Review Detail

When I saw The Hobbit in the theater I was bored. It was too long with too much filler. It felt padded for no reason other than to stretch out what should have been a single film into three. Then I watched this edit and realized it could actually work as a trilogy so long as the running time was kept under control. With over 40 minutes cut the just over two hour runtime is no longer drags the film down.

I'm not as familiar with The Hobbit as well as Lord of the Rings, but there was nothing that stood out as missing. I know certain scenes are missing or heavily cut, but it's expertly done and if you aren't familiar with the movie you won't notice. Nothing cut was necessary and I'm happy to see it go.

The audio didn't seem balanced quite right. At times it was overpowering while others low. This may be the master track and not the fanedit itself but it was mildly distracting. I'm only knocking one point off for it because the cuts themselves were flawless.

One thing I wish Kerr had done was mute the colors just a bit. When I saw the film in the theater I thought it looked too lush and I felt the same way here. The colors are so vivid and pop that it pulls you out of film. Desaturating it a bit May have helped.

But that's nitpicking and this version of The Hobbit is definitely worth a watch. It moves along at a nice pace, never becomes boring, and is my preferred version of the film.