Well, much time has passed since then and professional quality film editing is now available to enthusiasts with time on their hands. The results have been pretty staggering. The home for these recut movies is Fanedit.info or Fanedit.org and you will find all sorts of varieties there. Some attempt to restore old movies with new effects and colour grading. Some are simple exercises in curiosity much like Christopher Nolans legitimate Memento cut in chronological order. Some simply insert "Deleted Scenes" as seamlessly as possible. More ambitious projects take multiple sources to try to create a single "best" version of a movie like Blade Runner, which suffered from much studio meddling. Still others, like Superman II or Dune, attempt to produce something as close to what the director originally envisioned as possible, working from workprints, alternate takes etc along with the herculean effort of matching colour grading, sountrack, score into a consistent cinema quality movie.
Of course, the movies I'm interested in discussing are the Fan Edits of Lord of the Rings. There are two main efforts, namely "Sharkeys Purist Edition" and "Kerr's Red Book Edition". Of the two, I'd like to look at "Kerr's Red Book Edition" first.
He states:
In other words, this is not an attempt to make an "improved" Lord of the Rings movie, but rather, to edit the movies in such a way as to bring them as close as possible to the books. As such, each of the 6 movies represents one book in The Lord of the Rings. Because of Kerr's attempt to stay as close to the book as possible, the running time for all 6 movies comes to about 7 hours in total, as opposed to the 11+ hours of the Extended Editions. The final book in particular, comes to 47 minutes running time, since it only contains the Sam and Frodo scenes from Frodo's Capture up to the destruction of the Ring, and the Battle at the Black Gate, followed by the Coronation and Grey Havens.INTENTION & EDITING DETAILS:
To separate Peter Jackson�s �The Lord of the Rings� trilogy into six parts that adhere as closely as possible to the six books of J.R.R. Tolkien�s �The Lord of the Rings�. This is done by both restructuring the films to match the narrative structure found in Tolkien�s book, and by removing as much as possible of the material that has no basis in Tolkien�s vision of Middle-Earth.
ADDITIONAL COMMENTS:
This fanedit primarily intended for fans of Tolkien�s work. Its intention is not to improve the films in and of themselves, and viewers unfamiliar with the book will probably be left confused and unsatisfied, and would be better off watching the originals.
I have downloaded all 6 movies in Avi form and can share with anyone interested. Obviously, the understanding here is that I am only sharing with people who already own the movies. From the Fanedit.info Legal Section:
Visitors to the fanedit.org and faneditforum.com websites are advised that all fanedits contained within the pages of the websites are believed to be fanedits and/or preservation projects of films from personal collections which fall under the Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. � 107, which states: Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include� 1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; 2. the nature of the copyrighted work; 3. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and 4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. Since fanedits contained here are mainly created out of criticisms, research, and are completely nonprofit, we here at the fanedit.org and faneditforum.com websites believe that they fall under the requirements of the Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. � 107. However, no claims, promises or guarantees about the accuracy, completeness, or adequacy of the information are made. Visitors are encouraged to review the official version of all documents upon which they plan to download as well as to make completely sure they own a legitimate, original copy of anything they may wish to download. The safest course is always to get permission from the copyright owner before using copyrighted material. The fanedit.org and faneditforum.com websites cannot give this permission. Legal Disclaimer Regarding Links to Other Sites - Some of the linked sites are not under the control of the fanedit.org and faneditforum.com websites. Therefore, the fanedit.org and faneditforum.com websites make no representations concerning their content, and are not responsible for their content. That the fanedit.org and faneditforum.com websites have provided a link to a site is not an endorsement, or an indication of affiliation with the owners or publishers of any fanedits and all related materials. There are risks in using any information, services or fanedits found on the Internet via any outside links; and the fanedit.org and faneditforum.com websites caution you to make sure that you completely understand these risks before retrieving, using, relying upon, or downloading anything via the Internet. Legal Disclaimer Regarding Members, Fanedits and Links The fanedit.org and faneditforum.com websites reserves the right to refuse services at any time. Notification that Information Provided by You is Public Information Any information provided by you to the fanedit.org and faneditforum.com websites, including but not limited to feedback, questions, comments, suggestions, download links, etc., etc., are considered non-confidential since it is a public website; moreover, such information is a public record subject to public inspection pursuant to law. The fanedit.org and faneditforum.com websites has no obligation of any kind with respect to such information and cannot be held responsible for the decisions nor the actions of any individuals of the entire Internet community at large. By downloading any fanedit, the downloader assumes all responsibilities thereof as well as all the consequences that may incur. CONSIDER YOURSELF WARNED!
Its worth also pointing out that Peter Jackson is on record (in the RotK Commentary I believe) as saying that fans now have access to the material and can create their own edits and seemed ambivalent at worst and his comments might even be taken as tacit approval.
So, I'm proposing that I make the first movie available on a private FTP or HTTP server. Those interested can download and watch in their own time. We can then discuss, and I'll post the full list of Edits so we can comment on how well/badly we felt they worked. When we're all happy, we can move on to the next movie.
Anyone interested in participating?
Note: The movies are in DivX format. Mac and PC versions of the codecs are available here for free:
http://www.divx.com/en
Also useful for downloading large files is Getright:
http://getright.com/
