I'm One Of Those Who Loved LOTR But Hated The Hobbit Films

It's not perfect. Thorin inexplicably has Orcrist again for the final showdown with Azog (which probably could have been fixed just by having a shortened Legolas and Bolg fight), and when Smaug leaves the mountain, he's now covered with water (the liguid gold was color corrected, but it's still obvious that he's covered with a liquid of some sort). I've actually seen some fan edits that solve this (and I did the same in my own, private, fan edit) by just leaving the dwarves outside the mountain (which I prefer, as they never entered the mountain to fight Smaug in the book) and when Smaug leaves, they don't show him breaking out through the gate, but just show the dwarves feeling the earthquake Smaug causes (which originally came earlier), with Balin saying, "That my lad was a dragon." Then it cuts to Smaug in the sky, without the need to show him breaking down the gate. I don't know why the editor didn't just do it that way.

And just to nit-pick, I wish he had cut out all references to Smaug referring to Thorin as "Oakensheild," as Thorin did not earn that name until after Smaug took over the mountain.

And there are some things that can't be fixed. I liked how the filmmakers made one of the orcs be an old enemy of Thorin's, as this works better to make the final battle less abrupt, but I didn't like how they made the orc be Azog, as Azog actually WAS killed in the Battle of Moria in Tolkien's books. I think it would have worked better if they had used Bolg instead, and had him be taking vengeance on Thorin for killing his father (since Bolg is Azog's son). But no amount of editing is going to fix this missed opportunity of the filmmakers.

But, it's still a nice fan edit, and I've probably watched it more times than the actual movies (The Bilbo Edition fan edit is pretty good too, though it's not as professionally edited as the Maple Films edit).