Sir Ian McKellen has been defending the forthcoming Hobbit films, suggesting audiences don’t judge the film based on the 10-minutes that was screened at CinemaCon back in April.

The 48 frames-per-second footage was poorly received, with critics saying it liked like a made-for-TV movie, but McKellen – who returns as Gandalf in the films – says that he has been suitably impressed with the footage that Peter Jackson has shown him thus far.

“I’ve seen enough of it to know it’s going to be just as exciting as Lord of the Rings. In fact in some sense it’s more exciting because it’s in three dimensions” he told the BBC.

“It’s not the sort of crude 3D that comes out of the screen. Rather it brings you into Middle Earth. You see round the corners. You see everything.”

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey hits on December 14, when we’ll find out for ourselves if 48 frames is the future.

Chris Tilly is Entertainment Editor for IGN and really wants to know what this 48 fps malarkey looks like. His idle chat can be found on both Twitter and MyIGN.

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