Review Detail

What a fantastic edit! This is by far, to me, the best standalone edit of this film. The amount of bloat that exists in these films is absolutely shocking, and by trimming it to the breaking point you've exposed an exciting film that could have been.

Quality is great across the board, video and audio.

My only qualms with the edit would be:
- I'm not a fan of how you open the film, with the group on the eagles. It feels how Battle of the Five Armies feels: Like that scene should've been at the end of the previous film.
- Smaug breaking through the wall still just doesn't look right, even with the gold removed. It's definitely much better, and maybe knowing it's meant to be gold is making me feel this way, but I'd almost rather not see him break through the wall at all.

Other than those two things I loved every decision, especially the way you cut the barrel sequence.

This is a superior work, and definitely deserving of all of its rave reviews.