The Hobbit - The Cardinal Cut

[Techwright]

Has anyone of you seen this, and if so, what is your opinion?

 

A guy edits the Hobbit trilogy into one movie, removing pretty much everything that wasn't in the book.  The YouTube video discusses what choices he made.  The link that follows is where he shares the final product.  Note that he respects the rights of the original creators and asks that people not view his edit unless they own a copy of the trilogy.  (I do not own the trilogy, but I might just buy it to see a good edit close to the book.)

The only thing I wonder about is his choice to remove the material related to the appendices.  From what I've heard, Tolkien had been in preparations for his own major reworking of the book, and I'm willing to consider the appendices' material as a result.  Uber Tolkien fans may have better info than I, however.

 

 

https://thehobbitthecardinalcut.wordpress.com/

 

 

[Yomo Kimyata]

Hmm, I'd watch this sooner rather than later.  It's a neat idea (like when someone edited Julie and Julia to keep only the Julia Child parts), but unless they have direct permission this might be taken down from YouTube at some point. 

 

Maybe not, I'm no lawyer, but I sometimes rescue them from the Devouring Earth.

[TheOtherTed]

2 hours ago, Techwright said:

The only thing I wonder about is his choice to remove the material related to the appendices.  From what I've heard, Tolkien had been in preparations for his own major reworking of the book, and I'm willing to consider the appendices' material as a result.

I don't wonder about that at all.  Tolkien came up with The Hobbit as a fun diversion for his kids.  It was a standalone fairy tale, not really linked to anything else he was working on at the time.  The Necromancer was just a necromancer (and a convenient way to get Gandalf out of the story), wizards were just old men with pointy hats and a few tricks up their sleeves, and the disputes and battles between Elves, Dwarves, and Orcs were only mentioned in passing to provide tension, and maybe hint at some vague history.

 

When people pressed him for a sequel, though, he decided to incorporate The Hobbit into a much larger narrative that he'd been writing and re-writing for a good long time.  Doing so lent the sequel the sense of history and consistency he needed to write a serious epic.  From what I can tell, that's when he really established who (and what) Gandalf and the Necromancer actually were, how far back the history between Elves, Dwarves, and Orcs went, and a lot of other random information.  Eventually, that all became published as The Silmarillion, and the appendices in LotR were a rough summary of that larger story with a few extra notes about Dwarves and Hobbits.

 

Long story short, the material in the appendices was a post-hoc way to tie the events of LotR to The Hobbit, and had little (if any) bearing on the events of The Hobbit itself.  He did rewrite the second printing of The Hobbit to set the stage for LotR, but as far as I can tell, the main difference between the 1st and 2nd British editions was how Bilbo came to possess his ring.  (Side note, I'd love to get my paws on a copy of that first printing for that reason.  We Americans only got the 2nd and later editions.)

 

Keep in mind all of this is from fuzzy memory years after reading stacks of nerdy Tolkien books, so I absolutely would not mind corrections from sharper brains.  That said, I'd strongly recommend The Letters of JRR Tolkien to anyone who wants a peek into the Professor's creative process.

[Sakai]

Ok...I will bite. How did Bilbo get his ring in the first edition?  God knows I will never see one. 

[Techwright]

21 hours ago, TheOtherTed said:

I don't wonder about that at all.  Tolkien came up with The Hobbit as a fun diversion for his kids.  It was a standalone fairy tale, not really linked to anything else he was working on at the time. 

 

Long story short, the material in the appendices was a post-hoc way to tie the events of LotR to The Hobbit, and had little (if any) bearing on the events of The Hobbit itself. 

Well, yes, it did create a situation where movie creators could interpret the story in different ways, including making no reference to later writings.  I accept that.  But I usually accept that the author gets to decide the narrative, and if he/she creates a later description that is different,  it should be respected as his/her decision.  For example, Harper Lee's opus isn't Go Set A Watchman.  It is To Kill A Mockingbird.  "Watchman" was the forerunner of her final decisions.  That said, I don't know if the appendices of The Hobbit were ever put into print before JRR's death, or at least on his instructions, and that too might be a deciding factor.  I suspect they only saw the light of day because of the compiling and editorial work of Christopher Tolkien.

 

 

[Techwright]

42 minutes ago, Sakai said:

Ok...I will bite. How did Bilbo get his ring in the first edition?  God knows I will never see one. 

Gollum used the ring as a bet in the riddle game.  The comment I read says that he and Bilbo parted amicably.  Wow.  That's a very different personality.  2nd edition was definitely better. 

[TheOtherTed]

Do newer versions of the The Hobbit have appendices?  I assumed that Cardinal Cut was referring to the LotR appendices - I can't recall The Hobbit having any in the editions I've read.

 

Anyway, I was not in any way trying to justify Jackson's treatment of the book.  His movie trilogy is one of two bits of film where I realized that I could not judge the work on its own merits (the other being "Star Trek:  Into Darkness").  Too much random, irrelevant, and out-of-place junk thrown in, combined with too many shout-outs to the source, as if to say "no, really, this IS The Hobbit!  Really!"  Jackson & crew mucked it up big time, as far as I'm concerned.  All the more disappointing as I really enjoyed his "Lord of the Rings."

 

I guess the point I tried (and failed) to make was that The Hobbit didn't need the material from the LotR appendices to be great book on its own, and nothing in the appendices really adds much to the story, IMO.  The Hobbit can stand on its own merits, whether as a book or a movie, without getting into all that "off-stage" stuff.

[SuperPlyx]

Hmm, haven't watched a fan edit movie in a long time. This may be a good candidate