Review Detail

In terms of narrative, this is close to perfection.

The removal of the exaggerated silliness from Merry and Pippin on the 1st section, as well as the weird apparent incompetence from the Riders, improve the story.
The eye of Sauron only being discovered by Frodo on Amon Hen works really well.

The two highlights of the edit are the many edited parts about Saruman getting ready for war, which help to elevate his character, and the many changed sections about Aragorn (and Arwen). Aragorn is shown way too fearful of his legacy in the original. I get the reason for that during his long years of life before the story, but now he fully knows Middle-Earth is close to being destroyed. His main character growth (alongside many of the changes brought forth by the story) actually happens when he meets and fights alongside Théoden, who shows him how to be a leader of Peoples. The bit about “getting over his fear of making the same mistake as Isildur” is just much weaker as character growth goes. Removing his self-doubt works very well; the world is ending, now he just gets up and does something about it (as his personality would force him to do).

The removal of the crumbling stairs in Moria gets rid of one of the funniest jokes of the film (the jumping Gimli) but considering that the same joke is done again on The Two Towers, with better effect, this is minimized a lot. Also, by removing that section, the Balrog gets a lot more attention, and the whole “run from the monster” has a lot more gravitas.

My only gripe here is visual quality, the lower resolution and low bit rate are really noticeable in some sections.