Review Detail
9.6 31 10
Overall rating
9.4
Audio/Video Quality
10.0
Audio Editing
8.0
Visual Editing
10.0
Narrative
10.0
Enjoyment
9.0
I don't think I can say much more than has already been said, so I'll just throw my hat in the "this edit was awesome" ring. Here's a quick rundown:
A/V quality:
Superb. One of my recent edits is roughly the same length, and fitting a movie this long on a BD-25 is like fitting a movie of similar length on a DVD-5: doable, but difficult to maintain a high quality. Kerr nailed it. I do wonder though: was this 1080 or 720? 720 is impressive enough, but if this disc was mastered in 1080, Kerr is something of a marvel.
Visual editing:
I have exactly nothing to mention on this front.
Audio editing:
Kerr's score replacement was ambitious, especially because it required a lot of sound effect reconstruction too. By and large it was incredibly well done, and I didn't notice any of the newly added effects. I took off two points because there were a few instances where the score was simply too loud. There was really only one or two instances of the dialogue being difficult to hear, but the majority of the time it just seemed a bit too overpowering. I understand that this is to help mask residue from the original score on the center channel, but it still took me out of it a bit here and there.
Narrative:
There were only a few bits that were taken out that I noticed, and really only one or two things that I actually missed: the "blunt the knives" song and some of the extra dwarf antics in Rivendell, but on the whole, I found this to be much better paced than the theatrical cut, and obviously moreso than the extended cut. I really enjoyed how the Goblin town segment was trimmed - the characters have a long journey ahead of them, and throwing them into something like this too early in the long arc of the narrative makes the remainder of the story a bit tiring if it's one encounter after the other.
Having also watched Menbailee's edit, there was one thing I wish that Kerr had done here that Menbailee did: removing the dwarfs storming the troll camp. I thought it was a brilliant cut to show them charging into the camp then cutting to them on the fire.
Enjoyment:
This will certainly be my go-to version of the film (at least until Kerr does he book cut in 2015). A few minor quibbles aside, this was exceptionally well done. Good work Kerr, keep it up!
A/V quality:
Superb. One of my recent edits is roughly the same length, and fitting a movie this long on a BD-25 is like fitting a movie of similar length on a DVD-5: doable, but difficult to maintain a high quality. Kerr nailed it. I do wonder though: was this 1080 or 720? 720 is impressive enough, but if this disc was mastered in 1080, Kerr is something of a marvel.
Visual editing:
I have exactly nothing to mention on this front.
Audio editing:
Kerr's score replacement was ambitious, especially because it required a lot of sound effect reconstruction too. By and large it was incredibly well done, and I didn't notice any of the newly added effects. I took off two points because there were a few instances where the score was simply too loud. There was really only one or two instances of the dialogue being difficult to hear, but the majority of the time it just seemed a bit too overpowering. I understand that this is to help mask residue from the original score on the center channel, but it still took me out of it a bit here and there.
Narrative:
There were only a few bits that were taken out that I noticed, and really only one or two things that I actually missed: the "blunt the knives" song and some of the extra dwarf antics in Rivendell, but on the whole, I found this to be much better paced than the theatrical cut, and obviously moreso than the extended cut. I really enjoyed how the Goblin town segment was trimmed - the characters have a long journey ahead of them, and throwing them into something like this too early in the long arc of the narrative makes the remainder of the story a bit tiring if it's one encounter after the other.
Having also watched Menbailee's edit, there was one thing I wish that Kerr had done here that Menbailee did: removing the dwarfs storming the troll camp. I thought it was a brilliant cut to show them charging into the camp then cutting to them on the fire.
Enjoyment:
This will certainly be my go-to version of the film (at least until Kerr does he book cut in 2015). A few minor quibbles aside, this was exceptionally well done. Good work Kerr, keep it up!
User Review
Do you recommend this edit?
Yes
Format Watched?
Blu-Ray
A