[Suzerain of Sheol]

I'm not really going to get into it (mostly for the fact I could write a lengthy essay on the subject, and that many other people have already done so) but I hold the film trilogy to be very firmly in the territory of "totally messed up" as you put it. But, that's just my opinion, and it's a minority one in my experience. I suspect there's a relationship between people who have read the Silmarillion and the History of Middle-Earth books and people who don't like the films, but I have no evidence for that.

Anyway, I'm not saying the cartoon is great by any means, just that it was something really special to me at the time. It's hard to say objectively whether it's worth watching with a fresh set of eyes, but... I do feel that those animated films capture the essence of Tolkien's stories better than Jackson's action/war movies. Oh, and they use actual dialogue from the books!

(In case it isn't obvious, the whole book/film debate is an interest of mine. ;))