reliant on digital effects and CGI. Most importantly, he introduced characters and subplots that distract from the core story that Tolkien created- and that's why many people are creating fanedits for The Hobbit.

3/22/2015 08:40:52 am

In your opening comments you mention the Tolkien fan edit. That encouraged me to track it down and I have now had an opportunity to watch it.

Whilst I suspected it might be the case the effect of watching a film focusing more closely on the book narrative has a huge impact on what I call the relative weight of the characters. Bilbo is now restored as the central character we never lose him and because Martins performance is so strong there is a huge improvement in the film(s).

The other very substantial benefit is the pace is vastly improved. Watching the Jackson films is an exhausting experience with over extended action sequences and subplots. Once you bring those under control the whole experience becomes much more enjoyable and you appreciate what is retained much much more. I was very impressed with their editing of the barrels sequence suddenly it becomes Dwarf centric. I also liked the way they referenced Azog's movements with visual snippets whilst the dialogue remained with the central plot narrative.

There are difficulties we lose the Eagles and Fili's death and the Dragon emerges bathed in Gold without any narrative explanation but I can see me watching this type of edit far more than the actual films in the years to come..

From what you have said your approach is a little more subtle and will involve very minor changes as well as substantial ones. Having watched this edit i am more interested than ever.

3/22/2015 10:26:07 am

To borrow a cheesy salesman's pitch , if you enjoyed the Tolkien Edit than you will love JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit.

The audio/visual quality alone will be a tremendous improvement, as will the audio editing which I have painstakingly worked to smooth out. This refers to scenes in The Tolkien Edit (and other fanedits) when a new cut causes music/dialogue/SFX to jump or skip in an awkward way. These issues will be far less noticeable in JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit.

I am very excited for the third film to be released Tuesday. You can expect a new blog post on my edit list later this week, followed by a finished version of the fanedit sometime next week!

3/22/2015 04:35:52 pm

I imagine you will release a .mkv file at 1080p with 5.1 audio(including spdif pass-throug)?

International Florida link

4/1/2021 10:56:25 pm

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JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit