Hobbit: Fire of the Dragon, The

I posted minor feedback during the making of this fanedit, but I think I can nonetheless provide an unbiased review of the final product. I will start by stating I have been awaiting an edit of this movie like a dog waiting for a bone. And ranger613 was the first to throw me that bone, for which I am grateful. The theater version of DOS left me completely disillusioned with the Hobbit film idea, to the point I wished I'd never seen it. What happened to the realism and amazing writing that characterized the LOTR movies?

Yet I did not lose hope that underneath the ridiculous theater release there could be a salvageable movie. But I knew it would require some major cuts. With Fire of the Dragon some cuts were made that resolved glaring issues, such as orcs and elves in Laketown, and other smaller problems with dialogue. The transitions for the most part were smooth, and technical quality of the edit overall very good. But I do not believe the cuts went far enough. The barrel scene and dwarf fighting dragon scene are utterly ridiculous in my opinion. Because they were left in this edit, I can't rate it higher than a 7 in narrative.

I recommend this edit because it is a clear improvement over the theater version. Anyone not looking for a serious movie, closer to the book, will likely enjoy it.

I’m sorry but this edit is not for me. Even though I liked a lot, I felt too much was cut.

First of all, the technical stuff. The video and audio editing was great, however the audio tone shifted from time to time and it was very distracting.

I missed the Gimli reference because unlike a lot of people’s beliefs that it was a badly shoehorned moment, it was the truth, Gloin is Gimli’s father. And that look of Legolas was a great moment; it was a great scene in my opinion.

The love triangle was executed great in the original movie IMO. It was about ignoring and destroying the two races' hate, and falling in love. This will be greatly explored even more in The Battle of the Five Armies. Removing that was risky, and careful watchers will say; wait, where are Kili, Fili, Bofur and Oin? Though it made no impact in the story's quality (since it was a subplot), it did make the movie a little less interesting to me.

You should have deleted stuff more carefully because you also deleted Legolas being Thranduil’s son. This made Legolas a badly shoehorned character, as if Aragorn was put in The Hobbit. It made no sense, unlike the theatrical cut. People will be confused. If you had left the Thranduil/Tauriel scene in (which I really like) we would have learned Legolas is Thranduil’s son, and it would have made sense. I understand that you deleted it so that the love triangle is deleted, but deleting the rest was enough, this scene had little to no connection to the triangle.

Another thing I disliked was since you removed Legolas, Tauriel, the four dwarves and Bard's family in the third act as well as the Laketown attack, the part where Bard takes out the black arrow and is never seen again felt very choppy and pointless.

Now we get to Azog and Bolg. Wow. Why you cut these I will never know. Here, after a chase scene in the beginning we never know what they are doing. Cutting the Azog/Bolg scenes makes it very confusing. Why is Azog no longer looking for Thorin? Why are Bolg and the orcs attacking the dwarves in the river scene? Why is Azog in Dol Guldur instead of looking for Thorin and Company? This is all explained in the theatrical cut but here? Nope.

Misty Mountains is a very good song, both the dwarf one and the credits one from AUJ. However, the reason for it not being used in DoS is because we got past the Misty Mountains and we don't need a reminder. A cue in some scenes don't even work, sorry! And then, the end credits. Where was "I See Fire" you ask? Thrown to the side for the sake of “Misty Mountains”. “I See Fire” is a better fitting song for the context of the film, and Misty Mountains doesn't work because of reasons I just said above.

All in all, the fanedit has a lot of positives and a lot of negatives. The narrative is slightly worse, and this edit is definitely not going to coincide with the Azog included edits of AUJ (like Kerr's). I do recommend it though, for people who dislike the Gimli reference, the love triangle, Azog and Bolg. But this isn't for me.