Fan "tolkieneditor" has watched Peter Jackson's three films and generally enjoyed them. However, while he felt (like most, it seems) that they were overlong, he decided to do something about it, and edited all three down into a single four (4.5, if you count the credits) hour movie. It looks like it's only currently available via torrent, but it looks like he did a bangup job of it.
Some of the stuff he cut:
-The investigation of Dol Guldor has been completely excised.
-The Tauriel-Legolas-Kili love triangle has been removed.
-The Pale Orc subplot is vastly trimmed down.
-Several of the Laketown scenes have been cut, such as Bard's imprisonment and the superfluous orc raid.
-The prelude with old Bilbo is gone.
-Several of the orc skirmishes have been cut.
-Several of the action scenes have been tightened up, such as the barrel-ride, the fight between Smaug and the dwarves (no molten gold in this version), and the Battle of the Five Armies.
-A lot of filler scenes have been cut as well, such as the 4-minutes where Bard buys fish.
Here's his recut version of the barrel ride, one of the trickiest scenes he did:
still convinced it could have been made into two movies and followed the book perfectly.
Isn't that essentially what this guy did? A single 4.5 hour movie, which could have also been a couple 2 1/4 movies. Then we are talking about about a billion dollars less revenue though.
Isn't that essentially what this guy did? A single 4.5 hour movie, which could have also been a couple 2 1/4 movies. Then we are talking about about a billion dollars less revenue though.
Complete edit..
After watching the five hours(of ten hours) of extras it seems most of the inspiration and dialogue was taken from other Tolkien stories and parts of the hobbit that weren't added into the book at time of publishing.Even Jackson himself and the producers and everybody sat down and told the studio it would have to be three movies.