The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Skippable, and this is the page where the chronological order on this site will lead you wrong. It sits sixty years before The Lord of the Rings and it is the worst possible entry point, because it is constructed almost entirely out of foreshadowing. A necromancer in a ruined fortress, a sword that glows, a council of wizards deciding what to do about a growing shadow: none of it has any weight unless you already know what it becomes.

The production explains most of the problems. Guillermo del Toro developed it for about two years, designed much of it and left shortly before shooting, and Jackson took over with very little preparation time on a schedule that could not move. The decision to make three films out of one short book came even later, after shooting had begun, which is why the padding is structural rather than cosmetic.

It was also shot and released at forty-eight frames per second in some cinemas, a format that made the sets look like sets and the costumes look like costumes, and the reaction to that coloured the reception of the whole trilogy. At twenty-four frames it looks much better and still much more digital than the films before it.

There is one great sequence and it is worth the price on its own. Riddles in the Dark is twelve minutes of two characters in a cave playing a game, performed by Martin Freeman and Andy Serkis, and it is as good as anything in the Jackson films. The Extended Edition adds thirteen minutes and improves nothing.