Post by filmfan95 on Feb 24, 2017 6:02:06 GMT
Feb 24, 2017 5:48:07 GMT @weirdraptor said:
Oh I agree the she-elf bit, the completely contrived Bard's family and town story, Legolas, and some of the White Council bits were completely unnecessary.
The only side story that was ok to add was some following of Gandalf to Dol Guldur, but they really shouldn't have proclaimed to know it was Sauron since he claims to have no idea by the start of Lord of the Rings.
I tried editing the films down to basically only the stuff that was in the book, and it ended up being way over four hours. I tried cutting lots of other bits and pieces, and it ruined the pacing, so I ended up editing it into a duology instead. (the edit I did is private, just for me and my friends) I guess if the filmmakers had set out to do one film from the start, it could have worked with just one film, but the way it is now, it's impossible to make just one three hour film that has good pacing, since there is some stuff in it that just can't be fixed (like Azog. I would have rather seen Bolg as the main villain, since he's actually alive in the book's continuity).
Both the Maple Films version and the Bilbo Edition are 4.5 hours long (although the Maple Films version has an intermission right after the barrel escape), and they both have similar creative choices. The editors of them wanted to focus on Bilbo's story, since he's the title character, as well as tell a story with better pacing.