Review Detail

9.6 23 10
FanFix November 26, 2013 10502
(Updated: December 25, 2016)
Overall rating
 
10.0
Audio/Video Quality
 
10.0
Audio Editing
 
10.0
Visual Editing
 
10.0
Narrative
 
10.0
Enjoyment
 
10.0
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.

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Yes
Format Watched
Blu-ray
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