Fan Edits Discussion - Book VI The End of the Third Age

[Alatar]

Book VI - The End of the Third Age

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9606056/Red%20Book%20IV.avi

We start with Frodo captured, and the fight over the mail shirt, followed by Sams rescue, the forced march with the orcs and the plain of Gorogoroth in quick succession. In this case I feel the intercutting would have helped as there simply isn't enough footage to get across the sense of how long they are journeying. Frodo seems to deteriorate at an alarming speed. All in all, the only real difference here (aside from the intercuts) is the lack of Sauron the Giant Eyeball and the searchlight moment.

At the cracks of doom, there's no ramped up tension with Frodo thinking of falling. I would have liked if this had been edited in some way to have Gollum fall without being pushed, but there's only so much you can do really.

After this, we see Barad-dûr fall without the "OH FU..." of the giant eyeball. Instead we see the shot from the base of the tower, and the distant shot from the black gate. Without checking, I would say that the rest of the movie is as in the Extended Edition, with maybe some of the fadeouts shortened, or crossfaded to other scenes.

One really nice touch is that the music used over the credits is "Bilbo's Last Song" from the BBC production.

This is the shortest of the Fan Edits, running to about 47 minutes, but again this is simply down to the lack of Mordor footage available.

My overall impressions of the Fan Edit "The Red BooK" are very positive. There are some lovely changes that work really well, and some others that don't work as well. As much as I loved the Movies, this makes me wonder how well a more literal adaptation could have worked. I'm very grateful for PJ's LotR, but I'm also very grateful for Kerr's huge achievement in showing us an alternative.

Note: IF you download the DVD Iso's there are some nice "Special Features":

"Of the Finding of the Ring", which shows footage from the RB Hobbit spliced together over Robert Inglis's narration.
"Bakshi's Journey of the Ringearers", which edits down the Frodo/Sam/Gollum footage from Bakshi's movie in a similar structure.
"PJ's version of the Tale of Aragorn and Arwen" which cuts all the Aragorn/Arwen footage into a Narrative.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Do you have the file for this one, Al?

[Alatar]

Edited in the link from TOB. I hope its still current as Jude was hosting that one I think.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

That appears to be the Book IV link, not the Book VI link.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

It doesn't appear to be at TOB, either. But let's see what happens if I just change the "IV" to "VI":

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9606056/Red%20Book%20VI.avi

Edit: Yup, that seems to work!

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Again, I largely agree with Al's comments. Although I'm not sure how well more Mordor sequences would have worked. That's the type of thing, I think, that works better in a book than in a film. And I didn't like using "Bilbo's Last Song" over the credits. It felt unnecessarily disrespectful to replace "Into the West" in that way. But a minor complaint.

As can be seem by my comments, the fan edit definitely grew on me. It's nice to have this alternative way of watching the films.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Note: IF you download the DVD Iso's there are some nice "Special Features":

"Of the Finding of the Ring", which shows footage from the RB Hobbit spliced together over Robert Inglis's narration.
"Bakshi's Journey of the Ringearers", which edits down the Frodo/Sam/Gollum footage from Bakshi's movie in a similar structure.
"PJ's version of the Tale of Aragorn and Arwen" which cuts all the Aragorn/Arwen footage into a Narrative.

How would one get access to the these? I would really like to see the last one.

[Alatar]

I should be able to rip that as a separate file for you.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

That would be great!