The Hobbit – The Cardinal Cut

I, like many other massive fans of both Tolkien’s works and Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, was in many ways disappointed with the subsequent big-screen adaptation of The Hobbit. But unlike with many other flawed adaptations, I always felt that with The Hobbit, a single good movie did exist within what we received; it was only a matter of chiseling away the excess. And now, with an abundance of free time and a fledgling YouTube channel on my hands, I have finally set about forging my first fan edit. My goals with this cut were to trim The Hobbit Trilogy down to a single movie, not to exceed a length of four hours (excluding credits), that was as faithful to the spirit of the novel as I could manage working with the materials I had. I will provide a brief overview of the changes here, but a comprehensive list of the edits, with timestamps and information on transitions, will be available at the bottom of this post.