The Hobbit: This Scene Was Cut Because It Was Thought To Be Too Gory

gamerant.com:

Anyone who knows the original J.R.R. Tolkien book that The Hobbit movies were based on, knows that the story is a children's tale, and was originally written for his sons. Although there are still many battles and many sad deaths that occur in the story, the way that it is written makes the whole thing feel a little more child-friendly than Peter Jackson’s version, especially when the audience watched Thorin stabbed through the chest by Azog’s knife, or Filli murdered and dropped dead in front of his twin brother. In order to fill out some of the content to make it stretch to a trilogy, the creative team added in some particularly far-fetched and indulgent moments that are considered by some to be a bit too violent for the nature of Tolkien's original book, for example, the scene of the giant metal chariot pulled by goats.

But even with the addition of these crazy moments, there are some scenes that were filmed that didn’t make it into the final cut because they were thought to be too graphic. Many of these revolve around the aftermath of the first arrival of Smaug in Dale, when he burned the city to the ground. For example, when the dwarves first arrive in the town in sight of the Lonely Mountain and Bilbo sees the charred corpses of a mother holding her baby in the ruins. There are many bodies lying around, as stark reminders of the horrific fate met by all those who come in between a dragon and his hoard of gold. But as awful as this is, it’s a lot less visceral than the burning of Lake Town, simply because it is in retrospect.

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Therefore, there were many scenes shot aside from the ones that are featured in the movies, of the carnage in Lake Town as Smaug flies overhead, burning and knocking