Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - Arkenstone Edition, The

I would imagine I come to these movies in a somewhat unique way. I didn't grow up on the books and only read LOTR after having seen the movies and the EEs many times. I have never read the Hobbit or any other ancillary material, including the appendices for LOTR. With that, I would imagine I came to the theatrical version with a bit less baggage than typical fans of the book. Overall, I enjoyed the movie, but not as much as I had the LOTR movies. I purchased the EE when it was released and actually enjoyed that quite a bit more, though there were some additions I could do without. Most notably, any additions to the Goblin King section. I feel my enjoyment of the EE more than my initial theatrical experience is due, in part, to more familiarity with a large ensemble cast. The issues I initially had, ironically, are expanded in the EE, namely some slow, plodding sections and over-the-top silliness. Yet I enjoyed the EE more. Again, I feel this is because, with no prior exposure to most of these characters in my initial viewing, it took me a while to get to know them and care about them. I think this is why PJ made the Bag End scenes so long. Kerr's shortening to about 30 minutes certainly feels right now, but if this were my initial viewing, would I feel the same way? That's the tough thing about reviewing these fan edits; it's impossible to go in with a clean slate.

By far, for me, the biggest improvement is the cuts to the Goblin Kingdom scenes. Thank god the song is gone (the biggest problem I had with the EE). The chase scenes are so cartoonish and silly--like something from Sonic the Hedgehog--that the fact that Kerr completely removed them was a huge aspect of my enjoyment. Compounding the issue, these silly scenes were intercut with the Riddles in the Dark scene, the best part of the movie. It reminded me of the silliness of the Ewoks intercut with the Throne Room duel in RotJ. I would guess a lot of the silliness is in this movie to try to keep it more in line with the tone of the book (which, again, I haven't read). But I think it needed to be completely a children's story or completely in line with the LOTR trilogy. Kerr does about as good a job as I can imagine making it the latter.

It's impossible to say for sure if I would have enjoyed this version the best, had I seen it first. But it is now my go to version. I will need to grab the Blu Ray version as soon as possible!

One question I did have is where the video game sources were used. I didn't seen them referenced in the changes section.

Almost full marks. I enjoyed this greatly, the movie suddenly gained seriousness and depth without annoying scenes. The theatrical release was a disappointment, but this edit made it worthwhile and enjoyable, love it!

I noted some problems with audiolevels, where the music sometimes made the dialogue hard to hear, but that can have to do with my stereo system.

Thanks for a great edit, I can now try to forget the theatrical release.

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!

Great stuff. There's not much to say, so my review will be brief.

I love LOTR, so I was there opening night for AUJ. I knew it wasn't going to be as good as LOTR, that wasn't possible. Like many, I found myself somewhat disappointed in the film (still love it, to be clear), mostly pacing and narrative wise. Let me just say that there's no disappointment in this edit. It's not a replacement for me (I'm still holding tight to my EE - I want as much Middle Earth as possible), but it is, most likely, the best possible version of the film. It's faster, it's not as jumbled - it's definitely more focused. I could go more in depth, but I think the easiest thing to say is look at the cutlist and understand that every change works and improves the movie.

I only have a couple of problems with the edit. First thing I noticed that was off was the shot of painting in Rivendell - color wise and because of the slow motion. Next, and last, was the audio in the final few scenes. The thing is, when the entire audio track was replaced, the music wasn't loud enough, and it felt somewhat empty. Also, some of the original music seeps through when there's dialogue, but that's not as big a deal.

Anyway, great, great edit.

I like the original AUJ. It was a very nice return to Middle-Earth, but lots of pacing issues, prequel-itis and plain odd stuff prevented this movie from becoming truly fantastic like The Lord of the Rings.

Kerr wanted to fix this and edited An Unexpected Journey to make it the beginning of the Middle-Earth saga instead of a direct prequel to The Lord of the Rings, cut all of the odd stuff and fixed the pacing issues.

The Audio/Video editing was flawless. I especially liked how Kerr reinstated Howard Shore's original music and replaced it with borrowed music from The Lord of the Rings. The color correction was also very nice. Even though the green hue never bothered me, the new picture looks better.

The narrative is fantastic. Personally, I would cut Old Bilbo and make the prologue as if Ian Holm voices a random narrator, with "In a hole in the ground..." Up to "...and all the comforts of home" transitioning over the "Good morning" scene. I would also keep Blunt the Knives and Bofur's song from the EE as they establish the dwarves' merryness, and keep some setups for the next films like some parts of the White Council, or more of Gandalf and Galadriel. But other than those preferences, what's been aimed has been achieved perfectly. Well done!

This movie really succeeds in being much better and fitting the next two movies, and I recommend it to ANYONE.