It may be called The Hobbit but there’s more to see here than one tiny little man with pointy ears and very hairy feet. MAYO MARTIN

1 13 DWARVES

For starters, there’s Oin, Gloin, Dwalin, Balin, Dori, Nori, Ori, Bifur, Bofur and Bombur. It’s pretty hard to tell who’s who with their outrageous facial hair et al, but look out for the one that looks like Gimli from LOTR. That’s Gloin, who happens to be his father. Easier to make out is the movie’s resident “Legolas” in the young dwarves Fili and Kili. And of course, there’s little big boss dwarf Thorin Oakenshield played by Richard Armitage. “We went into a dwarf boot camp when we first arrived, literally. Huge boots,” he recalled. “The camaraderie was built there. The endurance test of having to wear a fat suit, the heat and weight of the costume and the prosthetics — everyone was suffering in their own fun way. We were all there for each other.”

2 1 NEW WIZARD

Here are Gandalf The Grey and Saruman The White in friendlier times, as part of the A-leaguer White Council meeting — along with LOTR elven biggies like Elrond and Galadriel. But did you know there were other wizards in Middle-earth? There’s a brief nudge-wink at two unnamed Blue Wizards and, of course, the presence of cult fave Radagast The Brown, a manic, reclusive animal-loving hippie type played by Sylvester McCoy channelling Michael Palin from A Fish Called Wanda.

3 48 FRAMES PER SECOND

There’s a lot of talk about the new “high frame rate” used to shoot The Hobbit movies, which basically means seeing it in high definition. Once you’re used to it, there’s a richness of detail that comes close to a life-like experience, particularly in 3D. Despite the sceptics, but director Jackson is unperturbed: “Change is always a bit scary. But we can’t just say we got the technology of cinema perfect in 1927 — when 24 frames was set as the standard film speed — and there’s no reason to change it. Things are gonna move on. The music we listen today isn’t a needle scratching on vinyl. It has a clarity and purity of digital CDs.”