Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - Arkenstone Edition, The

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Overall rating
 
9.6
Audio/Video Quality
 
9.8(31)
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9.5(31)
Visual Editing
 
9.9(31)
Narrative
 
9.5(31)
Enjoyment
 
9.4(31)
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(Updated: December 16, 2013)
Overall rating
 
9.4
Audio/Video Quality
 
10.0
Audio Editing
 
8.0
Visual Editing
 
9.0
Narrative
 
10.0
Enjoyment
 
10.0
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.

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Yes
Format Watched?
DVD
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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!

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Yes
Format Watched?
Blu-Ray
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(Updated: January 03, 2014)
Overall rating
 
9.4
Audio/Video Quality
 
10.0
Audio Editing
 
10.0
Visual Editing
 
10.0
Narrative
 
8.0
Enjoyment
 
9.0
It's still The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. I personally enjoyed the theatrical cut, approaching the film as the light-hearted adventure it's supposed to be and I appreciated all the content, but I was aware that there's simply too much of it and very little of it justifies the extended running time. Even with this edit, AUJ remains relatively exposition-heavy - which is understandable since it's the first entry in this trilogy - with fairly shallow characterization and a simple plot to boot. But Kerr managed to just tighten everything up overall whilst having little to no impact on the original, light-hearted adventure vision for the film.

The opening section where Bilbo is convinced to join the company feels just about right now in
terms of length. Azog becomes a more ominous, dangerous villain by reducing his dialogue and
screen time. Radagast's shorter, quicker introduction works well, although it's a little abrupt IMO. The trimmed troll and Warg chase sequences remove absolutely nothing of consequence based on the fact I noticed 0% of the changes whilst they remained fully fleshed-out sections of action. Their pit-stop in Rivendell drags down the pacing a little less, and the closing goblin cave segment is much less indulgent. Kerr has simply made AUJ a better film on every level, although I personally don't agree with cutting the stone giants (more so because the company's climb along the stormy mountain now feels a little on the short side rather than actually missing the giants, no matter how grand or entertaining they are), trimming the goblin caves to the extent that there's barely any fighting and you don't even see the goblin king killed, or cutting the shot of the dwarves falling into the goblin cave in dramatic fashion. Nonetheless, it's a huge pacing improvement on the original film, and while it's still not a masterpiece this will certainly be my go-to version of AUJ from now on.

Video and sound quality is excellent for the MP4 release and the editing is flawless, with only a
handful of slightly noticable transitions throughout the 140 minute run time. Video editing is pretty much unnoticeable and the sound work is similarly excellent, save for some times where the music seems a bit over-loud compared to the dialogue or when the sound recreation falls a bit flat in the reworked climax. My hats off to Kerr nonetheless for making such a smoothly extensive edit that remains true to the original intentions of The Hobbit, and I'm looking forward to seeing if he does the same with The Desolation of Smaug and There and Back Again.

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Yes
Format Watched?
Digital
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Overall rating
 
9.2
Audio/Video Quality
 
10.0
Audio Editing
 
10.0
Visual Editing
 
10.0
Narrative
 
8.0
Enjoyment
 
8.0
This is a really good edit of the Hobbit. Pacing is much better, annoying stuff gone. Into my eye and ear, the cuts were technically flawless.

The new soundtack is also good, and makes the movie unique. I needed a while to get used to it but it works! However in Thorin's charge against Azog in the end the music was just not as powerful as in the original movie... This scene with the original music always got me goosebumps, with this new music it came close, but did not quite do it.

Also I would have liked to see a little more action in the goblin town. I think the dwarves fight/chase was just cut too short (though the way Goblin King was handled was very good). In contrast - Bilbo's confrontation with Gollum felt a little too long to have it all in one scene.

Aside these things, very good job! Looking forward to the edits of the next two parts.

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Yes
Format Watched?
DVD
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(Updated: December 12, 2013)
Overall rating
 
9.0
Audio/Video Quality
 
10.0
Audio Editing
 
10.0
Visual Editing
 
10.0
Narrative
 
8.0
Enjoyment
 
7.0
Audio was fine for me - I watched the BD, through headphones via my sound system.

I enjoyed this cut immensely - until the end. The warg tree fire fight thingy just felt totally unnecessary.
The film felt ended on "I will help you get your home back", cut to looking at the Lonely Mountain. Now I know you kept Azog because of continuity, but nothing really happens in this fight at all, and I would wager it could be safely cut.
I liked the cuts to the trolls, although it was maybe a little *too* short now.

I didn't notice the music changes AT ALL, so kudos there! The music is really good, and the sound FX work / foley that you did - WOW!

This is certainly to date the *best* version of AUJ by far, and is my go to version - but I'm still waiting for another edit to come along. Look forward to see what you cook up after viewing DoS and seeing what more can be cut in AUJ.
(Enjoyment is a solid 7, the original I would rate about a 5, maybe a 6. So the Enjoyment and Narrative ratings are more a reflection on the underlying film, rather than the edit itself. I just think more can be cut (which kerr himself said introducing this edit, so...!))

Applause for another amazing kerr edit.


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Yes
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Blu-Ray
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