Walking Dead Apocalypse, The

November 12, 2011 @ 7:45 am

I really enjoyed this version of The Walking Dead. When one thinks about 93 minutes being cut out, you’d think a major portion of the story is gone, but that just isn’t so. If you haven’t seen this (I know you need to own the DVDs), I’d say this is the version to watch.

ABOUT THE CUTS: My wife (who has also watched the entire series with me) and I both thought the cuts were perfectly done as far as material being left out. Shortly after what would have been the third episode, I mentioned to her about “Ed” being cut and we both agreed that it was not only not noticeable, but obviously a good cut since the story didn’t miss a beat.

I personally think even more could have been cut, but I couldn’t give you specifics as to where I make them. In a TV series, you’re going to have a lot of drama mixed in with a little action, but the editor managed to keep things moving. Nice job.

TECHNICAL: I’m completely unqualified to make an expert comment, but as a casual observer, I can say the cuts were smooth, the music (except one or two spots) was seamless.

OVERALL: This is the go-to for my second favorite series on TV right now. If it could be cut down to 200 or 220 minutes, I’d probably be even happier :)

Love the work. Keep it up!

November 4, 2011 @ 6:58 am

Technical Quality: Video quality is nearly perfect. The only flaw I saw was during the fade to the flashbacks of Shane and Lori there was some pixilation errors. I hope this was due to this being an .avi release and it will look perfect on a DL DVD. Audio was great. 9/10
(As a note to the editor, at 3 hrs 19 mins this absolutely must be on a dual-layer disc.)

Editing quality: Overall the editing was excellent. It’s difficult to tell exactly where a lot of the cuts came in. The cutting between the end of episode 1 and the beginning of episode 2 was perfect. The transition from episode 4 to episode 5 was spectacular. The flashback scenes worked great (except for the video quality I noted above). The only edit I had a problem with was at the 2:52:31 mark. The music cuts out abruptly at the fade in to the next scene. Other than that, it was great! 9/10

Entertainment: I really enjoyed watching this. With Season 2 of The Walking Dead having just started I wanted to rewatch Season One and this was the greatest way to achieve that! Gone are most of the slow subplots and a lot of dialog that can drag it down. Now we can focus on Rick’s journey.

Specifically the choice to cut the scenes of the camp until Rick gets there was great. The moment with Rick reuniting with his wife and son was such an emotionally packed moment and you made it even better with the quick flashback cuts.

You streamlined everything so well without losing anything from the story or the characters. The plot remains intact and the audience still feels compassion for these characters.

In regards to the runtime, I for one felt fine with it. It’s a good watch for a lazy Sunday afternoon. Could it have been shorter? Sure. Did it need to be shorter? Not really.

Some may say that you could have cut more, but I understand how hard it would have been. For example, the main plot of episode 4 will most likely have no bearing on the rest of the series, but if you had tried to cut all of it, it would have looked choppy for sure.

Overall entertainment: 8/10

Presentation: N/A as this is just an .avi release.

Overall Rating: 8/10