Synopsis:

The 'Entirely Respectable Edition' seeks to remove all material that is silly, overplayed, misjudged, overly comical, ridiculous and generally inconsistent with the more serious tone established in the earlier 'Lord of the Rings' Trilogy. It is not a radical restructure, or a two-film cut and does not set out to streamline narrative, quicken pacing, or remove characters and plot-threads. The more time we spend in Middle Earth the better, I just want Middle Earth to be a more sensible place while we're there.

Intentions:

I was kind of glad Guillermo del Toro didn't get to Direct because as much as I love his movies, he was never going to make films that were tonally and stylistically consistent with the LoTR series... unfortunately neither did Peter Jackson. The serious, grand and relatively realistic tone of LoTR, was mixed with a new more childish, silly, comic and overblown style. Thankfully there is enough good material that a Fanedit should be able to fix everything.

Change List:

- INTRO: 00.00.00 - TM2YC titlecards added. 00.00.27 - Replaced 3D studio titlecards with less elaborate ones from the LoTR era (from FoTR, OHMSS and THX 1138 blu-rays) 00.01.06 - Tinted the titles blue to match the look of the LoTR titles. 00.14.35 - Reframed first shot of young Bilbo so that his eyes are in the exact same area of the frame as the next cut (for a smooth transition). 00.14.41 - Cropped shot to remove "60 years earlier..." title. I dislike these films having onscreen titles and this one is unnecessary anyway, it's blatantly obvious that we have moved backwards in time several decades. 00.14.55 - Reframed shot of Bilbo to be halfway between the framing of the preceding and following shots. - BAG END: 00.20.06 - Removed Bilbo saying "Do we know each other?" and Dwalin replying "No!?" as I always felt Dwalin's line was way overplayed. 00.21.36 - Removed Balin and Dwalin headbutting each other. It's too silly for my tastes and was only there as a distracting meta reference to a crew tradition from the LoTR trilogy. 00.21.51 - Removed 14-seconds of Bilbo dithering on and Dwalin and Balin talking about blue cheese. It was pointless and I don't believe Dwarfs have never heard of blue cheese. 00.21.57 - Removed 1-second of silence to improve the comedy timing of Balin's reply to Bilbo. 00.22.12 - Removed Kili saying "You must be Mr Boggins". It bordered on silly, plus removing it improves the comedy timing of Bilbo's annoyed response. I like that he's closing the door in their smiling and friendly faces and not in response to them getting his name wrong. 00.22.18 - Removed 1-second of silence to quicken the timing of Bilbo's line and make him seem even more irritable. 00.22.28 - Removed 14-seconds of Fili and Kili in Bilbo's entrance. Sure Dwarfs are a bit uncouth but Kili scraping his muddy boots on Bilbo's antiques just makes him look like an a***hole. Plus the shot gets pretty close in on Kili in his very different early makeup appliance. 00.23.15 - Removed 14-seconds of Bifur talking to Bilbo about the axe stuck in his head and some weak Oin "I'm deaf" humour. Okay I can't remove the idiotic axe from Bifur's head but I can at least not draw attention to it. 00.23.32 - Removed 20-seconds of faintly silly Dori dialogue about Camomile tea. 00.24.07 - Removed 14-seconds of more Dori silliness, this time about red wine. 00.24.32 - Removed 2.5-minutes of total stupidity (including a burping competition and puns about Croquet and testicles) and of course the awfully silly plates song sequence is gone. Thorin's sudden arrival now simply interrupts the Dwarf's loud drinking session. 00.25.32 - Removed Thorin sarcastically saying "Thought as much", in order to tone down his behaviour towards Bilbo. 00.26.36 - Removed 2-minutes of the Dwarfs generally bickering round the table and delivering vague unnecessary exposition. 00.28.59 - Removed a bad looking FX shot of Gandalf and toned down how angry he gets. 00.30.48 - Shortened time it takes for Bilbo to faint, which improves the comedy timing IMO. 00.31.02 - Removed 7-seconds of Gandalf talking about doilies and dishes (which references things I cut earlier). - JOURNEY BEGINS: 00.38.08 - Removed 13-seconds of Bilbo excitedly running through the Shire shouting "I'm going on an adventure!". I don't think he should be that confident and elated, it's just a crazy impulse decision that he almost immediately regrets. Rescored and reworked soundmix. 00.40.58 - Removed 16-seconds of Bombur inhaling flies. Rescored. 00.42.15 - Removed an odd reaction shot from Fili. I thought it added the feint suggestion that he was hearing Thorin's history for the first time. 00.48.56 - Removed 8-seconds that showed birds living in Radagast's hat. 00.49.25 - Removed 8-seconds of overly cutesy and anthropomorphic hedgehog business. 00.51.39 - Removed 12-seconds of Radagast riding his rabbit sleigh to Dol Guldur. Rescored and reworked soundmix. 00.53.25 - Removed Gandalf saying "I've had enough of Dwarfs for one day". Probably not a good idea to say out-loud what the audience might be secretly thinking. - TROLLS: 00.55.06 - Removed 8-seconds of Bilbo going back for the bowls. Absent mindedly taking them with him is believable and funny but not him forgetting, remembering and then actually going back for them. 00.56.15 - Removed 10-seconds of the Trolls arguing about snot. Added soundFX. 00.56.23 - Removed 15-seconds of the Trolls arguing about stinky parts. 00.56.42 - Removed 27-seconds of the Trolls arguing about grog. I also felt the use of the term "laughing gear" was too specifically Kiwi/Aussie/Limey for Middle-Earth. 00.57.12 - Removed 7-seconds of the Trolls going on about "'ooters". 00.57.23 - Removed the annoying high-pitched Troll saying "An oversized squirrel?". 00.57.25 - Removed the annoying high-pitched Troll saying "A burglar Hobbit?". 00.58.10 - Removed 6-seconds where the cockney Troll says "You what?" like Ray Winstone and also removed Kili's reply. Now.

Additional Notes:

- No silliness allowed... fun yes, humour yes, silliness no. - Picture regraded to tone down the excessive levels of saturation and to drain some of the bright blue from the shadows. A warmer look with some added grain to bring things closer to LoTR. - FYI: 14-minute prologue is unchanged. - Thorin, Balin, Kili (and to a lesser extent Bofur and Dwalin) are important characters, the rest of the Dwarfs are supporting characters. Oodles of screen-time is no longer devoted to giving each and every one of the 13 Dwarfs their own comedy moments and character traits. If they have something important to say, or do then fine, otherwise... cut! - Of all the Dwarfs, Ori is trimmed the most. His childish voice is annoying, his use of a small catapult in battle is pathetic and he generally does and says little that isn't very silly indeed. - The Misty Mountains song is totally awesome. All other songs are removed in this edit because they are dreadfully misjudged. The ludicrous Plates sequence has been terminated with a vengeance, plus Bofur's song in Rivendell and the Goblin King's two numbers. - Thorin's dislike of Bilbo has been toned down to just enough to serve each other's character arcs. Too much and Thorin came off as petulant and spiteful. - No f***ing stupid Radagast rabbit-powered sleigh! Easily the silliest thing in the whole Hobbit trilogy. I may not have attempted an edit of AUJ if I couldn't have thought of a way to remove it 100%. - Radagast no longer ever meets the Dwarfs. His scene with them has been repurposed as a flashback featuring just him and Gandalf. Also the Dwarfs escape the first Warg pack on their own, without Radagast's help. - The Rivendell scenes now go from day to night and from night back to day, instead of jumping all over the place at random. - Chase through Goblin Town has been trimmed down to a frantic hack'n'slash against impossible odds. The silly and outlandish nonsense is gone. - Bilbo meeting Gollum now takes place before all the Goblin King scenes. - Azog does not appear in this edit until the very moment Thorin sees him again because I always like the audience to be on the same page as our protagonists. Azog is a very boring and one dimensional character anyway, in all three films. He needs to be a figure of psychological torment for Thorin and nothing more.

Other Sources:

- The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Theatrical Blu-Ray) - The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Extended Edition Blu-Ray) - The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Special Edition Soundtrack) - The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Extended Edition Blu-Ray) - On Her Majesty's Secret Service (Blu-Ray) - THX 1138: Special Edition (Blu-Ray) - freesound.org (Various SoundFX) - youtube.com (Various FX Clips).

Special Thanks:

Thanks to the people who gave feedback in the project thread including: revstevens, jrWHAG42, moviefan95, Masirimso17, DigModiFicaTion, douchebag, addiesin, Gaith and Nic. Thanks to Faneditors Funny Puzzle, Kerr and L8wrter for their inspiring cuts of this film.