They aren’t decent films, though. They are dull. And they are dull because of all the filler and slapstick. And yes, I’ve read the Hobbit fairly recently (within the last year).

There are lots of fanedits that improve on movies by cutting out the dross. It is quite common.

There is no comparison. Doodle on a Van Gogh and it is destroyed. Creating a fan edit doesn’t make the original movie(s) suddenly self-destruct. They still exist entirely unchanged.

No, I’ve seen plenty of bad movies, but these were amongst the worst I’ve seen. This fan edit is actually watchable. It isn’t great, but it is much, much better than the bloated and tedious 9 hour mess it is based on. I get the impression that those who defend these movies are early teens .