The Hobbitless Hobbit

The fan edit Hobbit, with all the non book stuff taken out, is a good way to watch the original story.

But now, the same people have edited the trilogy to give us Gandalf's story: The Battle of Dol Guldur.

My take? The entire epic of six films is so complicated that when I used to tell the story to my granddaughter, I would related it from one person's point of view at a time. that way you find nuances in minor characters (e.g. Merry in the LOTR or older brother Fili in the Hobbit) that you overlook in the films, which means the Jackson version (especially the Extended verison) has gone to the bother to flesh out characters that less skilled film makers would just ignore.