Lord of the Rings, The: Book IV - The Journey of the Ringbearers

I continue to enjoy Kerr's reworking of these movies. There's a lot of cutting and restructuring here, and for the most part it works very well.

Faramir in particular is saved. He comes across more how it seems Tolkien intended. Removing the beat down of Gollum, and taking the Hobbits to Osgiliath really helps that part of the story. Also cutting down the Frodo-as-drug-addict scene helps a lot; now you just get the sense of the toll carrying the ring is taking.

Trimming out the bickering and out of place comments in the trek through the wilds helps, especially Frodo's swim in the Dead Marshes. All the characters come out better now. My only quibble is to me a continuity issue of them getting to the Black Gate, then back into the wilds. But I can live with that considering the narrative improvement. Particularly losing the slide and use of the cloaks.

The way Kerr cut the hidden stair climb worked well, especially implying Gollum pushing Sam; again eliminating some out of place strife between the friends. The final sequence with Shelob works very well also, and the nice ending point.

Review by spelledaren — May 14, 2009 @ 2:13 pm

I really appriciate the work done here. Sam being pushed down the stairs actually worked, though the images didn’t fit exactly right with each other in the scenes before. The beginning has an odd pacing, but nothing can be done about this. That feeling of epicness doesn’t really show up, and we have a hard time tracking how much time has passed.

I’m going for 7 out of 10 here. This gives respect to Tolkien’s work, and I was happy to see the re-arranged scenes. But the oddness of some shots and few fast sound changes get in the way somewhat.

Thanks, and keep bringing them on!

Update Sep 29, 2012

Added ratings for the categories.

All of Kerr's LotR edits (so far, just finished Book IV) have been excellent, but this one has to be the ballsiest. Flawlessly cutting out all of the non-book segments in Dagorlad and *especially* Ithilien (and by that I mean Ithilien and Osgiliath) was exceptionally artfully done given how much the original film's narrative doesn't support it. Bravo, Kerr.