There and Back Again, A Hobbit's Tale recut by David Killstein

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Click here for link to Blu Ray version (13gb)

Click here for link to Dol Guldur edit (4.2gb)

This was made for all "The Hobbit" fans, who loved the book, liked the movie, or are engaging in Middle-Earth for the first time.

The spirit of this fan edit is to be more in line with the Tolkien book, which is to say that all the scenes in the film follow the book as close as I possibly could, with little to no exposition or side stories. A lot of the footage is reappropriated to tell the story more closely to the book, so it's necessary to approach this as if you've never seen the Peter Jackson movies before, which is how I approached editing it - even turning the book page by page as I edited each scene.

A lot of people talk about getting the story to "move quicker", but what is the story? A hobbit leaves his home to help dwarves, gets knocked out during a battle and misses it, and goes home only to find his house ransacked...no! The fun of the Hobbit is in the scenes and the silly moments and the crazy adventures. Scenes like Beorn or the trolls or the conversation with the goblin king help paint the world and make the adventure fun and unique, they don't do much for "the story", if that's how you're looking at it. This edit does its best to retain all the fun moments of the book and tell the story in Tolkien's unique and quirky way.

The idea is to make this as standalone of a film as possible, whereas the Peter Jackson originals seem to try at every moment to remind you how evil the ring is and where things are headed in LOTR, most of these ideas were not in existence when the book was written (the ring was just an invisibility ring), and in my opinion don't necessarily belong in this story as a standalone piece. This is about Bilbo's adventure to the Lonely Mountain! Not a nostalgic LOTR prequel.

So this means overall:

-no Azog (at all)
-no elf-love-triangle (in fact very little-to-no-elves at all)
-no Dol Guldur/Radagast (actually I made a whole separate fan edit for that: https://vimeo.com/122578580)
-removed all orcs from all action sequences, except for the final battle (they are still mentioned here and there, but don't appear until the end)
-heavily reduced "dragon sickness" plot
-heavily reduced "ring" foreshadowing (this is The Hobbit, not a LOTR prequel)

Of course, not everyone will agree with these decisions, and the good news is that the Peter Jackson films aren't going anywhere! And if you're looking for a reduced Peter Jackson cut that doesn't pay as much attention to the book there are other fan edits that accomplish that out there too, or you can make your own!

I owe thanks and credit to the Underhill editor and the Dustin Lee Hobbit edit for a few ideas, such as the reduction of the battle at the end, shaving a few minutes off of the “last light” scene when the secret door is discovered, and some tweaks with getting Smaug out of the mountain. I also thank Paul Kerr for providing me with the 3D titles used at the beginning. I also thank all the folks that watched earlier versions and provided me with a ton of notes, ideas, and opinions, it really made a huge difference!

There’s around 450 visual changes and alterations in this edit (almost triple that in terms of sound). Here are most of the broad edits to the film to get this story down to 3 hours (from 8.5 of the original trilogy).


- cut old Bilbo's intro and replaced with shots of Bilbo in the Shire (originally used after Gandalf's introduction)
- cut Gandalf peering into Bilbo's window
- cut most (but not all!) of the dinner shenanigans
- reduced Bilbo fainting
- cut Thorin talking with Balin in the Shire
- cut Bilbo giving contract to Balin (went with humorous cut straight to Bilbo's horse)
- cut dwarves making bets with Gandalf about Bilbo (only need one funny moment here and it's gonna be the handkerchief, straight from the book, and comes back at the end)
- cut camping scene with Thorin's flashbacks
- cut travelling conversation about other wizards
- cut Gandalf arguing with Thorin about elves
- reduced Bilbo approaching trolls
- reduced troll fight scene
- cut Gandalf talking about orcs/the necromancer
- cut Gandalf saying the sword Sting glows around orcs
- cut orc battle and Radagast, used travelling footage instead to transition to Rivendell
- reduced intro to Rivendell, they walk to the city faster
- cut most of the dwarves misbehaving at Rivendell
- cut Kili showing interest in female elf (this just fuels the love-triangle-to-come)
- cut Gandalf lying about why they need the map translated
- cut council meeting with Gandalf (again, see my Dol Guldur cut)
- moved Bilbo talking to Elrond til a little later
- added travel transition directly after moon rune discovery
- cut stone giants (sorry, they're in the book a little but it had to go mostly for time and pacing)
- added scene of Bilbo and Elrond talking as dream sequence/flashback (providing explanation for why he attempts to leave the company, also it's a great scene)
- reduced the company falling down the tunnel to the goblin lair
- cut Goblin song
- reordered entire Goblin scene to flow with continuity, avoiding all mention of Azog as well as instigating the discovery of Orcrist, the goblin cleaver
- cut most of goblin fight
- *Goblin scene and Gollum scene are now separate, whole scenes*
- Bilbo discovers the ring by accident, we delay seeing Gollum
- reduced some of Gollum's conversation with Bilbo before the riddles start
- cut LOTR ring foreshadowing from Gandalf (save all that for one line at the end)
- color corrected shot of wargs to make it appear at the same time of day
- removed all orcs from warg chase scene
- removed Azog battle
- cut Bilbo stabbing a warg (the only thing he kills in the book is the spider in Mirkwood)
- Thorin sustains injuries from the tree fall but comes awake quickly
- cut directly from Bilbo’s line to running from Beorn
- cut out all Azog looming in the area
- cut Beorn talking about history with Azog
- cut Beorn discussing the necromancer with Gandalf (see Dol Guldur cut)
- cut all of Gandalf’s visions upon entering Mirkwood
- cut Gandalf’s suspicions of Bilbo with the ring
- heavily reduced wanderings through Mirkwood
- reduced Bilbo & company crossing the river (both happen at once now)
- reduced company losing path and Bilbo climbing the tree
- the first spider Bilbo kills scream “sting!”
- reduced many shots of the dwarves tied up by the spiders
- cut Bilbo fighting spider for the ring
- cut elves fighting the spiders
- reduced elves capturing company
- cut intro to Thranduil
- cut Thranduil saying “white gems of pure starlight” since I use that clip later
- reduced scene to cut when Thranduil makes offer to Thorin
- cut all of elven nonsense with Legolas and Tauriel and Kili
- cut shot of Tauriel looking for dwarves
- heavily reduced barrel escape scene (no battle)
- removed more Azog and elves, etc.
- cut Kili’s leg injury
- reduce conversation with Bard
- reduce boat trip into Laketown
- cut most of entrance into Laketown
- cut fight scene upon entering Laketown
- cut toilet entrance into Bard’s house
- cut Bard grabbing the weapons from the boat
- cut Thorin discussing basically the plot of the movie with the dwarves
- cut an enormous amount of banter between the Master and Alfrid
- moved Bard remembering “the prophecy” until after the company departs (oh no it’s too late!)
- reduced Thorin’s speech to the town
- cut Bard’s objection and recalling the prophecy
- cut all of Kili’s injury and all plot relating to it (dwarves staying behind, Tauriel curing him, etc.)
- reduced company searching for the secret door
- reduced and altered scene to cut the company giving up when the sun sets
- cut all dwarf and Laketown segments during Smaug scene (why would we want to leave this scene for even a second?)
- cut Sauron style eye thing when Smaug tells Bilbo to appear (as best I could)
- cut Thorin pulling his sword on Bilbo (he still shows enough suspicion without being a psychopath yet)
- cut entire Dwarves vs. Smaug battle
- cut golden statue melting onto Smaug
- color corrected Smaug from gold and inserted shot of him barrelling through (thanks Underhill!)
- added scene of Bard grabbing black arrow
- cut all of Bard being captured & escaping
- reduced Bard jumping on the rooftops
- cut everything with Bard’s son being at the fight
- cut Laketown people on the beach
- altered Dale migration segments to play out as a single scene
- cut Alfrid scenes (Bard finds the elves there himself)
- replaced Thraduil’s flashback with clip from beginning of Unexpected Journey
- altered Thorin’s arkenstone search scenes to be consecutive
- cut many of Thorin’s “dragon sickness” scenes
- cut people and dwarves preparing for war (dressing up and grabbing gear and things)
- cut Gandalf talking to Bard and Thranduil about the “necromancer”
- cut much of the pre-war banter
- cut the were-worms
- cut all of Azog & Thorin
- altered scene to portray Bilbo using the ring to run from the battle (only to get knocked out)
- cut all of Legolas/Tauriel battling
- altered and rescored battle to be a single montage including Fili & Kili’s deaths
- cut Gandalf smoking next to Bilbo
- [would love to insert some extended scenes of Thorin’s funeral here! gotta wait for the extended release]
- [also would love to insert a scene of Bilbo uncovering the gold and planting the acorn too!]
- cut the end off earlier on a key shot


Thanks again for all your support and I hope you enjoy this release! I’ll make an update when the Extended Edition of Battle of Five Armies is released and I can get those last few scenes. Don’t forget to email me with any questions or comments, davidkillstein@gmail.com