Peter Jackson’s final movie instalment of The Hobbit is still to come under public scrutiny, but has the approval of fans.

Seventy-five fans, each bringing a guest, and 40 international media arrived in New Zealand last Sunday.

They have visited Auckland, Rotorua, the Hobbiton Movie Set near Matamata, Queenstown, and landed in Wellington.

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Weta’s Richard Taylor met them at the airport where he unveiled a new sculpture of Smaug the dragon, which joins the giant eagles and Gollum.

The sculpture breathes smoke from its nose and its eye opens up.

“They really did that incredibly,” one fan said.

The fans finished their journey watching The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies with Jackson at his private Wellington studios.

“We’ve been waiting all week for this – I’m pretty sure some people here have been waiting for this all their lives,” a woman said before the screening.

Fans were impressed by the movie, with one describing it as a roller coaster from start to finish.

“We’ve been watching the last Hobbit movie with Peter Jackson in the theatre and I cried a thousand tears because it’s the end and I don’t want it to be,” a woman said.

The film will be released in New Zealand on December 11.

It is the last film set in JRR Tolkien’s Middle-earth and follows Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy and the first two instalments of The Hobbit.

The fans were chosen from more than 140,000 entries in a global contest.