10 Biggest Mistakes That Completely Ruined The Hobbit Trilogy

4. They Were Made With The Extended Editions In Mind

Talk to a Tolkien fan and odds are they won't even accept the theatrical versions of The Lord Of The Rings; the Extended Editions are so comprehensively awesome die-hards view them as the definitive version of the films. Made following the movies' theatrical successes, these longer cuts were of incredibly high quality (they were even rescored) and brought a lot of extra material to light. Naturally it was only really to be expected that The Hobbit would get the same treatment. In fact, it was so expected that Peter Jackson made his theatrical versions with the explicit intention of making a director's cut a year later. Whereas The Lord Of The Rings' longer cuts were made of footage too heavy in lore or plot-inessential to be included first time round, with The Hobbit Jackson purposely left out scenes just to please the fans come the Extended Edition. Which sounds fair enough, but when what's cut is more interesting than what's left in, it's pretty damaging, leading to films that are only offering some of their riches. The Extended Editions for both An Unexpected Journey and The Desolation Of Smaug are, despite their added length, better versions of the films and much more invested in achieving the director's vision. The dwarves are given more screen-time, each feeling a little more unique, and the second film offers up some major plot details - Smaug is already in league with the Necromancer. We'll take that over cartoony Laketown politics any day of the week.