Petty's Purist LotR Edits

As promised a place to post any comments, critique, questions or general abuse about my purist edits. Still only FotR and TT up, and if the old thread ever shows up I'll repost Ringdrottens comments.
If there's anyone wants to see therm and I haven't given the link to send me a pm with your e-mail and I will set up access.

Almost finished one post - hit the wrong button and lost it

My first thoughts take two!

As already mentioned elswhere I am half way through fellowship, but so far.......

Like the new party edit, focussess the attention on Bilbo and his leaving without distractions

I had worried that when the other hobbits were intro'd it would feel rushed, but actually it ensures they have a good impact. I have to say I hadn't really noticed before how much of Merry and Pippin was simply light relief till I watched this and realised how little the story was affected by the omissions.

Biggest triumph so far is the re-ordering of the plot points to be true to the book, so well done that I hadn't noticed what had been omitted till Rivendell. Shows the rearrangement was not necessary to make the film work. The reconsituted scene is a bit clunky due to the fact it was cut as a series of short scenes originally, obviously a shorter and clearer scene could have been filmed at the time!

My only suprise at this point is that the scene between Gandalf and Saruman in Orthanc does not end sooner (after the reason for madness line), it seems a natural cut point to me, then onto the roof. You've also cut my favourite visual image from this part, the swooping shot from Gandalf on the roof down the tower to the caverns - it's spectuacular!

Thanks for allowing me access, looking forward to my next installment (from the council on!)

'You've also cut my favourite visual image from this part, the swooping shot from Gandalf on the roof down the tower to the caverns - it's spectuacular!'-Kafria

Sorry about that Kafria, and I really am sorry, its a great effects shot. Its not omitted because of any dislike on my part, I tried to keep it in the various different cuts I tried of those scenes. as you say they are a series of short scenes and finding the least jarring ways to put them together became the priority. Unfortunately there's no way out of that scene in a cut that's not very jarring- leastways not one I could find. So I had to cut it. The entire moth bit nearly went there its really only still present because it come sup again at the end of RotK where its harder to edit out.
Had PJ done the job properly in the first place of course it would be unnecessary to do them at all!

Had PJ done the job properly in the first place of course it would be unnecessary to do them at all

Indeed

Glad you like FotR so far Kafria. Hope you enjoy the rest and I look forward to hearing any further comments you have to make.

Anyone else had a watch of these yet?

RotK reedited should be up within the week!!


(baring incidents of )

Great Any chance for it to be up by Friday/Saturday?

I will do my best Ringdrotten!! the hassle is the time it takes to upload the chunks- you'd think given you can download a chunk in a few minutes it would be as fast to upload, but can take about 20mins a chunk making it tedious and difficult to find the time- and I don't like putting some of it up and not all of it at once. But I shall try to make time for it before the weekend Ringdrotten.

As long as it doesn't cause you any inconvenience, if it does, I'll wait

No worries- its never inconvenient just impossible time wise sometimes!- but I hope to find the time- I'm still breaking it up into chunks at the mo.

Well I've watched the second half of fellowship now too! I have really enjoyed watching these, so thanks again for the access.

First thought is well done on the troll fight re-edit, it flows really well and actually makes the scene feel more real to me, an achievement when having to edit with the ready made shots.

I know you have stated that you disliked the staircase bit and I understand why you removed it, unfortunately there is too little footage left to show Gandalf trying to stop the door properly, although I also like the re-edit of the Balrog at the bridge, truer to the book. Similarly the minor changes in Lothlorien work well.

My only problem with this is that with a lot of the lothlorien stuff staying and the trimming of other sections the overall balance is a bit lacking (not enough journey before, with the gap of rohan and snow fall on the pass seeming quite short in comparison to the time in the golden wood)

I liked the trimming at the end too, again I got a feeling of the attack having more reality and a greater sense of them being truly under attack. There seemed to be more hobbit fighting than I remember and I wondered if it just that long since I last watched PJs or clever editting on your part.

It did set me wondering though, if you had filmed this where would you have ended this film, do you agree with the moving of the Boromirs death etc (something I have always felt worked really well) into this movie or not? Also what footage would you have added that is missing in your opinion?

Disaster on the RotK front. My disc is scratched, the only copy of the edited version is on a hard drive that is stone cold dead along with all the programs I used to edit them!!
I spent most of last night reediting on a program I don't know. I've finished it but its lacking the filtering for the Mordor scenes (I don't even think this particular program lets you adjust levels let alone do anything fancy) and some of the transitions are a bit rougher than I would like. But its that or waiting a very long time for it.
However I set the program to render it out this morning and its still got 10hrs to go!!
So sorry Ringdrotten- I tried, I really tried to get it up for tonight but unless it breaks into a burst of unlikely speed it will be tomorrow.


Thanks for giving them a watch Kafria.
"and actually makes the scene feel more real to me"- Kafria
That's one of the main aims in these edits. I felt that PJ by loving the over the top and the ridiculous spectacle undermines the books and the films by taking away from the sense of solidity and reality Tolkien created.
The troll scene is a good example of that. In the EE its silly, with Legolas hoping about lie a cgi leprechaun and Gimli playing it for laughs and it goes on and on. When the scene is shorter and concentrates on getting to the point (sic) it seems more real and brutal.
I lost the staircase partly for that reason to- its silly and overblown and I don;t think it is needed between trolls, orcs and balrog- there's enough going on.
If I had done the script Moria would have been quite different. The troll scene and Watcher in the water would both be much shorter (as they are in the edits) and I would have used the time to put back in Pipppn dropping the stones in the well and hearing the hammer- its creepy as hell and better build up- and I would have dumped the crumbling staircase in favour of having Gandalf knackering himself trying to put the shutting spell on the door, as a weak Gandalf who isn't sure what he's up against (but suspects the worse) is in my view better drama than poor masonry.
Gimli would get an overhaul regards Moira too- in Pj's cut it not certain to a new viewer how old Moria is- Gimli arrives excepting "meat on the bone, roaring fires and ale" ludicrously enough. I would had a simple line at Hollin based on the one n the book "My cousin Balin lead a company of dwarves there, many years ago, and no word has been heard from them in all that time"- it gives nicely the concept its ancient and some dwarves went back- for some reason PJ never makes this clear. I would also have included Gimli singing in the dark about Durin- I might have shortened the verse a little but I' have kept at least two verses- and visually done it like when Arwen sees her vision son- I'd overlay Moria in its glory, ghostlike over the dark as Gimli signs.

I agree with moving Boromirs death back to the end of Fellowship- it makes sense with the title of the film, it gives an emotional cap to the film and it happens, time wise about the same time as Frodo and Sam leaving, which is in FotR, so I don't have a problem with it. Boromirs death is one of the best scenes in the trilogy I think, but it has an excellent editor and sound engineer and was shot by the 2md unit, so make of that what you will but PJ's name barely touches it.

If I had made FotR its a lot of small changes- most of the time I save in the edits I would redeploy on character. Id lose the old man fight and put the excellent original dialogue back. I don;t like how the Black Riders are introduced and prefer my own edit for that (showing you don't have to re-shoot always, its how you put it together). Basically a lot of little changes.

Thanks again for watching Kafria (and you Ringdrotten) if I could prompt you towards TT now. Its quite a different kettle of fish- FotR was quite close to the book, TT the opposite. Of all 3 films its the one which editing alters the most, giving the middle film an entirely different mood.

Petty's TT is great, well worth the watch


"I would also have included Gimli singing in the dark about Durin- I might have shortened the verse a little but I' have kept at least two verses- and visually done it like when Arwen sees her vision son- I'd overlay Moria in its glory, ghostlike over the dark as Gimli signs."

Love this idea, would have been a magical scene.

No worries about the edit, Petty, take your time

Its not so much about time as not having the means to do the filters I did before. Infuriating. I managed to get the program running- so it seemed but it froze every time I imported the footage, even after I tried converting it to several different formats. And I cant work out if its a problem with the program installation, a conflict with something or the limitations of the laptop I am currently doomed with.
Whatever it is it makes it unlikely I will be able to do them correctly for some time, so this edit is a temp to medium term place holder. It follows all the same edits, nothing is different but the watch might not be quite as smooth and Mordor still looks, to Scottish eyes, like quite a nice day out with a bit of cloud but some sun. However as this is a purist edit the Frodo Sam stuff is all together so its possible to just turn down the contrast and brightness levels of your tv for that bit to mimic the filters and get the right mood.

Talking about the Frodo Sam stuff I noticed whilst reediting, or renoticed really, something striking about the portrayal of Frodo, and why Elijah never really has a chance to be a good Frodo. Because PJ moved most of Frodo's story from TT to RotK there is almost nothing left from RotK.
How much screen time do you think he gives to covering the journey from Cirith Ungol to Mount Doom and to the final complete collapse of Frodos mind and Sam's optimism of ever getting out of this hell hole alive? Less than ten minutes.
In an EE that's what, 4hrs roughly. 10 minutes. No actor could do the role justice in that amount of time, especially when for most of it he is drinking, sleeping while Sam talks, looking tired and a bit dirty and lets not forget my personal favourite, falling down a lot.
For me its says everything about what went wrong with the scripts.

"I would also have included Gimli singing in the dark about Durin- I might have shortened the verse a little but I' have kept at least two verses- and visually done it like when Arwen sees her vision son- I'd overlay Moria in its glory, ghostlike over the dark as Gimli signs."

I love this image too! In fact the whole description of Moria sounds good. I would of liked the jorney through the holllin to feature a bit, it seems increadibly sudden to reach Moria as if it is just round the corner.

"How much screen time do you think he gives to covering the journey from Cirith Ungol to Mount Doom and to the final complete collapse of Frodos mind and Sam's optimism of ever getting out of this hell hole alive? Less than ten minutes."

I am sat here in shock! Is it really that little? Then thinking of Frodo and Sam I keep remembering scenes that in the film are TT scenes. I suppose one might argue that the bits that are left are short as it is difficult to show that journey, which is farily unrelenting, but that is surely the point and would increase the sense of how difficult it was to just keep moning forward.

Looking forward to finding time for TT!

finally got a full edit of RotK but when I split it up the quality in fast moving scenes was shocking- so trying to get a trial version of the program I originally used to do it on. But means best not to expect it for a few days.

AAArghhhhh!
Turns out its this crappy toy laptop- it won't even run the free trial version of my old edit prog. So its back to doing what I can with what will run.
I've managed to do some very basic filtering, not as good as the version I lost to the death of my old pc, but still better than PJ's holiday camp look Mordor. But the output file is 31gig!!! So a bit big- will need to find a decent conversion that doesn't break up when the action gets moving. Hopefully have that done tomorrow and be ready to upload either tomorrow night or day after. Assuming I don't go stark staring mad inbetween.

Right first the good news- finally got an edit I'm more or less happy with (would still like my old filters but I've made do with what's there) but to avoid the breakup problem when I shrink it down I'm having to output the entire blooming thing again as an mp4, which a quick check tells me has 7hrs 32mins to go (its already been going 4hrs 52) and when its done I need to shove it into divx converter to reduce the size (about another 2-3hours) and then chop it into equal sized bits (about 20mins) then upload the bits to the skydrive (about 3-4hours). Bugger it looks grim written down.
But I'm aiming to have it up and ready for Friday evening at the latest (CET).
So hopefully you will have something to watch over the weekend Ringdrotten.

Sounds good Perhaps I should put it on the iPod and show some of it to a couple of friends (with your permission, of course) who share my opinion of Jackson's trilogy, could be interesting to see whether they like it or not

Do as you see fit Ringdrotten. Although I'd at least start them on TT as my edit of RotK doesn't even vaguely fit with PJ's TT.
And although the changes in FotR are far slighter the reforging of Anduril and the lack of reluctance on Aragorns part are important changes to my edit.

No problem, I'll just convert them and put them on the iPod too

Just over 18hours it took in the end to render out the edit- its currently 67% of the way through converting it to divx, then I'll chop it up and post it.

Busy downloading TT for a Sat evening watch!

Hope you enjoy it and look forward to reading your thoughts.
I'm pm'ing you about RotK.